Top 10 (More) Ways to Provoke a Geek Argument

I’ve been giving a lot of thought lately to what brings out most geeks’ inner Klingons. Last week, I came up with a list of what I called the “Top Ten Ways to Provoke a Geek Argument,” and I got lots of good suggestions from geeks everywhere, so I thought there was room for a followup.

In addition to presenting this sequel list, I would also like to announce a new regular weekly post I will be inaugurating shortly. Each week I will pick a topic that geeks tend to find controversial, and cover the debate from as many sides as it has, ending with a poll to see where GeekDad’s readers stand on the subject. There are lots of topics that geeks feel passionate about, but where the general opinion is split; rather than simply list those, I hope to cover them in depth, some seriously and some facetiously (sneak preview: expect to definitely see Kirk vs. Picard in the first few weeks and possibly vi vs. Emacs later down the line). The series will be called “Great Geek Debates,” so please check back on GeekDad for it.

I should note that, due to the volume of comments both on the original list itself and on the various pages linking to it, I don’t have the specific names of people who made suggestions. Be assured that, if you see something on this list that you wrote in about, you have my thanks. I should also note that most of these are self-explanatory, so I’ve only included comments where I felt them necessary.

Image: Mozilla Foundation

10. “Internet Explorer is much better than Firefox—why else would it be the most popular browser?”

9. “Jar-Jar Binks was so funny, I wish he’d been in the original trilogy, too!”

8. “Homeopathy works, no matter what ‘science’ has to say about it.”

7. “If open-source software was really that great, they’d charge for it.” – I’ve actually had people say this to me a few times over the years. As a software engineer who’s used lots of open-source projects, I’m particularly sensitive to this one.

6. “The best Star Trek film was number five, no question.”

Image: Muppets Holding Company

5. “Dreamworks kicks Pixar’s animated butt!” – I like a lot of Dreamworks films, don’t get me wrong. But there’s really just no contest.

4. “Jim Henson was nothing more than a glorified puppeteer.” – Anyone who would actually say this ought to be strung up by his thumbnails, of course.

3. “Batman is so boring—he doesn’t even have any super powers!”

2. “Geeks are all like those guys in Revenge of the Nerds, right?”

1. “Who needs Gmail? I’ve got AOL!”

I was sorely tempted to put “I’ve written a list of ten ways to start a geek argument” on on the list, but felt that might be a bit too self-serving. As before, please put your suggestions in the comments.