I'm a superior person to you because of my innate superiorness*
* Note: I don't actually believe that.
I've been noticing as I analyze human behavior that an awful lot of it seems to revolve around the acquisition and preservation of status. And this leads in many cases to people engaging in contests of oneupmanship.
Exhibit A:
Hapless n00b: What's the best Linux distro?
Basement dweller #1: Slackware! Guis are for chumps!
Basement dweller #2: Nuh-uh! Debian roolz!
Basement dweller #3: Anyone who uses anything but Gentoo is clearly not evolved enough to tie their own shoes and wipe their own butt.
Only sane person: Well, what are you going to use it for? Are you looking to mainly run it as a desktop, or a server? Linux distributions tend to be optimized for different things, even ones put out by the same company are often put out in different versions for different purposes.
Exhibit B:
Hapless n00b: I'm having trouble breastfeeding. You think it's really going to do any harm to give the little pound of flesh some formula sometimes, just to let my nips heal?
Sanctimommy #1: Yes! Do not succumb to the sweet, seductive call of not having a screaming pound of flesh suck on your tits all the time! If you do, you will be the Worst Mother Ever. You want that kind of responsibility on your head?
Sanctimommy #2: You think you've got it tough? I gave birth to twins...unassisted, without painkillers!
Only sane person: You know, that actually sounds...pretty dangerous. Like, incredibly, foolishly dangerous.
Sanctimommy #2: True motherhood requires sacrifice. Women who get epidurals and give birth in the hospital are just being selfish.
Sanctimommy #3: Hang in there, I'm still breastfeeding my kids...and they're going into kindergarten next year!
Only sane person: Um...kindergarten's actually old enough to start having clear memories. Let's just say that if I could actually remember my mom breastfeeding me, I'd be a pretty disturbed individual. *shudders*
From what I've observed, gender differences in this are more stylistic than substantive. Women often try to outdo each other on the basis of moral purity. You see a lot of this in the social justice community. Men often try to outdo each other by claiming to be smarter than each other, which you see a lot of in the geek community. Fundamentally, it all seems pretty much the same to me though.
There's a lot of other ways people try to gain status of course. I assume I must do it as well, though the examples I can come up with are pretty few. Mostly though this has helped me somewhat to understand why people can be so intolerant of other peoples' choices when it's clear those choices don't affect them. I've generally leaned towards the "if you're not going to force me to do it, I don't care. Do whatever floats your boat" school of thought, but that attitude seems hard to find on the internet.
On a completely unrelated note, I totally want "hapless_n00b" as my next screenname.
I've been noticing as I analyze human behavior that an awful lot of it seems to revolve around the acquisition and preservation of status. And this leads in many cases to people engaging in contests of oneupmanship.
Exhibit A:
Hapless n00b: What's the best Linux distro?
Basement dweller #1: Slackware! Guis are for chumps!
Basement dweller #2: Nuh-uh! Debian roolz!
Basement dweller #3: Anyone who uses anything but Gentoo is clearly not evolved enough to tie their own shoes and wipe their own butt.
Only sane person: Well, what are you going to use it for? Are you looking to mainly run it as a desktop, or a server? Linux distributions tend to be optimized for different things, even ones put out by the same company are often put out in different versions for different purposes.
Exhibit B:
Hapless n00b: I'm having trouble breastfeeding. You think it's really going to do any harm to give the little pound of flesh some formula sometimes, just to let my nips heal?
Sanctimommy #1: Yes! Do not succumb to the sweet, seductive call of not having a screaming pound of flesh suck on your tits all the time! If you do, you will be the Worst Mother Ever. You want that kind of responsibility on your head?
Sanctimommy #2: You think you've got it tough? I gave birth to twins...unassisted, without painkillers!
Only sane person: You know, that actually sounds...pretty dangerous. Like, incredibly, foolishly dangerous.
Sanctimommy #2: True motherhood requires sacrifice. Women who get epidurals and give birth in the hospital are just being selfish.
Sanctimommy #3: Hang in there, I'm still breastfeeding my kids...and they're going into kindergarten next year!
Only sane person: Um...kindergarten's actually old enough to start having clear memories. Let's just say that if I could actually remember my mom breastfeeding me, I'd be a pretty disturbed individual. *shudders*
From what I've observed, gender differences in this are more stylistic than substantive. Women often try to outdo each other on the basis of moral purity. You see a lot of this in the social justice community. Men often try to outdo each other by claiming to be smarter than each other, which you see a lot of in the geek community. Fundamentally, it all seems pretty much the same to me though.
There's a lot of other ways people try to gain status of course. I assume I must do it as well, though the examples I can come up with are pretty few. Mostly though this has helped me somewhat to understand why people can be so intolerant of other peoples' choices when it's clear those choices don't affect them. I've generally leaned towards the "if you're not going to force me to do it, I don't care. Do whatever floats your boat" school of thought, but that attitude seems hard to find on the internet.
On a completely unrelated note, I totally want "hapless_n00b" as my next screenname.