[_jal]

> I think it is time for all status-chasers

You're more or less just telling people they should socialize less.

Get back to me once you've convinced people to stop arguing Ford vs. Chevy or Dodgers vs. Giants or Makita vs. Dewalt or....

[shunyaekam]

No, I'm saying that caring about VI vs Emacs is nothing else than high brow gatekeeping/in-group signaling.

[_jal]

You're right that it is in-group signaling[1]. But it is also socializing. Comparative-opinion jawboning passes time and serves as a social learning mechanism as well as an assortive signifier. That sort of thing is also, by volume, a huge fraction of interpersonal communication - much like gossip, it is a double-edged mechanism hard-wired into human behavior.

Like I said, let me know when your utopia has eliminated assortive signaling about sports, tools, accents, clothes, art, food, housing, hairstyles, schools, employers, sex, shoes, religion, cars, text-messaging background colors, music, politics... all of which is far more pervasive, and some of which has historically escalated into literal wars.

[1] I also personally agree that it is boring. I couldn't care less what editor people use unless they've configured it wrong in a way that messes up a repo I have to use, and even then only to the extent that I probably have to explain to them how to fix it.

[aleph_minus_one]

> You're more or less just telling people they should socialize less.

Which is in my opinion not a bad idea ;-) , but for many people getting rid of the habit of socializing is similarly hard as stopping smoking or stopping being an alcoholic.