Group 1: Anyone can criticize, some more constructively than others, but they always have a voice. By far the largest group, with the least to offer
collectively. Again, 'all the world's a critic.'
Group 2: Someone who can at least articulate a solution or alternative is significantly more credible than someone who can only criticize IMHO - it's that simple. Intellectually more of an effort than just 'recognizing problems' - at least the source has challenged themselves to think through alternatives. Weighing alternatives and ideas leads to solutions more often.
Group 3: There's a reason society rewards and recognizes innovators who find a way to make things better, and not simply the countless critics. The innovators are by far the most uncommon among us. I can't think of anyone significant who's been rewarded in a meaningful way for
only 'recognizing problems' and criticizing the status quo.
While they're indeed called movie critics, there's a difference between a critique (what movie critics engage in) and criticism. And a difference in personal taste isn't the same as criticism either, even though some people "value their tastes" over others and
criticize the tastes of others.
critique
OK, I don't really disagree with any of that. But to me, that's a long way from the idea that someone who might criticize something w/o offering a solution is upsetting to the point of being a 'pet peeve'.
In fact, after thinking on this a while, I've decided on a full 180 from your stance, and I will say that people who
don't complain, regardless of whether they can offer a solution or not, are a 'pet peeve' of mine!
The reason being, complaints drive companies, governments, or any responsible party, to action. If say, no one complained about an important web site being slow and crashing, would it have gotten enough attention to push for fixes? Likely not as much. Yet, probably 99.9% of the people accessing that web site were not technical enough to suggest any solution at all. And those with some technical expertise were not privy to the internal workings to suggest fixes. But the complaints help drive improvements.
So yes, my pet peeve is people who don't complain - without enough complainers, progress slows, and I don't want the complainers to be limited to only those with suggestions for improvement.
Here's a recent personal example. I'm talking to my Mom, and she starts complaining that her computer is really, really slow, a lot of beach ball spinning. She has nothing to offer in terms of a fix. So are you saying she should not complain?
Well, her complaint got me thinking - she normally 'sleeps' her computer rather than shut it down. So I asked how long it had been since she did a full re-start. She really didn't know the difference, but after a while, memory fragments don't get de-allocated, and the computer is forced to use swap space which is really, really slow. So she restarts it, and Ala-Kazaam!, her computer is running hundreds of times faster.
So she was wrong to complain w/o a solution? I should be upset with her? That I just don't get.
-ERD50