Stammbach worked with a colony of longtailed macaques. In the paper cited
above, the running header is "Responses to Specially Skilled Java
Monkeys." Stammbach took the lowest-ranking macaque out of the society and
taught him to operate a complex machine and obtain food. When the nerd
monkey was reintroduced to the society, the higher ranking macaques
stopped kicking him out of the way long enough for him to complete
operation of the machine and obtain food for the community. I.e., society
cooperated to create the conditions under which the nerd could toil for
them. However, the monkey who acquired these special skills and provided
for the society did not achieve any rise in his dominance status.
The difference here is that the nerd monkey didn't build the machine. If it breaks, the creator needs to fix it or no one gets the benefit. The creators and maintainers are the ones, ultimately, who stand to obtain power over the ones who can't create and maintain.
The guy who owns the company ends up owning the machine, not necessarily the guy who made the machine.
It takes a certain amount of backbone to maneuver yourself on top of the monkey pile. Being a clever slave who can make useful machines for your better won't accomplish that.
This can be true, but a lot of nerds don't need a company to make a machine. A side project becomes a business solely owned by the nerd, for example. I'm assuming the nerds do have this freedom, however (I certainly do in the US).
Comments
The huge image, on a post as opposed to the home page, is already a huge indicator of narcissism.
The optimistic prediction that "geeks will inherit the Earth" is likely to be wrong:
https://philip.greenspun.com/careers/
http://www.loper-os.org/pub/codemonkey.pdfThe difference here is that the nerd monkey didn't build the machine. If it breaks, the creator needs to fix it or no one gets the benefit. The creators and maintainers are the ones, ultimately, who stand to obtain power over the ones who can't create and maintain.
The guy who owns the company ends up owning the machine, not necessarily the guy who made the machine.
It takes a certain amount of backbone to maneuver yourself on top of the monkey pile. Being a clever slave who can make useful machines for your better won't accomplish that.
This can be true, but a lot of nerds don't need a company to make a machine. A side project becomes a business solely owned by the nerd, for example. I'm assuming the nerds do have this freedom, however (I certainly do in the US).