We have always needed opinionated people to be able to push their ideas. That’s what Linus is, Jobbs was, like him last year or hate him this year Musk, Eminem, Pulitzer, Jefferson, Tesla or Edison, Stuart Mill, the Wrights, and so on to any major or minor scale…
The best things come from opinionated people who were told they couldn’t go against the grain like that.
We’ve have rejected that idea. Everything is run by MBAs who avoid opinionated in favor of a boring mass appeal.
Look at big tech in the last decade… who was actually opinionated? What is actually worth a damn in 10-15 years? Zuck and Dorsey are clowns. Bezos seemed to have some great ideas on how a company should communicate internally but to an effect that is insanely boring (but reliable which is good for something else). Uber and Etsy and Apple after jobs, none of them show opinion, not in a “dangerous” sense.
We’ve conditioned ourselves into conformity because being opinionated is to be “an asshole”. We told assholes they aren’t welcome with CoCs and that every opinion is equally valid, with virtue signaling and post modernism of “my truth”, and that you can forgo everything else if it people buy it.
We’ve silenced anyone who could make something beautiful because it also might be offensive.
I'd consider Zuck opinionated compared to the other FAANG companies. I appreciate his bet on the Metaverse. I don't think it's a good idea, but I can appreciate having an opinion.
I don’t know, I guess I’ve never seen it. But I would say in addition to my argument is that I don’t think there is anything about the MBA-ification of the world that has prevented bad decisions.
It just runs them through a calculator and committee first.
> We’ve conditioned ourselves into conformity because being opinionated is to be “an asshole”.
Asshole is just a shorthand for "inconsiderate of others". Not everyone who is opinionated is an asshole, but some are. And some of those assholes even have valuable opinions, which we do consider, but still recognize them as being assholes.
I'm saddened to see you downvoted. I do not agree with the examples you've made but I agree with the general idea of your comment.
In our thirst for a more progressive society, we've created an artistically dull culture that is afraid to offend, and there can be no beauty if one isn't allowed to say fuck the rules. Punk died at the turn of the millennium, and we're all a bunch of posers now.
Very well said. I had a similar takeaway, captured by this quote which is representative of many flavors of the sameness described in the article
"The imagined color of life under communism, gray has revealed itself to be the actual hue of globalized capital. “The distinct national colors of the imperialist map of the world have merged and blended in the imperial global rainbow,” wrote Hardt and Negri. What color does a blended rainbow produce? Greige, evidently."
It’s not just about “taste”.
We have always needed opinionated people to be able to push their ideas. That’s what Linus is, Jobbs was, like him last year or hate him this year Musk, Eminem, Pulitzer, Jefferson, Tesla or Edison, Stuart Mill, the Wrights, and so on to any major or minor scale…
The best things come from opinionated people who were told they couldn’t go against the grain like that.
We’ve have rejected that idea. Everything is run by MBAs who avoid opinionated in favor of a boring mass appeal.
Look at big tech in the last decade… who was actually opinionated? What is actually worth a damn in 10-15 years? Zuck and Dorsey are clowns. Bezos seemed to have some great ideas on how a company should communicate internally but to an effect that is insanely boring (but reliable which is good for something else). Uber and Etsy and Apple after jobs, none of them show opinion, not in a “dangerous” sense.
We’ve conditioned ourselves into conformity because being opinionated is to be “an asshole”. We told assholes they aren’t welcome with CoCs and that every opinion is equally valid, with virtue signaling and post modernism of “my truth”, and that you can forgo everything else if it people buy it.
We’ve silenced anyone who could make something beautiful because it also might be offensive.