3 ms·

That slogan always bothered me. It was only 'Here's to the Crazy Ones who had Mainstream Success', and relied on Survivor Bias. There is no place in that sentim

by vacri 10y ago

That slogan always bothered me. It was only 'Here's to the Crazy Ones who had Mainstream Success', and relied on Survivor Bias. There is no place in that sentiment for a person like Stallman, or from another angle, a person like Trump.

pm90 10y ago
Like all slogans, its not meant to be universally applied. A slogan allows very little words to go into much detail, so the idea is to appeal to emotion but be smart/intelligent about it.
- vacri 10y ago
  My point is more that it's only celebrating the ones who were still acceptable. Crazy, but not too crazy. Maverick, but not too maverick. Ones that we'd gotten used to. Basically, safe 'crazy' people, with the benefit of historical hindsight. How safe? Of the 17 'crazy ones', only 4 were alive at the time of the tv adverts, and apart from Branson and Turner (both business figures rather than cultural), the glory days were long gone for all of them.
  - sjwright 10y ago
    You're being intentionally obtuse. They chose specific people to aid the subtext of the narrative. To provide a visual shorthand to help clarify what they're saying. Oh sure, you could include Adolf Hitler in the list of people crazy enough to think they could change the world, but that's not relevant to their statement of purpose. (Sigh, Godwin.)
grrowl 10y ago
I disagree — there were hundreds of scientists working in the era of Einstein, and without them Einstein would not have reached the conclusions he did, despite them thinking he was destined to fail. His peers weren't crazy, they were the mainstream successes of their time. Here's to the crazy ones who flew in the face of adversity, success or not. Stallman firmly fits within the statement: "And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do." Stallman may not be popular, but you can't argue that he's not crazy, flying in the face of adversity, and has had a great influence on the state of computing today.
- vacri 10y ago
  > Here's to the crazy ones who flew in the face of adversity, success or not. No. My whole point is that they only chose the proven (and famous) 'crazies'. There's only room for 'success'. No room for the 'or not'. Stallman is proven to a niche of techies, but outside that niche, people think he's a whack-job, despite his profound effect on computing as a whole. I've got a high opinion of Stallman, but Stallman is very much the kind of 'crazy' that Jobs would want to hide. Not 'bankable' enough.
  - sjwright 10y ago
    Listen to the whole message. It's about the crazy people who end up changing the world. Hence proven and famous. (Meanwhile, from a storytelling perspective, it would be needlessly distracting to have to simultaneously educate people about some quiet unsung heroes. Your implied alternative version would be unworkable.)
leoc 10y ago
IIRC a Netscape employee got into a spot of bother by making a satirical version of the ad depicting serial killers which was accessible from the old Netscape about: hierarchy. Or something like that.

by vacri 10y ago

pm90 10y ago

Like all slogans, its not meant to be universally applied. A slogan allows very little words to go into much detail, so the idea is to appeal to emotion but be smart/intelligent about it.

vacri 10y ago
My point is more that it's only celebrating the ones who were still acceptable. Crazy, but not too crazy. Maverick, but not too maverick. Ones that we'd gotten used to. Basically, safe 'crazy' people, with the benefit of historical hindsight. How safe? Of the 17 'crazy ones', only 4 were alive at the time of the tv adverts, and apart from Branson and Turner (both business figures rather than cultural), the glory days were long gone for all of them.
- sjwright 10y ago
  You're being intentionally obtuse. They chose specific people to aid the subtext of the narrative. To provide a visual shorthand to help clarify what they're saying. Oh sure, you could include Adolf Hitler in the list of people crazy enough to think they could change the world, but that's not relevant to their statement of purpose. (Sigh, Godwin.)

grrowl 10y ago

I disagree — there were hundreds of scientists working in the era of Einstein, and without them Einstein would not have reached the conclusions he did, despite them thinking he was destined to fail. His peers weren't crazy, they were the mainstream successes of their time. Here's to the crazy ones who flew in the face of adversity, success or not. Stallman firmly fits within the statement: "And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do." Stallman may not be popular, but you can't argue that he's not crazy, flying in the face of adversity, and has had a great influence on the state of computing today.

vacri 10y ago
> Here's to the crazy ones who flew in the face of adversity, success or not. No. My whole point is that they only chose the proven (and famous) 'crazies'. There's only room for 'success'. No room for the 'or not'. Stallman is proven to a niche of techies, but outside that niche, people think he's a whack-job, despite his profound effect on computing as a whole. I've got a high opinion of Stallman, but Stallman is very much the kind of 'crazy' that Jobs would want to hide. Not 'bankable' enough.
- sjwright 10y ago
  Listen to the whole message. It's about the crazy people who end up changing the world. Hence proven and famous. (Meanwhile, from a storytelling perspective, it would be needlessly distracting to have to simultaneously educate people about some quiet unsung heroes. Your implied alternative version would be unworkable.)

leoc 10y ago

IIRC a Netscape employee got into a spot of bother by making a satirical version of the ad depicting serial killers which was accessible from the old Netscape about: hierarchy. Or something like that.