Sigh... More Ignorance About SEO

As I said, blogging is light this week, but I couldn't help but notice this thread at Metafilter. How can we fight against such entrenched misinformation and stereotypes?

SEO people remind me of "weight weenies" in the bicycle world. Instead of focusing on training and riding and getting faster through practice, weight weenies obsess over how many grams lighter their new water bottle cage is, and forever want to discuss the lightest possible wheels they could put on their bikes to make them "faster"....

...And decent SEO people are totally okay people. And, while it's inconvenient for them, they may want to let go of the label "SEO" if they want to stop being associated with the teeming hordes of snake oil salemen who have spent the last few years making those three letters into a red badge of assage...

...SEO? Die in a fire. All of the spam I get that slips through gmail's filters is SEO link exchange requests. All of the chat requests I get are SEO "hay letz trade linxz!" douchebags. I hate these people. Really...

...Everything about this post reeks of what's wrong with SEO. It's like standing at the subway platform and watching the news headlines flash by on the CCTV. It may seem like you're getting informed, but it's just a bunch of headlines/blurbs...

Despite the years of educational efforts and promotion of SEO by even the search engines themselves, this kind of thing pervades. Is it heartbreaking? Or fuel to work that much harder?