The problem I have with his comment isn’t directly about the question of whether the video is “good” or “bad”. It’s with the fact that the comment seems partly designed to slap the face of the person he’s responding too, by starting it out with the world “actually”. He instantaneously implies that only his opinion is objectively correct, i.e. the “actual” truth, and that, therefore the poster he’s replying to is some idiot living in a fantasy world who obviously can’t discern actual quality. And all that was done to get that reprimand was express some appreciation for a free video which he learned something from. I must admit that I do wonder whether this kind of behavior, which I feel occurs far too often, is primarily a way a for person of low self-esteem to feel better about himself at someone else’s expense, from the safety of the internet. Or am I being too harsh here?

I don't think you're being too harsh. There's a weird sort of subtle trolling that goes on on online discussions to the point that I don't much engage in online communities. I don't think it's trolling in the sense that people don't consciously do it; they're just negative: "STOP LIKING WHAT I DON'T LIKE!!"

Internet discussion has become very toxic (well, perhaps it always has been). The other day I was on IRC and asked a question about Eclipse which was doing some quirky things that I didn't know how to disable and one of the people in the chat (not a huge open freenode chat but the chat of a smaller, private community) responded "Java is horrible" or something along those lines. I hadn't even mentioned that I was writing Java! What's funny is that I can't imagine anyone responding in this way were it an in-person conversation. You get much more "I don't care much for Java" or even "What are you using Eclipse for?"

I guess because if you're a nasty person AFK people will avoid you and you do face the risk of some social ostracization. However, with the internet, it's harder to prune these people from your social circle.

I kind of agree that people can be hostile or brutally honest online but just look at LinkedIn as what happens online when you can't say the truth for fear of someone disliking it.

Its an endless stream of corporate bullshit. At least my feed is just ridiculous. Nobody says the truth about anything.

I know... it really bothers me how everything becomes a binary evaluation. Something not to your taste isn't objectively terrible, it's just not to your taste. I think it's a symptom of youth and a lack of perspective - I was so much worse with that back when I was a teenager.

Absolutely.

The internet has made it so easy to share negativity or whatever opinion you're able to belt out from the hip that people mistake that for the need to do it. "What, I can't have an opinion, now?" It's almost comical how toxic Youtube and Facebook comments are for this reason.

But I also think there's some element of human nature where you see someone having fun and feel the need to snipe them with something negative. I remember a lot of that from my childhood.

I'll never forget in Boy Scouts when we were climbing down some boulders and one of my mates decided to jump down each boulder instead of climbing down. He was soon sniped with "Quit trying to be cool, Jacob" which put him in line, climbing down like the rest of us.

Not to double down so hard on a fellow HNer, but it reminds me of that:

- Person A: "Here's a link to their free video course."

- Person B: "Those videos are terrible, Jacob. Edit: What, I have opinions, too."

Everyone things they're the next Steve Jobs - well-known for his binary view of the world (where something could only be the "greatest thing ever" or "(profanity)"). He had finely tuned design sensibilities, but his complete disregard for others is what made him a world-class jerk bordering on outright psychopathy.

This sort of personae is not something to aspire to, and the world really doesn't need more of this personae, but in a culture of mimicry, that's what is honored as people try to differentiate themselves from the bland masses. Cultural erosion.

It's because most people are trained by consumerism to think of anything with a human touch as flawed. The artist Tom Sachs talks a lot about this in his work. He can't make any of his art as perfect as an iPhone, but on the flipside, Apple can't make an iPhone as imperfect as any of his art (fingerprints, spray paint, a crack, etc.). I think it's important now, more than ever, to protect our imperfect things--they tell us that humans have been involved. Spirit is far more important than perfection, the former makes us smile while the latter makes us anxious.

In my opinion it's more related to the fact, that people are actually creating very good content, so if somebody pushes something that is way under that value, you recognize and move away from it. I've watched tutorials on functional programming that took themselves seriously and used a normal, human voice to bring their point across and sorry, I consider those a lot better than this.

But notice that you didn't link to any nor provide anything beyond "Actually the course on Egghead is terrible" when someone else added value to the world by linking to the free video courses.

Imagine if your approach, instead of knee-jerk negativity and dismissal, was to enumerate those videos you thought were better if your intention was actually to communicate that you've seen better ones. That would've been a great contribution.

The interplay between content and presentation is a symbiotic relationship where either side can drag down the whole. I loved the content of the Frisby egghead course, but have to admit that I had trouble finishing it because the presentation became tiresome for me. I also felt like I couldn't listen to it within earshot (or view) of anyone for fear of looking like a child watching cartoons.

There's no point in attacking the course based on this aspect of its presentation. If it were super polished but made a bunch of mistakes, that's when you need to shout loudly to anyone you care about "don't watch that course! It's full of mistakes!"