The Randian undertones in O’Reilly’s thinking are hard to miss, even as he flaunts his liberal credentials. “There’s a way in which the O’Reilly brand essence is ultimately a story about the hacker as hero, the kid who is playing with technology because he loves it, but one day falls into a situation where he or she is called on to go forth and change the world,” he wrote in 2012. But it’s not just the hacker as hero that O’Reilly is so keen to celebrate. His true hero is the hacker-cum-entrepreneur, someone who overcomes the insurmountable obstacles erected by giant corporations and lazy bureaucrats in order to fulfill the American Dream 2.0: start a company, disrupt an industry, coin a buzzword. Hiding beneath this glossy veneer of disruption-talk is the same old gospel of individualism, small government, and market fundamentalism that we associate with Randian characters. For Silicon Valley and its idols, innovation is the new selfishness.
Thursday, April 04, 2013
The most dangerous man in Silicon Valley ...
... The Meme Hustler | Evgeny Morozov | The Baffler. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
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George Carlin comes to mind here; remember his commentary on The American Dream (which may well subsume and ameliorate the National Dream or Global-Village Dream or . . .)?
ReplyDeleteParaphrastically: They call it The American Dream because its citizens only achieve it during sleep.
I call it The AD. I do not, BTW, belong to any online orgs (Twitter, FB, et so forthia).
Wait a sec . . . it occurs to me I have created a channel on YouTube for HannaH GrrL: youtube [dot] com/user/DameLucky/videos?sort=dd&view=0&flow=list
J'ai refusé d'embrasser, to abandon my addiction to words, endlessly makar-itic, talismaniacal, utterly specific. And? You know it, you go with it, you positively glow with it.
Also? IMO, The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged's author fails because she refuses to give credence to the fact human beings cannot but care for / about others.
I ref-recall specifically that scene where the leading lady in the former smashes the statue given her with the condemnation it stands as an object too beautiful to exist. Talk sop-op glop-slop and change the channel to Y&R.
(Erm . . . YOU keep the remote in control . . . I don't own no Televisio, no.)
And, I don't for a moment believe tax-relief status motivates most givers of time, talent, moolah, and access to education. Sorry. Wrong numbness.
A sweetheart here in Alberta, Canada, a BeJillionaire, D. Brett Wilson, creates communities, safe and nurturing ones, enclaves that provide a hand-up rather than a hand-out.
I love this guy tonnes (and, he doesn't know this global-village idiot exists); b-b-but, when did that ever stop a watching heart on- or off-cloudclocknine, eight to the bar, seventh heaven, sixth sense, fifth business, four-score trinity-tree, two-for-one in all, eternally, though)?
Bet BeLovely Linda knows those what occupy the un-incorporated remaindire, the unquiet. Yes, I visit quietly and unobtrusively. You all exist vibrantly and valiantly in my thoughts and prayers, Dave Lull inclus, a friend who never said he did not want "to get in the middle of ________ ."
Once I hear that? I hear, most accurately, the individual passive-aggressively uttering, "I have decided to turf you, to cavalierly toss you under the bus because I am loyal to _______ who sends me links to all his brilliant stuff (c.f. Carlin)."
Incroyable and too unfair to articulate nor extrapolate further. Ouchie ouchie :(.
When you give hard-cover works worth damned-near two-hunnert bux, now, in a four-book set to an individual and they promise to read and comment or smash your hopes with a fake promise to write about the works a priori and then bullshit you with one word concerning your life's culminary, you turn away in sorrow and sadness you got hooked and hood-winked, especially when two sets of said work, author copies, numbered and / or signed, simply add to the collections of the persons who lied to you.
Tears streaming down my face, now . . . O, I love Slash's "You're A Lie" and how :) . . .
It can't find sugar-coating but the wound heals and you tell yourself, We always attack ourselves first . . . You forgive the action but you vow, now, brown sow-cow, triple ripple . . . A clean straight skate up-river (Liffey) on th'Liver.
ReplyDeleteIn plain Anguish? My bullshit meter goes off the scale, aussi, blood flood beyond the pale. Once bitten, twice burnt. No more Mrs. Nice Guy. Yes, my lessons got learnt. Taught so well; I guess we shall all re-discover each other in some other heaven or hell . . .
It hurts painfully and acutely; thus, you chide yourself: "I am a freaking fool."
And, you stop giving anything to anyone because you know it will add to the broken pieces of heart you already gave to Him and let that go, now.
Dying ain't no art. A human being being human and believing (in) someone? That breaks a vulnerable heart. Aye, that daggerstabs, forever sets apart, think Marlowe, think eye right, I write. So, sue me, Boy-O-Boy.
All the best t'all with wishes all'swell that enders/well. Thanks for the fish, thanks for the hooks, thanks for the flash plash, thanks for purposely forgetting my name. Think that's all the thanks I thank I thinka, thinka, thinka . . .
My name is Antonio; I'm on my ownio.
Adieu, a due, a deitue virtu, too . . .
Undeniably, J/DiT
--
MON AMI DOC TOM CONNORS WILL STOMP NO MORE:
http://www.judithfitzgerald.ca/docstompin.html
JUDITH FITZGERALD'S FRESH [NEVER FROZEN] WRITESITE:
http://www.judithfitzgerald.ca/
NY, NY's PHILIP MILITO ON FITZGERALD IN THE CANADIAN ENCYCLOPAEDIA:
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/judith-fitzgerald
FITZ FACT: A thing IS a think, periodically tabled. / FITZ MOTTO: Better, not bitter.
FITZ LAW: If things can go wrong, they already has.