I’m sort of confused about ‘slack’ not only getting bundled into the cluster of concepts here, but bundled so hard that the post was named after it.
I agree with the general claim about LW selection effects but slack just seems like a thing a) most people need and b) something that broader societal forces are systematically destroying
I think it’s a sort of Double Entendre? It’s also possible the author didn’t actually read Zvi’s post in the first place. This is implied by the following:
Slack is a nerd culture concept for people who subscribe to a particular attitude about things; it prioritizes clever laziness over straightforward exertion and optionality over firm commitment.
In the broader nerd culture, slack is a thing from the Church of the Subgenius, where it means something more like a kind of adversarial zero sum fight over who has to do all the work. In that context, the post title makes total sense.
(I don’t think slack is at all about optionality over firm commitment – rather, you need to have slack to be able to make the commitments that you want to make.)
I’m sort of confused about ‘slack’ not only getting bundled into the cluster of concepts here, but bundled so hard that the post was named after it.
I agree with the general claim about LW selection effects but slack just seems like a thing a) most people need and b) something that broader societal forces are systematically destroying
I think it’s a sort of Double Entendre? It’s also possible the author didn’t actually read Zvi’s post in the first place. This is implied by the following:
In the broader nerd culture, slack is a thing from the Church of the Subgenius, where it means something more like a kind of adversarial zero sum fight over who has to do all the work. In that context, the post title makes total sense.
For an example of this, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chez_Geek
Huh, that might make sense. Still seems a weird thing to name the post.
(I don’t think slack is at all about optionality over firm commitment – rather, you need to have slack to be able to make the commitments that you want to make.)