So basically, we need to engage in superficial nonsense, because people are so immature that they can't settle their differences amicably? I'll make sure to teach my child that.
That's exactly the same thing you're teaching your child when you tell them not to point and say "Why is that man so fat?".
I usually wear tees and jeans, but I recognize that formal wear has a place.
I'm surprised you made such a snarky response, when you said something very similar in another thread:
"I think, that as techies, we are in a unique situation, as far as intellectual development is concerned. The vast majority of the population can't appreciate technical phenomena because it is culturally viewed as "too hard" or "robotic" or "blah blah, boring". We, OTOH, actively refuse to engage with humanistic pursuits, but not out of any perceived difficulty so much as discomfort with the pretensions that come with "cultured society"."
So you're comparing common decency and common sense to overbearing vanity imposed on people? If I remark about someone's weight to demean them, that's simply dick behavior. Wearing whatever the hell you like is not. Now imposing that one may be somehow inferior for not paying an exorbitant amount of attention to dress (for vanity, no less), that's dick behavior - which was the crux of OP's comment.
And please, tell me how "if you strip away the pretensions from these things, more people would take to them" is the same as "the pretentiousness is necessary and the untraveled, uncultured, blah, blah, don't understand that, because, you know, uncultured".
I usually wear tees and jeans, but I recognize that formal wear has a place.
I'm surprised you made such a snarky response, when you said something very similar in another thread:
"I think, that as techies, we are in a unique situation, as far as intellectual development is concerned. The vast majority of the population can't appreciate technical phenomena because it is culturally viewed as "too hard" or "robotic" or "blah blah, boring". We, OTOH, actively refuse to engage with humanistic pursuits, but not out of any perceived difficulty so much as discomfort with the pretensions that come with "cultured society"."