OT: Microsoft's grinning robots or the Brotherhood of the Mac. Which is worse?

D. Hugh Redelmeier hugh-pmF8o41NoarQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org
Thu Oct 8 06:38:46 UTC 2009


| From: Evan Leibovitch <evan-ieNeDk6JonTYtjvyW6yDsg at public.gmane.org>

| http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/28/charlie-brooker-microsoft-mac-windows

I have to say that I thought that this was a despicable article.
Instead of reason, it used mockery.  Silly shallow mockery.  Based on
stereotypes.  Kind of like what a bully does.

This is the style of argument that divides the world into "us" and
"them" and argues we're right because we're us.

This kind of article could be a fun guilty pleasure but it didn't
actually give me any pleasure: I felt sorry for those attacked.

The substantive claims seem to be:

- all Mac owners are smug because they are mac owners (I know this not
  to be true)

- all Mac owners proselytize (not true)

- proselytization is always obnoxious (not true)

- Windows 7 launch party tutorials are really really creepy (perhaps
  not to their intended audience)

- nobody recommends Windows (patently untrue)

If you take the universal quantifier off these claims, they are
probably true and probably uninteresting.

What the heck is the claim here?
	I know Windows is awful. Everyone knows Windows is awful.
	Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's
	there, and there's nothing you can do about it.

In our society, many of us use the things we own as part of our
identity.  The Mac seems to fulfill this function for a number of
people.  Wanting to wear object because of designer labels is
apparently widespread, so this isn't a characteristic peculiar to Mac
owners.

I've seen Windows some users fetishize things like overclocked CPUs or
big graphics cards or expensive "business" laptops.  Or Windows 7!

You may think that getting identity from possessing things is funny,
but I bet you do the same for other objects.  I admit that I do, but I
won't be specific in public :-)
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