I love Jeff Atwood sometimes
I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, 'wouldn't it be much worse if life *were* fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them?' So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.
--Marcus Cole, Babylon 5
I like Jeff Atwood a lot. Come to think of it he may be my very favorite tech blogger. He has a lot of good stuff on a lot of topics, and having run social media platforms for several years (heard of Stack Overflow? He's a cofounder) he's got a lot of thoughts about how human beings interact, both on the internet and in general. And his latest is a thing that takes a lot of digesting, because it's about why we're all so terrible to each other.
I've been trying to come up with a cogent summary of his most recent post without just regurgitating half of it, but instead, I'll say this: If you liked that one amazing MetaFilter thread about emotional labor, you know, the one that I spent two weeks reading comments on, that dethroned the 10-year reigning champ for "best thread on the entire internet", that one - if you care about how humans treat each other on the internet, why they're bastards, why we seem to be meaner to women than men - basically if you're any of the hundred or so people I think actually read my LJ on any kind of regular basis - carve out 10 minutes to read this damn thing, consider reading the links on the thing, and expect to spend a few minutes when you're done just going "well that was kinda heavy."
But make the time.
They Have To Be Monsters
--Marcus Cole, Babylon 5
I like Jeff Atwood a lot. Come to think of it he may be my very favorite tech blogger. He has a lot of good stuff on a lot of topics, and having run social media platforms for several years (heard of Stack Overflow? He's a cofounder) he's got a lot of thoughts about how human beings interact, both on the internet and in general. And his latest is a thing that takes a lot of digesting, because it's about why we're all so terrible to each other.
I've been trying to come up with a cogent summary of his most recent post without just regurgitating half of it, but instead, I'll say this: If you liked that one amazing MetaFilter thread about emotional labor, you know, the one that I spent two weeks reading comments on, that dethroned the 10-year reigning champ for "best thread on the entire internet", that one - if you care about how humans treat each other on the internet, why they're bastards, why we seem to be meaner to women than men - basically if you're any of the hundred or so people I think actually read my LJ on any kind of regular basis - carve out 10 minutes to read this damn thing, consider reading the links on the thing, and expect to spend a few minutes when you're done just going "well that was kinda heavy."
But make the time.
They Have To Be Monsters