The Banality of Don't Be Evil - NYTimes.com
Without even understanding how, they have updated and seamlessly implemented George Orwell’s prophecy. If you want a vision of the future, imagine Washington-backed Google Glasses strapped onto vacant human faces — forever.
This is an op-ed piece from Julian Assange, the guy behind WikiLeaks. The fact that the NY Times is publishing this is somewhat significant, as the paper hasn’t been known for being overly kind to Mr. Assange.
In any event, think whatever you will of Julian Assange, I believe he has correctly assessed the nature of Google, the power of Big Data and the loss of privacy. It represents a huge lever for corporations to manipulate consumers, for governments to control citizens, and for corporations to coerce government.
Be very careful what you wish for.
One wonders if anyone’s actually seen the movie.
I love the movie, but it’s not flattering about anything. It’s a pretty damning indictment of corporate capitalism, unbridled technology, class warfare, decay, dissipation, decline and Detroit.
This is like Reagan using Born in the USA as re-election anthem.
Robocop is not Rocky.
People are foolish.
I worked at Facebook from 2005 to 2010 in a series of roles culminating in a position as Zuckerberg’s speechwriter, and had an opportunity to observe the development of Facebook both as a social media platform and as what it increasingly aims to become: a global leader on par with nations. “Companies over countries,” Zuckerberg often said in meetings
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Kate Losse for Dissent Magazine: Feminism’s Tipping Point: Who Wins from Leaning in? (via iamdanw)
“Companies over countries.” That’s an outcome of commercial culture. An undesirable outcome.
(via buzz)
Blame the Poor, the Sick and the Elderly
The most striking feature of the U.S. economy over the last three decades has been the upward redistribution of income. The top 1.0 percent of households has managed to pocket the vast majority of gains over this period. That is a sharp contrast with the three decades immediately following World War II when the benefits of much more rapid growth were broadly shared.
This pattern of growth might lead people to question the policies that have led to this upward redistribution (e.g. trade policy, labor policy, monetary policy, and anti-trust policy). In order to prevent such questioning and to further the process of upward redistribution many wealthy people have sought to focus public attention on programs that benefit the middle class and/or poor.
Briefly
The conservative complaint against the “nanny-state” doesn’t originate in some abiding faith in individual liberty. It originates from resentment. They resent legislative interference in the opportunity to exploit human ignorance and weakness.
Their complaint resonates because it appeals to our ego, a human weakness and perhaps the greatest source of ignorance of the self. Those who profit from ignorance and weakness rely on ignorance and weakness to preserve and perpetuate it.
We can’t all be physicians, engineers, accountants and scientists, so we rely on people with expertise in important matters. But if we rely on them to help establish a a legal and economic framework that reduces our vulnerability to exploitation, those who profit from weakness and vulnerability cry foul.
We’re not opposed to laws against fraud, where people deliberately deceive and misrepresent and profit from it. Yet much of our commerce is based upon fraud. It’s just better packaged, more sophisticated.
We know many food products are harmful to us. We know our consumer lifestyle is destroying the natural environment and compromising the ability of the planet to sustain our lives. Yet we’re “sold” on the value and utility of harmful and unsustainable goods and practices. Efforts by government to reduce the vulnerability, alter the practices, are treated as acts of oppression.
Most of us are victims, and since none of us wishes to see ourselves as victims, we turn a blind eye to it and call it “business as usual.” If we see others who are victims, the obese, the unhealthy, the poor, we blame them. They “chose” their lot, despite an entire industry devoted to relentlessly promoting ignorance and impairing the faculty of rational choice in order to profit from it.
Such is the world of commerce and marketing and our consumerist lifestyle.
The meaning of life is not found in aisle 10.
About that Grover Norquist Guy…
What I find astonishing about the whole Grover Norquist phenomenon is why anyone would think it’s appropriate for the elected representative of a congressional district to make himself accountable to a lobbyist instead of his or her constituents!
Why any of those guys got re-elected will forever remain a mystery to me. Whether or not you agree with the “pledge,” your representative is accountable to you, not some paid shill in DC. It’s absolutely asinine.
"All that stuff I said before? Yeah, never mind."
Mr. Romney used striking new language to describe his policy proposals on taxes, education and health care in ways that may assuage independent voters.
Where by, “used striking new language,” they mean, “lied through his teeth.”
