Well firstly, yosemitebabe, as far as “crackpots” and “real work” go, as you’ll recall in the thread link I posted, I publicly said
So I say again, that I don’t think you, personally or as a Mac user are “nuthin’ in the broad scheme of things.”
As far as the “why” question, the implication is that I spend my days alone in quiet place giggling, contemplating the destruction of Apple. The fact is I don’t spend any time thinking about macs vs. pcs. I’ve never started a thread on the subject, and I’ve never drawn first-blood in such a discussion. It’s been my experience over and over and over again that Mac vs. PC fights are virtually always started by Mac bigots. Not always, of course; there are plenty of offensive people on the PC side, but I’ve rarely seen them start the fight.
Now, if someone started a thread and said “Mac is better because it’s simpler and better for graphics, and besides they had a GUI first,” that would be a true statement, and I may chime in but I would hardly get huffy. On the other hand, when someone jumps into an innocently-started thread such as this one and a) flat out lies again and again, making claims that are patently untrue and quoting completely irrelevant cites, b) is blatently rude, referring to those who disagree with him as “trolls”, insulting wiser users because of their age and being generally obnoxious, and c) says things that make obvious his complete lack of understanding of the subject, well, then my blood starts boiling.
So that’s my answer to “Why” as in “Why have you spoken so aggressively in this thread?”. If you meant “Why do you dislike Macs?”, well frankly they’re not very intuitive or powerful for my uses, and I don’t care for being forced to use them occasionally, at Kinkos for example. Really the same reason AHunter3 gave for liking Macs. It’s a matter of what you’re used to.
But if you meant “Why” as in “Why do you hate us so and try to keep us down?”, well the answer is I don’t.
I agree that there is no need for these debates (coughfightscough) get far out of hand. I think it is fine and good to just love your platform of choice, and know that you would never want to use the other platform. But to get so nasty about it? Not needed.
I think there is one marked difference between the Mac side and the PC side, as Stoid already pointed out. Mac supporters know they are in the minority, and know that their platform is a little more “on the edge”. But PC users can sit fat and happy, content in the knowledge that Windows ain’t going nowhere anytime soon. Mac users feel the need at times to refute the misinformation spread about Macs. They feel the need to defend it, to fight for it. It benefits them to “spread the word” that Macs are a-OK. Doing this may produce more Mac users, therefore more Mac software development, and the like. There is a reason for the Mac user’s wish to promote Macs.
But since PCs are the vast majority - what do PC users get out of trashing Macs? I know that things can get out-of-hand and heated on message boards, and amongst geeks, I’m not talking about that exclusively. I’m talking about friends, or relatives, who just have to tell you to get a “real computer” when they find out you have a Mac. Even though all you’ve done is tell them that you use a Mac. This has happened to me personally more than once. Trust me, I’m not preachy or annoying or anything about my Mac. It doesn’t make any difference how low-key I am. The mere fact that I am using a Mac drives some people to insults. Why do some PC users do this? Why do they care? Do people care if I have a different brand of dishwasher than they have? Obviously not (unless they’re nuts, or have too much time on their hands.) Hmm…do you think I just answered my own question on this issue?
Stoid and yosemitebabe, I find it interesting that you ask this “why” question only of PC users. As if passion for Macs is acceptable and understandable, but how could anybody actually speak vehemently about PCs? Do you see the irony here?
You are deliberately ignoring or forgetting the main point. Mac users have a reason for their passion (fear of obsolescence & the desire to promote Macs and therefore Mac software development, for instance.) But what are the reasons that PC users have for trashing Macs, and for being rude to perfectly polite and innocuous Mac users? (Like me - when I tell some people that I use a Mac, the snide comments and insults come.) Why is this? Especially when I have NOT insulted PCs (since I still own and use one)? Why does my choice of computers get such a vehement response? I am NOT insulting or trashing PCs, so there’s no need to get “chippy” or defensive. And, I know that PC users have no reasons to feel threatened by Macs, or my Mac. My use of a Mac has zero impact on the PC market, or anything PC, I reckon. So why care?
Cannot these PC-users’ sense of decency and politeness override any “passion” they feel about the excellence of the PC? Can’t they just keep their mouths shut about my Mac? I seem to be able to contain myself and not spout the Mac “party line” in an aggressive manner - why can’t they reciprocate?
Call me crazy (“Hi, Crazy!”), but that’s a piss-poor reason to rant and rave about the evils of Microsoft and PCs.
No, I’m NOT saying that you do, Miss Babe. Or Stoid. Or anyone else (except Mr. E). But in either case, they’re two different systems, with different qualities, and different things to like… the fact that one is more “popular” (not necessarily better) isn’t a good reason for the underdog to espouse anti-PC stuff.
Now, if Chas.E’s PC-loving twin were to start calling you a troll because you prefer Mac’s, THEN you’d be justified in goin’ after 'im.
Very few of them do, dear. That’s the point that a lot of people have been trying to make.
As Chas.E has demonstrated, it’s not just PC users who are rude and agressive - it’s jerks! There are unzealous PC users and gentle Mac lovers, and somewhere there are green fields where they all get along, and Peter, Paul and Mary play endlessly in the background.
Frankly, I’ve never understood platform partisanship in the first place. I think Microsoft is an abusive monopoly that should be broken up. That doesn’t incline me to switch platforms at home or at work, where I’m still impressed with Windows 2000. I play with Linux at home, and I don’t go recommending it to everyone. I think that BeOS has the best interface I’ve seen so far. It’s not what I’m using at the moment, though.
Being a cheerleader for a corporation, counterculture heroes or otherwise, is just being silly.
Ha! Ha ha! Hahahaahahhahahah! I don’t think so. There’s more than just a few, I know first-hand. I’m not the only one. Put yourself in the shoes of a Mac person for a while, and you’ll find out.
It seems to me, that there are soooo many PC people, and even if 15% (or even less) of them have an anti-Mac bias that they just have to share, that’s still a lot of people pestering us Mac folk. And a lot of them go waaaaay out of their way about it.
Exhibit A. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. (Sure, there are anti-PC sites too…but I have never seen anything quite on this scale!)
Well, let’s see… there’re probably close to a hundred million PC users nationwide (liberal estimate, so sue me). You’re pointing to the example of several dozen at most.
Don’t let the example of the idiot minority ruin your opinion of the rest of us relatively-reasonable PC users, I implore you!
Yes, I know you apologized for your snide remarks in that previous thread, and I have already mentioned that I appreciate that. I was just relaying a general feel that I get from you, and many other PC users, in regards to your attitude towards Macs.
I am not convinced that you do believe that. I am just saying that even if you or any other PC users think that, it is no excuse to rag on a Mac users’ Computer of Choice. Which is what has happened to me, more than once.
I’ll take your word for it. Whatever. But, as you admit in that other thread, you do like to “stir the pot”. And that’s fine if someone else starts it first. But I don’t start such conflicts, and I don’t deserve any crap. And I get crap at times, because of my Mac. And I sure never have “drawn first blood”.
Funny, my experience has just been the opposite. Especially, as I have related before, when I just mention, in the most innocuous manner, that I use a Mac. What excuse does any PC person have for telling me to get a “real” computer? This has happened more than once, and not to just me.
That’s fine, I don’t care, you have your preferences, and I have no desire to convince you of anything.
Maybe you don’t. I don’t know. But obviously some PC users do. And so I was asking a more general question - why do some of you PC users try to do this? Why start such web sites (and I linked to in my last post?) What’s the big beef here? How is the Mac hurting the average PC user?
And I forgot to address another comment from Spoofe: I don’t think that the Mac enthusiast’s passion and zeal to promote Macs gives them license to “trash” PCs or PC users. I do think that Mac users do have a reason to try to dispel some anti-Mac myths, and promote what’s good about Macs, for the reasons I gave before.
I can only speak from my experience. I think my experience probably reflects many Mac users’ experiences. Actually, I probably get less grief than some people, since I still own and use a PC. So, I think that there are plenty of anti-Mac people out there who out of their way to razz and pester Mac people. Unless you believe that all the anti-Mac assholes just congregate around me, and no one else…
But no, I don’t believe that all, or even a majority of PC users feel this way. Just enough to be a big pain in the ass at times.
PC users admittedly don’t get anything out of slamming Macs, but I personally don’t like opinions produced as unquestionable fact, and will often step in to give the PC view of things just in case there is an undecided potential computer user basing their decisions on what they are reading. It’s something like the Creation vs. Evolution threads. You aren’t going to convince the person claiming that Macs are superior that he is wrong, but you might influence an undecided someone reading this thread.
My wife now wants our next computer to be a Macintosh. That didn’t bother me, I’ve actually considered getting one just to better learn how they work, put it on my resume if I am ever looking for a tech support job again. I asked her why, and she said that since she is going to get a degree in interior design and they use graphics programs occasionally for trying out design schemes and such, and she was told that you needed a Mac for those kinds of programs. Now I’ll agree that Macs are somewhat faster at running programs like Photoshop than PCs of equivelant speed and if that makes up a large portion of your job, it MIGHT be worthwhile to go the Mac route, but what she’s wanting it for is not on a large enough scale for it to make any difference. She’s already fairly familiar with Windows, we already have two PCs (a 450Mhz PIII and an 800Mhz PIII), in my opinion it would be a waste of money. Anyway, she wasn’t aware of how big the price difference was and has now changed her mind - but if she wasn’t married to me, she could have ended up buying some cheapo Imac because of propaganda from her Mac-using friends when she could have gotten a far more powerful PC for less.
There really isn’t a good reason for people to trash for the sake of trashing.
People should not care so much. In your case. But this thread did not start out with very calm, impartial, polite discussion. In fact, the very first post after the OP was by a Mac user attacking Windows.
Sure - I think people are mainly attacking ChasE’s Mac…
Well, let me give you a boring anecdote of my early experiences with die-hard Mac fundamentalists.
My first real exposure to Macs were two engineering students who argued with, then openly mocked a physics professor in college because he had a Newtonian physics freeware program that he wrote himself - that only ran under Windows 3.1. They essentially told this PhD that he was an idiot for not using a Mac, and how they were not going to be held responsible for using the PCs in the lab, when he could have damn well just written the program on a Mac instead.
My next real exposure was a year later, when the school bookstore had a “dumping” of Mac laser printers and software, that gave huge advantages to those who had Macs. Which I didn’t really care at all about - it’s a free market. But then it started - the comments about how much more superior the Macs were, predictions and prognostications about how by 1996 Macs would be 90% of the PC market, and those of us with “Shitels” were doomed.
Then, at some point the word “elegant” started being thrown around. Macs were “elegant” machines, the machines of the artists, the poet, the dreamer, the Intelligentsia. Whereas the PC was a crude hack, worthless, the sign of lowbrow intellect and a real indication of a subhuman user.
Then came the signed petition by some students who did not feel they needed to learn our CAD program because it was taught on PCs and not Macs (it didn’t run on Macs). These students actually thought they should be excused from having to take the class, since it was unfair and even “prejudicial” to force them to use such an obviously inferior platform. Of course, their petition was laughed at, and they grudgingly took the class on PC.
Then came the night I was working on a FORTRAN program late using a Kermit terminal emulator on a PC in the lab, when I saw two Aero students trying to use a PC to do some sort of CFD program - I think it was Fluent. Anyhow, as one of them was bitching about how it was not on a Mac, the other one pounded his fist into the keyboard, breaking several keys. As I watched stunned, they laughed, and one made a comment along the lines of how it was just was “worthless Windows piece of shit, no one will even notice it’s broken”. (I had no idea who they were, but I did report it.)
I’ve never in my life seen anyone purposefully damage a Mac.
Did I mention that there was a huge rivalry in Engineering School over this?
Then, something happened. Doom. And all of a sudden…it wasn’t so funny anymore for the Mac users. Oh sure, Marathon came out and tried to compete - I stress tried. Mac users screamed shrilly that Marathon was “Better than Doom! Buy a Mac so you can play it - now!” But, of course, it was not true. I saw people come close to blows arguing over Doom vs. Marathon. Truly scary.
Then, the Net happened. I don’t think many of you remember Apple’s early reaction to the Net and the Web. I do. It made Microsoft look like a Open Smile company. I remember Mac users mocking Mosaic openly, even then complaining about how the Mosaic interface “obviously copied from the Mac” - as did HTML, the concept of hyperlinks, even URLs were just a “copy” of the “elegant” Mac design. Absolutely untrue, but if it gets said enough times…and two of my friends who were die-hard Mac fans absolutely refused to use the Web out of spite. For a while.
Then came the Newton, and I had to sit through hours and hours of Mac fans chatting up how the Newton was going to revolutionize the entire planet, etc.
And all this time, I really was not a PC nut. I am now though. I was more interested in mainframes, and VMS and UNIX. Coming from that, DOS and OS/2 seemed much more friendly to me. So…I’ve been there. From the very early years. I would say that IME, the Mac users pick on the PC users about twice as much. Maybe not on this Board, maybe not in this year. But it was not always the case. So, sometimes there is a history, or a collection of experience, that makes me a little less accepting and smiling towards Mac fanatics.
There used to be two things one did not discuss in polite company - politics and religion. I have since added the Macintosh versus IBM-compatibles debate to this short list.
Thanks for sharing your experiences, Una. I always enjoy hearing about the “old days” of computers, since I wasn’t into computers until late '97 and missed out on it all. I have never seen such behavior in Mac people. (I started out on PCs, just got into Macs a little over a year ago.)
And of course, what you describe is absolutely appalling. But has this sort of thing happened recently? I doubt it. And while you say that you have never seen someone mess up a Mac on purpose, on the I Hate Apple site forums, some geek bragged about ruining iMacs at Sears. It was like a hobby for him. And while it isn’t as bad, I saw some loser at Microcenter program a Mac say (with its built-in voice function) “Macs suck” over and over again. Just something for him to do, I suppose.
Another thing I am curious about - so there were a lot of obnoxious Mac bigots way back when. Before a lot of teenagers (who now just hate Macs) were even aware. So why do they hate Macs? They have no “history” with the Mac bigots of old.
I don’t have time to address everything I would like to (life is just too short and too precious, and I have SOOOO many wonderfully interesting things to fill my days with, that the Dope has to make room for some of them and occupy a more reasonable place in the scheme of things). But I do feel the need to share a few items.
I am not a programmer. I am what I would describe as a power user. I was fascinated by computers 20 years ago, and itching to get my hands on one. When I started, in 83, (a low-level data entry gig) I was using CPM. When they were teaching me how to do the data entry, they tried to teach me by telling me “Type this, type that, type this”, but I stopped my boss and insisted on being taught the whys and hows. I wanted to understand what I was doing. I love it, I was fascinated, and I took to it like the proverbial wet duck. But even as a novice, I understood how ass-backwards it was in design. The command line instruction for copying, damn what was it? It was backwards, meaning the syntax was the opposite of English, and therefore counter-intuitive. It was all I knew and I loved it, but I saw how un-friendly it was.
Then MS-DOS arrived, which finally had logical syntax, at least. It was much more sensible, but still amazingly arcane. I’m explaining all this to say, really, that I dreamed of the Mac without knowing what I was dreaming OF, really. I knew I was passionate about the power of personal computers, I enjoyed making them work, but they were frustrating.
Then my stepmother showed me her Mac. I kid you not when I say I almost wept with joy. THIS was what I had been aching for! THIS was what computers COULD be!
I never, ever looked back.
For a long time after Macs were introduced, they really were, in many very important respects, the better computer. (Hell, Bill Gates himself said as much. I can find the audio if you want it. ) Maybe not for computer weenies, but it absolutely was a far superior computer for real people to really use. People who could never have hoped to master the mysteries of MS_DOS could sit down at a Mac and not only USE it inside 10 minutes, but have FUN doing so. And since the goal was always for EVERYONE to learn and use computers, a computer that could acheive that was da shit.
Myself, I was always a tinkerer. I liked knowing what did what, and how, and why. Not at a programming level, as I say, but at a hardcore power user level. I was always poking around in the system and learning all the details of both the system and the non-graphic applications (I have no artistic talent whatsoever, something I never cared about until the Mac, and all that graphics power was pretty much wasted on me. I’m a little better now.)
So that’s how the smug Mac users thing got started. Whatever you think about how things are today (and I still feel that Windows is a bad fake of the Mac), there was a time when Mac really did kick other computers ports all around the block.
I still feel that for MOST people, the Mac is an easier, more intuitive, less frustrating platform. Having shepherded lots of friends from the land of the Luddites into this brave new world, I can say that my assessment is not just my bias showing through. Friends who were defeated and miserable trying to make a PC work, slipped into a Mac almost like an old pair of shoes.
And let’s not forget troubleshooting. Mac troubleshooting is pretty damn easy, and I can’t imagine anyone suggesting that Wintel troubleshooting is anything like that simple. Hell, all one has to do is check out the manual for any hybrid app or game CD to see the truth of that. And that’s IMPORTANT. The more self-sufficient people can be, the more prodcutive they are.
As for the PC’ers that have attitude problems towards the Mac…well, no one has really blown away my theories, let’s put it that way.
Carry on, folks.
stoid
MacAddict til I die…
Never ask a man what computer he uses. If it’s a Mac, he’ll tell you. If it’s not, there’s no point in embarassing him. *
I say this from a perfectly calm, sincere and undramatic place: I hate what Microsoft does, I hate the way Bill Gates does business, I fear him and his nasty company because everything I’ve ever seen from Redmond is pretty much as Chas puts it. Gates wants to rule the world, and he really makes no secret of it. He puts a spin on it, he propagandizes it, but he doesn’t deny it.
That would offend me coming from anyone, even Stevie. It happens to offend me especially because I find Microsoft products (with the exception of IE) so obnoxious. I am deeply saddened and disheartened by the homogenization of our culture in all the many ways that it occurs. It bugs me on a very fundamental level that I can go almost anywhere in the US and find the same stupid strip malls and the same big ass malls with the same food shops, the same clothing shops, the same everything. TV, movies, books…One place, one thing, looks and smells and tastes more and more like every other place and thing. Bohemoth coporations sucking up all the competition and smoothing all the products out into a bland, easily swallowed, inoffensive dollop of tasteless goo that everyone can digest without much effort make me want to scream. Or weep. And Microsoft happens to be one of the worst offenders, doing so at the ultimate expense of a system I far prefer, even if that system survives.
So that is why I hate Bill Gates. It’s much bigger than the fact that he is the man who put PCs on every desktop by doing bad copies of the system I love. His goals and his means of achieving them embody everything I despise. And please, don’t tell me that it’s GOOD for me, for us, to have a single standard, or you will sound far too much like Bill himself, who, when he talks like that, makes me really wonder how far away from 1984 we really are. <shiver>. Don’t Newspeak me.
Just a comment on the PC vs. Mac thing – if it runs, and it gets you on the Net, and you don’t go grey over it – you’ve got a good 'puter, doesn’t matter which.
Some day, if I’m good and someone gives me the opportunity to dip my toes in Mac-dom, Stoid – I’ll know to to e-mail for help, eh?
Vandalizing computers is a criminal act; I hope these ass-goblins get caught and jailed. And programming the Mac to say it sucks is just silly and ignorant and assholic. IMO.
No idea really. I just was rambling a story of my personal experience.
In my experience, the typical Mac user has some familarity with Windows, due to the sheer omnipresence of Windows PCs. In contrast, the typical Windows user has little or no experience with using Macs, because they seldom encounter one in everyday use. Does this suggest that Mac owners who criticize Windows are (somewhat) better informed than Windows owners who criticize Macs?
The majority of Mac-bashing trolls tend to be young teenage males. I suspect this is because they prefer to use Windows because it has many more games available (never mind where they get those games from), and young teens often get a kick out of belittling others for being different.
yosemitebabe, Stoid, and others, you are claiming that PC Bigots are far more obnoxious than Mac Bigots, but I claim the reverse is true. I haven’t checked, but I bet if you went back and checked all of the the Mac vs. PC threads here, the bulk of them have been started by Mac Bigots.
Which brings me back to my earlier post:
Are you really interested in why some people hate other people’s platforms? If so, perhaps you can inquire with Mssr. E or other venomous creatures about their disdain for civility in the name the all-Godly Apple.
