But sharing a quote you didn't write doesn't make you "better than anyone", it makes you a reader, not necessarily a thinker, and certainly not someone posturing as the sage who invented the quote in the first place.
Sharing quotes is like telling jokes (most of which weren't invented by the speaker). I don't think people will accept an argument against telling jokes.
On the topic of quotes, here's one of my favorites: "While programming, you can write fast programs, and you can write programs fast, but you can't write fast programs fast." Guess who said it?
On the topic of quotes, here's one of my favorites: "While programming, you can write fast programs, and you can write programs fast, but you can't write fast programs fast." Guess who said it?
No clue, but I'll throw in a guess of "Fred Brooks".
Stop writing comments, stop writing blog posts and stop doing anything at all because you know: you're not better than anyone.
Sigh. This kind of post annoys me. The purpose isn't to be "better than anyone", it's to share something you personally find interesting.
Most of the time like writing blog posts. But this time it's something I've seen before and here I really get the feeling that the writer wants to be "better than anyone". Well, at least show that "anyone" is worse.
How do you know I didn't read the Bhagavad-Gita? I did actually.
Regardless, I'm not one of those "quote" people on facebook or in general. To me this post says more about the author than it does the people he is judging. Why does he care so much about the quotes they post? Whether you like the quote, hate it, or are indifferent -- is it so hard to just move on?
>How do you know I didn't read the Bhagavad-Gita? I did actually.
He doesn't have to know what YOU did, he just has to have a good idea of what the 99% of the morons who shared such quotes have done. And they haven't read it.
I noticed this phenomenon on Twitter a couple of years ago and last year created a Twitter account solely to share or retweet programming related quotes: https://twitter.com/codewisdom .. Doing almost no promotion, it got up to 15,000 followers very quickly with some quotes getting almost 1000 retweets!
I also run Twitter accounts with things like programming news and programming related links and it's far more common for those to be "favorited" than retweeted. So there's certainly something about quotes that makes people want to share.
Interesting. That doesn't surprise me at all. The most ironic ones I find are the ones about happiness and humility. Something about sharing them on facebook strikes me as so counter to the point.
Although I think that sharing quotes is not bad, and few people share quotes to show that they're better than someone else, I think there is one basic message worth remembering from this article. If I may quote it:
"This epidemic, if you allow me to be hyperbolic, is getting so bad that we don't even seem to care if quotes are real anymore."
Or, quotes are sometimes fake. This is because of two issues. First, people don't fact check. Mostly, this is because the cost isn't worth the reward. If you find out the truth and you tell people, your reward is often looking like a know-it-all. There is a gap here for someone to make a better fact checking platform that reduces this cost through the magic of natural language processing.
Second, people pay too much attention to arguments by appeal to authority. Just because someone was respected does not mean that everything they said was correct. In fact, for many particularly talkative people, you can probably find arguments they've made on both sides of many issues.
There is indeed a strange prejudice against Quotation. -- James Boswell
I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself. -- Marlene Dietrich
I have heard that nothing gives an Author so great Pleasure, as to find his Works respectfully quoted by other learned Authors. -- Benjamin Franklin
Like your body your mind also gets tired so refresh it by wise sayings. -- Hazrat Ali
Don't agree with this anymore. Quoting is wonderful. Free Software is like quotations. You don't need to understand and know everything about a library to use it. You will be better if you do but it's not absolutely necessary.
I think we have to quote, we have to copy, share, redistribute, what we can and what we should.
Reading this title is the first time I see someone accused of sharing quotes as trying to be better than someone else.
For me a shared quote is a little piece of wisdom (or funny) packed into a few words. The fact that someone read it, liked it, and shared it is an act of generosity and also a bit of self expression (ie, "I value this thought").
But do I think I'm being better than anyone when I share a quote? Hardly.
What I do think is that the fact the author accuses quote sharers of trying to be better than other people reflects far more about the author's psychology than of the people who share quotes with him.
EDIT: Also - Writing a blog post demanding people change their behavior is one of the most futile things out there. Best thing to do is to unfriend people who share quotes or use whatever controls there are to not see stuff annoying people post.
Yeah, I don't even necessarily do it to invoke authority (though I don't often quote people I guess) but as a way of conveying a concept in a well put way.
There is something therapeutic about this process, for the individual and the communities they influence. Sharing emotions and wisdom emphatically clearly resonates with the general populace.
Speaking from experience because we've launched an iPhone app called Quipio that lets people create and share such quotes in seconds (possibly this author's worst nightmare).
We've seen it grow pretty dramatically in the first three weeks: 42K quotes have been created, 115K+ shares. 70K+ downloads on the app store. There is no question that people reveal their emotional states through them. Makes for an interesting graph.
Think about quotes as an interesting multivariate optimisation problem.
How to maximize the amount of meaning while minimizing the amount of content? Quotes, much like good jokes, are at the bleeding edge of natural language elegance. They're the Haskell of English if you will.
No wonder some people spent hours practicing their off the cuff remarks and preparing impromptu responses. ;)
I don't every remember sharing a quote that didn't mean something to me at that time. The last one I tweeted me, and a friend of mine on twitter, were deciding whether or not something was worth fighting for. Edmund Burke one about evil winning. It doesn't make me better, or worse, it was just fun and relavent.
[+] [-] lutusp|13 years ago|reply
Sharing quotes is like telling jokes (most of which weren't invented by the speaker). I don't think people will accept an argument against telling jokes.
On the topic of quotes, here's one of my favorites: "While programming, you can write fast programs, and you can write programs fast, but you can't write fast programs fast." Guess who said it?
[+] [-] vincentperes|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mindcrime|13 years ago|reply
No clue, but I'll throw in a guess of "Fred Brooks".
[+] [-] kunai|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lawn|13 years ago|reply
Sigh. This kind of post annoys me. The purpose isn't to be "better than anyone", it's to share something you personally find interesting.
Most of the time like writing blog posts. But this time it's something I've seen before and here I really get the feeling that the writer wants to be "better than anyone". Well, at least show that "anyone" is worse.
[+] [-] coldtea|13 years ago|reply
Oh, you say it ironically, but oh boy, how fortunate we would be if more people took this advice. Including the author, me, and you.
I'm pretty sure we are all familiar with the StN ratio in information theory.
[+] [-] gm|13 years ago|reply
That's fine, it's fair to project on you own blog.
[+] [-] d23|13 years ago|reply
Regardless, I'm not one of those "quote" people on facebook or in general. To me this post says more about the author than it does the people he is judging. Why does he care so much about the quotes they post? Whether you like the quote, hate it, or are indifferent -- is it so hard to just move on?
[+] [-] coldtea|13 years ago|reply
He doesn't have to know what YOU did, he just has to have a good idea of what the 99% of the morons who shared such quotes have done. And they haven't read it.
[+] [-] petercooper|13 years ago|reply
I also run Twitter accounts with things like programming news and programming related links and it's far more common for those to be "favorited" than retweeted. So there's certainly something about quotes that makes people want to share.
[+] [-] sfard|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] teebs|13 years ago|reply
"This epidemic, if you allow me to be hyperbolic, is getting so bad that we don't even seem to care if quotes are real anymore."
Or, quotes are sometimes fake. This is because of two issues. First, people don't fact check. Mostly, this is because the cost isn't worth the reward. If you find out the truth and you tell people, your reward is often looking like a know-it-all. There is a gap here for someone to make a better fact checking platform that reduces this cost through the magic of natural language processing.
Second, people pay too much attention to arguments by appeal to authority. Just because someone was respected does not mean that everything they said was correct. In fact, for many particularly talkative people, you can probably find arguments they've made on both sides of many issues.
[+] [-] Dylan16807|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gnosis|13 years ago|reply
I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself. -- Marlene Dietrich
I have heard that nothing gives an Author so great Pleasure, as to find his Works respectfully quoted by other learned Authors. -- Benjamin Franklin
Like your body your mind also gets tired so refresh it by wise sayings. -- Hazrat Ali
[+] [-] power|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smonff|13 years ago|reply
I think we have to quote, we have to copy, share, redistribute, what we can and what we should.
I will quote only one place for more details: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Quotations
[+] [-] gm|13 years ago|reply
For me a shared quote is a little piece of wisdom (or funny) packed into a few words. The fact that someone read it, liked it, and shared it is an act of generosity and also a bit of self expression (ie, "I value this thought").
But do I think I'm being better than anyone when I share a quote? Hardly.
What I do think is that the fact the author accuses quote sharers of trying to be better than other people reflects far more about the author's psychology than of the people who share quotes with him.
EDIT: Also - Writing a blog post demanding people change their behavior is one of the most futile things out there. Best thing to do is to unfriend people who share quotes or use whatever controls there are to not see stuff annoying people post.
[+] [-] drivebyacct2|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zokier|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blackjack160|13 years ago|reply
Speaking from experience because we've launched an iPhone app called Quipio that lets people create and share such quotes in seconds (possibly this author's worst nightmare).
We've seen it grow pretty dramatically in the first three weeks: 42K quotes have been created, 115K+ shares. 70K+ downloads on the app store. There is no question that people reveal their emotional states through them. Makes for an interesting graph.
[+] [-] Swizec|13 years ago|reply
How to maximize the amount of meaning while minimizing the amount of content? Quotes, much like good jokes, are at the bleeding edge of natural language elegance. They're the Haskell of English if you will.
No wonder some people spent hours practicing their off the cuff remarks and preparing impromptu responses. ;)
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] sosuke|13 years ago|reply
This seems like a lot of misplaced frustration.
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] p3nt3ll3r|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonsterling|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] specialist|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] azio|13 years ago|reply
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