I attacked ITWhore rather viciously
in this thread, after he provoked me with yet another snide comment about a business deal I did several months ago.
One thing that I think really sucks in any discussion and is detrimental to a good community is deliberate stereotyping of people's motives and actions. Stereotyping is incessant and constant in the workaday world. The intent of this board - "my" intent, anyway - is that discussion replaces stereotyping and provides an enclave from being attacked in the real world simply because you're trying to make a living in a way that someone else is too uninformed to understand.
We
should make it our mutual job here to figure out why the other guy feels and reasons as he does. Attaching a label to someone breaks down that reasoning process.
"You're just a f*cking pimp - you hired some foreign guy low." That's basically what ITWhore was saying to me. After repeated past explanations (which he wasn't having any of.)
Or: "You're a loser - you can't find work." (well, I pretty much did that to Whore in return. Ok, it felt good and I owe him no apology.)
We've had recruiters come onto this board and stereotype us. After we stereotyped them first.
One thing that I always try to do is to "grok" - deeply understand - someone else's reasoning and why they might feel as they do and why they may have reasonably acted in the manner that they did.
When that reasoning & rapport process breaks down, or when I consider that what someone has done is so antithetical to my own values or self interest, I suppose that I will stereotype that person just as mindlessly.
So I try not to and I try to know when I am starting to do so.
Stereotyping - "you're just an XXXX who YYYY and that's why you're poor/jobless/too rich/ZZZZ" is kind of a mini-Godwin's Law event. Same general effect.
