by forwardslash

For some cruel reason, I keep finding myself in the position of being introduced to things in their infancy (often before they are even launched), dismissing them as stupid, and then watching them become unbelievably popular. This has happened to me at least four times. Each time I vow never to call anything stupid again, and then, invariably, it happens again.

Even more interesting - to me - than this post is the predictable reaction to it on Hacker News. It's a short reflection on how the author has been immediately dismissive, and not even given the benefit of the doubt, to ideas which turned out to be greatly successful. The first reaction is to immediately dismiss any point that can be implied from the post by: comparing social startups to smoking, attacking the success of Pinterest and Vine, attacking the idea of success being an indication of anything, and attacking the markets of successful startups.

I'm not sure if it's just part of the culture or something more innate to being human, but I'm increasingly surprised at the immediate and abject dismissal and contrarianism of hacker culture. This is supposed to be a community consisting of and cultivating people who go against all odds to bring ideas to reality. But it seems they trip over themselves to be the first to shoot down any idea. I'm reminded of the comments to a post about a 9 year old girl becoming a Microsoft Certified Professional.