inkbluesky

beautiful balloon - Hard-wired for the ups and downs

Of course, I say that because I evolved as a member of a reverse dominance hierarchy. We all did. Maybe if we’d evolved differently, which is the contingent part of this, we’d admire wolf hierarchies. But a human reverse dominance hierarchy is something that is led by an individual at the top who by dint of skill, talent or knowledge, or maybe just force of personality, becomes the corporal, the staff sergeant, the team captain, the platoon leader or the chairman, and the rest of the guys go along with it. It’s called a reverse dominance hierarchy because the leader needs the co-operation of the led.

Attempts at dictatorial domination were likely to be responded to in the Pleistocene with exile, homicide, non-cooperation and, interestingly, ridicule. Ridicule is a standard way for all human societies to deal with people at the top. We need look no further than Australian politics.

Caught my eye because among the many things Australia and America have in common is a perversely authoritarian Right of center political movement. In the U.S. anyway we seem to be on our way to punishing “dictatorial domination” of a president and his party with the modern equivalent of exile, defeat at the polls.

glued on gothic. why would someone chose to ruin a good piece of modern architecture by adding on those gothic cake decorations (foreground). then just behind that building add on a giant cheese grater. maybe it serves some kind of sun deflection/cooling purpose.

The Thin Skin of Apple Fans

In an excerpt posted this week, he looks at an area where facts often become particularly slippery, specifically perceived bias in the news media against, of all things, a technology company: Apple.

“Last year,” Mr. Manjoo writes, “I praised the iPhone in something of the way Romeo once praised Juliet: The device, I said, is revolutionary — ‘it marks a new way of life. One day we’ll all have iPhones, or things that aim to do what this first one does, and your life will be better for it.’ ”

But because he mentioned that the phone was a bit pricey, “several readers alleged that I was an Apple-hater.” One wrote him to ask, “Does Salon actually pay you or are you being paid under the table by rival companies?”

Anybody who has ever written about Apple products will tell the same story — introducing even a hint of negativity into a review or article will bring down the wrath of Apple’s most fanatical fans.

Good article about perceived bias, which has been at fever pitch for as long as I can remember, versus actual bias. I like Apple well enough and know quite few Mac fans. In their defense, at least in my experience none of them have drooled on me or tried to sabotage my PC. The rants on the web by Mac fans is another matter,

But the phenomenon is particularly stark when it comes to opinionated reviews — however laudatory — of Apple products. That’s because many Apple fans “care little for honest opinion,” Mr. Manjoo writes. “They want to pick up the paper and see in it a reflection of their own nearly religious zeal for the thing they love. They don’t want a review. They want a hagiography.”

hagiography- idealizing or idolizing. frequently associated with the veneration of saints.