My reply to http://theworkinggeek.com/2009/06/dirty-presentations-xkcd-and-the-perils-of-140-cha.html ...
IMO...
"Well, if I have to reply" replies are almost never warranted. Just don't reply and don't take the pock shot without contributing anything.
Yes, Twitter is a terrible format for discussion. That's part of it's strength; for the most part, readers are spared discussion.
"Unprofessional" is what a lot of these guys are going for -- especially younger guys working in newer technologies. It's a rebellion against the establishment. I accept that on principle but in practice, it's as mindless and destructive as the force they're rebelling against. It's the old "an enemy of an enemy is a friend" logic. If office culture is opposed to sexism and you're opposed to office culture then you just might decide that you're pro sexism. The main reason offices are so vocally anti-sexism is they've traditionally been complete boys clubs and they're trying to change their image. If these kids knew their history, they'd see that the office anti-sexism is a bit of a sham and their attempts to be contrary to office culture would lean them to be honestly, legitimately egalitarian. But everyone has to make their own mistakes. This is something that's going to come up every generation, and each generation is going to have to work through.
Our generation and Tim's accepted equality in principle but we didn't grow up seeing it in practice so we all have a certain blindness to it. Also, getting a bit far afield here, males have been having a bit of an identify crisis since the feminist movement. Different groups are experimenting with androgyny, pretending to be thugs/pimps/whatever, styling themselves as frat boys in a massive "bro" movement... I think the males of the younger generation have a legitimate question of how to style themselves. They're not so into golf. Football only has appeal to a limited chunk of the population that tends to exclude nerds. An alpha geek would love to be an alpha male, but they're not even sure what those look like, so they guess. And how well have our gender roles worked for us? We have not only record divorce rates but legions of lonely men on dating sites and women who won't even look at their ads. Our kids don't want to be losers like us.
Maybe there's a place for "boy's club" somewhere, but conferences that charge admission and make pretense to be a meeting of minds aren't it.
It's good that Perl has some respectable, likable... ahem... father figures... to set the basic tone of discourse.
I don't remember what it was, but Tim has made me think "what the hell?" a few times. One of them was an endorsement of _The Ten Immutable Laws of Marketing_, which I found to cherry pick examples from the current time that, as time passed, in all but a few cases, were proven to be examples counter what the book was arguing. This didn't surprise me as the logic in the book was badly broken. Between him and that Guy person, I've pretty well resolved to try to only read news and views from people who are actually doing things. These "thinkers" get way too far out of touch way too quickly otherwise. "Intuition" is plentiful, cheap, and without the rigors of testing from actual experimentation and application, unfiltered garbage.
-scott
>These "thinkers" get way too far out of touch way too quickly otherwise. "Intuition" is plentiful, cheap, and without the rigors of testing from actual experimentation and application, unfiltered garbage.
Yup.
Working link for the lazy web: http://theworkinggeek.com/2009/06/dirty-presentations-xkcd-and-the-perils-of-14
Best rant I’ve read in a while. Uncomplicatedly insightful unlike the usual narrow-perspective claptrap about these topics. Thanks.
