Porcupines
In a series on online vermin, Amy Gahran describes:
Online Porcupines: People who seem unable to write a sentence that lacks a barb. There’s a rude, condescending, dismissive, or insulting edge to nearly everything they say. Often these barbs are thinly disguised as humor, or as hyper-rationality.
Believe it or not, most porcupines are not aware of how irritating or hurtful they can be. They believe it’s “just their personality,” or they transfer the problem to you. (“Can’t you take a joke?”) They believe they are concealing their vulnerabilities, when in fact barbs only make underlying insecurities more obvious.
She provides this example:
Initial statement: “In order to do this, we need to hypothesize how we can recognize sentience, then test out this hypothesis with humans (and others which we accept as sentient).”
Porcupine response: “You’ve got the cart before the horse. You might as well say we are trying to determine how to recognize pain in computers. It doesn’t help to redefine pain to be something that might be operationally observable outside biological systems, because at that point you aren’t talking about “pain” any more. Or, rather, you can’t be sure you are.”
Now, this particular porcupine was probably only trying to voice disagreement with the premise of the original statement, and maybe even show a sense of humor. Unfortunately, the result was condescending. The underlying but overpowering message was, “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re stupid.”
I think I must be a porcupine, as, try as I might, I can’t find condescension in the “porcupine response” (or an attempt at humor.)
I know porcupines. I have worked with porcupines on a daily basis. And you, Zed, are no porcupine.
Posted by Jimcat on February 8 2005 05:26
I, too, am having trouble matching the description with the example. The example does have something of an argumentative spirit to it, but it is civil, directed to the topic at hand, and correctly spelled -- a cut above most internet arguments.
Posted by Dan Percival on February 8 2005 10:24
Well, I guess by that definition, I am a porcupine. The second example, while lacking humour and spitefulness, does show faint signs of personality, which may be what the author is taking issue with. But, I have to say, I don't use mean humour to hide my insecurities. I use it to A) amuse myself, and any other porcupines who might be in the area, B) hurt others, and C) flaunt my insecurities. Kind of like a baboon showing its ass. If you'll pardon me for mixing metaphors.
But I don't know about the metaphor anyway. Porcupines are pretty meek and defensive creatures. Leave'em alone, and they just gnaw on your axe handle. Whereas I--and I think Zed will back me up here--can be exquisitely offensive. And that would hold true with most examples of the type described in the article, I would think. No, the more I think about it, the more I think the red-assed baboon is a better symbol. Porcupines are just big gerbils with bad skin.
Posted by Geoff on February 10 2005 14:38