I would agree that the most-upvoted comment on the other thread was pretty rude and if it had been about me and I had read it I would have felt pretty insulted

I would agree that the most-upvoted comment on the other thread was pretty rude and if it had been about me and I had read it I would have felt pretty insulted myself. (It's kind of a shame that it was phrased in such a way.) Also he's probably right that we are more likely to celebrate each other for our programming abilities and a similar world view: this is human nature. But the vast majority of the comments weren't unpleasant and it's a little unfair to paint everybody as not having the same views publicly as they do 'anonymously'. How would he know? It seems that even without anonymity people can be fairly offensive... ;) While I wasn't aware that this was about our allegiances, it's Robert Scoble's choice if he wishes to identify with Google+ over Hacker News. I just looked at the comments on Google+ and Facebook, and I'd say that the discussion on Hacker News was far more vibrant and reasoned -- but it was definitely slanted towards a 'hackers' world-view. ...anyway, I sure hope Scoble will pick up my phone calls. :(