NetNews Offline 2/NetNews Offline Volume 2.iso/news/comp/sys/amiga/misc-part2/13020

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Path: EU.net!sun4nl!xs4all!usenet
From: [e-mail] (Jeroen T. Vermeulen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc,comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Amiga Technology is insulting!!
Date: Wed, 17 Apr 96 19:54:31
Organization: Leiden University, Mathematics & Computer Science, The Netherlands
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THIS POST is a bit longer than I had hoped, but please bear with my and I hope
your patience will be rewarded.

First of all:  Turn off the flamethrower, Greg!  Most of my comments were simply
jokes that you've taken rather too seriously.


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (G. Baldwin) writes:

> : I'm afraid that's the whole point:  Amiga users, generally speaking, are not
> : interested in Being Hot Shit.  They just want to use and enjoy their systems
> : in peace.
>
> That is far from the truth in ever way.  Amiga owners have always been the
> kind of lot that point to 060 based Toaster systems saying "Thats what our
> platform can do!!!" while only having a stock A500 themselves.  Amiga
> users always try to point out that AmigaOS is a "magic Operating System"
> that will make your A1000 runs applications better than a Pentium.  It has
> only been in the last few years that they have been starting to settle
> down.  Perhaps even they realize that they are full of hot air.


I disagree!  One would expect Amiga users in PC advocacy groups in that case,
instead of the other way around.

To my experience, what you describe is a response to pressure that
only eases up in times when people think the days of the Amiga are over.  It
goes some time back, and so will I.  Every informed PC user knew from the start
that they had bought the inferior system out of pure rubber-spined conformism.
So from the moment that PC users were able to boot MS-DOS and, with ten to
twenty minutes of failures due to improper configuration options, could type a
cryptic command that showed a GIF picture on the screen, Amiga users have had to
sit through hours and hours of demonstrations just to show that these PCs were
Advanced Technology.  Of course these people never wanted to take so much as a
look at an Amiga, knowing that the confrontation would make them look
ridiculous.  History, yes, but relevant nonetheless.

When the Amiga user could bear it no longer, he would simply say, "it's nowhere
near my little old A500" and the PC user would get irritated.  That's how the
war started, in my view and that of my friends and relatives.  The arguments
shifted as the PC architecture caught up in some areas, but the real message was
always: "We're in the majority".

Before I go on, I'd like to delve into this a little.  Please bear with me, or
just skip the paragraphs below.  Oh, and if you can't keep things in perspective
then please don't bother reading it at all because it would lead to a lot of
unnecessary aggravation.


                ** VERMEULEN'S FIRST THEORY OF PC ADVOCACY **

The psychology of the situation is fundamental.  The essential superiority of
the Amiga, stripped of the competition's flashy pictures and the obvious
benefits of larger market volume, still exposes the real reasons behind choosing
the PC--yielding to "compatibility" terror.  As preservation of honour is a
basic human instinct (but much ignored in western culture!) this exposure is
felt as a personal threat. Here normal self-defense mechanisms kick in with
typical reactions such as avoiding the danger (eg. finding excuses why one
"needs a PC"), fighting the attacker (eg. in comp.sys.amiga.advocacy), and
hiding in the safety of the herd (eg. by making derisive jokes).  The one thing
that Microsoft has been very good at is simply providing people with the excuses
that they need for these reactions.

A fourth defensive reaction is perhaps the most fascinating...  Chest-beating!
Much like a male gorilla will regularly venture away from the safety of the
group to show his strength and confidence, a PC advocate may advertise his
independence by publicly and dramatically distantiating himself from the herd.

This explains a very curious phenomenon:  The greatest conformists loudly
denounce Microsoft and Intel, and take gratuitous pot-shots at Bill Gates--but
never fail to submit in reality.  Here too Microsoft plays a role ("bogeyman")
to accomodate the users.  The jokes and complaints never really hit the sore
spots, yet the fanaticism with which this behaviour is pursued proves that there
is more to it than just "poking good-natured fun at Bill Gates".

                     ** END OF THEORY--BACK TO THREAD **


> : In fact I, personally, have better things to do than to Be Hot Shit.  This
> : goes for most Amiga users.  "Hot Shit?" they say, "It _sounds_ better
> : than User-Friendly, but does it smell as fresh?"
>
> Good for you then.  Don't be "Hot Shit".  No skin off my back.  If you
> don't care about being able to multitask a few apps well on your system
> then more power too you.  But if some of us out there *DO* want to, don't
> bitch about it.  But if you do belive that PreEmptive multitasking is hot
> shit, then you are on the wrong platform, bud.  Try getting a Mac.

I'm afraid that both the humour and the actual point of my post have passed your
attention.  First of all:  I used overstatement, capitalization and repetition
for comic effect. Perhaps I should have added some smileys but I thought it was
clear enough.

Second, I wasn't commenting on the actual Hot Shitness of hardware (I have yet
to meet the PC that satisfies the demands that the Amiga's in our network do; it
may be out there but I haven't seen it), but on Hot Shitness _as a reason_ for
buying hardware.  I was commenting on your usage of the phrase, "if you want to
be hot shit".  I say that, when left alone and not forced to defend their
platform, people are not interested in impressing the neighbours ("Being Hot
Shit") because they have nothing to prove.  That's not the same as an allergy to
high performance, like you try hard to make it seem, but simply a different
perspective.


> First off, what I explained as being "Hot Shit" had nothing to even do
> with PC's.  It had to do with what an Amiga could do in the way of
> multitasking if you had the mind-set to make it do so, and anyone with at
> least an 030 and a few megabytes of memory could do the same.  No big
> whoop.

Once again I made it just about as plain as I could that I wasn't talking at all
about what you consider "Hot Shit".  I don't care what you consider Hot Shit.
It's the Being Hot Shit I was talking about, and why people would want to.  IMHO
my consistent capitalization of the three words (instead of the two as you do
now) was a good first hint of that.  I say that the *desire* to Be Hot Shit does
have something to do with PC's.  I haven't commented on your hardware
comparisons.  I have only commented on your prime assumption, "if you want to be
hot shit".  Simply put:  I don't, and it's an elementary issue.  I may well
happen to buy the same machine as you do sometime (again), but not to out-Shit
the Jones's.

And another thing:  Please stop trying to picture me as the kind of user you
want me to be to prove your point.  You speak as if you were sure that I'm an
A500 user afraid of any kind of improvement.  The Jeroen you are fighting is a
figment of your own imagination.


> I know what my Amiga is good at - its good at PreEmptive Multitasking
> tasks and doing heavy device I/O without bringing the system down to its
> knees.  In my previous message, that was exactly what I was trying to
> point out - why brag about floppy formatting when the Amiga can multitask
> so much more?

Ah, here is the big point I never contradicted!  Maybe you had had a bad day or
something, but one has to be careful about switching into flame mode.  I did not
contradict this because I didn't disagree.  No need to throw a tantrum.


> But if you want to start talking about how badly PC users have been
> dicked, go ahead.  I will try my best to make you look like a fool.

<chuckle>  well I hope that wasn't your best shot!

No, seriously, I don't really think that PC owners have been dickedas such;
moreover I think they have bought into it for different reasons than the ones
they often come to the Amiga groups to loudly proclaim.


> : Seriously, you sound like you're struggling with an Amiga Inferiority Complex.
> : I strongly advise you to download the F.U.C.K. from Aminet:
>
> : util/wb/fuck091beta.lha -- Cure your Amiga Inferiority Complex!
>
> And you sound as if you suffer from the "Oh, the big bad PC owner is
> always picking on me so I have to call them stupid" syndrome.

Oh, boo-hoo!  I wouldn't have thought of the "big" myself.  Anyway you look like
you are a bit too panicked to keep perspective.  You're jumping at shadows and
fighting windmills.  Calm down!  The FUCK is just a little joke which I was
bringing to your attention in a "semi-serious" advice--with the honest and
good-natured intention of giving you a laugh.  I still recommend it.


> I have no problems seeing the good points in both PCs and Amigas.  Do you?

My experience falls short here.  I may well have a problem seeing the good
points in PCs (I'm a CS student too), but I'm willing to admit it when I see
one.  Wait, here's one:  High clock speeds.  See?  OTOH you've just convinced me
that seeing good points in people is more important!  -<8-P


>                        Greg Baldwin ([e-mail])
>      Amiga junkie and user since 1987    Computer Science & DTV Student
>      Commodore64 fan since about 1983    http://www.eskimo.com/~drizzit
>                Tyranical EFNet #Amiga Channel Operator "Drizzit"

Oh, you might want to change your .sig...  It makes a hilarious combination with
your sweeping negative comments about Amiga users above!


--
============================================================================
#  Jeroen T. Vermeulen   \"How are we doing kid?"/   Yes, we use Amigas.   #
#---  [e-mail]    ---\"Oh, same as always."/--         ...          --#
#[e-mail] \ "That bad, huh?"  /  Got a problem with that? #
"Netscape's millions of browsers won't be a threat to us for very long"--Microsoft, 1995