I want to discuss the culture wars too -- but not the political culture wars. I'm talking about the technology culture wars, the endless conflict between, for lack of a better term, "geeks" -- technical people who like to tinker with tech -- and "noobs" -- nontechnical people who want gadgets to "just work."

(These might be vaguely offensive terms to some. But I think they're equally offensive to both groups. Gimme a break, there are no better labels than geeks and noobs.)

Anyway, I believe that if you scratch the surface of many recurring online debates and differences of opinion -- the vs. , vs. and vs. conflicts, as well as arguments over issues like privacy -- you'll find that it's often really a culture-war argument between geeks and noobs.

The conflict between geeks and noobs has intensified in recent years because of the inexorable rise of the noobs.