Are we men or are we children- that is this morning’s question.
Because the little blogospats that are popping up all over the blogosphere sound more like my kids fighting over a Polly Pocket than anything resembling reasoned conversation.
Roy Schestowitz, all worked up because Scoble can’t build a computer out of wood and pine sap, comes up with a sentence that would make Andrew Keen proud:
Scoble only understands computers as a user, rarely realising the underlying issues in depth.
Then he spends a couple of paragraphs bashing the crap out of Scoble without a hint of support or reasoned discussion.
Roy, while I did build the computer I’m writing this on (but not with wood and sap), and while I did write software back in the day, I also learned a little about conversation and debate somewhere along the way. And here’s something right out of Persuasion 101: the second you stop talking about the issue and start attacking your opponent, you have lost. Game over.
It’s the oldest trick in the book: I can’t win on the facts so I’ll just call him names. Give me back my Polly Pocket, you meanie!
Once that happens, even if you’re right, you’re still wrong (cue Dave Winer to give me the existentialists’ view on being right).
Of course in this case you’re not right.
Saying that Scoble is not fit to talk about technology is like saying a librarian is not competent to talk about books. Not to mention the fact that if Scoble isn’t fit to talk about tech, then we better go ahead and shut down the blogosphere, because neither are any of the rest of us.
There’s saying something really wrong, and then there’s just wrong.
Newsome.Org 