Rails Is A Ghetto

I’m saddened by the number of grown men I meet who worship guys like the persona found in this rant. Too frequently men (especially younger men) will by default listen to whoever “talks tough” rather than the people who make the most reasoned arguments. They will listen to blow hards and pundits all day and blindly follow their “leadership” on fad after fad, never really questioning whether these people are worth listening to in the first place.

At first this rant was both a release of pent up anger, and also a parody of the pseudo-jock online speech. Eventually the rant took on a life of its own and I saw that my main readers were guys looking to read more pseudo-jock speech.

I understand that the days of kind yet strong men are probably gone, and that we worship the jocks and rock stars, but not the scientists and hackers. I’m not even sure those days ever existed in America, but I swear that people worshiped Einstein.

Today, he’d be stuck working at Google making adwords.

To these people, the men who look up to me because they think I’m mean, I ask you a small simple favor:
Find a hero who helps those who can’t help themselves.

People like me aren’t the ones you should look up to. You honestly shouldn’t look up to anyone, but if you’re going to, find someone gentle, not someone tough.

Most importantly though, you will probably not find these people on the internet.

This rant is no more. I’m sure you can find copies online, but I own the copyright so you can’t publish it without permission. And, I won’t give permission.

— Zed

I guess what he's trying to say is that unlike most of human society, science and engineering are based on the idea that each of us is capable of evaluating evidence and thinking on our own. Each of us can do experiments, work out the reasoning, and determine the truth for ourselves. There is no room in science or engineering for “fans” representing group approval over individual thought.