And I hope that my peers who tend to sit on the sideline while others attack will start to take a stand against it.
And I hope people take this literally. IE, grab the jerk and call the police. Don't just let him walk away.
Some things need to change
91–100 of 209 posts
Re: Some things need to change
#92I always assumed that our work and integrity would speak for itself.
It does.
Unfortunately, in your business, just like ours, you have to account for outliers. When we miss them, computers mess up. When you do, ever worse things can happen. Sorry to hear about it.
Have a nice month off, Michael. Looking forward to having you back in March for the 99% of us who really do care about your (and your family's) well being.
Re: Some things need to change
#93Spitting in his face is going a bit far, but it's pretty difficult for me to feel sympathy for the guy. I struggle to think of a more dislikable, arrogant jerk. This belated plea for human-to-human sympathy falls on deaf ears, for me at least. In my group, Arrington symbolises everything we hate about the "Web 2.0" greed culture. He's relentlessly promoted himself as the gatekeeper to this bullshit world of easy VC m…
Because you seem to be new here, I will resist the urge to down-mod you without explanation. I don't think the down-mods are for the logic of your arguments. They're for the attitude reflected in your comments (except the top level comment, which seemed to be in good spirit, but 'good-riddance' is a bit negative to me personally). Unlike most other web communities, 'fuck you'-flavored comments are not well tolerated at HN. That, I think, is the most appealing part of this community. If you do intend to stay here and prosper, it would be a good idea to disagree in a more civil fashion. No personal attacks, no arrogance, no being a jerk. Maybe a little sarcasm, but sprinkled with humor. Also, most HN readers can identify disguised attacks fairly well. So, lighten up my friend!
In the interest of full-disclosure, I did down-mod the comment that you just deleted.
Re: Some things need to change
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
And if the spitter has, say, hepatitis?
If someone with an infectious disease knowingly infects another, whether it be by unprotected sex without disclosure or by spitting, then that is malicious intent to harm and is already well covered by law.
And what if they didn't know they had a disease? It doesn't matter - forcing someone to share your bodily fluids in such an aggressive manner should be a crime. And of course the punishment should fit the crime, but at a minimum, spitting is equal to minor physical assault.
Re: Some things need to change
#95I think that what it comes down to is that a certain subset of the population has mental illness - some more severe than others - and when you come in contact with a lot of people, you are going to have to occasionally deal with those people. You can complain all you want, but even if the tone of the internet community as a whole changes, you're still going to get death threats and get spit on. It's a problem with th…
Michael Arrington is one of those people.
Come on... of course you could argue that all humans are mentally ill to some extent. But Arrington's behavior is easily within the realm of acceptable social behavior, even if he does like to cause minor controversy.
However, death threats and randomly spitting in someone's face are unambigiously crossing those social boundaries by a wide margin.
Re: Some things need to change
#96Arrington gets a lot of shit. I mean honestly he's a journalist. The core problem is that when someone's livelihood is on the line, people change. When someone is out of work looking for a job, there are usually two responses to a rejection: depression or anger. TechCrunch (and Arrington to a lesser extent these days) get hundreds of tips or requests for coverage from companies and when TC passes them over, these peo…
I was hoping someone would mention this. It's not acceptable to spit or threaten someone with bodily harm, but I can understand how otherwise decent people can be driven to violence due to rejection. When someone or some company you look up to rejects you, it can make you feel like you're one of those "other" people, the untouchables who are bringing everyone else down and who aren't worth the air they breathe.
Re: Some things need to change
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is somewhat unfortunate that this isn't in the guidelines, but it is a natural tendency and would be impossible to try to clean up by enforcement. Eventually, you will get used to the general group mentality. Some things can be said in a very few words and will be understood and accepted because they follow the way that most of us think. Other things have to be laid out logically so that a debate on your thinking…
Yeah, I guess I'm more used to slashdot. I'll take some time to get used to the culture of the site before poking the nest with a stick again. I assume you're a moderator - although they're much appreciated by myself, these well-written tips will just get lost in the noise here. You might consider adding them to the FAQ yourself : )
I'm not a moderator. I haven't even been using the site for that long. I'm just aware that sometimes the system here can be a little hard on newer users who aren't used to how things work.
Re: Some things need to change
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the commentator is making a point about the difference in thinking he deserves a punch and actually punching (well spitting on) him. A lot of people dislike the guy (I dont care for his attitude myslef but I respect his influence) and probably waould say "he deserves a punch" without meaning it literally :)
I'm not disagreeing with the commentator, just taking his point as a cue for a statement about how cowardly and nasty I think spitting is.
I know :)
I was taking your comment as a cue too :D
(alsio known as hitting the wrong reply button)
Re: Some things need to change
#99Arrington has spat in the face of many startups and blogs, metaphorically speaking, and the most successful business people in general are ruthless. This doesn't excuse the literal spitting behaviour, but Techcrunch is a blog with way too much power, for better or worse depending on the way you look at it.
Re: Some things need to change
#100Arrington has spat in the face of many startups and blogs, metaphorically speaking, and the most successful business people in general are ruthless. This doesn't excuse the literal spitting behaviour, but Techcrunch is a blog with way too much power, for better or worse depending on the way you look at it.
why does everyone think startups are doomed if they get a bad TC review?
There's a perfect example of this THIS WEEK! Arrington has been ripping into Cha Cha for years, and they just got a massive funding round.