Funny, I think in terms of my "informational immune system" all the time, and the one time I used it here I got downvoted into oblivion (though it looks like I recovered a bit!): http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=2006412
Geeks are opposed to certain sources of knowledge, probably because they see themselves as on the receiving end of bad assumptions based on their clothes and mannerisms, and I agree with them that it's always best to avoid subjective judgments when possible. However, there are so many situations in life where you can't audit the source code yourself, and when there's serious risk, you have to make use of the information you have. You can't investigate the provenance of the cheese sandwich, and even if you could, do you really want to spend your whole life playing Sherlock Holmes? I'm thankful for open source and the people who read code, but I am not going to read the source code of every damn piece of software I use. Sometimes I'm just going to say, "The only source for this software is a shareware site in a country I've never heard of, and it claims to come bundled with porn, so I do not feel comfortable installing it on my Windows PC no matter how good some guy on 4chan says it is." Nothing against porn or countries I've never heard of, but my Spidey sense is tingling.
Geeks are opposed to certain sources of knowledge, probably because they see themselves as on the receiving end of bad assumptions based on their clothes and mannerisms, and I agree with them that it's always best to avoid subjective judgments when possible. However, there are so many situations in life where you can't audit the source code yourself, and when there's serious risk, you have to make use of the information you have. You can't investigate the provenance of the cheese sandwich, and even if you could, do you really want to spend your whole life playing Sherlock Holmes? I'm thankful for open source and the people who read code, but I am not going to read the source code of every damn piece of software I use. Sometimes I'm just going to say, "The only source for this software is a shareware site in a country I've never heard of, and it claims to come bundled with porn, so I do not feel comfortable installing it on my Windows PC no matter how good some guy on 4chan says it is." Nothing against porn or countries I've never heard of, but my Spidey sense is tingling.