There is a certain type of person that clearly gets a sort of intrinsic pleasure from being correct. This leads to a lot of wasted time as this goal only serves to help one “win” in a competitive, social environment. As such, they often miss the forest for the trees.

I gather you may not know any of these types yourself but they’re certainly abundant here on HN, dismissing Dropbox as easily replicated with rsync and other such sentiments.

A good example of an "intellectual crowd" are the Linux neckbeards who deride users for daring to ask how things are done and not liking the Holy And Divine Terminal(tm).

A good example of an "intelligent crowd" are the Windows wizards who will helpfully advise how something is done so the user can get on with their day.

This is a perversely negative take where you pick a team and assign negative characteristics to the opposing team to ameliorate your own frustration. You don't HAVE to use the terminal but Linux is fairly unsuitable for users who regard themselves as power users who are simultaneously are apt to shy away from terminal usage or text files. You should probably stop being angry and the people who told you this. They probably aren't reading your words here.

I'm a Windows wizard and couldn't care less about Linux neckbeards, I already tried to make Linux a part of my arsenal only to meet repeated failures. Linux isn't suited for me, and probably most users at that, and that's fine.

That doesn't mean I won't take easy potshots when the occasion arises, though. If they (Linux neckbeards) don't like it, they can work on improving their act and reputation.

> I'm a Windows wizard and couldn't care less about Linux neckbeards, I already tried to make Linux a part of my arsenal only to meet repeated failures. Linux isn't suited for me, and probably most users at that, and that's fine. > That doesn't mean I won't take easy potshots when the occasion arises, though. If they (Linux neckbeards) don't like it, they can work on improving their act and reputation.

Next time you can shorten your comment to "me=good, them=bad". It saves time for everyone.

Quoted in full for posterity.

As a hater of all three mainstream operating systems, I can say you've managed to upgrade my opinion of linux neckbeards, and downgrade my opinion of windows neckbeards all in one post. Incredible work.

as someone that loves linux for a server and only uses terminals on them nowadays, wishes it was better as a desktop machine, really dislikes windows for most things outside of games(even though they have gotten better at their terminal game with wsl2)... mac is great for a lot of power user things. way more configurable than windows while being a first class citizen in the gui world. the power of the message passing system of cocoa is really not matched in windows or linux. it's a sweet spot in gui computing imo

Shit, I thought I was browsing some kind of verbose 4chan for a second there.

Sure, but I guess my point was the use of the term the "intellectual crowd" (used, as above, unironically, without scare quotes, etc).

"Intellectual" is a fine word for an intelligent person who does the kind of thinking college professors do. Indeed, Wikipedia defines one as "a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection."

We similarly use the term "anti-intellectual" to refer to those in our society who choose not to engage in this kind of critical thinking.

I dislike turning it into an insult, so think we should use a different word to refer to such people.

Ironically(?), many in the "anti-intellectual" crowd don't really have a choice about tbeir membership.

Ironically, you’re doing exactly what the parent is describing: being pedantic to prove a point/win an argument because the OP was too hasty and forgot to append “pseudo” to his “intellectual.”

I’m certain most of us know what the parent is talking about on an intuitive, vs verbal level (i.e. the idea was communicated, even if the words used to communicate it were not 100% on point)

Did the joke go over my head?

There are also those types of people that get intrinsic pleasure from being needed and being the principle engineer of a technology and shunning and abstaining the use of anything that they aren't the primary contributor to. The types of people who sprint towards having solutions in hand without bringing anyone else along because they never intended to give up that control. These people drive me nuts and yet they are also the kind who can be very considerate of the needs of software, but they seem to not value other people's considerations. They are insular and therefore myopic.

> There is a certain type of person that clearly gets a sort of intrinsic pleasure from being correct. This leads to a lot of wasted time as this goal only serves to help one “win” in a competitive, social environment. As such, they often miss the forest for the trees.

Yes.

> dismissing Dropbox as easily replicated with rsync

This is a strawman of the actual post. Please don't use it as an example like this.

> There is a certain type of person that clearly gets a sort of intrinsic pleasure from being correct.

And they all seem to want to reply to HN comments.