3 ms·

One of the smartest things why the lucky stiff ever said (in my opinion): "When you don’t create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability.

One of the smartest things why the lucky stiff ever said (in my opinion): "When you don’t create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. Your tastes only narrow and exclude people. so create." Notionally, this is a forum for creators, but it seems increasingly pre-occupied with utterly unproductive posturing over whose tastes are 'better'. It's a troubling trend.

raganwald 14y ago
Thank you, that's insightful.
c2 14y ago
I agree but it's inevitable. The creators are busy creating, and the fact that there is no shortage of "non-creators defined by their taste" (who also have an abundance of free time) - means it is a bit of a hopeless battle maintaining the integrity of the comments.
S4M 14y ago
just for the quote, +1
danilocampos 14y ago
What you find troubling I view as inevitable. Tastes define what we create and how we create it. Tastes inform what we choose to compromise and what we protect in the process of making things. So as we venture into new worlds – Surface vs. iPad vs. Android vs. Kindle may superficially be consumer products but more crucially they are platforms for building the future for a mass audience – it's natural that we're going to have to spill a lot of thought figuring out what's most important to us. Will there be disagreement? Yeah. Will it be perfectly civilized? Almost certainly not, given rarity of good manners, social skills and healthy conflict management. But that's life with the apes.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  Troubling and inevitable should not be viewed as mutually exclusive.
- mladenkovacevic 14y ago
  I think you could argue that taste often gets in the way of creating things. Those pre-defined censures you impose on your creation before it's even an embryo: "It'll be like this and sort of like this, but definitely not like this because that is so unsophisticated." It's your ego trying to deal with insecurity and fear of failure before your brain's logical centre has even had a chance to analyse the idea. Sorry I'm just babbling, I have no real-world examples of this but it's just a thought and it might or might not be true.
- prodigal_erik 14y ago
  > Surface vs. iPad vs. Android vs. Kindle may superficially be consumer products but more crucially they are platforms for building the future for a mass audience What I find crucial is that the way this competition plays out will determine who is permitted to create, and what. Open tools encourage clever human beings, while crippled appliances give consumers learned helplessness. This is far more important than how shiny or expensive our gadgets are.
afterburner 14y ago
I dunno, I sometimes meet people who are so consumed by the specificity and effort required to create whatever it is they're doing that it makes it impossible for them to spend any time looking at different things, keeping up with developments, keeping an open mind, etc. I'm not saying one always leads to the other, or that it's even common, but it happens. So being an almighty creator is not necessarily a panacea.

raganwald 14y ago

Thank you, that's insightful.

c2 14y ago

I agree but it's inevitable. The creators are busy creating, and the fact that there is no shortage of "non-creators defined by their taste" (who also have an abundance of free time) - means it is a bit of a hopeless battle maintaining the integrity of the comments.

S4M 14y ago

just for the quote, +1

danilocampos 14y ago

What you find troubling I view as inevitable. Tastes define what we create and how we create it. Tastes inform what we choose to compromise and what we protect in the process of making things. So as we venture into new worlds – Surface vs. iPad vs. Android vs. Kindle may superficially be consumer products but more crucially they are platforms for building the future for a mass audience – it's natural that we're going to have to spill a lot of thought figuring out what's most important to us. Will there be disagreement? Yeah. Will it be perfectly civilized? Almost certainly not, given rarity of good manners, social skills and healthy conflict management. But that's life with the apes.

jlgreco 14y ago
Troubling and inevitable should not be viewed as mutually exclusive.
mladenkovacevic 14y ago
I think you could argue that taste often gets in the way of creating things. Those pre-defined censures you impose on your creation before it's even an embryo: "It'll be like this and sort of like this, but definitely not like this because that is so unsophisticated." It's your ego trying to deal with insecurity and fear of failure before your brain's logical centre has even had a chance to analyse the idea. Sorry I'm just babbling, I have no real-world examples of this but it's just a thought and it might or might not be true.
prodigal_erik 14y ago
> Surface vs. iPad vs. Android vs. Kindle may superficially be consumer products but more crucially they are platforms for building the future for a mass audience What I find crucial is that the way this competition plays out will determine who is permitted to create, and what. Open tools encourage clever human beings, while crippled appliances give consumers learned helplessness. This is far more important than how shiny or expensive our gadgets are.

afterburner 14y ago

I dunno, I sometimes meet people who are so consumed by the specificity and effort required to create whatever it is they're doing that it makes it impossible for them to spend any time looking at different things, keeping up with developments, keeping an open mind, etc. I'm not saying one always leads to the other, or that it's even common, but it happens. So being an almighty creator is not necessarily a panacea.