Yeah, even if I were to agree with the standpoints, they all say "I do not work well with other people and I am an angry person", which is a disqualifier for most jobs.

Dude's getting eviscerated for his opinions, but you're right, it's the attitude that's the red flag. I'd avoid hiring his political polar opposite too, if they were this petty/angry about it.

I wonder if he's going to listen to the advice and present as more milquetoast when using his real name, or double down.

Even discounting finding his opinions objectionable (which, in my opinion, any reasonable person would), I'd pass on someone who posts this kind of content purely because they're a ticking time bomb. I don't want them to piss off a big client or explode because of a work disagreement while they're packing heat. I wouldn't want to hire them knowing that I might have to fear for my life even a little if I need to fire them one day.

I mean I have some pretty fringe beliefs too (mainly on the strongly anti-capitalist, progressive side of things). I'm not stupid enough to post those ideas publicly because they're far more likely to hurt my chances of employment than to help them.

> which, in my opinion, any reasonable person would

Well, yeah, but I'm European, which means I'm practically a Communist ;) I was trying to give the benefit of the doubt a bit, because "dude, tone it down a bit" is easier to swallow that "everything you believe is wrong".

I know this, by the way.

But it's a good thing that companies find this out because I'm not a good fit for a sterile work environment.

My original post was not asking why; it was refuting the article that said it was a good thing in its face.

The original post is titled "it doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate"

Not that I necessarily agree with that, but how are you refuting it?

The posts that make you stand out the most don't really demonstrate creativity, nor do they make you stand out in a positive way (to most employers; perhaps not to any employers, since you're so publicly opinionated on a variety of things that are largely unrelated and yet also largely unaligned with the majority of tech workers)

I'm not refuting that you have technical writing that could make you stand out in a positive way, but it's overshadowed by all the other stuff.

It's like if someone posted "You only have to write one operating system from scratch to stand out as a candidate", and then Terry Davis (author of TempleOS) comes in and says "not true, I wrote an operating system and no one will hire me"

Well sure, but if you look at the comments in the source code for that or any of his writing or videos, they're riddled with racial slurs.

Obviously the OS itself is impressive, but no one wants to hire a liability

I know this.

The article had an implicit bent that standing out was good. When you're like me, it's not. That's what I was refuting.

The article didn't expressly say that in the title because it was clear from the context.

The author is clearly talking about blogging to demonstrate expertise and creativity in the technical domain, in order to stand out positively.

The author did not make the claim that ranting about your fringe opinions online will make you stand out positively. In fact, they didn't mention the impact that would have at all.

You are fighting a straw man.

> When you're like me, it's not

It has nothing to do with being like you. You're not standing out positively because you're choosing to post things that make you stand out negatively, and the author made no claim about how that would impact you as a candidate.

The article talks about how you can start building a relatively small online presence that can give you a leg up in job interviews. It doesn't say that any kind of online presence will do that.

To offer an extreme example, if someone were to put up a website that advocates for child cannibalism, and then didn't get a tech job as a result, I don't think it'd be credible for them to say that their website refutes this article's point.

As an aside, your comment that any work environment that might object to your views must be "sterile" is yet another piece of supporting evidence for why you might have trouble finding a job.

The post you reply to sounds quite angry as well. Many "social justice" people are extremely angry, form mobs and defame anyone standing in their way.

All while striving for positions of power that they keep and deny to those whom they pretend to represent.

They do not work well with other people, they dictate, intimidate and eschew real work.

Yet they are hired. The irony is that I agree with several of their positions, but make no mistake. They are horrible people who would march under any flag if expedient.

I assure you that I wrote that without anger. I started off with some feelings of sadness and disappointment, which gradually morphed into some incomplete level of detachment. I was hoping the post would come off as at least somewhat neutral, as in "I don't have a dog in this race, but here's why I think -- hopefully factually -- your website turns off potential employers".

I know I didn't achieve that; certainly some amount of judgment came through, but ultimately I'm fine with that. Life goes on, etc.

For the record, your post comes off as a bit angry too! But I'll try to read it as if you were writing it with feelings of weary disappointment.

I started to read his blog to understand how this obviously smart dude got to be this pity and messed up, hoe he don't understand that his blog IS the reason for not hiring him

But then I got to the Lobster post and him 'overcoming gender dysphoria', and it's just sad

Oh, I know.

My post was not wondering why I wasn't getting hired; it was a refutation of the article saying that blogs were all good.

Sometimes you can stand out in a bad way (in other people's minds).

I'm okay with this because I'm not a good fit for sterile office work.

The article doesn't say that "blogs are all good". It says:

> Start a blog. Post an interesting technical article to it once or twice a year—something you’ve learned, or a bug you’ve fixed, or a problem you’ve solved. After a few years stop bothering entirely, but leave the blog online somewhere.

That's all it says about starting a blog. It doesn't say blogging about any topic is good. It very much doesn't say posting about social and political issues is good. It just says that posting a couple times a year about technical topics is good.

> gender dysphoria is essentially a mental illness to be cured

I thought this was the progressive opinion? Gender dysphoria is a mental illness and transitioning is the treatment. What’s the accepted view now?

Perhaps it wasn't clear, but here I mean they think people with gender dysphoria should be "cured" in the sense of "go through some therapy" or "change your outlook on life" and it'll go away.

Certainly transitioning is one way (and a seemingly very successful one) at dealing with gender dysphoria. Whether or not accepted psychological practice would call that situation "a cure for a mental illness" is something I don't know.

Sorry, but this is all coming from a SV bubble.

I work for an established (perhaps legacy) tech company. While people with such views aren't the norm, we have quite a few of them, and we all get along quite well. The only thing that would give pause in the list above are the transphobic comments.

Fair point. I try to reach outside my bubble when I can, and do know and speak with tech workers who live outside SV (and outside the US), but my biases certainly show sometimes.

But I do believe that, even for an employer who might by sympathetic to some of this person's views, many will not want to take a chance dealing with someone who might be a liability in the workplace in various ways due to those views. Certainly writings on one's blog aren't a perfect indication, but I think most hiring managers would prefer people who keep their more extreme views under their hat. Whether or not this is fair is besides the point; I do believe this is the reality.

For the record, I think many companies would have the same reaction to someone who posts angry-sounding leftist rhetoric on their website. But I do expect many are more tolerant of that than angry-sounding right-wing rhetoric.

Beyond that, even without all the social and political views, I think things like "I'll only work in C" and "I'm bad at understanding other people's code" alone would disqualify a candidate for most jobs.