# I pit elitism **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 8, 2008, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elitism/462661 "2008-09-08T19:35:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Incensed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Incensed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incensed)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elitism/462661/41 "2008-09-09T15:06:03Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > I don’t think that was the question, I think the question is what is the difference between a really good Steak House with “clean, starched, white tablecloths” that costs maybe $50 for the meal and one that costs $200 but it is either private and exclusive or super trendy? > > I like going to great restaurants, but I have never found the $100 + places to be any better than the good $50 places I go or some of the great hole in the walls in NYC that run in the $40 to $60 range but aren’t trendy but have amazing food. > > Yes, there is a huge difference between a $20 steak place and a good $50 steak place, but I don’t see the improvement in the $100+ places. This is the idea I was driving at with the steak house/restaurant analogy. There comes a point where the increase in price is no longer commensurate with the increase in quality. An event horizon of elitism, if you will. I guess it’s inherently subjective where lies the line, but the point still stands. ---
**Author:** ![WILLASS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/54ee81/32.png) [@WILLASS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WILLASS)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elitism/462661/42 "2008-09-09T15:17:05Z")
> [@Incensed](#): > > This is the idea I was driving at with the steak house/restaurant analogy. There comes a point where the increase in price is no longer commensurate with the increase in quality. An event horizon of elitism, if you will. I guess it’s inherently subjective where lies the line, but the point still stands. I just think that this isn’t always the case - I agree that there are plenty of places that are trading on the back of celebrity status (either the chef or the clientele) like say, Jamie Oliver’s cack hole ‘15’ but this isn’t a rule and in some cases the high price is often justified in say the case of ‘The Fat Duck’ where I can completely imagine (from reports from the lucky bastards I have the misfortune to call ‘friends’) that this price is justified. £110 for a 20 course tasting menu created by one chef for every three diners? That has to cost a lot - it’s only gone up £20 since Heston went interstellar which isn’t bad considering he’s one of the best Chef’s in the world. Every review/report from a friend has basically told me to sell a kidney and get down there…now. It’s the people who spend £200 eating at a shithole purely because it’s famouse that piss me off, I wouldn’t even call them ‘elitist’ as they are simply morons. ---
**Author:** ![Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7993a0/32.png) [@Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jamaika_a_jamaikaiake)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elitism/462661/43 "2008-09-09T15:19:12Z")
> [@black\_rabbit](#): > > I’ve been accused of being an elitist for bringing PBR to a party. > > The drunk idiot in question was drinking Heineken. So in this case the ‘elitist’ is the person who brings the shittiest beer? ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elitism/462661/44 "2008-09-09T15:28:18Z")
> [@Westrogothia](#): > > I quite understand. You give us budwasser and we give you heineken. > Fair trade. 🙂 > > Except we have no illusions regarding bud. > While you seem to think Heineken is PREMIUM. _shudders_ But the point of the post was that the guy thought that PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon–a liquid substance akin to something like beer) was elitist, not the Heineken, which may have its flaws, but is ambrosia of the gods next to PBR. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elitism/462661/45 "2008-09-09T15:32:55Z")
> [@eleanorigby](#): > > But the point of the post was that the guy thought that PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon–a liquid substance akin to something like beer) was elitist, not the Heineken, which may have its flaws, but is ambrosia of the gods next to PBR. Goat piss, or even Schlitz, is ambrosia of the gods next to PBR. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elitism/462661/46 "2008-09-09T15:34:17Z")
It’s amazing how much this goes on in the software world: [ul] [li] **Anyone not using Windows gets called elitist.** These are the people who believe, down deep in their hearts, that all software is essentially the same quality, from mission-critical mainframe stuff down to Windows Me, and that the only reason Windows gets the worms and trojans is because it’s the most-used. (They also think every computer is a whitebox PC.)[/li][li] **Anyone using a Mac is horribly elitist slime.** The only reason they buy them is because of the iPod and they once saw Jobs wearing black jeans. Or something. The high-quality hardware has nothing to do with it and they certainly can’t prefer the MacOS user interface. (No, I don’t use Macs, but I appreciate the appeal.)[/li][li] **Anyone using Linux just hates Windows.** It’s horrible to define yourself in opposition to something, but it’s just sad when someone else thinks you do. Linux is a very nice OS and it would still be very nice even if it were never compared to Windows: It incorporates lessons learned over three decades of Unix development and contains code from some very sharp people both hobbyist and professional. Some people apparently can’t or won’t understand that and still feel the need to comment, leading to dumbassery on their side and eye-rolling on mine.[/li][li] **Anyone using a BSD just hates Linux.** No software’s immune to having idiots use it. Linux users can be just as stupid as any other sample of the population, and BSD users are a modestly-sized minority in the Unix world these days. Historically, though, they were far more dominant, and they developed their own engineering tradition and toolsets that have points in their favor, both technical and philosophical. Morons can’t see that and, apparently, begin to type with their asses.[/li][li] **Opera users are jerkoffs.** Opera gave itself a bad rap by being ad-supported for quite a while. (Yes, the browser itself showed you ads. Ugly but not all that intrusive.) Opera has some nice features and is a rather small-footprint browser and it certainly stands on its own merits, as it has for quite a while now. (Sometimes Opera fans can be annoying. For example, Opera does not have multiple tabs in the usual sense: It has multiple windows inside the main window, which can be navigated in part via a tab bar. Therefore, claiming Opera had multiple tabs first is incorrect and sounds like baseless boosterism.)[/li][li] **Lisp programmers are arrogant.** Lisp is a programmable programming language and it’s been around since 1958. That means features mainstream languages got relatively recently were either done in Lisp first (dynamic typing, garbage collection) or can be done acceptably in Lisp without modifying the base language (object-orientation, aspect-orientation). Lisp programmers are perhaps too quick to point these things out, with the predictable backlash from COBOL, Ada, C++, and now Java and C# programmers.[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elitism/462661/47 "2008-09-09T16:38:50Z")
> [@eleanorigby](#): > > But the point of the post was that the guy thought that PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon–a liquid substance akin to something like beer) was elitist, not the Heineken, which may have its flaws, but is ambrosia of the gods next to PBR. PBR is fine in an old-school, municipal-brewery kind of way. It’s really not that different from Heineken. But PBR is (edgin out Yeungling) _the_ hipster beer. The Heinekid was actually making a rather clever comment, since PBR used to the “cheap and cold” choice, and has become a brand name with cachet now. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elitism/462661/48 "2008-09-09T18:04:31Z")
Accusation of elitism is one of my personal godwins; it identifies the accuser as not worthy of serious engagement. ---
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elitism/462661/49 "2008-09-09T18:20:16Z")
> [@Westrogothia](#): > > Heineken is bottled pigpiss. > But you americans will drink anything bottled in europe and think its “cultured”. > Probably because all american beer is dilluted heineken. Come to California. I will buy you some fantastic American beer. If you don’t find that it meets your standards it I will pay for the trip. Elitist. 😛 😃 ETA: Regarding your next post: the only people who think of Heineken as premium are the people who prefer Bud to almost everything. So I’m a touch elitist too. :sings: “Everyone’s a little bit elitist sometimes!” ---
**Author:** ![black\_rabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@black\_rabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/black_rabbit)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elitism/462661/50 "2008-09-09T19:22:16Z")
> [@saoirse](#): > > PBR is fine in an old-school, municipal-brewery kind of way. It’s really not that different from Heineken. But PBR is (edgin out Yeungling) _the_ hipster beer. The Heinekid was actually making a rather clever comment, since PBR used to the “cheap and cold” choice, and has become a brand name with cachet now. Yeah, that’s the vibe I got from him. Pabst is apparently gaining a bit of hipster cachet outside of flyover country. I just drink it because it’s good, so far as those things go. I normally reach for a pale ale or, when desperate, an IPA. But when I’m going to a party and I need something that I can drink six of over the course of a few hours without getting too wasted, PBR and Stroh’s are my American lagers of choice. I used include Schlitz and Weidemann, but they stopped selling them in bottles. Any one of those four beers tastes better to me than the typical flavorless Budweiser or Miller Lite. And they _sure as hell_ beat the Heineken, Stella, or (shudder) Grolsch that the frat bros around here seem to think is classy. ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elitism/462661/51 "2008-09-09T19:48:00Z")
_hijack_ > [@OtakuLoki](#): > > Goat piss, or even Schlitz, is ambrosia of the gods next to PBR. 😃 I take it as a point of pride that one night out drinking with friends, all of us shit-faced, I turned down a free PBR. It’s just that bad. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elitism/462661/52 "2008-09-09T22:57:50Z")
> [@saoirse](#): > > PBR is fine in an old-school, municipal-brewery kind of way. It’s really not that different from Heineken. But PBR is (edgin out Yeungling) _the_ hipster beer. The Heinekid was actually making a rather clever comment, since PBR used to the “cheap and cold” choice, and has become a brand name with cachet now. I no longer recognize my world and must find an ice floe to go to my death. :eek: PBR is up there (down there?) with Old Milwaukee or Old Style (before you were born–used a process called “krausening”, which nobody knew what that was. It was made in God’s country, though. IMO, krausening was akin to Folger’s crystals, but for beer…). I am not much of a beer drinker, but even I know when to recognize lipstick on a pig. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elitism/462661/53 "2008-09-09T23:01:50Z")
PBR, like most mass-produced American beers, tastes nasty. Someone told me once that it was because it’s made primarily with corn, rather than barley. I’m too lazy to seek a cite, but perhaps someone else knows if this is true or not. ---
**Author:** ![TVeblen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@TVeblen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVeblen)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elitism/462661/54 "2008-09-09T23:45:58Z")
[QUOTE=black rabbit] Yeah, that’s the vibe I got from him. Pabst is apparently gaining a bit of hipster cachet outside of flyover country. I just drink it because it’s good, so far as those things go. [/QUOTE] _PBR_ is getting trendy?! That’s wrong, that’s just so damned wrong. I love the stuff–once in a while, not often–because it tastes like college. There were beer wars; beer trucks would pull up to big college events and give away beer, just to build up fan loyalty. And it worked. We wouldn’t think of ordering anything but PBR at out beloved hole-in-the-wall dives. Man, this is just depressing. I was a longtime Titanic enthusiastic, bought every book on the subject, thrilled by the Ballard expeditions, happily obsessed–and then they made that stupid movie. Everybody and his damned dog was an instant Titanic buff. And kept singing that horrid Celine Dion song. And poker, don’t even get me started on poker. My family never even owned a deck of cards but I learned the game, the real thing, none of this lame Texas Hold 'Em stuff, from a bunch of marines. I was visiting my sister and ex-brother-in-law while he was stationed down in Quantico. It was a blast. A bunch of them would wander over just about every evening, homesick and bored out of their minds, for home cooking family time. I was only so-so at the game but my sister, the hidden math whiz, often took them to the cleaners. Then all of a sudden poker is popular, all over television and the internet. Sigh. The fine art of bluffing, sloooowly leading a whole table right down the garden path, deliberately being caught in small bluffs, maybe fumbling cards a little, brows knit in delicate confusion, then BLAM! The tipple of choice ran high to longneck Buds though, IIRC. Can’t anybody even have a comfortable low-rent pastime without it getting gussied up? Kids these days. Harump ---
**Author:** ![Carl\_Corey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Carl\_Corey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carl_Corey)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elitism/462661/55 "2008-09-10T17:23:04Z")
> [@Westrogothia](#): > > I quite understand. You give us budwasser and we give you heineken. > Fair trade. 🙂 > > Except we have no illusions regarding bud. > While you seem to think Heineken is PREMIUM. _shudders_ Maybe some people do, but certainly none of the beer drinkers I know think it’s any good. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2008, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elitism/462661/56 "2008-09-14T20:36:59Z")
> [@Westrogothia](#): > > Heineken is bottled pigpiss. > But you americans will drink anything bottled in europe and think its “cultured”. > Probably because all american beer is dilluted heineken. What everyone else said about American beer. Though it is true that there are many who perpetuate the notion that anything that comes in a bottle from Europe is better than its American counterpart. At the same time it must also be admitted that homogeneity, inevitable in a large country founded by colonists who all came from one place, does tend to reduce the potential variety of beer in the first place. Mass market forces further this trend by shaking out the smaller, better-quality producers. In Europe, the dense population and transportation network assure easy distribution even to a small customer base spread over a wide area; in America such distribution is expensive, and the taste of a few sophisticated palates here and there may not be enough to support the market for a particular type of beer. What this means in practice is that you can easily find any beer you want in the major cities, whether you want an import or an American microbrew, or even just a plain old mass market brand. But in the hinterlands it’s hard to find anything but beer of the Pabst or Budweiser ilk. This in turn perpetuates the meme that Miller or “Bud” are the beers of the simple hardworking “real Americans” in the small towns, while European imports and American microbrews, both significantly more expensive, are favored by cosmopolitan “elites” in the big cities. I wish people wouldn’t say things like this. To say flatly that American beer sucks is akin to saying that if you go to the best restaurants in L.A. or New York, you won’t be able to obtain anything besides hot-dogs and hamburgers because they are the quintessential American food. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2008, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elitism/462661/57 "2008-09-14T20:45:08Z")
I wanted to mention also that perhaps the climatic extremes in much of this country may have contributed to the trend to milder-tasting (and usually weaker) beer. Particularly before the advent of widespread air-conditioning, many customers undoubtedly preferred a lighter brew, both in taste and alcohol, for the quenching of thirst (and the option of having one or two more). Of course this doesn’t account for why the stronger beers didn’t hold out in the cold sections of the country. ---
**Author:** ![Avumede](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/avumede/32/7235_2.png) [@Avumede](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avumede)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elitism/462661/58 "2008-09-15T00:43:08Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > It’s amazing how much this goes on in the software world: > [ul] > [li] **Lisp programmers are arrogant.** [/li][/ul] As a lisp programmer, this one happens to be true 😛 At any rate, isn’t the definition of elitism tautological? Won’t those in charge always be elite because they are in charge? ---
**Author:** ![Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7993a0/32.png) [@Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jamaika_a_jamaikaiake)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elitism/462661/59 "2008-09-15T01:32:44Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > At the same time it must also be admitted that homogeneity, inevitable in a large country founded by colonists who all came from one place, does tend to reduce the potential variety of beer in the first place. Um… What? Seriously? Before prohibition (1920-33 for the non USAians playing), every little town in the USA had its own brew, made by German-Americans. After prohibition, the whole alcohol industry was devastated. From [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States): > [@](#): > > Prohibition had a notable effect on the alcohol brewing industry in the United States. When Prohibition ended, only half the breweries that had previously existed reopened. The post-Prohibition period saw the introduction of the American lager style of beer, which dominates today. Wine historians also note that Prohibition destroyed what was a fledgling wine industry in the United States. Productive wine quality grape vines were replaced by lower quality vines growing thicker skinned grapes that could be more easily transported. Much of the institutional knowledge was also lost as winemakers either emigrated to other wine producing countries or left the business altogether. [See also here.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_beer#Modern_beer) ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elitism/462661/60 "2008-09-15T02:12:48Z")
> [@Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](#): > > Um… What? Seriously? > > Before prohibition (1920-33 for the non USAians playing), every little town in the USA had its own brew, made by German-Americans. After prohibition, the whole alcohol industry was devastated. > > From [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States): > [See also here.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_beer#Modern_beer) I think that Wiki overstates the case. Also, that’s what I meant by “municipal brewery.” However, Budweiser was distributing widely in the nineteenth century, giving taverns as far away as New York and Philadelphia free Remington prints as advertisements in the 1890s. When people tell me how much they like Saranac beer, I always respond with, “Well, sure. they know what you like. They live where you live.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elitism/462661.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elitism/462661.md?page=4)