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Some things need to change

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Re: Some things need to change

#111

Post by mattmaroon »

zhyder wrote: post #2

This is terrible, worse than people speculating about Steve Jobs' health, as an example of how low folks in our industry can go. (I know they're unrelated but the 2 evoke the same emotions in me.) I desperately want Michael Arrington to cover my startup as well, but I still can't understand those that threatened or spat on him. Michael, I hope you return to regular writing after Feb, but if you don't, thanks for all…

I see nothing at all morally wrong with speculating over Steve's health (though it's often not very useful). Remember that every AAPL owner is a part owner of the company. It's not at all untoward for an investor in the company to want to know what health the CEO is in, especially one thought to be as influential as him, and Jobs has been opaque about it since the beginning. A lot of people have, collectively, over $80b tied up in the company, and they have no idea if the guy running it will live another year or two.

When your company goes public, a decision Steve himself made long ago, you know that from then on, what you disclose to owners of the company you effectively disclose to everyone. He knew what he was getting.

Speculating as to his health doesn't worsen it or harm him in any way. If anything is immoral, it's Steve's purposely hiding it and even, this year, lying about it.

Re: Some things need to change

#112

Post by rudyfink »

gravitycop wrote: post #107
hk wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assault is punished by law according to physical consequence. If you break someone's jaw, you go to jail. If you break their heart by verbal assault, you don't. There are no physical consequences to being spat on by a healthy person (if they are sick and do so knowingly to infect you, that is completely different). It is an insult, a grotesque one, but an insult none the less, and should be treated as such by law.

If you break someone's jaw, you go to jail. If you break their heart by verbal assault, you don't. That is not necessarily true. Commission of verbal assault can land a person in jail. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_words_doctrine#United_... The fighting words doctrine, in United States constitutional law, is a limitation to freedom of speech as granted in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.…

I am not a lawyer, but I believe this doctrine has essentially not been enforced in recent memory. The subsequent paragraph to the one you quoted steadily showed it being rejected by those who attempted to bring it before the court in the US.

Re: Some things need to change

#113

Post by Scriptor »

jsdalton wrote: post #60
hk wrote: post #15

Spitting 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…

Why do you have so much animosity toward him? You say he represents everything you hate about Web 2.0 greed culture, but is that a valid reason to delight in someone receiving a nice cream pie in the face? I think you need to stop and reconsider whether this is the appropriate attitude to take toward someone who really does nothing more than write articles and speak at conferences. I'd also argue that a culture of to…

I'm worried about exactly how that person received so many upvotes. This person does not seem to have much basis to his/her hate other than some blog posts. More importantly, there seems to be a sizeable number of people who agree with the idea of "I disagree with you and don't like what you write about, so you must be an asshole."

Re: Some things need to change

#114

Post by sh1mmer »

dbrush wrote: post #30
hk wrote: post #15

Spitting 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…

"He's relentlessly promoted himself..." How is that?

Surely that's not a bad thing. Humility isn't a bad thing in a person but in business it's not a helpful attribute. At least when TC started he was the business, so self-promotion was a must.

Re: Some things need to change

#115

Post by zupatol »

jsdalton wrote: post #60
hk wrote: post #15

Spitting 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…

Why do you have so much animosity toward him? You say he represents everything you hate about Web 2.0 greed culture, but is that a valid reason to delight in someone receiving a nice cream pie in the face? I think you need to stop and reconsider whether this is the appropriate attitude to take toward someone who really does nothing more than write articles and speak at conferences. I'd also argue that a culture of to…

At least in the french-speaking world, celebrities have gotten used to this.

Pieing is the act of throwing a pie at an authority figure, as a means of protesting against a perceived flaw (arrogance, hubris) in the target's character.

and also:

Godard was very pleased at being pied.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieing

Re: Some things need to change

#116

Post by gravitycop »

rudyfink wrote: post #112
gravitycop wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you break someone's jaw, you go to jail. If you break their heart by verbal assault, you don't. That is not necessarily true. Commission of verbal assault can land a person in jail. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_words_doctrine#United_... The fighting words doctrine, in United States constitutional law, is a limitation to freedom of speech as granted in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.…

I am not a lawyer, but I believe this doctrine has essentially not been enforced in recent memory. The subsequent paragraph to the one you quoted steadily showed it being rejected by those who attempted to bring it before the court in the US.

There are fresh fighting-words arrest-reports, here: http://news.google.com/news?q=%22fighting+words%22+arrested

Re: Some things need to change

#117

Post by old-gregg »

Spitting to me is pretty violent behavior, and while Michael suggests that it's borderline with something "far more violent" I personally can't imagine what could be worse. I'll take a good punch attempt over a spit any day.

"Before TechCrunch I assumed most people were essentially good, and assumed that an individual was trustworthy until proven otherwise. Today, its exactly the opposite."

I think any history buff would disagree with this assumption. People tend to be "essentially good" when there are plenty of resources and nothing to fight about. Numerous societies collapsed and some even resorted to cannibalism when resources became scarce.

Also I don't really get people who hate Arrington or love Angelina Jolie or want to kick Brad Pitt's ass. They don't know these people personally, they only can see an artificially engineered media-projection of them. Arrington didn't cover our startup, but hey - we haven't done anything for him either so I never felt bad about it. However, I had a chance to chat with the guy once and even though he looked tired and overwhelmed with attention, he still managed to give me a few very useful suggestions, far better than an average "wow that's nice" doublespeak you'd hear from people who aren't interested but just trying to be polite.

Re: Some things need to change

#118

Post by Harkins »

trickjarrett wrote: post #53

Arrington 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…

Generally Arrington hasn't been respected by the journalists I've met. He covers companies and fields he has a direct financial interest in, he's OK with posting rumor and innuendo, and he can be sensationalist. The first one is a big problem, the others are mostly style things. Faking photos like http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/01/27/cal-to-offer-course-in-... is totally uncool.

(I'm not speaking here about my coworkers, or my employer, or my employer's content-sharing agreement with TC.)

Re: Some things need to change

#119

Post by froo »

hk wrote: post #85
dcminter wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You think that spitting on someone should be illegal!?" As noted it is illegal in most countries. "I don't understand what you mean, anyway. [...] What would he have to do to make you finally relinquish your sympathy?" Something a great deal worse than writing articles that do not much interest me. I find it incomprehensible that someone could find a matter of mere taste to be sufficient justification for a crime. "…

Not "most" countries. I am not sure it is even "many" countries. And whether something is illegal is not an argument for whether it should be illegal - see Saudi Arabia. I don't remember defining bravery anywhere? I simply said that in my opinion, most "cowards" don't consummate their cowardice by walking up to big guys (Arrington is a big guy) and spitting on them.

I don't think that's necessarily right.

Anyone motivated enough to take an "extreme" action against someone else (eg spitting on them) could be argued that they are not necessarily in a right frame of mind and more or less going to do it regardless of circumstances.

Exhibit A - the guy who threw shoes at then President Bush.. there were secret service all over that place.

Without knowing who did it, or for what reason, I'd be fairly confident in betting that at no point did Michael's size come into the equation.

Re: Some things need to change

#120

Post by jsdalton »

Scriptor wrote: post #113
jsdalton wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you have so much animosity toward him? You say he represents everything you hate about Web 2.0 greed culture, but is that a valid reason to delight in someone receiving a nice cream pie in the face? I think you need to stop and reconsider whether this is the appropriate attitude to take toward someone who really does nothing more than write articles and speak at conferences. I'd also argue that a culture of to…

I'm worried about exactly how that person received so many upvotes. This person does not seem to have much basis to his/her hate other than some blog posts. More importantly, there seems to be a sizeable number of people who agree with the idea of "I disagree with you and don't like what you write about, so you must be an asshole."

I had the same reaction as you. And to add to what you wrote, I interpreted it as, "I disagree with you and don't like what you write about, so you must be an asshole, and my only problem with what happened is that it was a bit over the top."

I might be in the minority on this, but I was unhappy with the whole discussion from the past about banning/censoring Valleywag and Techcrunch. Though the arguments against Valleywag had slightly more merit, the whole thing smacked of intolerance toward people and ideas we disagree with, which see its logical culmination in acts like this spitting incident.

Makes me think John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty" should be required reading here.

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