I'm not surprised that your response is so charitable – I wouldn't have bothered responding to you to start with if I thought you seemed like you're just a jerk out to score points against "the other" – but thanks anyway.
What I dislike is not so much the existence of cliques, I agree with you that they have an important place, and I certainly have, and in the past have always had, various "circles" that I enjoy being with far more than other people. What gets under my skin is the way in which cliques think and speak of people on the outside. For instance (to keep picking on you), people who are interested in web applications with lots of user-focused behavior more than other, supposedly "more pure", kinds of applications, whether it's because that's where the jobs are or because that's where the users are or just because they think it's cool, become "hipsters", "wanks", and "posers". The problem isn't with having specific interests and a preference to converse with people who share them, the problem is with the rampant implicit or explicit judgment of people who don't. Maybe it's just an effort to categorize, in order to have an easy shorthand for thinking about what kinds of people you prefer to converse with, but why does this sort of categorization almost always seem to rely on such pejorative language?
In any case, I agree with you that mefi is a great community, but I definitely haven't found any place with as good a variety of technical submissions and discussions as HN, even if it is overrun with bourgeois gentrifiers like myself.
This is interesting because there's like, a role-reversal thing going on here. I don't know if you're aware of it, but I tend to go to the mat for the underdog, the abused (the pejored, if you will!).
But that's it. I'd oppose somebody if I observed them on the attack, but never start anything. And that behavior was systematic. Frankly, it's exploitable.
So, I dunno. I'm in flux. Rethinking some things. Practicing allowing myself to think, even SAY--"you know what? Some people suck, objectively".
I guess your comment "doing their best to figure out a path for themselves through a mystifying world" inspired me to mention that part.
I think the upshot of rejecting some people is that you can lower your cognitive load in group situations. You mentioned it: categorization. For me, it's a pretty fundamental shift (that I'm not sold on yet): actually adding a new category: those that I'd leave behind first in some sort of lifeboat situation. I know that's really harsh. Fortunately real-world lifeboat situations are rare? Without such categorization, you can land in some REALLY dumb situations...
Yeah, I can see the role-reversal you're talking about. I suppose my point is that everyone deserves empathy, not just the underdogs.
You're probably right that "some people suck, objectively", but I don't think I've ever met such a person, so I'm never going to assume that someone I meet who seems to suck is actually an objectively sucky person, but rather just a normal person who, like me, is trying to do the best they know how, and just failing at it in that moment, for whatever reason.
Hey, keep it up! I just got tired, and scared, and really not confident that I'd "make it", much less everybody. So I'm performing an experiment. That you are out there only encourages me.
Meanwhile:
A. mosquitoes (or fleas, if you prefer) are in a category that is very difficult to defend, right? I mean it takes an very broad definition of "we" to include bloodsuckers.
B. If the category described in A. exists, if "we" excludes some creatures... then you have to ask yourself where to draw the line, and that's crappy territory to traverse. But what if it is necessary to traverse it?
What I dislike is not so much the existence of cliques, I agree with you that they have an important place, and I certainly have, and in the past have always had, various "circles" that I enjoy being with far more than other people. What gets under my skin is the way in which cliques think and speak of people on the outside. For instance (to keep picking on you), people who are interested in web applications with lots of user-focused behavior more than other, supposedly "more pure", kinds of applications, whether it's because that's where the jobs are or because that's where the users are or just because they think it's cool, become "hipsters", "wanks", and "posers". The problem isn't with having specific interests and a preference to converse with people who share them, the problem is with the rampant implicit or explicit judgment of people who don't. Maybe it's just an effort to categorize, in order to have an easy shorthand for thinking about what kinds of people you prefer to converse with, but why does this sort of categorization almost always seem to rely on such pejorative language?
In any case, I agree with you that mefi is a great community, but I definitely haven't found any place with as good a variety of technical submissions and discussions as HN, even if it is overrun with bourgeois gentrifiers like myself.