Above the fold

jlarchive:

Unfortunately, my line of work requires me to aim high. If you can’t stomach that, fine, but consider the long-term effects of bashing me and others who goals are to innovate. Entrepreneurs, artists — our jobs are not easy; they require doing something new. This means we assume risk — our business could go bankrupt, our art could be despised. Perhaps you are happy with the current state of USA. I am not — I am deeply unhappy with it — and I want to change it.

The personal abuse is crap - in Australia we call it the tall poppy syndrome - but by the same token, it’s an unfortunate basic component of web-based interaction.  Just read the comments on youtube videos.  I think the dog-piling is rather unedifying and doesn’t do much to dispel the image of Web 2.0 being directed by smug ultra-snarky New York hipsters.  But I digress. Look at the paragraph above.

Interaction, argument, debate, heckling.  It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.  High noise-to-signal ratios to be sure, but there’s always going to be someone who calls you on what you write, makes you explore things more, and is simply curious.  In Jakob’s case, he really does have a quite unsophisticated and inarticulate mental model of politics.  He probably cops way way too much flak over this by virtue of his millionaire status and because some of his prejudices don’t gel with those of his readership.  But out of all the web icons - I think there were certain reasons why people chose to dogpile on him.

One thing - he doesn’t thank any of his supporters in the post above.  I think it’s not so much “pride in his achievements”, it’s just what comes across as ingratitude. That’s one of the things that gets people’s goats.