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this is second-order punditry. It's a critique of a pundit. And it's a pundit who wears his bias on his sleeve. It's boring. But... But... Someone is WRONG on

this is second-order punditry. It's a critique of a pundit. And it's a pundit who wears his bias on his sleeve. It's boring. But... But... Someone is WRONG on the Internet! http://xkcd.com/386/ http://xkcd.com/386/

tptacek 16y ago
The annoying thing is, Gruber's not wrong. He's biased and he's going to adopt whatever findings of fact and findings of analysis are most favorable to Apple, but he's been doing this for 10+ years and he's not simply going to make things up. Which makes it especially dumb to get into a blogfight with him. Because it's never going to end. There is still a case to be made for Android over iOS based on openness. People should make that case. But what are they saying when they make a case for Android based on Gruber? Is that the best they've got? That an Apple advocate is advocating Apple?
- raganwald 16y ago
  he's been doing this for 10+ years and he's not simply going to make things up. Which makes it especially dumb to get into a blogfight with him. Because it's never going to end. As the old saying goes, never argue with someone who buys their ink by the barrel. And I agree that Gruber is not wrong. "Biased" does not mean wrong, it means consistently interpreting the facts to favour certain interpretations or disfavour others. In my opinion, it is very healthy to consider biased opinions when trying to understand an issue: http://raganwald.posterous.com/bias http://raganwald.posterous.com/bias But no, Gruber is not wrong. It's just that some people think he's wrong and are compelled to argue with him personally rather than either (a) identify which facts he is wrongly reporting, or (b) give their own alternate interpretation of the same facts. As you can tell I completely agree that calling Gruber out because someone disagrees with his opinion is adding an unnecessary level of indirection to the debate.
  - recoiledsnake 16y ago
    >But no, Gruber is not wrong. It's just that some people think he's wrong and are compelled to argue with him personally rather than either (a) identify which facts he is wrongly reporting, or (b) give their own alternate interpretation of the same facts. The problem is there are lots of other people who take his fawning writing as the gospel truth and mindlessly upvote any posts in favor while downvoting any that are against. >are compelled to argue with him personally rather than either (a) identify which facts he is wrongly reporting, or (b) give their own alternate interpretation of the same facts You forgot (c) Get mercilessly downvoted and/or watch nonsense rebuttal replies get upvoted. This is the real reason that the discussions around Apple on tech sites are so polarizing, the disconnect with reality and objectivity. There are even a bunch of people who have left HN in disgust over this prevalent practice of Apple worship over proper discussion on here.
    - raganwald 16y ago
      mindlessly upvote any posts in favor while downvoting any that are against. How exactly do you judge which upvotes are mindless and which are the result of someone who disagrees with a post but thinks it's insightful or valuable or otherwise a positive contribution to Hacker News? What parameters do you use to judge which upvotes are mindless and which are the result of people who weigh the issues and then come to a conclusion that differs from yours? Some time ago, I decided that I liked using Macintoshes and disliked using PCs. I also noticed that there were 19 PCs for every Macintosh. What would you have said if I'd suggested that all the people buying PCs were "mindless drones" instead of deciding that they were people who, given the information in front of them, came to a different conclusion for themselves than the one I had come to for myself? proper discussion Here's my definition of a proper discussion: No ad hominem arguments and no ad hominem abuse. What's yours?
      - recoiledsnake 16y ago
        Well, see point #3 here. http://mattmaroon.com/2010/11/23/i-quit-hacker-news/ http://mattmaroon.com/2010/11/23/i-quit-hacker-news/ And here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1800253 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1800253 The comments and the moderation are extremely predictable in most cases regardless of technical merits of the discussion. A casual or statistical observation would easily reveal the prevalent biases, even amongst the crowd that prides itself on being objective.
- ZeroGravitas 16y ago
  Gruber doesn't need to make things up, he just links to half-baked stories as long they fit his "Google is evil" frame and doesn't bother to go back and correct them when there's been time for the real story to come out. This is likely yet another of these occasions.
- arron61 16y ago
  It's similar to making things up when you are linking to small sections of an article and trying to paint a narrow view of an argument. His commentaries are also incredibly horrible.
tvon 16y ago
tangental, but the actual source of that comic: http://xkcd.com/386/ http://xkcd.com/386/ or http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png

tptacek 16y ago

The annoying thing is, Gruber's not wrong. He's biased and he's going to adopt whatever findings of fact and findings of analysis are most favorable to Apple, but he's been doing this for 10+ years and he's not simply going to make things up. Which makes it especially dumb to get into a blogfight with him. Because it's never going to end. There is still a case to be made for Android over iOS based on openness. People should make that case. But what are they saying when they make a case for Android based on Gruber? Is that the best they've got? That an Apple advocate is advocating Apple?

raganwald 16y ago
he's been doing this for 10+ years and he's not simply going to make things up. Which makes it especially dumb to get into a blogfight with him. Because it's never going to end. As the old saying goes, never argue with someone who buys their ink by the barrel. And I agree that Gruber is not wrong. "Biased" does not mean wrong, it means consistently interpreting the facts to favour certain interpretations or disfavour others. In my opinion, it is very healthy to consider biased opinions when trying to understand an issue: http://raganwald.posterous.com/bias http://raganwald.posterous.com/bias But no, Gruber is not wrong. It's just that some people think he's wrong and are compelled to argue with him personally rather than either (a) identify which facts he is wrongly reporting, or (b) give their own alternate interpretation of the same facts. As you can tell I completely agree that calling Gruber out because someone disagrees with his opinion is adding an unnecessary level of indirection to the debate.
- recoiledsnake 16y ago
  >But no, Gruber is not wrong. It's just that some people think he's wrong and are compelled to argue with him personally rather than either (a) identify which facts he is wrongly reporting, or (b) give their own alternate interpretation of the same facts. The problem is there are lots of other people who take his fawning writing as the gospel truth and mindlessly upvote any posts in favor while downvoting any that are against. >are compelled to argue with him personally rather than either (a) identify which facts he is wrongly reporting, or (b) give their own alternate interpretation of the same facts You forgot (c) Get mercilessly downvoted and/or watch nonsense rebuttal replies get upvoted. This is the real reason that the discussions around Apple on tech sites are so polarizing, the disconnect with reality and objectivity. There are even a bunch of people who have left HN in disgust over this prevalent practice of Apple worship over proper discussion on here.
  - raganwald 16y ago
    mindlessly upvote any posts in favor while downvoting any that are against. How exactly do you judge which upvotes are mindless and which are the result of someone who disagrees with a post but thinks it's insightful or valuable or otherwise a positive contribution to Hacker News? What parameters do you use to judge which upvotes are mindless and which are the result of people who weigh the issues and then come to a conclusion that differs from yours? Some time ago, I decided that I liked using Macintoshes and disliked using PCs. I also noticed that there were 19 PCs for every Macintosh. What would you have said if I'd suggested that all the people buying PCs were "mindless drones" instead of deciding that they were people who, given the information in front of them, came to a different conclusion for themselves than the one I had come to for myself? proper discussion Here's my definition of a proper discussion: No ad hominem arguments and no ad hominem abuse. What's yours?
    - recoiledsnake 16y ago
      Well, see point #3 here. http://mattmaroon.com/2010/11/23/i-quit-hacker-news/ http://mattmaroon.com/2010/11/23/i-quit-hacker-news/ And here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1800253 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1800253 The comments and the moderation are extremely predictable in most cases regardless of technical merits of the discussion. A casual or statistical observation would easily reveal the prevalent biases, even amongst the crowd that prides itself on being objective.
ZeroGravitas 16y ago
Gruber doesn't need to make things up, he just links to half-baked stories as long they fit his "Google is evil" frame and doesn't bother to go back and correct them when there's been time for the real story to come out. This is likely yet another of these occasions.
arron61 16y ago
It's similar to making things up when you are linking to small sections of an article and trying to paint a narrow view of an argument. His commentaries are also incredibly horrible.

tvon 16y ago

tangental, but the actual source of that comic: http://xkcd.com/386/ http://xkcd.com/386/ or http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png