
Hate Mail and the New Religious Wars in Tech - ilamont
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/hate-mail-and-the-new-religious-wars-in-tech/?nl=technology&emc=cta2_20120621
======
petercooper
I'd cut it right back to people merely being weird and antagonistic for no
reason. It's easier to realize sometimes you're just the latest random target
of a touchy, unstable human animal and drive away as if in a safari park.

We had a woman come up to us on vacation and say our 2 year old daughter was
an "evil little thing" merely for chattering away while eating lunch. I said
nothing and just grinned at her until she popped a vein and stormed off. There
are plenty of antagonistic oddballs out there, just grin at 'em (or don't
reply to their e-mails) until they go away or start being civil and rational.

~~~
jcr
First off, what happened to you and your daughter is just disturbing. It's a
great example of offensively manipulative and disagreeable people, as well as
how to deal with them effectively. People like that actually do exist, and
knowing how to deal with them is beneficial.

The less obvious but much larger problem is simply miscommunication. It
happens all the time, and the limitations of written text only compound the
problem. When you think about the tiny fraction of a percent of the human
population that qualifies as "great writers" over history, and the fact that
they often rewrote their best works multiple times before publication, it's
easy to see how our quick text writing (like this discussion forum) is pretty
much doomed to constant miscommunication and increased hostility until things
spiral out of control.

I don't claim to know you, but for years I've read the thing you've posted
here on HN, and you've always seem like a good and reasonable person to me.
None the less, I can think of a time when you and I interacted, and some
strange miscommunication took place. It was regarding the decor of the Madonna
Inn in San Louis Obispo. If you and I had been discussing it over a beer, I'm
sure the miscommunication would have never taken place. I'm certain topic
doesn't matter that much to either of us, and in person, we'd mostly agree on
it, or at worse, agree to disagree in a friendly manner. That exchange of ours
has stayed with me; it's a personal reminder to try being more clear in the
things I write.

None the less, I see the same sort of thing constantly on HN and everywhere
else. A poorly worded statement, misinterpreted out of context, spiraling the
discussion out of control in some pointless, heated, and in some ways harmful
direction.

Miscommunication happens to all of us, even when we're good people with good
intentions. For the record, I'm sorry we disagreed about the decor of some
hotel, but looking back at it, it's hilarious and it's a good lesson in how
one poorly worded statement can make a pointless mess.

~~~
ChrisNorstrom
_I see the same sort of thing constantly on HN and everywhere else. A poorly
worded statement, misinterpreted out of context, spiraling the discussion out
of control in some pointless, heated, and in some ways harmful direction._

This is why the last few months I just stopped commenting here on HN, and quit
a lot of other forums/communities. My communication skills just don't seem to
be solid enough to help me avoid unintended conflict.

~~~
jcr
Chris, I don't know how old you are or how many decades of experience you have
with open discussions, particularly open technical discussions, but my advice
is still simple, "Don't let it bother you because it doesn't really matter."

Technical discussions can often be contentious, but often, they are
contentious for the "right" reason, people care. When people actually care
about building the "best" possible code, emotions run high, even though such
unrestrained enthusiasm has substantial drawbacks. As you already know far too
well, many thrive on the competition and conflict as much as they thrive on
getting things right.

As Peter wonderfully points out, none of us can claim "A total lack of crazy,"
or for that matter, "A total lack of asshole." On top of these all too human
failings, we also have our moments when we just get it all wrong. It happens.
Roll with it. Let it go, but learn from it.

Good communication takes practice. Ask grellas sometime about the effort he
put into learning to write well. It shows. He wasn't born the skill he has. He
learned it. If you stop communicating, you're robbing yourself of a chance to
practice.

As for me, I rarely post on HN due to my health not being very good. I deal
with chronic pain, and often it hurts too much to type. As you might imagine,
when I'm hurting a lot, I can often be less than pleasant company, and it's
best for everyone for me to just remain silent. For me, typing comes at a
cost. It means I'll be more sore by the end of the day. The cost has taught me
something important; the things I say should make a difference, but often, my
opinions don't really matter.

Treebeard: "You must understand, young Hobbit, it takes a long time to say
anything in Old Entish. And we never say anything unless it is worth taking a
long time to say." -- J.R.R. Tolkien

~~~
DanBC
> _& but often, they are contentious for the "right" reason, people care._

Perhaps. There's also the fact that people are communicating via typed
messages, which are signal-deficient. People may be using a language which is
not their first language.

People do not follow Postel's Law: "be conservative in what you send, liberal
in what you accept" - saving that flaming response to draft and sending a few
hours later would help.

Some online communities have been entirely too content with flaming and have
done little to stop it.

And, I say this gently, some people just don't have the social communication
skills they need.

Sorry to hear about painful typing - that sucks.

------
Terretta
Interestingly, the same phenomenon that makes people write those emails can
make them "double down" on a tech choice. A friend defaults anti-Apple so
refused to buy the "Jesus phone". After four Android phones, each less
reliable than the last while his sister's still rocking an iPhone 3GS, he
switched last week ... To Windows Phone 7. He just paid $500 for a phone that,
3 days later, was announced would not be upgradable to Windows Phone 8. All
because he is determined that Apple users are smug fanboys.

(Personally, I think he should have gotten a Google Galaxy Nexus if he wanted
his sister's mockery about constant obsolescence and non working hardware to
stop.)

~~~
ThePherocity
iOS 6 won't run with most features on 2 year old hardware. Windows Phone 8 -
Won't run on < 1 year old hardware. ICS Can run, but doesn't because of
carriers.

They're all shite.

~~~
silvestrov
iPhone 3GS will be 3 years old when iOS 6 is released.

iPhone 4 will be 2 years old. It will only lack Siri, FaceTime over cellular
network and support for 'Made for iPhone' hearing aids.

I wouldn't call that 'most features'.

~~~
ThePherocity
iPad 1 released in 2010 (two years old) lacks all features. iPhone 4 lacks
turn by turn navigation, 3D maps, Siri, and Facetime over cellular.

So I get what with an iPhone 4? Passbook, Facebook, and a maps app that no
longer tells me what train I can take?

Im going to have to stick to the most features.

~~~
jkubicek
> So I get what with an iPhone 4?

The ability to run apps targeting iOS 6 and above, which is arguably more
important than everything else you listed.

~~~
ThePherocity
Agreed.

------
ilamont
One thing that wasn't addressed in the article: Unlike the 80s or early 90s,
online anonymous discourse is now a mainstream activity. The standards for
discourse on practically everything -- politics, local news, technology,
style, health, etc. -- tend toward rudeness, hyperbole and ad hominem attacks.

Another trend: Writers are no longer seen as a protected class. Magazines,
newspapers and broadcasters and other professional gatekeepers (PR agencies,
marketers, etc.) used to control the discussion. While they still guide and
feed the discussions, readers know they make mistakes and have biases. To
many, the media is suspected of being under the thrall of some perceived
agenda (liberal media, Apple fanboy, shill for XYZ).

~~~
javajosh
This is a very insightful comment. I'd go further and argue that this kind of
media-directed hate mail scales with a general unraveling of our faith in our
institutions - the media being an important category. Although the OP has made
a really good suggestion about how people take gadget reviews personally, he
failed to bring up how a general lack of trust also creates a lot of fear and
animosity.

Ah, and I'll add a possible contributing factor: envy. There may be a quite a
lot of envy of the author's voice and audience, and acting out because the
person feels powerless to influence their peers, like the author does.

The lack of trust and influence that contribute to the generation of such
vitriol are actually very tightly linked. As standards for intellectual
integrity go down, on a personal and societal level, trust decreases
proportionally, and "influence" starts to depend more on emotion than reason.
Seeing well-reasoned arguments lose again and again, people (quite reasonably)
start adapting, start using the "effective" strategies for influence like
invective, emotionally effective fallacies, and general buffoonery.

This is why Fox News is so corrosive. Whatever your politics, the people at
Fox are all _liars_. A clearly biased news channel that bills themselves as
"Fair & Balanced" - and yet they have a huge audience, and are extremely
successful. People learn from this. This is also why people like Blagojevich
are so corrosive: even though he (eventually) went to prison, his months of
shameless pandering gave people the sense that shame and responsibility are
truly outre. The Republican party in the US has been particularly bad about
not accepting responsibility for mistakes, wrong-doings, or inconsistencies:
they present a disciplined, consistent defense of any accusation of
impropriety. And it works, and people see that it works, and it destroys us.

~~~
xaa
I agree with all this, but it would be silly to blame Fox News or the
Republican Party (or for that matter Apple, with its locking down of
hardware/software and questionable environmental practices) for choosing what
_works_.

The blame is totally on the uneducated electorate (or "consumerate").
Conversely, IMO, education is the only lasting solution to these problems.

(NB, there is at least ONE non-liar at Fox: Shep Shepard. It's hilarious to
see him directly contradict his co-worker shills, often earning him a place on
Jon Stewart).

~~~
javajosh
I actually strongly disagree with you, and I think that your comment itself is
a very nice example of the problem. And I think that you might be able to see
how very easily.

It is the very fact that we don't "blame" Fox News for choosing something that
is evil, even when it works, that makes it work. It is up to those who have
principles and who believe in right and wrong to draw real lines in the sand,
and stop giving people a pass for choosing the expedient, if wrong, option.
It's one thing to show compassion for people's foibles, it's another to
completely abandon the duty of honest application of principles, if you have
them.

Basically, we need to STOP saying, "You can't blame Fox for being liars
because, after all, it works." That perpetuates the problem.

So, yes, the blame is on the consumer, but for every consumer that
wholeheartedly believes in Fox, there are 10 more that know Fox is a liar but
tolerates it because it "works". By pointing this out I hope to make a real
difference in how behavior is perceived, and shape the world's institutions
into the kind that _I_ want: ones that value integrity above all.

------
robomartin
Not one person likes to be wrong about the choices we make. That's human
nature. Some individuals have a need to defend these choices to death, even
when faced with greater realities that negate anything they could possibly say
about their choice. I remember one guy who would show-up at these professional
meetings around the time the iPhone came out. He would make it a point to go
around the room and tell everyone that his Blackberry was the only
professional business phone out. I was using Blackberry myself at the time and
had done so for ten years. Even I thought he was beyond weird. He simply
didn't want to be wrong. Never bothered to engage with him in any way. It was
pointless.

There's also a tribal or team-oriented element. This effect is often seen in
fora such as, yes, HN. Group behavior is also a very natural human trait. Some
find it hard to resist it. If you dare go against tribal dogma you become the
subject of a brutal "coordinated" attack. Unless you have a thick skin these
events can be emotionally draining.

It is often hard to be the one thinking outside the group. People have a
natural aversion to change and will resist and attack anything that goes
against the direction of group thought. Either join them or deal with the
punches. Just remember that all nearly all great discoveries stemmed from
questioning what the majority took to be the truth, sometimes at great
personal risk. The message is that, just because everyone thinks a certain
way, behaves a certain way, supports a certain product it doesn't mean they
are right. It just means that they are doing what "everyone else" is doing.

It'd be interesting to see the range of hate-mail these tech columnists get.

~~~
lotharbot
I think it's more basic than not wanting to be wrong.

It's not wanting to be _disagreed with_ , even if right/wrong doesn't apply.
If I decide product X is the best because of features Y and Z, and someone
else decides product Q is better than X because they don't care about Y and Z,
we may have both made completely correct choices based on our
preferences/goals. It's not as though I was wrong about features Y and Z, or
about their importance to me. But another person disagreeing about their
importance can trigger psychological defenses.

The hate mail in the article concedes the phone has great hardware, but
complains that it's a "nerd phone", "heartless", with "no vision". Posts on
car forums might concede that a car gets great mileage but complain it has
"wrong wheel drive". Blackberry guy thought it was important that he had a
_professional business phone_ that was designed with that role in mind. This
is where that sense of tribalism comes in: someone has decided that a
particular attribute is _really important_ , and anyone who doesn't care about
that is an outsider and a weirdo.

It takes a certain degree of maturity to recognize that things are good for
different purposes and that it's OK if someone else's purposes don't match
yours.

~~~
robomartin
Sure. Of course. That's a more fundamental feeling. Interesting takes on this
in Dale Carnegie's book. A very interesting read but not necessarily the
easiest concepts to apply due to our aforementioned mental programming.

------
zdw
The cure for this angst is to know the consequences of your decisions, and to
accept them as being made with the best intentions at the time.

For example, I regularly work with no less than 7 different OS combinations
(OS X, OpenIndiana, Windows, Linux, OpenBSD, iOS, FreeBSD), and don't hesitate
to recommend different ones in different circumstances.

To recommend software or hardware without at least passing knowledge of the
merits of alternative solutions is frankly negligent. For example, I don't
have any Android devices (mainly because of the software upgrade issues), but
I know situations where I'd definitely recommend them.

Living in a tech monoculture, whatever it may be, isn't healthy.

~~~
planetguy
Nah, the cure for this angst is not to _care_ so much about whatever consumer
electronics you're using.

My phone is a bit crappy. There are definitely better ones on the market. But
I don't care, it does the job. There are better TVs than my TV, better ovens
than my oven and better vacuum cleaners than my vacuum cleaner, but they all
do the basic job for which I bought 'em and their imperfections don't cause me
any huge grief, so who cares?

~~~
crusso
> Nah, the cure for this angst is not to care so much about whatever consumer
> electronics you're using.

I dunno. I see non-technical friends and relatives choose the wrong devices
out of ignorance pretty regularly. They waste hours of their weeks fartzing
with text messages that are much more difficult to type out, having trouble
reading email from people they want to interact with, and spending lots of
their hard earned money on other things like external cameras that are mostly
unnecessary when you have a decent camera on your phone and learn how to use
it properly.

I'm here with my in-laws this week and one of the problems I've noticed is
that they paid for the lease of a really crummy wifi router from their ISP.
The darned thing doesn't even let them Skype with their grandkids on their
iPad unless they're in the same room. To compensate, they have to either go
out and spend more of their fixed income on a new router or just not get the
benefit of the technology that they've pretty much paid for (but bought the
wrong one of).

Like most things in life, knowing when to spend the time and energy to care
and when to just make due isn't an easy no-brainer.

------
azakai
Relevant to this is the story about working at Apple stores,

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4151336>

It isn't just writing nasty emails to people that positively review products
from competing companies. It's that the level of adoration and devotion is so
high in some cases, it affects people's choice of career. One quote in the
article basically said, "I pushed Apple products for free, so getting paid to
do it is even better".

I do not understand this behavior myself. I can see being a fan of various
things (I'm a fan of Linux for example), but of a multinational corporation
like Apple, Microsoft or Google?

------
stevenwei
There's something very specific about the tech industry that seems to attract
this kind of vitriol. I mean, you don't often hear people saying, "Oh, you
bought a Camry instead of a Civic? You're a fucking idiot!"

But when it comes to technology this type of flaming is all over the place,
even as times change: yesterday's Windows vs Mac has become today's Android vs
iOS, and programmers are constantly arguing about static vs dynamic.

What is it about tech culture that makes people so attached to their
decisions, and so willing to attack others who happen to have made a different
decision because they happen to have a different opinion?

~~~
ilamont
The discussions occur in practically any field where there is a perceived
rivalry among brands. All you need is a forum and a critical mass of anonymous
or semi-anonymous users (and trolls). E.g.,

 _lol do this in an unmodified civic you’d get your ass whipped by that camry_

<http://conceptmods.com/modified/camry-vs-civic/>

------
stesch
_In the 1980s and 1990s, consumer-tech religious wars were a little easier to
understand. Back then, there were only two camps: Apple and Microsoft._

As an Amiga user I feel a bit different.

~~~
protomyth
As an Atari 400, I too feel a bit differently.

He forgets the great Commodore / Atari rage wars and the great switch with the
ST / Amiga.

------
nhebb
This isn't really surprising when you think about human nature. We tend to
create rivalries where none should exist. Country vs country, state vs state,
college vs college, high school vs high school, team A vs team B, boys vs
girls, company vs company, department vs department, ... well, I think you get
my point. People are tribal and competitive. Tech fanboyism is just an
extension of that.

------
zainny
Marco and the like are probably a bit guilty of stirring the pot and
encouraging this sort of behaviour to an extent, but reading this article his
definition of a fanboy did certainly come to mind:

<http://www.marco.org/2011/04/10/fanoboy-fan-boi>

fan•boy |ˈfanˌboi| noun

1\. informal derogatory: a term used to describe people who bought a product
that competes with the one you bought, which is probably more popular than
your choice, for reasons that you wish to discredit or diminish because you’re
secretly afraid or upset that you made the wrong choice.

~~~
recoiledsnake
The very funny thing about that is that Marco wrote that as a counterpoint to
people calling him an Apple fanboy, when the iPhone was more popular than
Android.

>which is probably more popular than your choice, for reasons that you wish to
discredit

At that time, the usual suspects Horace,Gruber, Siegler et al. were vehemently
claiming that Android would never overtake the iPhone(which Marco seemed to
have fallen for) but it happened later in 2011.

So that quote seems especially funny now in retrospect as it has been turned
on its head and now actually describes Apple fans calling Android fans
"fanbois".

------
b1daly
I work with audio and music, and at various times have needed which software
platform I was going to use. DAW software is very time consuming to learn, and
there are all sorts of platform "lock in" effects. Also network effects to
consider. If the software you use is bad, your life and work can really suck.
For professionals, there is actually a lot at stake. So I have had periods of
evaluating which software to use, checking out forum discussions and so forth,
and always found myself disturbed by my own inclinations towards tribalism.

I finally decided that it makes pretty good sense to take sides when your
livelihood is at stake. For most modern people there choice of technology does
affect their work, even if it's not directly related. The emotional tendencies
towards tribalism are probably one of the "survival heuristics" that cause us
to pay attention when faced with important decisions. Since it isn't always
easy to tell which decisions are ultimately important, we are primed to treat
many decisions as if they are. That's my desk chair hypothesis!

------
SoftwareMaven
This is an effect of human tribalism and occurs in just about every aspect of
human life. People need to be part of a group, and part of being part of a
group is castigating outsiders.

Businesses that recognize this and play to it will always have more loyal and
ardent customers, but you have to be willing to black-ball some potential
customers in the process.

------
jsz0
This seems to happen anytime people are forced to make a choice from a limited
number of options. Everything from sports, to politics, to consumer
electronics of different types. I think it's because our brains are really
good at comparing two or three things. It may even be that we have a sort of
obsession with comparing things. We just can't help ourselves. When your
available options expand though it becomes far more difficult to compare. The
thrill of comparing two objects and reaching the correct conclusion is gone at
that point. The stakes are also much lower. Few people are going to sit down
and compare a dozen different things so even if we do make the _wrong_ choice
no one is going to notice.

------
postfuturist
I've really tried to make a conscious effort to always assume that someone's
opinion is valid, even if I disagree, and to extend this to all matters of
taste and opinions. I understand that some developers like working in Windows,
or enjoy developing native iOS apps. First, I can't assume that it's always
because of cognitive dissonance or ignorance that people enjoy things I loathe
deeply. Second, I need to make an effort to recognize the aspects of the thing
that are desirable and assume that the things that bother me, don't bother
everybody in the same way. It's an unpopular mode of thinking among software
developers, which is normally ruled by tribalism and prejudice.

~~~
dredmorbius
I did that for a long time. It's still my default working assumption.

I've actually worked to consciously question that. There are ideas and belief
systems which are actively dangerous and hostile (Fascism, Qutbism/Islamist
extremism, certain strains of new-agism, and, I'm starting to believe, so-
called free market extremism and modern strains of Rousseauism).

Or maybe I'm just getting old and set in my ways.

------
hristov
This is not as much about tech as it is about advertising and commercialism.
Our young generations are exposed to more and more advertising, commercialism
and crass materialism throughout their lives, so it is no freaking wonder that
young people will turn their phones into some kind of pillars of their
existence.

This was fueled by the so called "tech journalists" that fueled the original
mania about the ipods and iphones, etc. which basically resulted in a bunch of
monsters that defined themselves by the type of gadgets they use.

So in a way that NY Times writer has only himself to blame.

~~~
icebraining
Where I live we're slightly behind the curve: my peers still define themselves
by their football (soccer) team. And I define myself by the lack of one ;)

------
Xcelerate
I've gotten to where I don't have any particularly strong attachment to brand
names. I've used Windows all of my life, but just recently ordered a Mac. I
still like both operating systems a lot (and would like to experiment with
Linux as well). I suppose a decade ago when I was 12 I may have made some
disparaging Apple comment, but now it seems juvenile that anyone would spend a
lot of time debating these sorts of things.

Then again, I spend very little time shopping for clothes or reading about
cars so maybe this is just a product of being less social than most.

------
apu
<http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/>

------
neutronicus
I always thought this kind of thing was catharsis like yelling at people while
driving.

------
marklindhout
Free software allows for freedom.

Most (if not all) frustration in tech comes from the lack of it.

~~~
sbuk
This post perfectly illustrates the kind of passive aggressive statement that
can light the touch paper of a flame war. It's essentially the same as saying
"it just works" from an Apple perspective. It's another example of tribalism
and closed thinking.

------
gbog
> When you buy a product, you are, in a way, locking yourself in.

Yes, but more or less.

------
planetguy
Good article. I'm trying to think of other products which inspire this sort of
pointless religious war. Cars are the big one; try reading the comments
section on autoblog one of these days.

 _Typical Ford POS. Glad to see they haven't changed at all...same irrelevant
company with the same irrelevant, mediocre products._

 _Gm is just not good at making decent cars.i cannot think of a single GM car
that i would ever consider purchasing.._

Given that cars are so expensive and visible I can kinda see how people get
their identity so caught up in them (though I strongly suspect that most of
the people with the sorts of opinions expressed above are probably too young
to drive). Phones, however, are a mystery to me.

~~~
gfodor
Calling the things we carry in our pockets today "phones" is nothing more than
an artifact of history. (In fact, my iPhone is a terrible phone.)

Smartphones are devices we use constantly, all day, probably some absurd
number of times per hour, and it is a statistic that is surely going up. It's
hard to think of any other product we have a more intimate relationship with.
It's become more and more of a tool that we cannot live without. These are the
attributes of a product that cause an emotional attachment, and is the reason
people get so worked up about "phones". (You'll note this ferver didn't really
reach a fever pitch until after "phones" were no longer phones.)

~~~
batista
> _Calling the things we carry in our pockets today "phones" is nothing more
> than an artifact of history. (In fact, my iPhone is a terrible phone.)_

Really? In what other way except "battery life"?

Sound reviews found it had excellent sound, and same goes for reception. And
the reliability of the phone network, even for simple calls, if far better
than what it was back in the day.

And the contact list, search function, visual voicemail and ease of use for
those functions is far better than most, if not all, pre-iPhone phones.

~~~
gfodor
I live in emerald hills and I'd say about 80-90% (no exaggeration) of calls
drop within the first 60 seconds. (Not an iPhone thing, a AT&T thing, of
course.)

