https://www.lowimpactfruit.com/p/rainy-citycom-a-side-projec...
https://www.lowimpactfruit.com/p/zork-bench-an-llm-reasoning...
> How much does attending the Recurse Center cost? > RC is free for everyone. You will never receive a bill from RC.
> How can you afford to make RC free? > RC has a built in recruiting agency. Companies pay to hire RC alumni. This payment never comes out of your salary.
(While we don't like to lead with being free, we also don't mean to completely bury that fact -- e.g., we do have it on the front page, albeit at the very bottom. Perhaps we should make this a little more prominent. Thanks for the feedback!)
I have my own thanks to give to HN. It's connected me to interesting people, online and IRL. It's led to some very strong friendships. It's led me to multiple job opportunities, and usually the better ones. It's changing of course, but I've had a great time in this community so far, and that deserves thanks.
Presume you're referring to [1], not the page you linked, and one might be inclined to accuse you of __feigning surprise__ but if not: using the roof is a quite common expectation in mid-rise buildings in big cities like NY, though not usually in a building you don't yourself own/lease in.
That would be the"strongest interpretation" of OPs comment, which the local guidelines prefer us to respond to.
I shouldn't even need to explain why as it should be self-evident that policing/banning a completely natural and sometimes highly beneficial emotion/reaction is beyond problematic.
It seems like an XY problem - they implemented it to solve a genuine problem, without understanding the problem.
Like, the canonical example they give is
> Dan: What’s the command line?
> Carol: Wait, you’ve never used the command line?
Surely everyone can imagine at least two versions of Carol.
1. Condescending and dismissive. Indeed, that's not behaviour anyone should be tolerating.
2. Thrilled to be able to introduce someone to something new. She might follow that question up with "oh come on over here, let me show you! This will change your life." and proceed to try to teach terminal stuff. Isn't this the best sort of teacher, someone who is infectiously passionate about something?
Dan may still respond negatively to Carol2, but that's Dan's problem - he needs a therapist of some sort to address whatever insecurities he has.
Now, you might say "The rule is about FEIGNED surprise", which is Carol1. But it explicitly says
> When someone acts surprised when you don’t know something, it doesn’t matter whether they’re pretending to be surprised or actually surprised.
Then goes on to describe the version of Dan that needs therapy
> The effect is the same: the next time you have a question, you’re more likely to keep your mouth shut. An accurate name for this rule would be no acting surprised when someone doesn’t know something,
No, that's not how I or any other well-adjusted person would react.
A better name for the rule is "don't be a dick. Everyone is here to help each other learn and grow" (and there might be a separate rule/policy/resource about how people who have not yet learned how to positively and productively control their emotions - which I am not denigrating, simply pointing out reality - can seek assistance with that as well).
In the end, IT DEPENDS. But there's apparently no room for such nuance at Recurse...
I don't think that's too much to ask, just like it's generally considered preferable to not chew with your mouth open when in company, or talk to people with food in your mouth.
They even acknowledge that they expect these rules to not be followed all the time.
I'm surprised that you read it as a general prohibition of being surprised. ;)
Edit: Sorry, wrote my reply before I saw your substantial edits where you clarify your position and distinguish between "positive" and "negative" surprise. I agree there's a better way express surprise. The rule clearly wants people to avoid putting other people down by creating a feeling of "wow, how can you not know this". That's the spirit of the rule, and I guess it could be expressed better. I don't think they'd have a problem if someone managed to turn the surprise into a positive, but to do that, it's good to be mindful that it's often perceived negatively.
Seems like we're in agreement. But I reiterate that it's not a good rule if it should be regularly broken, for the good.
Thus, for a project that's been around for seemingly a very long time, it's hard to imagine that they haven't had ample time and feedback to vastly improve the wording of it all. Thus, they seem to be content that it expresses exactly what they want it to.
I do think you're simply reading their rule in a way that's not intended by them. Could the rule be written to convey the intent more clearly? Yes, I think so. Is it only their own responsibility how the rule is interpreted? No, I don't think so.
The hacker news guidelines ask us to:
> respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
This is good advice in general. It is your choice to pick an the interpretation that you disagree with the strongest, and subsequently use it to condemn them: "puts me off entirely", "no room for nuance", and (paraphrasing:) it's on them to prevent me from interpreting the rule in the most severe way.
No. The spirit of the rule is clear. The nuance is there. What you do with it, that is all you.
I share a similar apprehension, although it's hard to put into words exactly. Across the entire document, really. Like, it's clearly well intended, and not too bad of a match for things I would advocate myself. But at the same time it's suggestive of an impossibly high standard, and I have trauma from seeing "standards that can be interpreted as impossibly high" being applied inconsistently.
Especially the concept of "no subtle -isms": too often have I seen one side of a discussion accused of "-isms" they couldn't understand, while "-isms" they found more sympathetic/obvious went unnoticed. (That's, er, tangentially related to how I ended up making an account here in the first place.)
It may very well be a wonderful environment there, but I wouldn't be even slightly surprised if people get accused of improper behaviour that either didn't even happen, or the vast majority of the world would be perfectly in support of.
There is a difference between saying "I worry that these rules are too open for interpretation" and "these rules only pretend to be sensible and fair, they are clearly intended as weapons made in bad faith, the jury is rigged and I will not even consider any other interpretation". The first point is open and constructive, the other rejects other perspectives outright and dismisses the possibility of understanding and compromise. You're making the first point; the comments I replied to above seem essentially to be doing the latter, and that's what I'm arguing against.
I don't really see a difference between applying maximalist intepretations of rules to treat people unfairly on the one hand, or on the other, using maximalist interpretations of rules to dismiss good-faith rules _a priori_, that is, to use a certain reading of rules to accuse people of conspiring to use them in a certain way. How on earth are you going to make any rule that is immune to either?
In fact, I think both are the exact indentical failure to not be a dick, by the same method, just approached from opposing sides. They're born of the same inflexibility, the same uwillingness to extend other people some credit, and I do not envy anyone who has to deal with either of them as a result of trying to bring people together for some common good.
Once again, I'm reading (and quoting!) the rules exactly as wrttien by them.
> it doesn’t matter whether they’re pretending to be surprised or actually surprised
Moreover, like the sibling to this comment, I take exception to the entire document but didn't bother to expound on the rest.
Another particularly concerning excerpt
> You should not be afraid of breaking a social rule. These are things that everyone does, and breaking one doesn’t make you a bad person. If someone says, "hey, you just feigned surprise," or "that’s subtly sexist," don’t worry. Just apologize, reflect for a second, and move on.
Once again, no room for nuance, discussion etc. If someone concludes that you've broken a rule, shut up and apologize. Don't dare ask how/why, let alone disagree and try to start a discussion about the topic.
This is an environment in which professional victims/sociopaths could thrive. I've been baselessly accused many times of racism and sexism in places like this, which is not only laughable if you knew the context, but the other parties are the ones who weaponize their false victimhood in order to be sexist and racist (and corrupt).
It may very well be a wonderful environment there. But the rules, as written, seem like they're better suited to some sort of trauma-recovery facility, where everyone is enormously fragile and it is therefore extremely prudent to err egregiously on the side of "safety". But that, of course, is by definition not a healthy environment.
Once again, it would be simple to re-write or, perhaps better, replace the rules such that you don't need such ambiguity, nuance, explanations, debate etc... I already did it for one. Another such modification would just be a simple "no politics or religion" rule, which is common in hostels worldwide. Instead the opt-in rule for such topics just invites a mess.
They evidently want the rules to be as they are at this point.
Folks who don’t understand that are either not hired or don’t last long. Pedants won’t get past the phone screen.
I wouldn't expect an infectiously passionate person to start their sentence with "wait you don't know this" and instead say "let me show you!" immediately.
This rule helps me differentiate between people who are genuinely trying to help v/s those who's primary motive is to show off and then maybe help.
In general, I get your comment though. Coding is getting more and more like this.
"One thing that often surprises people about the social rules is that we expect people to break them from time to time."
Sounds like there's plenty of room for nuance. They're guidelines. That you spent several paragraphs considering and articulating the difference between a positive social interaction and a negative one means the guideline is probably a good one, even if they didn't bother to write several paragraphs of nuance for each point themselves (which is perfectly reasonable, because brevity has its own value).
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Rate-limit edit:
> That they haven't done so in 15+ years suggests that they think the rule is well-written.
Or it suggests they know more about what social problems actually arise in their community. Your 'vastly better' suggestion of "Don't be a dick" is so vague as to be a completely meaningless guideline, and someone reading that could easily end up doing the condescending surprise act without thinking they're a dick. The purpose of the rule is to call attention to a specific behavior they likely see often to make you think twice about it.
I wrote a brief alternative that serves vastly better and doesn't need paragraphs of nuanced explanation, and I didn't even put much thought into it.
That they haven't done so in 15+ years suggests that they think the rule is well-written.
“I doubt very much if it is possible to teach anyone to understand anything, that is to say, to see how various parts of it relate to all the other parts, to have a model of the structure in one’s mind. We can give other people names, and lists, but we cannot give them our mental structures; they must build their own.” — John Holt
1: https://www.recurse.com/blog/191-developing-our-position-on-...
If you looking for community in tech I can't think of a better place.
To 15 more!
Really not trying to be a spoil sport because the idea is incredible and worthwhile but I couldn’t find the answers looking at your website.
I got a cheap bedroom sublet through a former recurser and sublet my own place back home.
not your comment, but some replies below make it sound like RC would be otherwise, full of rich kids or "retreat" types maybe, but it's the opposite.
leaving work, paying NYC rent, yes it's all expensive but places like RC that create free spaces like this are part of the solution
I did RC last year and it was easily one of the Most influential periods of my life! I can‘t find words to do my gratitude justice for the work you‘re doing.
Best wishes and Happy Birthday RC
— max, Sp2 25
I learned so much and made great friends at my six weeks in Brooklyn.
Without Recurse Center I probably wouldn't have made it into YC with a startup of my own today. Long live RC!
Second, I'm curious how your business changes with AI coding tools. I would wager humans will seek out your offering in greater numbers.
Edit: Looks like there was better discussion of this already (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48956925).
I run a problem validation platform and 'OkCupid for jobs'[1] is consistently the most visited need-gap in the platform.
Congratulations on 15 years of Recurse Center!
[1] https://needgap.com/problems/363?gift=Z2lmdHwzNjN8MTc4NDQ1Mz... (gift pass link valid for 24 hours).
We tried "Tinder for jobs" or some bs like that and just couldn't build business around that. Because in the end of the day, you'll end up building a platform that has to compete with Indeed and other established players.
To me, the problems here are reasonably obvious. It works well enough provided the applicant pools are sufficiently small and both parties are honest. Even then, the point of OkCupid or any other dating service is just to get people to meet. Whether they end up in any kind of multi-year contractual relationship akin to getting a job is going to be extremely rare. You'd have to ask them if they even tracked it, but 1 marriage in 10,000 90%+ matches wouldn't surprise me as even an upper bound. Jobs aren't quite as serious as marriage, but still more serious than agreeing to meet for drinks.
It's hard to see how you'd improve on the existing system of posting requisitions and applications. monster.com, indeed.com, whatever else has ever existed are seemingly already a dating service for jobs. Making it specifically "OkCupid for jobs" implies you have some kind of questionnaire-based compatibility estimator that is based on at least as much research as romantic compatibility, and I don't think that kind of research exists, and that the parties be at least as honest as those on OkCupid, which I also don't think will happen. I know the popular imagination is everyone lies on a dating service, but I don't think that's true. They exaggerate, but people will place in their search filters that they really do prefer a particular race, age range, socio-economic status, things that employers aren't legally allowed to admit to. That's aside from the principal/agent split in job requisitions that doesn't exist in dating. At least messaging someone on a dating service you can be reasonably well-assured the person who is claiming to know what they want is the person you'll be matching with. For a job, the requisitions are generic, not matched to a specific team or manager, so compatibility is even more spotty. A job seeker may be perfectly compatible with most teams in an organization, but still not appear to be with the organization itself, which usually expects to be able to move candidates between teams. Imagine a dating service where instead of having to convince a girl to go to prom with you, you have to instead match against her parents first, who have six daughters, might pair you with any of them, and base their own evaluations on a mix of what they believe is required and a stereotype of what they think teenage girls like.
The problems aren't as alike as they superficially appear.
I deeply wish I had time to do it again.
I feel like the programming community is very different than in the early 2010s – when's the last time you've seen a coworker brag about using vim – but I can't really put my finger on what changed exactly.
Are you suggesting these people have increased or decreased in quantity? I feel like I've met more vim/neovim/tmux/theprimagen/tool-rewritten-in-rust geeks with every new job.
I can't blame anyone but myself for this.
Most of the other attendees were intelligent or highly self-motivated, or both. Many people seemed to connect instantly, forming small work groups, sharing project ideas, and even going out for lunch or dinner together. They were constantly talking about how awesome Zulip was (is?) [*] and engaged in a constant stick-measuring contest to see whose weekly project would make it to Hacker News’ top 30. At times, it felt like I had joined some sort of mini-cult. I know it wasn’t like that at all; it was just the visuals from an outsider in a completely different culture. As far as I can remember, people were very friendly, willing to help others whenever they were stuck, and happy to study and tackle challenging problems together. There were lots of learnings floating around the working space. Sadly, it didn’t work for me at all, and years later, I still don’t know why exactly.
Perhaps it was the fast pace of New York City and SoHo itself? Or the rudeness of passersby, especially the police officers who couldn’t be bothered even if I just wanted to ask for directions? Or the dirtiness of the streets? The constant noise from cars honking all the time? The strange people in the Subway? The ubiquitous unhealthy food at every corner? Healthy food was difficult to find, at least for someone new to the city, and when accessible, it was unaffordable. Multiple times, I found myself working in the Recurse Center workspace with an empty stomach, which obviously exacerbated the bad experiences, but I can’t even complain about that because they often had free pizza (once, twice a week?) but obviously, pizza is unhealthy, so I never accepted.
Overall, I had a very bad experience, but I believe nothing was Recurse Center’s fault; it was mine. I’m not entirely sure what I expected when I joined, but I hope this serves as a warning to future attendees to prepare themselves before joining, especially if you are not familiar with American culture, and particularly with New York.
[*] https://zulip.com (years later, I still don’t understand why people love Zulip so much)
The batch did divide into groups. Some people were learning functional programming, others focused on Transformers architecture, while yet others on dynamic programming. But I quickly found a small group of people who were building things that I was interested in, games and AI applications.
In the unstructured time I was able to set my own goals, ship a lot, write a lot, and give a lot of talks on topics that are very interesting to me.
I didn't expect or get any free food from the Recurse Centre -- I was in New York, I had the world's cuisines available to me. I often went on lunch along with other RC members to reasonably affordable places within walking distance.
RC is not a college course with exams and a fixed syllabus -- It was unstructured and self-directed -- and that's what made it so special.
Ok, so Recurse is providing accountability partners or something similar?
How is Recurse making money? I don’t see a pricing or tuition page.
I've also attended RC remotely, so happy to answer any specific questions