In the 1980s and 1990s, consumer-tech religious wars were a little easier to understand. Back then, there were only two camps: Apple and Microsoft.
As an Amiga user I feel a bit different.
Hate Mail and the New Religious Wars in Tech
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Re: Hate Mail and the New Religious Wars in Tech
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
First off, what happened to you and your daughter is just disturbing. It's a great example of offensively manipulative and disagreeable people, as well as how to deal with them effectively. People like that actually do exist, and knowing how to deal with them is beneficial. The less obvious but much larger problem is simply miscommunication. It happens all the time, and the limitations of written text only compound t…
None the less, I can think of a time when you and I interacted, and some strange miscommunication took place. It was regarding the decor of the Madonna Inn in San Louis Obispo. If you and I had been discussing it over a beer, I'm sure the miscommunication would have never taken place. I surely wasn't implying I have a total lack of crazy ;-) Crucially, it was a brief disagreement and not one either of us wanted to sp…
Everybody has their moments, myself included. Even the "public" types
who always try to carefully word everything have their moments.
I agree with you about how the presentation of differing views is what keeps things interesting, but the ability to realize a discussion has gone off the rails and ought to be dropped (rather than a "clarification" that makes the situation worse), is often in short supply.
Pre-web Usenet (1980's and early 90's) along with open mailing lists and BBS's were interesting and a lot can be learned from the interactions. Initially, there was a barrier to entry, namely it took some technical skill just to connect and participate, so there was a degree of self selection happening. As things progressed, the barrier to entry decreased (the earliest being university students gaining access), and discussions changed accordingly. The ever receding barrier to entry to text communication enabling the masses (for the most part) to take part in discussions has continued to change the nature of discussions. The only people left out of discussions these days are the poor, since having a computer and connection really are privileges of the comparatively wealthier people/nations on the planet.
Like yourself, I've been watching the gradual changes for decades, and I think they are just fascinating. As always, we've got to take the good with the bad, and not all of the changes are good, but it does remain interesting.
I don't interact much with others, so possibly, I'm too indifferent, but over time I've learned how my own opinion isn't particularly important, and I can live happily without voicing it. Like your strategy of just grinning in silence, I'm perfectly content without "winning" a confrontational disagreement. The tougher question is, would discussions still be interesting if there were more people like you and me around? The people who quickly say, "this is going all wrong, let's drop it and move on." --As you mentioned, part of the "fun" of Usenet was watching others have it out.
From the stuff I've read of his over the last decade, PG has put a whole lot of thought into the matter of discussions, and has done his best to formulate HN so the discussions here are beneficial. In spite of the growth in popularity of this site, it still mostly works as intended. Though I've also thought about it for a long time, I've come to the conclusion that I may not be smart enough to design a "better" forum.
As much as I hate to admit it, a "better" forum might be a whole lot less entertaining.
Re: Hate Mail and the New Religious Wars in Tech
#43This is an effect of human tribalism and occurs in just about every aspect of human life. People need to be part of a group, and part of being part of a group is castigating outsiders.
Businesses that recognize this and play to it will always have more loyal and ardent customers, but you have to be willing to black-ball some potential customers in the process.
Re: Hate Mail and the New Religious Wars in Tech
#44I've really tried to make a conscious effort to always assume that someone's opinion is valid, even if I disagree, and to extend this to all matters of taste and opinions. I understand that some developers like working in Windows, or enjoy developing native iOS apps. First, I can't assume that it's always because of cognitive dissonance or ignorance that people enjoy things I loathe deeply. Second, I need to make an effort to recognize the aspects of the thing that are desirable and assume that the things that bother me, don't bother everybody in the same way. It's an unpopular mode of thinking among software developers, which is normally ruled by tribalism and prejudice.
Re: Hate Mail and the New Religious Wars in Tech
#45Good article. I'm trying to think of other products which inspire this sort of pointless religious war. Cars are the big one; try reading the comments section on autoblog one of these days. Typical Ford POS. Glad to see they haven't changed at all...same irrelevant company with the same irrelevant, mediocre products. Gm is just not good at making decent cars.i cannot think of a single GM car that i would ever conside…
Any object can inspire wars of belief in those who use them quite frequently or the amateur observer. Get in with golfers and hear the rage or praise over different brands of clubs. We just don't see this behavior in its totality because most of us are not involved in every niche under the sun. It seems amplified where the item is personal / customizable or expensive.
Re: Hate Mail and the New Religious Wars in Tech
#46In the 1980s and 1990s, consumer-tech religious wars were a little easier to understand. Back then, there were only two camps: Apple and Microsoft. As an Amiga user I feel a bit different.
As an Atari 400, I too feel a bit differently.
He forgets the great Commodore / Atari rage wars and the great switch with the ST / Amiga.
Re: Hate Mail and the New Religious Wars in Tech
#47Good article. I'm trying to think of other products which inspire this sort of pointless religious war. Cars are the big one; try reading the comments section on autoblog one of these days. Typical Ford POS. Glad to see they haven't changed at all...same irrelevant company with the same irrelevant, mediocre products. Gm is just not good at making decent cars.i cannot think of a single GM car that i would ever conside…
Calling the things we carry in our pockets today "phones" is nothing more than an artifact of history. (In fact, my iPhone is a terrible phone.) Smartphones are devices we use constantly, all day, probably some absurd number of times per hour, and it is a statistic that is surely going up. It's hard to think of any other product we have a more intimate relationship with. It's become more and more of a tool that we ca…
"devices we use constantly, all day, probably some absurd number of times per hour"
So, they're like phones, then. ;) When I was a teen, my peers and I used our phones (some of them even were landlines) constantly. But the fashion attribute was minimal, and the functionality was pretty much identical regardless of brand.
Not that that kept me from feeling immeasurably cooler than everyone else when I got a nice and tiny Nokia 8290...
Re: Hate Mail and the New Religious Wars in Tech
#48Good article. I'm trying to think of other products which inspire this sort of pointless religious war. Cars are the big one; try reading the comments section on autoblog one of these days. Typical Ford POS. Glad to see they haven't changed at all...same irrelevant company with the same irrelevant, mediocre products. Gm is just not good at making decent cars.i cannot think of a single GM car that i would ever conside…
"I'm trying to think of other products which inspire this sort of pointless religious war" almost anything will cause it, i have seen ladies doing this for furniture companies and shoes.
Yeah. Sports teams, stores, schools, authors, movies, music, foods...
I think it's harder to come up with categories I've never seen fanaticism over...
Re: Hate Mail and the New Religious Wars in Tech
#49Interestingly, the same phenomenon that makes people write those emails can make them "double down" on a tech choice. A friend defaults anti-Apple so refused to buy the "Jesus phone". After four Android phones, each less reliable than the last while his sister's still rocking an iPhone 3GS, he switched last week ... To Windows Phone 7. He just paid $500 for a phone that, 3 days later, was announced would not be upgra…
Android fanboys pick on me because I bought an iPhone and I should really have chosen Android because bla bla bla. I have an iPhone 1st gen (bought in 2007) ...
What I noticed though is that since there are great Android phones on the market, the number of fanboys seems to have diminished quite a lot. It is as if having some real reason to like Android, they don't need to crusade anymore. People are weird.
Re: Hate Mail and the New Religious Wars in Tech
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
iOS 6 won't run with most features on 2 year old hardware. Windows Phone 8 - Won't run on They're all shite.
iPhone 3GS will be 3 years old when iOS 6 is released. iPhone 4 will be 2 years old. It will only lack Siri, FaceTime over cellular network and support for 'Made for iPhone' hearing aids. I wouldn't call that 'most features'.
Welp... Pogue's point is really proven now.