Interview: Jon Katz Answers

You asked for it; you got it. We asked Jon Katz your questions, ranging from the community to religion, and he's offered up his responses. If you can't get enough of our resident gasbag, check out his interview at Playboy, too.

Truth or Parody (Score:5, Interesting)
by Duxup (pointandlaugh@hotmail.com)

I'm trying to keep this from sounding like a flame but still ask what I mean here. I should note that I haven't read a lot of Katz. However the few times I have your opinion seems so simple and stark it would seem your almost parodying opinions that you don't believe in. I wonder sometimes if you really believe all the things you write, or if the intent is more to promote discussion?

Katz:

I never write solely for the purpose of being provocative, or simply to push buttons. That would be dishonest. Parodying opinions would be worse, and I dont even know what that means (nor has "simple" or "stark" ever been used to describe my writing). The awful truth is that I believe everything I write quite sincerely, and often too passionately, when I write it. But I never write something with the feeling that it's 100 per cent true or right. I've learned otherwise.

And yes, my job is to promote discussion of issues, that's definitely my major purpose and intent. It's why I'm here. It sure isnt to beef up Freshmeat.

Writing online is challenging. The feedback is so intense, and comes in so many forms, that I often learn new things, change my mind, or alter my opinions, or see new aspects of an issue. It's a privilege for a writer to be here -- if you keep your eyes open, you never stop learning and growing. Or being humbled. And you can't get too lazy or arrogant, or you'll get eaten alive. And boy, do you get read. A lot of writers say this, and its true, but the only real insult for a writer is to be ignored.

When I wrote columns for Rolling Stone and New York Magazine, I got little feedback -- readers had no easy way to reach me -- and my ideas were rarely changed or stretched. Here, I grow and learn every day, about technical things and everything else. I never get or want or expect the last word, and never assume what I write is the only truth.

My columns are the best expression of what I hope is an interesting issue or idea at the time I write it. After that, it goes out into the hive and lives or dies on its own worth. My columns are beginnings of conversations, never the end. And I wish you all could see my e-mail, as I have some of the greatest conversations anybody interested in technology could possibly wish for.

And, as we all know ad nauseum, I get plenty of disagreement. I take responsibility for what I say. I read all criticism, even flames. I don't believe in many aspects of the moderation system. I set my prefs to everything. To me, steering software is the anti-thesis of community. I consider it self-censorship, a Balkanization of ideas, an effort to smother a human problem with software.

If somebody has a comment about my work, I owe them the courtesy of seeing it, however hostile or nice.

But remember that I express opinions more frequently than anybody on Slashdot. That means I will generate more intense feeling than most. The Net is a big place, and everybody has an opinion. Everything one writes in the nature of an opinion ticks somebody off. If you can't handle that, you can't express opinions on a forum like this and ought to go to a newspaper op-ed page, where nobody can ever reach you.

One difference on Slashdot is that disagreement tends to be intensely personalized, more than on other sites. People don't seem comfortable just disagreeing, some have to attack the source of the idea. They challenge motives, attack integrity, ridicule writing style, intelligence, sincerity, almost everything.

Notwithstanding that, writing on Slashdot has been the most successful experience of my media writing life. My columns are linked and distributed all over the world, I am quoted everyplace, asked to write for places, I get about 200 to 300 e-mails a day, and many more people are familiar with my work than at Hotwired or other sites I've written for on the Web. I don't mean this to be self-serving, just to respond to questions about why Im here, and to point out that there are different perspectives on my experience here.

You did ask.

The considerable criticism I get is obvious, and much of it is valuable, thoughtful and worthwhile. But I have never gotten more praise or worked with people I like and respect more. I think this community is the most extraordinary thing I've seen in my life as a media/technology writer, and I am very happy and quite proud to be a part of it.

Preaching to the choir (Score:5, Interesting)
by Q*bert (Don'tSpamqweaver@vovida.com)

I would like to ask why you choose to air your articles on Slashdot. They are written from a non-technical point of view for a non-technical audience wholly unfamiliar with their subjects: Weblogs, the DVD controversy, the Linux revolution itself. Clearly, the Slashdot audience finds your articles insultingly simplistic. We are already familiar with these issues, often in more detail (technical and historical) than you, and by and large we are annoyed to have our opinions simplified and read back to us.

I have two questions. First, do you agree with me in seeing your posts as popular digests of our culture, intended for a lay audience?

Second, if you do agree, why do you persist in using Slashdot as a forum?

Katz:

Ummmm... no, I don't agree with you. I think the subtext of this message isn't about how dumb I am, but how smart you think you are.

Come on, Q*Bert, think about this. Would I still be here if that was really the view of the "Slashdot audience", whatever that may be? Would you be bothering even to write this question?

I don't mean to be snarky, but I must have been away when you were elected mayor of Slashdot, and spokesperson for the community. How do you know how everyone views my writing? Are you really saying that I should never write about privacy, genetics, open source, culture, books, movies, corporatism, media coverage of technology because you know all there is to know about it, and couldn't possibly learn anything more from any discussion? Sounds like it.

You also are wantonly inaccurate about Slashdot's audience, which is considerably wider than you seem to grasp, with varying levels of technical expertise, and which neither one of us is qualified to speak for. Happily, all kinds of people come through here, from programmers to housewives, and find the site interesting.

I dont write for a lay audience on Slashdot, and I don't have one, so far as I know.

The people who read me are directly involved with technology -- administrators, programmers, developers, students, and many, many highly-technical Linux geeks and nerds. I get mail from programmers, people overseas, from CEO's, government officials, bio-ethicists, geneticists, NSA spooks, and all sorts of teenaged geeks from all kinds of schools, from high school to college.

I'm not here to break news or tell you things. Of course you know a lot about these issues -- that's what makes this community unique. I'm here to promote discussion of things we all -- sometimes even me -- know a lot about. You are dead wrong if you think many members of the "community" don't want to talk about these issues. They do.

Simply, I write here because I love Slashdot, love the audience and the feedback I get, and believe I have the potential of doing good work. I love the bottom-up nature of the site, the intensely participatory nature of the community (I read Freshmeat every day, and marvel at it, understanding hardly anything. It's one of the most interesting places to go on the Web).

I've never discussed it with him, but I believe Rob asked me to write for Slashdot BECAUSE I am clueless in many ways. I'm not a geek, not a technical person, and have no desire to be one. I don't carry a lot of Linux or other baggage ideologically. I'm a writer, a very different thing. I think there's room for one or two here. Operating systems per se are not important to me. I love writing about technology, media, culture and politics. And I believe my record is stong in spotting trends and patterns involving technology-related subjects.

The implications of things like DVD and Open Source aren't static -- they aren't fully grasped at one moment, and then unworthy of further discussion. They are organic, evolving, changing all the time, especially as they move beyond this community and go out and hit the world.

Rob has never told me what to write and what not to write, but we (and Jeff too) communicate all the time. Via Robs grumpy and cryptic e-mail, I've figured out the role he sees for me -- to try to put things in a non-technological context, to try and bring a fresh, non-technical perspective to the things you all are doing here. "Write what it means," he tells me all the time. I trust his instincts.

So I stay here because Im happy, stimulated and welcome. The notion of my being a hated figure is, to me, largely mythical, a Slashdot version of hype. I've made a ton of friends here, and value them very much. I have a Linux laptop which I work often, and while it remains a nightmare and a mystery, I love the fact that I have actually begun to learn more about how computing works.

Ive worked in different media, covered politics and government, studied the history of technology. (I've worked at the Washington Post, Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer, CBS News, Rolling Stone, Wired and Hotwired, and written 10 books), and have been obsessed with technology for years. I'm the sort of clown who will talk for hours about how cars changed the world, but have no interest in learning how the internal combustion engine works.

Whatever you think of me and my work, I have no apologies to make for it, but lots of improvements to work on. I don't think there can be a lot of doubt that people read what I write and talk about.

Ive also been here for nearly two years. I hate to break the news to you, but Im part of the Slashdot community too. So is anybody else who wants to join.

A -real- question (Score:5, Insightful)
by jd

Libertarianism means a lot of different things to different people. Usually, it is meant purely in the context of a hypothetical "Big Government". However, recently, events have shown that duly elected Governments around the world can be dictated to and ordered around by "Big Corporations", who are accountable to no-one, including the market place. Can you pin down, exactly, what your interpretation of Libertarianism is, and how it handles the whole power question, where you have Corporate Law, rather than Government Law?

Katz:

Libertarianism is one of the most interesting political ideas on the Net, or anywhere else, and I would love to pin it down, though there are many different interpretations of it. In recent months, several Libertarians have been e-mailing me, guiding me to websites, and I've enjoyed that. My sense of it as a philosophy is that it values freedom and a minimal involvement of government in people's lives, and celebrates individuals, and their right to make their own choices.

Im skittish about labels and parties. I'm not a political person. I find both liberalism and conservatism suffocatingly narrow and inadequate, and I would never describe myself as being one or the other. I hate the whole idea of a two-party, two -ideology system. If there's a question I have about Libertarianism, it's in trying to define the role government should or shouldn't play in people's lives or social problems. For example, I believe government should have stopped Microsoft much sooner, and should definitely halt the AOL/Time-Warner merger. I think its a responsibility of government to keep the Net and the Web as free and non-commercial as is possible. I don't believe Libertarians would share that view.

But I have to say that my thinking about Libertarianism is a work-in-progress. Maybe the best response is to write about it a bit, and start some discussions.

Politics isn't a strength of mine. But the second part of your question was very interesting because Libertarianism could play an enormous role in the many legal, technological and cultural questions popping up around the new Corporate Internet springing up all around. If I understand them correctly, the Libertarians present a strong political rationale for keeping a space like the Net free from corporate or government interference. If I were a lawyer, Id be busting through walls to take up Net law.

Honest question (Score:5, Interesting)
by swordgeek (spamlist@um......go.com)

One of the biggest and most valid criticisms you (regularly) receive on /. is directed to your writing style. Specifically, you write _long_ articles with _long_ (occasionally run-on) sentences containing questionable grammar. Given that you're a professional (paid!) journalist, do you feel that this affects how seriously your readers take your writing?

Katz:

Well, I barely got through high school and didn't finish college. I'm sure my grammar needs work. But I've written 10 books, almost every one of which was very favorably reviewed by some very tough literary critics. Apart from the books, I've written for the New York Times, GQ, Rolling Stone, Wired, and have gotten very few complaints about my grammar.

Writing is a very personal thing, from the point of view and the writer and the reader. It's subjective. There is no single way to do it. I feel pretty good about my writing, though never satisfied. I dont think I want it to change too much. My Slashdot pieces should be shorter, crisper.

I wish I could change everything I ever wrote, long sentences and otherwise. But I feel even better now that Slashdot is hiring some professional copy editors, which every writer desperately needs. You've definitely had to put up with some raw stuff though. In my early months here, I had no time to proofread my stuff (Slashdot isn't my full-time job) and had all sorts of formatting problems. Some it was sloppy for sure, for which I apologize. Programmers are an especially tough audience, as precision means a lot to them, and they aren't forgiving of sloppiness or mistakes.

Im sure reading me can sometimes be a chore. But I can't say I care tons about grammar. Id rather swing (or not) for my ideas.

Community interest (Score:5, Interesting)
by Signal 11 (signal11@mediaone.net?Subject=Slashdot comment)

It's a rare person indeed who draws such an intense response from the geeks and slashdotters amongst us - I'd like to know why you keep posting and commenting even though so many people are outwardly hostile towards you...

What draws you towards this community?

Katz:

I am very proud to be a rare person, and however you meant it, I thank you.

In some ways, I think I've answered this question in my previous responses. But again, I caution you against myopia, and the tunnel vision that sometimes comes from gauging the reality of the world by Threads there is no single response to me here. Some people are hostile, some people are not. Most people the great majority, I'm sure -- don't say either way, so I dont think either of us really knows for sure.

I'm drawn to the people running the site, the people posting on it, the people reading it, and the overall OS and free software idea, an idea I've been waiting for much of my work life. Also to the astounding often decidedly non-hostile -- response I get to my writing, a dream for any writer. As I've said elsewhere, if the response to my work was overwhelmingly hostile, I wouldn't have any desire to be here.

But I have to say one thing: If I permitted myself to be driven away by hostility toward my ideas, that would be a kind of cowardice I could never live with. It would be a horrible precedent for any writer, and a rebuke to the whole idea of free speech and open discussion.

I also don't buy these generalizations inherent in your very valid question. I don't believe most people on Slashdot hate me. I think it's a wildly exaggerated meme, stemming mostly from some loud and often (but not always) people who don't even have the courage to post under their own names, and for whom flaming is like a contact sport.

If you read through Threads, which I do, the most piercing comments are from smart people who criticize me under their own names. The most hostile comments are often from people who clearly havent read a word Ive written, but who are just rushing to get flames up first. The many interesting and thoughtful criticisms of me theres a whole sub-literature devoted to why I'm a jerk and don't belong here are almost always posted under names and ID's, which I respect and appreciate. And read.

There have been some eloquent, even powerful criticisms of me from people who do post under their own names (Hey, Rogers, Chris). They raise important questions, some of which I agree with and have learned from. People take seriously the idea that a writer is given so free and regular a forum to express himself here, and I take it as a compliment and a challenge.

But believe me, anybody who thinks Ill be chased off by criticism is really smoking something strange. I will never give in to the idea that I should leave because some of my ideas are unpopular among some people. You'd absolutely have to kill me first. In fact, I have just re-upped for at least another year, and plan to devote more of my writing to Slashdot, and reduce or eliminate the writing I do for other places. This is what I very much have wanted.

But to re-cap: I am first and foremost drawn to the open source idea, which I sincerely believe may possibly, though by no means definitely, salvage media and will transform society.

Secondly, I am attracted to and comfortable in this intensely interesting community of bright, idea-loving, idealistic, quarrelsome people -- I feel quite at home here. I respect what you have built, shared and believe in. I have been railing against Microsoftism before most of you were programming, and spent much of my life (unsucessfully) battling monopolistic corporations, even as I have depended on them for my livelihood. I wish I were more technically inclined, so I could participate more directly. But failing that, I am privileged to be writing about technology, media and society for one of the best media and technology sites in the world.

To me, the more rational question under those circumstances is why WOULDN'T I write here?

I also have a very powerful connection with Rob and Jeff, shaped in part by having worked for, (and at times been one) a series of media sleazebags. Rob and Jeff, and in recent months, Robin, are great editors. I trust them, and am grateful for the freedom they give me, the opportunity I have to learn, and the humor and ethics they bring to their and my work. You have to be my age and have my experience, perhaps, to appreciate how rare that is.

A More Civil Net (Score:5, Interesting)
by Skyshadow

Jon -- You seem like a fellow who might have some small amount of experience with the lack of civility which is rampant on the Net. Given that, I have a two-part question:

a) Who do you suppose the main culprits are? Why do you suppose that certain forums (like /.) can be somewhat civil one day and full of trolls and flamers the next? Is it simply a matter of certain people skipping fourth grade classes for the day, the flood of newbies, a popularity thing or just the nature of the beast? This leads into the second part of my question...

b) Do you foresee a circumstance where the Net will ever be a civil place without compromising anonymity and free speach? Or is every net medium which tries to provide these things doomed to go the way of Usenet?

Katz:

To me, this is a truly significant issue, vastly more important than me. The first part is complex. We all know who the culprits are, immature people who will grow up to be great and creative human beings but aren't yet. And ideologues who hate people for having ideas that are different from theirs.

Slashdot is pretty typical for a Web site when it comes to general level of disagreement. Disagreement is one of the great benefits of the Net people who didn't have a voice now do. But Slashdot is abnormal for the way in which discussions are personalized. It often reminds me of what's happened in Washington, where all politics has become ugly and personal, rather than simply bi-partisan or ideologically divergent.

I think a big problem here is the conspiratorial and rebellious roots of Linux (fighting the Death Star) and also the Anonymous Cowards login. AC's can be very valuable, sources of news from corporations and governmnent, etc. But unfortunately, the name is too literal, an abuse of Rob's original idea. The lethal combination of anonymity, adolescent hostility and cowardice destroys any discussion.

In my own case, a number of posters have raised legitimate concerns about my being here, about my occupying this rare pulpit, about my motivations, but even these complaints can't be discussed because AC's simply don't permit any legitimate conversations to take place. It is not possible to have a coherent running conversation in public on Slashdot on any issue, whether you're Jon Katz or anybody else. And I aint the only person who gets roasted here. Go on any topic. The inability to have a coherent or civil public discussion is a major crisis for any group of people who purport to be a community. And it works against promoting the very values many of the people who post here share.

Rob is viscerally unable to silence, censor or exclude anybody, so I don't see that changing. But he's also a programming whiz, so Im eager to see what he comes up with. But youre asking honest questions and you deserve honest answers, and the truth is, AC's have increasingly made Slashdot's Threads a laughingstock on the Web. I know some of you like to think you're laughing at me and people like me, but many of you would be mortified to know how many people come onto Slashdot to laugh at the nightmare that is Threads.

Rob's moderation systems have definitely made this better, and he thinks quite a bit about this issue.

The only way I can perceive civil discussions happening on sites like this is if topics were clearly identified, people were required to post under some form of recognizable ID, and experienced moderators with power kept the conversation on track and kicked out people who attacked ideas or posters personally or strayed off topic.

Personally, I'd offer people absolute freedom to comment on issues, but suspend people who assaulted other people verbally, and if they didn't stop, kick them off the site. There is no excuse or justification for the way they behave. People are responsible for their words as well as their actions.

I think the single biggest regret I have about being on Slashdot isn't that the flames or the silly name-calling, but that nobody but me gets to see some of the most amazing e-mail in the world, not just to me but everybody who writes here -- from bio-ethicists, geneticists, programmers, brilliant geeks and nerds, educators. I've shared much of this mail with Rob and others so they can see it. None of these posters would dream of posting on Threads, and if they did, Slashdot would have the best technology discussions on the planet.

There is a staggering amount of hostility on Slashdot, which transcends disagreement. I think it's embedded deeply in the culture here -- as is intelligence and creativity.

The real casualty of this is that there's nowhere for people to go to have rational and informative discussions about technology privacy, hacking, cracking, copyright, genetics, AI, nano-technology, supercomputing. The only discussions that are possible occur in the places where people know the least mainstream journalism and politics.

Almost all of you have something to contribute about these discussions, but many of you choose not to. Youd rather flame and attack. It's your choice, but it does have consequences, for the site, and for the issues you claim to care about.

These public conversations have to occur, as digital democracy spreads and the Net collides with politics, and computing becomes more universal. But Im afraid the precedent being set here is that they will only occur in restricted environments, because conversations arent really possible in un-restricted ones.

Anti-Katz (Score:5, Interesting)
by Simeon2000 (irSc_addict@PhotmAail.cMom)

I am a Christian. I am a geek. I am not alone. Though we ChristoGeeks (a new demograph I just coined which you may proceed to patronize) tend to be a quiet group here on Slashdot, I felt the need to voice this question.

You seemingly never fail to rail upon religion (more often than not, Christianity) in each of your posts here. I haven't read your book, but more than likely you will do it in there, too. My question is... why? Obviously you are against religion, and seem to view it as a form of mind control/censorship. Did you have a bad experience with Christianity as a young child? Do you think the vocal minority of Christians in the public eye are obnoxious? Or is this simply another way to pander to your audience, who at the time is mainly comprised of anti-Christian Slashdot readers.

Katz:

I love the term ChristoGeeks. I have a great reverence for the Christianity as practiced and taught by Jesus Christ (see below). Were he alive today, I would be in his Church. And I hardly ever write about religion in any context. Its not a regular theme of mine at all.

If Jesus's teachings were followed today, we would live in a wonderful world. I have less affection and respect for contemporary organized religion of all faiths, which have, in my opinion, turned far away from such teaching. I do resent the so-called Christian Right, which intruded itself into American politics more than any other religion and often promotes censorship and a visceral distrust of technology. But I have also criticicized other religions when they do this.

I believe religion has no place in politics, education or technology.

Some -- in fact, almost all -- of the people closest to me in the world are devout Christians, and in the original and wonderful sense of the term. But it's a word that gets tossed around quite a bit by people who have no real right to use it, and who greatly distort the spirit and the teachings of Christ.

I hear from many people who identify themselves as Christians. When I think of Christianity, I think of a faith that at its core, promotes charity, tolerance, generosity, love and peace. Thats not what I see on Washington talk shows, where the so-called "Christian" agenda is often used to push for censorship, attack culture and technology, and force a certain kind of moral values on people who don't necessarily want them. Judaism and the Muslim Faith certainly do this as well, at times, but not nearly in so organized and vocal a way.

I also believe that religion, like all powerful institutions, needs watching and, occasionally, poking. It's not my purpose to give offense. But I have to say what I believe. Religion gets plenty of great press. It can handle a whack or two from me. (If you are interested, my last book, "Running To The Mountain," was inspired by the Trappist Monk and writer Thomas Merton. My ideas about religion are discussed there.) I don't mention it in my new book "Geeks", though.

Comments

authors conspicuously absent

[Chris Johnson]

"why are the authors conspicuously absent from the public forums?"

They aren't. I am a Slashdot author, and I'm conspicuously present in the public forums. I did the Borgification and Interface article. I have every intention of doing another, heartily encouraged by at least Roblimo who posted the last one- when I have something well-developed enough to say that I'm ready to spend some days writing it, just as if it was for print.

I tend to run long but not, I think, repetitively- basically the only time I feel I have an article is when I have a _lot_ of ground to cover. I disagree strongly with some of Katz's writing principles- I figure, if you are not quite sure you are right, why are you writing anything at all? The world has a way of _editing_ your rightness- unless you are truly pigheaded there's no reason to be wishywashy and pretend you don't have an opinion. If you are off base you _will_ be corrected, and at that point your notion of what is completely right will change. Rightness is not really a destination, it's more of a process- it is time based. I took pains to time-stamp the argumentative essays on airwindows.com for just this reason. When I go back and look at my ideas later, some of them will be wrong in the new context.

I feel that to fully interact with a world that is both embracing and hostile, you have to have both humility and selfconfidence- not one or the other, _both_ in large amounts. I figure I do pretty well on those grounds, mostly because I have to. I believe Jon Katz is on the one hand lacking in humility (which is a _very_ easy and obvious criticism to make) but on the other hand, lacking in selfconfidence. This sets him up to try and pull rank and _assert_ a superiority he does not feel and isn't entitled to- which is a large part of why he's not slugging it out in the threads like writers like me.

I can only guess at the reasons for this, but I'd single out Jon's attempts to censor his past from himself- he doesn't honor all parts of his life. He was a very heavyweight media exec, the Executive Producer of the CBS Morning News, and this seems to have horrified him so much that he attempts to call this another, now disdained, life. It is as if that life is not part of him at all.

Unfortunately, you can't do that- I suppose Thomas Merton, Jon's Trappist monk, led a more sheltered life which did not contain elements of shame. This is why Jon would be drawn to him, but it wouldn't equip Merton to be able to teach Jon about coming to terms with all elements of his life- and so he hasn't, and this is a barrier preventing Jon from dealing with us on equal terms.

I realize that I am a _strange_ candidate for bringing further enlightenment, but on other hand I'm one of the two critics Jon named who post under their own names with their own emails handy. I too have had supportive email from intelligent people over this. In retrospect, I'm a little disappointed in myself that I didn't consider the idea that _Jon_ felt inadequate: I know perfectly well how this sort of thing works, and now we have all the clues (former big media job that was repudiated, shame over past 'lives', efforts to behave 'born again' to totally disclaim the former life and not accept it in the slightest way) to see that, as so often happens, Jon's seeming arrogance is compensation. It reads as arrogance, but comes from feelings of inadequacy. Beating on him frankly doesn't help alter this, it perpetuates it, and I'm not surprised Jon resents such beating though he can't articulate it in a way that will help to stop it.

I would suggest,

"Hey, I like you people but I'm not as geeky as you are. I have some stuff in my past, such as being a bigshot TV Executive Producer, that is supposedly something to be proud of but which I am actually ashamed of. I don't want to live like that anymore but I still have the connections I made from that time. How about I pull some strings to try and use this uncomfortable position I'm in, 'slumming' with people whom I actually respect more than the Big Media people, in a way that helps the community? I've done the bigshot thing and it sucked and I'm still trying to shake the habits of thought it taught me. I'm trying as best I can to be one of you, but when I get flamed I tend to puff up with fake ego and bombast, which doesn't help me sleep and also doesn't make anybody flame me less. I don't know how to stop reacting like this. Can I stick around anyhow, in hopes that I learn something?

I, for one, would not continue saying 'no' if that was the question. Jon, people desperately want to resolve the contradictions in your presence here, but they can't until you come to terms with the contradictions within yourself. I'm almost completely sure that a lot of this stems from the whole 'rejection of media trendy' thing you've done to yourself- completely rebelling against what had to be a major part of your life, and desperately searching for something to redeem it, make it like it never happened. How about instead asking if perhaps Slashdotters could accept these parts of you? I see no reason why that wouldn't happen. In effect, you have decided for yourself that being a bigshot executive producer was _so_ bad that nobody can possibly accept you unless you pretend it didn't happen. It would be much healthier and more effective if you quit trying to deny entire parts of your life, and got honest about them. You pontificate a bit much for a writer- but there's a harmony and appropriateness about your pontificating as a writer-ex-bigshot-TV-producer... a friendly one, one that really loves geek culture and wants to further it, help it. That is likeable, more likeable than an incongruously bombastic philosopher-writer...

Be who you are, and I know that many of _my_ objections to your presence, your writing, will tend to fade away. This is because of who _I_ am: I have Asperger's Syndrome, and I do tend to fixate on such incongruities and hammer them into the ground- it's my nature, I have a tough time letting go of such things. It looks to me now that there's a path for you to be in more harmony with Slashdot, but it requires you to quit trying to redefine yourself using Slashdot as a tool- and _accept_ yourself, including the bits that shame you, with slashdot as an environment.

For the first time in a long time I'm genuinely happy I don't filter you, because this is just the sort of insight I needed to get... I might actually start wanting to hear from you if you can grow in this way. The key point is that not being who you are is a barrier: you've been getting defensive, you fight it, you try to be superior to avoid having your barrier broken, avoid the "He's nothing but a 'tired TV producer'!", and in doing so you cut off any chance of real communication- which is your only hope of thriving in the new media, much less as a person among other people.

Be who you are. Slashdot will accept a writer/pontificator/ex-TV-producer. What it will not accept is somebody who insists on being So Much More than an ex-TV-producer. Your efforts to 'rise above' what is only part of your life are separating you from the people whose community you want to belong to...