@Danny 14

Not new...but growing increasingly disenfranchised. There was a time that insightful, logical posts which contained vast amounts of information were made by knowledgeable individuals on these boards. It still happens occasionally…but to my perception the absolute percentage of such posts seems lower. Perhaps it’s a function of age – becoming jaded? – but I do miss the days when we IT folk were a bit more pragmatic.

Jihads were what Slashdot was for. It magazines like El Reg were for open discussion of technology with as little bias as possible. Attacking the tech, not the people. Poking holes in corporate structures, political decisions and bad engineering choices. Even Ars Technica has fallen a few notches towards Slashdottian misanthropy…something that makes me sad in a way I lack words to properly describe.

Tell me then, good sirs: where in this world might I find such a place any more? Online or off…where is this land where people are critical and suspicious of all things, think for themselves and only truly accept something once it has been thoroughly through the wringer?

I like hanging out at those places; critical nit-pickers have a tendency to select “best of breed” devices and software on a consensus basis. Lots of people get hold of the alternatives and tear them to shreds. The least crap X…wins. When did we stop looking at technology dispassionately? When did it stop being merely a tool with which to accomplish a task? When did technology become a badge we wear that displays “who we are?” Wearing a corporate logo is now the definition of the individual? What to you use has become a means of self-identification?

Stop the world please…I want off.

In the meantime, I will lament the steady decline of online nerd communities as they slide away from critical thinking towards base tribalism.