Is that really a myth though? Being surly and right can be workable indefinitely. As opposed to success via being polite and flattering while being wrong. Fundamentally they would be a parasite. Not a dichotomous extreme though in that it is better not to be rude unless it is called for. And rudeness can be very called for in response to evil.
The point being that rude isn't evil in itself although it may be inappropriate. The proper response to someone wanting to hold a klan meeting in your house is "get the hell out". Rudeness is a feedback mechanism.
The point being that while less than ideal it isn't unsuccessful in itself. Extremes are useful for extrapolation - even if it will never reach that point it is helpful to have the worst in mind to be vigilant of the flaws it may start to drift into.
There's no dichotomy here - you can be both right and wrong, and rude and polite. These are not related, and frequently not correlated at the least either, these are just two independent coordinates. Moreover, in many cases, you yourself is not in the position to know where on the right-wrong spectrum you ended up. Linus tends up to end closer to the right than wrong end, usually - but this is not universal, and it's not correlated with rudeness. Since being in rude-wrong quadrant makes you a jerk, and being in rude-right quadrant is no better than being in polite-right one, it is a good rule to try and stay on the polite half-plane as much as you can. Linus seems to realize that too, which is especially great because he is one of the few that can actually get away with many things. So his realizing he still should not is IMHO a positive development.
Depends on if right and wrong are defined via instance or percentage. A doctor who operates based upon germ theory may get a few diagnosises wrong or too late but he is fundamentally operating on "right".
A quack no matter what redeeming factors they may have is in the "wrong" even if his potions help via placebo effect or sheer accident like treating unrecognized dehydration simply by being water based.
Indefinitely was defined in the sense of viablility in flows. An actual business who provides a real product for sufficient margins can sustain itself indefinitely. Others may do better or circumstances may conspire against it but there is nothing stopping its success. It is a matter of ratios of course - right but rude may succeed with a sufficient base but if he alienates too many they are still doomed.
One which is fundamentally based on something wrong like say Theranos would collapse inevitably. Even if the entire world bought in. No matter how much they tried to work on fingertip blood testing they would find it inaccurate because the composition isn't the same as veinous blood. If they never lied about their viability it would merely be a noncriminal failure that ends when investors pull the plug or they run out of money. Unless they shifted to something viable successfully of course in which case they are no longer wrong.
Ironically noninvasive scanning of blood would have more potential for research success - while a very hard problem there is at least the data hidden within to be decoded. Alt-Theranos that shifted to it may still go bankrupt before they get a viable product from the tech not being ready but they would be on the right track and success before others were ready would pay off. Doctors loved noninvasive blood pressure measurement and would love a second by second view of blood chemistry.
