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Paul Carr's piece is rubbish (and disgusting)

Sunday, November 08, 2009 by Dave Winer.

This is how TechCrunch works. They write something stupid, then people write rebuttals explaining how it's stupid, building flow and page rank. It's the same method John Dvorak explains in an interview I did with him at the Apple Store in San Francisco a couple of years ago. 

Anyway...  

Carr's piece is rubbish, and just this once I'll take the bait. 

Of course what the nurse at the hospital did, according to his account, was horrible. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that in addition to being a "citizen journalist" she was also a British citizen. 

Of course, the movie-taker shooting the end of the life of the beautiful Iranian protestor did something horrible too. Imagine, not trying to help or comfort her as she bled to death in front of him. Okay, let's concede he was a citizen journalist (whatever that is), but then humor me and assume he was British too. 

Or suppose the nurse and the guy in Iran were both homosexual. Or both were Christian, Jewish, Muslim, recovering alchoholics, ex-cons, single parents, only children, flat-footed, Mac users, high school dropouts, veterans, or whatever. 

So we could conclude that everything negative anyone ever said about Christians was true, and homosexuals and British people.  

This is Logic 101 and Carr failed it. And since he's bright, assume he failed it on purpose. Why? Refer to the Dvorak explanation. 

This is what press people do. When Dvorak teases Mac people for flow, it's dishonest, but it's also fairly harmless. But Carr is doing something different. He's using people's pain not just for his own self-glorification but also to build flow to attract more ads and money. It's two levels of disgusting.  

See also: Killing Straw Men.