Awesome-github Post-Scarcity List

post by lorepieri (lorenzo-rex) · 2021-11-20T08:47:59.454Z · LW · GW · 6 comments

Contents

6 comments

I've just created an awesome-github list of post-scarcity links and resources. Feel free to send pull requests to add new entries to the list.

https://github.com/lorepieri8/awesome-post-scarcity

6 comments

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comment by gjm · 2021-11-20T10:39:31.459Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

"Awesome"? Really?

I had a quick look at the list. It seems like it's probably a good list. But it didn't inspire awe. Nor did it make me go "wow, this is a startlingly good list", which seems like it should be a minimal criterion for calling something "awesome".

(I wondered whether maybe "Awesome" is the name of a list-making app or something, but it doesn't look like it. It does seem to be the name of a badge thing that some people attach to lists they've made. There's a curated central repository of lists-with-this badge, but 1. it has thousands of lists on it and 2. this "post-scarcity list" doesn't seem to be done of them.)

Replies from: lorenzo-rex
comment by lorepieri (lorenzo-rex) · 2021-11-20T22:28:38.314Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Awesome-github are indeed curated open-source lists. If you know better resources feel free to open a pull request so that I can incorporate those, thanks! 

Replies from: gjm
comment by gjm · 2021-11-21T00:22:59.938Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I don't have any problem with the content of your list. I just don't like the boasty self-promotional feel of titling a thing "awesome". It feels like it would feel if I made my LW username "gjm, who is very intelligent", or if I went to buy a dictionary and found that they all had names like "The Best English Dictionary". To me, "awesome" is a label for other people to attach to you or your work, if they're impressed, not something you put on your own work to promote it. Not least because "the person who made this thinks it's good" conveys much less information than "some other people think this is good".

I can see that my comment got a downvote, so clearly at least one person doesn't feel that way :-). Maybe it's a cultural thing? I'm in the UK, where there's a general tradition of self-deprecation and irony and the like; I have the impression that things are a bit different in e.g. the US.

Replies from: gbear605
comment by gbear605 · 2021-11-21T01:42:13.503Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

An "awesome list" is a known thing, particularly in programmer (San Francisco Bay Area?) culture, that contains a list of "awesome" things in a particular topic. For example, this list of "awesome" software projects in the Java programming language.

I don't think the name is really meant to be self-congratulatory. Presumably whoever made the first one did intend it to be self-congratulatory, but at this point it's just people copying an existing pattern.

To someone in the know, it's a helpful short hand, but it's unfortunately very confusing for someone like you who isn't.

Replies from: gjm
comment by gjm · 2021-11-22T00:36:58.511Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I did find the awesome-list github repo, but didn't have the cultural context of "awesome list" just meaning "list of things I am impressed by". If I had looked more carefully at the github repo I would have seen that it says "a list of awesome things" and should at that point have figured out what's going on.

It seems a pity to confuse "list that is awesome" with "list of things that are awesome", but I guess what's done is done.

Replies from: lorenzo-rex
comment by lorepieri (lorenzo-rex) · 2021-11-22T22:25:47.135Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Nothing much to add to gbear605, there was no self-congratulatory intent here! I'm editing the title to make this a bit more clear.