The Confidence We Lack.
NPR’s Saturday show just finished a story about the Scottish editor of the Rochester NY newspaper who writes the police log with wit, poetry, eloquence and humor. Critics can be found, as they always can, racing to the lowest common denominator, rending garments for others who might not understand.
This is a public opinion version what happens in tech all the time, as we’re managed by non-tech bean-counters who’ve read the latest issue of CIO Magazine and picked up some buzzwords and concepts. The idea is a compound one, first linguistic and second, knowledge of one’s own limitations.
Linguistically, like “denying the premise” it’s just cheap sophistry to find the corner of the thing and pry it up. It’s a lot easier than contributing to a real fix.
The second is that oft-cited study that ignorance on a topic means we lack precisely the knowledge we need to know our ignorance. The first is making the critic think they’re a contributor, the second is what makes them think they’re so much more than Captain Obvious.
I’ll avoid my favorite stalking-horses (politics and sloganeering) because I think you’re more than capable of drawing the line from here to there. And there. My standard cure for this is an extinction-level event...kidding, people, kidding. It is very hard to kill 7 billion of anything, and I actually LIKE people. I’ve come to regard my species as worthy in all its forms, and as an atheist, individually worthy too. It’s a leap, that last, when you see dingbattiness on such open display, but one must look at the flower and treat the poop as fertilizer. (Neither the editor nor the newspaper’s publisher show any sign of stopping this practice. Rock on: that ain’t profit-motive speakin’!)