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Everything's Made Up and The Points Don't Matter - raganwald's posterous

raganwald.posterous.com

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Re: Everything's Made Up and The Points Don't Matter - raganwald's posterous

#31

Post by rada »

clintjhill wrote: post #15
mahmud wrote: post #13

Fake activism hurts real activism. Please label your fiction as such. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amina_Abdallah_Arraf_al_Omari

I don't intend to minimize your point, rather I want to point out that if you are saying "don't write unless it's real" you are really truly stepping over what value creative writing provides. Even to disclaimer is to say ignore what was written because it isn't real. Creative writing for satire or parody are critical aspects of humanity. It is unfortunate when lives are at stake as a result. But there are so many wr…

The parent clearly did not say "don't write fiction" but rather "label fiction as such".

Re: Everything's Made Up and The Points Don't Matter - raganwald's posterous

#32

Post by freshhawk »

notatoad wrote: post #26
yan wrote: post #23

Am I in the minority in thinking this didn't need a clarification? It was aimed at a technical audience that would likely catch the humor and direct signs of fiction. I do realize that the impact of the story led to its larger audience, but this does not change the original intent. The ambiguity in story telling (and music, and art, and ..) adds depth. Clarifying it after the fact, with the proverbial lights on remov…

regardless of who it was aimed at, it ended up on the front page of reddit. and we all know how reddit is about believing stuff, and then how they react when they find out they've been 'lied' to. i'm sure at least a few people have threatened to kill raganwald's cats by now.

Did you read the comments here? Because the HN comment thread was full of people that thought it was a real letter.

There are plenty of good reasons to take shots at reddit. This one is stupid.

Re: Everything's Made Up and The Points Don't Matter - raganwald's posterous

#33

Post by freshhawk »

yan wrote: post #23

Am I in the minority in thinking this didn't need a clarification? It was aimed at a technical audience that would likely catch the humor and direct signs of fiction. I do realize that the impact of the story led to its larger audience, but this does not change the original intent. The ambiguity in story telling (and music, and art, and ..) adds depth. Clarifying it after the fact, with the proverbial lights on remov…

I thought it didn't need clarification but judging by the comments on HN it certainly did.

We can all bitch about whether or not people should have gotten it, and I don't think very highly of the reading comprehension skills of the people that didn't, but they didn't. The author didn't communicate his point in a way that translated to his audience. That's the entire purpose of his public, rather than private, blog. So it needed clarification.

Re: Everything's Made Up and The Points Don't Matter - raganwald's posterous

#34

Post by raphman »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #19
CaptainZapp wrote: post #9

You know, some time ago I decided it's much more important that a story is interesting, then that it,s true. And your story was just brilliant.

What's your take on Mike Daisey's Chinese Apple factories controversy?

There is a difference between not telling that a story is not true (raganwald) and explicitly telling that a story is true (Daisey).

Re: Everything's Made Up and The Points Don't Matter - raganwald's posterous

#35

Post by eli_gottlieb »

michaelochurch wrote: post #2

I feel like there's an American Spring going on. Before 2012, people have been very reluctant to blow whistles on unethical activities in their own companies, for fear of losing their jobs (likely) and damaging their career in the long term (unlikely, but much scarier). That seems to be changing, with the NYT Goldman Sachs article and various revelations coming out in Silicon Valley. People are finally speaking out a…

>That seems to be changing, with the NYT Goldman Sachs article and various revelations coming out in Silicon Valley.

Which revelations out of Silicon Valley?

Re: Everything's Made Up and The Points Don't Matter - raganwald's posterous

#36

Post by darklajid »

one-man-bucket wrote: post #30
raganwald wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may have something there, I do recall meeting a member of Apple’s System Seven team, and his business card read: Omniscient Thaumaturge, Blue Meanies Group

Not bad! On a similar note Etablissemanget adopted "treating objects like women" as their slogan.

Where do you work and how can I apply for a job? :)

Re: Everything's Made Up and The Points Don't Matter - raganwald's posterous

#37

Post by saurik »

raganwald wrote: post #25
yan wrote: post #23

Am I in the minority in thinking this didn't need a clarification? It was aimed at a technical audience that would likely catch the humor and direct signs of fiction. I do realize that the impact of the story led to its larger audience, but this does not change the original intent. The ambiguity in story telling (and music, and art, and ..) adds depth. Clarifying it after the fact, with the proverbial lights on remov…

Not in the minority, but here’s the thing. As long as this was primarily in our community, I was comfortable with a wee bit of ambiguity. Hackers and others are perfectly capable of doing a little fact-checking such as looking at my online resume or noticing that I write a lot of stuff like this. Perhaps one in a hundred or even thousand people reading it might have thought it was real. But once it escaped our cozy l…

In my experience, it has not been possible to predict the audience of such things ahead of time: in fact, it is the things where the most audience-specific assumptions are made that end up (I believe due to those specific assumptions) ending up in the most surprising and irritating of places.

Re: Everything's Made Up and The Points Don't Matter - raganwald's posterous

#38

Post by JamesLeonis »

dagw wrote: post #7

I just assumed that Team FizzBuzz was him anonymising the actual team involved.

I did as well. His story seemed a bit far fetched, but not outside the realm of possibility. I did a quick search to see if he did quit his company before I realized what he was really saying. That really hit home with me about how easily it would be for a company to institute this kind of policy and how it might backfire.

Re: Everything's Made Up and The Points Don't Matter - raganwald's posterous

#39

Post by jeremyarussell »

mahmud wrote: post #13

Fake activism hurts real activism. Please label your fiction as such. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amina_Abdallah_Arraf_al_Omari

It wouldn't have been the same, for those of us who thought it was real (I won't lie, I'm one of them.) Whether it was due to not getting that Fizz Buzz is small and wouldn't need a team or that the letter was meant to emphasize the fiction and not hammer home the message (as I thought.) It does no one any good to go and blame the man making the posts for something we failed at (like fact checking, or reading the rest of the comments before commenting myself.)

Yeah it's embarrassing when it happens, take this as a lesson to self improve. Not attempt to call out fake activism.

Edit: Spelled Buzz wrong earlier.

Re: Everything's Made Up and The Points Don't Matter - raganwald's posterous

#40

Post by astrodust »

yan wrote: post #23

Am I in the minority in thinking this didn't need a clarification? It was aimed at a technical audience that would likely catch the humor and direct signs of fiction. I do realize that the impact of the story led to its larger audience, but this does not change the original intent. The ambiguity in story telling (and music, and art, and ..) adds depth. Clarifying it after the fact, with the proverbial lights on remov…

I had to double-check that the place he was working hadn't degenerated into some sweat-shop with, shudder, an HR department. It was kind of obvious, yet not completely apparent.
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