Duking it out in the comments at Amanda’s place, Drew tries the rope-a-dope, while Amanda calls him on his hostage taking behavior. Meanwhile, Mario has already rescued the princess and I’d say that this game of Donkey Kong is over!
Link via Amyloo via Dave Winer…
Last week two nerd fights surfaced that triggered my gossip reflex. First, the bizarre transatlantic meltdown experienced by Mike Arrington, publisher of TechCrunch and TechCrunchUK surfaced as friends began twittering about Sam’s lost job. It turned out that this was probably just a reflexive lashing out on Arrington’s part. After a week spent lunching with Bill Gates, fighting with Jeff Jarvis and Dave Winer, insulting Rafat Ali and trash talking the New York Times, Arrington’s angst had reached critical mass, and Sam Sethi wandered into the danger zone just as meltdown occurred.
There is, in the world of civil discourse, a proscription on the use of ad hominem arguments. I think this needs to be re-examined in the light of demagoguery. There was really nothing to analyze, no critical assessment necessary in describing Arrington’s lizard brained reflexively self protective behavior when an underling criticized the efforts of the French Minister of Blogs.
When somebody farts on an elevator it is a kindness to ignore it. When somebody consistently farts in public, and the stench of their passage is overwhelming, then it is reasonable to draw their attention to your discomfort. Use of the ad hominem as a rhetorical device is fair, I think, because we are merely associating the stench with the source. To say that Mike Arrington farts on elevators is more powerful than saying that “someone” seems to fart on the elevator a lot. It says nothing about Arrington’s tech-biz acumen. It merely points out that riding on the elevator with him may be an odoriferous experience.
But I promised two nerd fights…
Elsewhere, a young fellow with a broken heart raised his voice in anguish last week. All he heard in return was an echo. It takes two nerds to make a nerd fight. All I can say is let her go, Andrew. She’s not coming back and there is no way for you to satisfy that pheromonal jones of yours, unless you can maybe buy the Steely Dan t-shirt on eBay. She’s happier where she’s at. Stop the stalking. As for me, I’ll be watching Amanda on ABCNews again this Wednesday. I like the way she does that head flip and looks at camera number two. And that swan neck…