The Face of Insanity (Alex St. John)

[schild]

How have we never talked about this guy here?

http://www.alexstjohn.com/WP/

Let's cut to the meat, the sinewy inedible meat:

http://www.alexstjohn.com/WP/download/Recruiting%20Giants.pdf

[schild]

Be on the look out for the holy-grail… the undiscovered Asperger's engineer. (usually found on open source forums)
• They have no social skills
• They generally marry the first girl they date
• Can’t make eye contact
• Resume and educational background is a mess… because they have no social skills
• They work like machines, don’t engage in politics, don’t develop attitudes and never change jobs

ayyyyyy lmao

[HaemishM]

I don't have time to look through that whole site, but... NOT SURE IF SERIOUS.

[Trippy]

We used to talk about him back when he was at Microsoft.

[schild]

We used to talk about him back when he was at Microsoft.

go on...

[Trippy]

He was the asshole in charge of DirectX. He was kind of like the Paul Barrett of the graphics world.

[penfold]

I saw that elsewhere.

St John needs to be strangled asap. Or put in a bag with some bricks and dropped in a river. Such assholes deserve not to live.

[MahrinSkel]

If you go through it all, it becomes pretty clear that he thinks the ideal game developer is one of the handful each year that strikes lightning with a small app and makes millions, then walks away. Every other game developer falls short of that Randian ideal, either by not making millions from their personal projects because they aren't good enough, or by willingly feeding themselves to the wage-slave meatgrinder of AAA.

In essence, there's nothing wrong with the existing system because anyone who doesn't succeed either through their own hobby project being SO DAMNED AWESOME, or rising to the executive ranks of the current mainline, obviously deserves to be ground up and spit out. As evidenced by his own lofty position and fat compensation.

It's a privilege to labor for your betters, so shut up and row.

--Dave

[Salamok]

We used to talk about him back when he was at Microsoft.

Didn't he used to write a closing note for some magazine way back when?  Maybe the first year of Maximum PC?

[Paelos]

The second somebody puts the work "Real" in front of something as a qualifier, you can safely assume they are full of shit.

[HaemishM]

I don't know, this guy sounds like a REAL asshole. 

[Trippy]

I don't know, this guy sounds like a REAL asshole. 

I'm pretty sure you remember Wild Tangent.

[Khaldun]

Deserves to be first in line to go behind the shed come the revolution. But by being an unguarded cockgobbling shitstain, he's also doing a pretty fair job of showing the absolute horseshit that the whole system depends upon to operate.

[Mithas]

Deserves to be first in line to go behind the shed come the revolution.

This.

You can’t be “exploited” when you get paid to make games for a living anymore than you can be “exploited” for being paid to eat chocolate. It’s a silly premise.

Fuck. This. Guy.

[HaemishM]

I don't know, this guy sounds like a REAL asshole. 

I'm pretty sure you remember Wild Tangent.

It's strikes a bell, but I can't place it.

Oh wait, according to Wikipedia, their original shitty games installed spyware? Yeah, fuck this crotch cricket.

[Goldenmean]

You can’t be “exploited” when you get paid to make games for a living anymore than you can be “exploited” for being paid to eat chocolate. It’s a silly premise.

Fuck. This. Guy.

I like the magical world he lives in in which nobody has ever been exploited into doing something that is generally considered pleasurable. Cleared that sex trade problem right up.

[Tebonas]

Wow, just wow. This isn't an elaborate satire?

[Amarr HM]

So apparently he wrote the manifesto on "Taking Fun Seriously". I always said I would be inclined to kill whoever came up with that trope, now I know. Anytime someone says it to me in work, the company I work for uses it as a motto, I'll curse his name through gritted teeth.

[Mandella]

Have to admit, his photo tag for "Learning to Love Windows 10" made me chuckle.

[Yegolev]

could not complete document

[Rendakor]

What the fuck is this shit?

[Salamok]

Wow, just wow. This isn't an elaborate satire?

No here is the satire on the latest slew of articles from the credit stealing self-promoting tools.

Includes such brilliant gems such as:

Over the years I worked with accomplished workaholics from all 3 sorts of backgrounds: regular, Aspergers, and a woman.

and

I’ve hired thousands of men and 10 women over the years, and yet somehow these people resent the fact that companies want to own their every waking hour. What a bunch of wage-slaves! This is a term I understand completely!

and:

Making games is not a job — it’s an art. And everyone knows that artists never get paid.

[Morat20]

What the fuck is this shit?

Looks like about 2/3rds self deluded crazy, about 1/3 common upper management bullshit turned up to 11.

I really like when he gets going into the "Wage-slave" stuff. He doesn't sound like someone that failed upward at ALL.

And:

Coding is NOT WORK
• People who think it is… aren’t real software engineers

If you're paying me to code, it's WORK. And strangely, I AM a real software engineer. Go figure. I don't have a boss for my hobbies or my art, idiot.

• Real engineers want a team and a mission that requires long hours and
sacrifice.

I think he's confusing "fiction" (some sort of engineer's hero's journey) with real life there. People like teams they can work with, and jobs that they are invested in. But the people that actively look for long hours and sacrifice are called "masochists" or "Well compensated in exchange for..."

[Malakili]

Looks like someone read The Fountainhead and didn't realize it was batshit crazy.

[Khaldun]

Someone who read The Fountainhead and thought Ayn Rand seemed like too much of a sensitive socialist.

The guy even looks like he's not only a colossal douche but that he *wants* to look like a colossal douche. https://www.google.com/search?q=alex+st+john&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiR5_vcgJ7MAhWEOj4KHe2VCVkQ_AUICCgC&biw=1506&bih=837

[tmp]

I think he's confusing "fiction" (some sort of engineer's hero's journey) with real life there.

I suspect it's in large part based on his personal experience (a kid with no formal education from Buttfuck, NW gets hired to slave for endless hours for Big Guys and winds up rich) which he then extrapolates to "if I could do it then why can't everyone". The parts where he did burn out instead of sticking with shit like he preaches, and that he actually did get paid handsomely for what he claims is merely pushing a mouse around and thus not REAL work that people deserve to get paid for, he appears pretty good at ignoring.

Or, as the satire put succinctly:

We live in a world where dumb people can become millionaires, so why can’t you? My point is, I am a dumb millionaire.

[MahrinSkel]

I suspect it's in large part based on his personal experience (a kid with no formal education from Buttfuck, NW gets hired to slave for endless hours for Big Guys and winds up rich) which he then extrapolates to "if I could do it then why can't everyone". The parts where he did burn out instead of sticking with shit like he preaches, and that he actually did get paid handsomely for what he claims is merely pushing a mouse around and thus not REAL work that people deserve to get paid for, he appears pretty good at ignoring.

Lots of successful people don't like to admit that everything that they think makes them 'special' and better was really just the price of a lottery ticket, and they got lucky while a lot of people with equal or greater merits didn't. One slightly different decision, one day when the hiring manager was in a bad mood, or they hit the snooze one too many times in school and got a C instead of an A, even the girlfriend/boyfriend that dumped them (or didn't), any of a thousand or a million random events would have changed their lottery numbers.

Fundamental attribution error. He didn't just happen to get rich, he *earned* it, dammit, and anybody who didn't do the same obviously wasn't trying hard enough.

--Dave

[calapine]

We used to talk about him back when he was at Microsoft.

Wasn't he fired for burnout (or something along those lines)?

[calapine]

Totally doesn't look an asshole.

[Sky]

Is that Louis CK's evil twin?

[apocrypha]

Kill it with fire.

[Calandryll]

His daughter posted a pretty good response.

[Soln]

Great reply.

[Paelos]

The fact he has a daughter in tech and their relationship obviously sucks is an even more damning point on him as a human being. Good lord.

[Khaldun]

When your daughter writes a public piece describing your recent writing as "the horrific toddler meltdown my father has been very publicly broadcasting over the past few days", that should be about as clear a sign that you need to rethink literally everything about your life.