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I'm gonna get dinged for this, and I don't care. Admitting that you like sounding arrogant doesn't make it OK. Just a little more honest.
by kubrick 17y ago
I'm gonna get dinged for this, and I don't care.
Admitting that you like sounding arrogant doesn't make it OK. Just a little more honest.
- jerf 17y agoI used to write with lots of caveats and such. I had to stop. Was it because it was hard to read? No. It was because it didn't matter. It doesn't matter how much you water your prose down with caveats and exceptions and criteria and clauses, it turns out that there's still a percentage of people who won't read them and still flame you. It doesn't matter how humble a tone you strike, some people think you're being arrogant simply because you have an opinion. It's really not worth gumming up prose with exceptions, because English doesn't have the requisite level of precision anyhow. Of course, I don't follow this principle 100% either, but I've stopped stroking out about it. Better to say something clearly and be misunderstood than say something muddled and still be misunderstood.
- kubrick 17y agoI agree: caveats can be distracting. I'm not at all suggesting that, for instance, the 37 Signals boys start adding cavaets. I'm suggesting that they stop constantly posting articles that say, in essence, "Hey, world, you're doing it all wrong and we know how to do it right and you should take your cue from us. There's only one Right Way and we have a lock on it." You know, like when they cap on startups because "building a business" is The Better Way. As opposed to a different pursuit altogether.
- smartbear 17y agoI don't want them to use caveats either. I don't either in my own writing! Rather, I want to step back every so often and show others that real life isn't like this. That it's ok to be scared and unsure. That this is a WRITING DEVICE and not reality.
- swombat 17y agoSounding arrogant does not equate being arrogant.
- kubrick 17y agoYou're right, they're not equal. But sounding arrogant -- on purpose -- is still kind of a dickly thing to do. It's I'm-making-up-for-a-small-penis behavior, and the world needs less of it.
- tptacek 17y agoHow presumptive of you.
- donaq 17y agoDoesn't the fact that he got downvoted sort of prove his point that writing arrogantly is offensive?
- tptacek 17y agoCareful using the word "vote" and "mean" in the same sentence on Hacker News. =)
- kubrick 17y agoUnclear what I'm presuming. But are you actually saying: 1- the world needs more people who write like arrogant assholes (even if they're not actually assholes) 2- it's better to be pompous than to actually have a conversation Because that's what you're up-voting. In case it's not clear.
- tptacek 17y agoAnd being arrogant is not a capital crime --- it's far better than having the opposite problem.