Thank You for Smoking

One of our favorite topics here at Peer Pressure is how, when and why Europe will be able to compete on an equal footing with the U.S. (particularly Silicon Valley) in the software development industry. Thankfully, Robert Scoble has provided us with the definitive answer: ban smoking.

Oh, puleeeeeeaze!

First of all, the implication that geeks are somehow less likely to be smokers than the general population is, in my experience, complete hogwash. When I worked in Germany, there was a cute cartoon on the wall with the caption “Entwickler sind entweder Kettenraucher oder militante Nichtraucher” (developers are either chain-smokers or militant antismokers), with the requisite illustration of a guy with cigarettes protruding from every orifice while his colleague in the adjacent cube donned a gas mask and double-fisted air-freshening aerosols. Californians are rarely smokers, which I suppose is what got Scoble all confused. Frankly it’s sad that someone could come to Europe, ignore its incredible cultural, linguistic and culinary diversity; gorgeous architecture; open-minded, well-informed, liberal attitudes; rich history spanning millenia; and so forth and come out of it with a single pithy conclusion: it smells.

Smoking doesn’t have much going for it (and I say this as a constantly-quitting smoker), but civil liberties do. Seen in this light, holier-than-thou bellyachers are as much of a threat as toxic smoke.

For a somewhat more insightful view of where Europe stands in the global software arena, you could do worse than check out my podcast with AllPeers investor Mark Tluszcz.

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10 Comments »

1. surely Nichtraucher is more an nonsmoker than an antismoker?

   Comment by marcel — 7/6/2006 @ 11:27 pm

2. Well the literal translation is not always the best one. In this case I felt the English word “antismoker” (which doesn’t have a direct equivalent in German anyway) better captured the mood of the comic.

   Comment by Matt — 7/7/2006 @ 10:10 am

3. Oh man, haven’t laughed like this in a while..

   Hmmm, now that I’m thinking about it, this was almost as funny: wat a brilliant idea to bring about an equality.

   Comment by ernestevans — 7/7/2006 @ 12:45 pm

4. First of all, I just want to say that I’m really looking forward to AllPeers. It sounds like it’s going to be an awesome product.

   Second, I think you’re being a bit hard on Scoble. He wasn’t launching an attack on European culture. He was just saying that, outside Silicon Valley, there just isn’t much of a tech culture, and that this holds for 99% of the US as well as the EU.

   Having, as you say, “cultural, linguistic and culinary diversity; gorgeous architecture; open-minded, well-informed, liberal attitudes; rich history spanning millenia” may be great, but it doesn’t necessarily make for a great tech culture.

   As a side note, I think I know why you think that Europe is a bastion of “open-minded, well-informed, liberal attitudes,” but I disagree. It’s true that on average Europeans avoid the sort of crudeness we see from Bush and Co. (e.g. constitutional ammendments to ban gay marriage and the like). That ain’t saying much. Get a Frenchman and a Spaniard together, ask them to debate the relative merits of the Louvre and the Prado, and see how open-minded the conversation is.

   -Jamie

   Comment by Jamie — 7/7/2006 @ 7:59 pm

5. Thanx for the post. Got to know a loads about European culture. And that was some funny stuff offcourse.

   Comment by vincentdamon — 7/11/2006 @ 7:10 am

6. This blog has become totally irrelevant to your product now? Please let us know your progress or anything related to your product.

   Comment by Brian — 7/12/2006 @ 5:16 pm

7. I can’t blog about what I want on my blog? When we have stuff to say about the product, which is quite often, we say it here. I don’t think it’s useful to give daily updates.

   Comment by Matt — 7/12/2006 @ 5:37 pm

8. Hey, nothing personal. I just hate to see you guys put so much effort and generate so much hype but in the end it may not get to promise land…I just downloaded FF2.0 beta and it said extension of 1.x may not work. I don’t know how quickly this 2.0 goes but it seems people start shifting gear already…

   Comment by Brian — 7/12/2006 @ 11:31 pm

9. Thanx for your podcast. I find its service pretty easy to read and listen to. It would be a fun knowing a lot about Europe without actually going there.

   Comment by vincentdamon — 7/13/2006 @ 6:18 am

10. That’s a great oppurtunity for chain smokers. They must ve found their place to enjoy and smoke n number of times without and indulgence and restrictions.

    Comment by Bobby — 7/13/2006 @ 6:38 am

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