In followup on the RSA animation videos here’s the original talk by Barbara Ehrenreich titled Smile or Die.
I think part of GNOME’s crisis is caused by the same atmosphere of “go with the program, don’t complain, or you’re out”. I wrote about this before:
It’s not popular to be critical about a (the leader of a) popular idea. This is illustrated by the intellectually absurd criticisms David Schlesinger receives.
Yet is the critic who monitors the organs of a society key to that organ either producing for its stakeholders, or failing and dragging the entire society it serves down with it.
Acknowledging the problem and changing course is what I seek in a candidate this year.
OK, two is enough. Back to technical articles.
One of the big issues I have with her article is that she says she wants realism, but ask either optimists, pessimists or moderate if they are being realistic.. they will all strongly say that Yes their world view is the most realistic.
So you end up with cultures swinging back and forth between being Optimistic or Pessimistic depending on other factors (probably more related to the other RSA talk you pointed to). Each gets to win points by pointing out where following the other failed somewhere or another.
“but ask either optimists, pessimists or moderate if they are being realistic”
First, those of us who identify as optimists based on our personal style don’t want to be lumped in with this kind of psuedo-scientific nonsense.
Second, it’s only her responsibility to speak clearly, not to be understood. All you’re really saying with the above quote is “shut up because people don’t want to understand what you’re saying.”
“Swinging back and forth between being optimistic or pessimistic depending on other factors” is exactly what you’re supposed to do, because those “other factors” *are* reality. Sides in a conflict are *supposed* to win points by pointing out how their point of view corresponds to reality.
It’s like you’re saying, “if we do this realism thing, people might be able to convince other people to agree with them based on facts.”