I actually started from the viewpoint that I hate all the hating that goes on around here sometimes, and worked backward from there. I don't feel strongly about fight clubs one way or the other.
> Exposing yourself to unnecessary risk when you have safe alternatives isn't manly, it's stupid.
Sometimes it's OK to just be stupid, and uneducatedly kick the shit out of each other, as long as cries of "Uncle" are respected. The lack of framework and authority is important for some types of catharsis.
> Repressing gay feelings and letting them out through violence on the other hand isn't so great IMO.
My point is that whenever guys roughhouse, some chronic non-participant will always call it homoeroticism, and since that sounds like a good, intellectual reason to justify their nonparticipation, other bystanders will smugly agree. It's a cheap jab.
Sure, they sound melodramatic, cheesy and sentimental talking about their fight club. But at least they're out there doing it, venting, and participating in some mostly rules-free shenanigans.
And "sexually charged" is the condescending weenie's way of simultaneously saying the participants are closeted homosexuals, and that being gay is a bad thing.
Naysayers manage to anger me and tire me out, all at the same time.
Say, hypothetically, you discover a long, well-written, insightful and generally intellectual-curiosity-gratifying essay on the craft of programming, titled "10 Ways to Grow Your Penis". Would it be reasonable to editorialize?
Sometimes I wonder, though, if methods like Lean Startup aren't solidifications of this very illusion: that just building something awesome and slightly gonzo is too much fun to be trusted. Lean Startups tend to miss things people don't know they want, or that yield negative results when market-tested with crappy prototypes. It's like "Design by Focus Group". It's probably safer. The success rate is probably higher. But I think you pay for it in loss of craziness. At any rate, startups either don't need to hear this, or shouldn't listen to it.
> The most dangerous traps now are new behaviors that bypass our alarms about self-indulgence by mimicking more virtuous types.
The flip-side is true, too: Many of us enjoy coding so much that it feels self-indulgent, tripping the alarm incorrectly. I've often guilted myself out of coding -- out of getting real work done -- because I enjoy it so much. So while we need to watch out for pseudo-work masquerading as real work, we also need to watch out for real work seeming like too much fun.
Just to play devil's advocate (and examine it rationally rather than legally), what exactly is the problem here? Libraries allow multiple people to read the same book. I'm sure you've loaned books to friends. Is it that it's OK for more than one person to read a purchased book, as long as it doesn't happen simultaneously? What if two people read a library book at the same time? Is that stealing? What if this site implemented some DRM that only allowed a book to be read by one person at a time?
This site isn't doing something wrong, merely something illegal.
I frequently hear that, at the very least, a degree shows that you can finish something. If it's true that smart hackers can give themselves a better-than-university education for the price of the books alone, and they discover this fact early in their college careers, wouldn't finishing actually be a negative indication -- a susceptibility to sunk costs? I know the case can be made that college's real education is social, but it seems like you could get that part cheaper by hanging out around other hackers.