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That's too exciting for me - too many exclamation marks and too much love for my surly old brain to handle. One more balsamiq article and my mental backlash aga

That's too exciting for me - too many exclamation marks and too much love for my surly old brain to handle. One more balsamiq article and my mental backlash against all things popular will start. I love the underdog, but not the frontrunner when he is all excited and he loves all his fans and so on. Yes, I said it. I criticised Balsamiq.

lionhearted 17y ago
A thought - I just skimmed your comments. There's some fantastic technical comments, good business comments, but then a lot of pessimism/contrarianism/snark/etc on some more general topics. If I may, humbly, let me say that I think this is something that kind of sucks for someone so bright. You're obviously a very very smart dude, but what does the 10-20% of contrarian/snark really add? I don't know, maybe I'm making much ado about nothing, but I get an inkling here that you've got smart-person-and-like-to-show-it going on. Y'know how I see it? I used to do that shit a lot. When I realized how often I used to do it, I cut it out, because it was crippling. Even a small percent of no-value-add critique/snark coming from me made me a hell of a lot less likable despite 80-90% of what I was saying being somewhat valuable stuff. It doesn't mean I don't think the critique/snark/etc, I just try to kill it before hitting the "post" button online. I still write a lot of those comments, just try to realize it and eliminate it reasonably soon. If I must critique, I try to insist on adding some value while doing it. It doesn't always work, but I reckon I get a lot more mileage out of conversing now after doing that. Kind of a hard slog to eliminate that old habit, but it's very much been worth it.
- maxklein 17y ago
  Some percentage of people are reactively contrarian. Having these people around is useful because then there is always a representative of the unpopular opinion. Having to deal with both extremes will lead to a more stable end-solution. An intellectual forum should not just tolerate dissent, it should embrace it. Thought is just a comparison between two opposing possibilities - and how can we claim to think if we only allow a single possibility, a single way, and a single type? Not everybody is nice. It's that way in the world, it's that way in the books, and it will be that way on these here internets. And don't kid yourself and assume I am smart - I'm as dumb as the next guy - I'm just talented in packaging my dumbness in nicer words.

lionhearted 17y ago

A thought - I just skimmed your comments. There's some fantastic technical comments, good business comments, but then a lot of pessimism/contrarianism/snark/etc on some more general topics. If I may, humbly, let me say that I think this is something that kind of sucks for someone so bright. You're obviously a very very smart dude, but what does the 10-20% of contrarian/snark really add? I don't know, maybe I'm making much ado about nothing, but I get an inkling here that you've got smart-person-and-like-to-show-it going on. Y'know how I see it? I used to do that shit a lot. When I realized how often I used to do it, I cut it out, because it was crippling. Even a small percent of no-value-add critique/snark coming from me made me a hell of a lot less likable despite 80-90% of what I was saying being somewhat valuable stuff. It doesn't mean I don't think the critique/snark/etc, I just try to kill it before hitting the "post" button online. I still write a lot of those comments, just try to realize it and eliminate it reasonably soon. If I must critique, I try to insist on adding some value while doing it. It doesn't always work, but I reckon I get a lot more mileage out of conversing now after doing that. Kind of a hard slog to eliminate that old habit, but it's very much been worth it.

maxklein 17y ago
Some percentage of people are reactively contrarian. Having these people around is useful because then there is always a representative of the unpopular opinion. Having to deal with both extremes will lead to a more stable end-solution. An intellectual forum should not just tolerate dissent, it should embrace it. Thought is just a comparison between two opposing possibilities - and how can we claim to think if we only allow a single possibility, a single way, and a single type? Not everybody is nice. It's that way in the world, it's that way in the books, and it will be that way on these here internets. And don't kid yourself and assume I am smart - I'm as dumb as the next guy - I'm just talented in packaging my dumbness in nicer words.