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We Like You So Much and Want to Know You Better

nytimes.com

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Re: We Like You So Much and Want to Know You Better

#41

Post by hjay »

droithomme wrote: post #34
hjay wrote: post #20

Wow, I could never write this well in a million years, but as I was reading, I couldn't help but feel that this was a blog post that I've been wanting to write for a while. Without going on a rant and hi-jacking this thread, replacing "Participation Rank" with "consumption of beer/alcohol", "gathering" with "late night beer party", "Dad had a seizure" with "Mom was very sick", "kayak" with "badminton", "profile" with…

Please do and report back if you have a chance, it sounds like it will be a good one and I'd love to read it.

Hmm, since the demand is > 0 now, I guess I will! Not too sure how to get reply notifications on HN though, I always lose track of responses.

Re: We Like You So Much and Want to Know You Better

#42

Post by [deleted] »

jonah wrote: post #25
creamyhorror wrote: post #2

Perfect. A much friendlier, much more social, much more corporate 1984. (Another heartbreaking work of staggering genius?) edit: Yes, it's pretty transparently a reference to Google. Zings sound more like tweets, though. And monitoring everything has turned out to be primarily the NSA's job, but I guess he finished the book before that scandal came to real light.

Or maybe A Brave New World. Neil Postman compares them: http://www.prosebeforehos.com/image-of-the-day/08/24/huxley-...

[deleted]

Re: We Like You So Much and Want to Know You Better

#43

Post by hrkristian »

varjag wrote: post #7
creamyhorror wrote: post #2

Perfect. A much friendlier, much more social, much more corporate 1984. (Another heartbreaking work of staggering genius?) edit: Yes, it's pretty transparently a reference to Google. Zings sound more like tweets, though. And monitoring everything has turned out to be primarily the NSA's job, but I guess he finished the book before that scandal came to real light.

Odd, until I read that, I thought it refers to Apple. The culture of neatness, perfectionism, gadget obsession, even the motto stones that reek APPL slogans.

Apple is generally referred to as the "company where millions; billions want to be" so like you that's where I initially landed.

I don't see how your parent made the transition from modernized 1984 (which was very astute IMO) to Google. This to me is a critique of corporate culture, and, perhaps more than anything of Silicon Valley culture.

Seems to me the author did a good job of keeping the text open, the comment field is rife with personal bias and it took me two iterations to get rid of the knee-jerk Google defense.

Re: We Like You So Much and Want to Know You Better

#44

Post by Someone »

creamyhorror wrote: post #2

Perfect. A much friendlier, much more social, much more corporate 1984. (Another heartbreaking work of staggering genius?) edit: Yes, it's pretty transparently a reference to Google. Zings sound more like tweets, though. And monitoring everything has turned out to be primarily the NSA's job, but I guess he finished the book before that scandal came to real light.

I think it is more general a critique of current culture (a combination if "you haven't done anything until you have told the world" and "you must have something to hide if you do something but don't tell the world about it", the latter a bit more implicit)

Apart from the hardware, it could be Facebook, too. And, surely, it could be Microsoft, in a few years time.

"Zing" is a beautiful term, by the way. It resembles 'to sing' (especially for those who speak Dutch), with all its positive correlations. And, of course, the name is taken; both zing.com and zing.nl exist.

Re: We Like You So Much and Want to Know You Better

#45

Post by arh68 »

>All that happens must be known.

Yeah, okay :D. What a lie. We have film for every Super Bowl, every World Cup, probably every 6 o'clock news since 1960. But who's seen it? Who goes back on old recorded video when there is a live feed? I've met none.

Who won the tenth Super Bowl? The first World Cup? Normal people don't know these things. First response is to google it. The computers remember, but nobody knows anything.

There is a huge difference Encylopedia Brittanica (or perhaps a downloaded Wikipedia) and this millions-of-cameras-recording-everything. With live coverage, nobody watches old tape. A set of EB is finite, open for static inspection, colocated with your living room. An ever-growing dataset of millions of camera feeds (colocated 3 states away) is, to the human brain, useless. The magnitude's far too large. Why write anything down if you can pull up the feed? Why record anything with a DVR/VCR when it's online? Why 'know' anything at all when the computer can tell you?

WINSTON SMITH enters stage right

Re: We Like You So Much and Want to Know You Better

#47

Post by ttflee »

cldr wrote: post #5

"All that happens must be known." Wow. So much insidiousness packed into six little words. They conveniently forget to mention by whom it should be known.

Incredible.

For everything being known by all, it would take O(N!) edges for N vertices. Which type of satellites could hold under this throughput? It's just purely incredible!

Re: We Like You So Much and Want to Know You Better

#48

Post by visakanv »

hjay wrote: post #41
droithomme wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please do and report back if you have a chance, it sounds like it will be a good one and I'd love to read it.

Hmm, since the demand is > 0 now, I guess I will! Not too sure how to get reply notifications on HN though, I always lose track of responses.

I'd read it too.

Re: We Like You So Much and Want to Know You Better

#49

Post by visakanv »

psn wrote: post #29

I'm a employee of a large tech company that's being parodied here, and I found this really disconcerting. The scenes with the boss and HR are completely different to my experience. No one cares what I do at the weekend. No one cares about my social media presence. No one cares if I use the company's products or not. A few clear examples: one of my grandparents passed away, and the company was as supportive as possibl…

aw shush, stop letting truth get in the way of a good story!

Re: We Like You So Much and Want to Know You Better

#50

Post by visakanv »

elwell wrote: post #36
kazagistar wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't even have to work for a social media company to see the "community building" pressure; any modern, web-friendly, "agile" firm is trying to get its employees to invest themselves into the company. If you are part of the community, its harder to switch jobs.

If you write or know of a blog post about this, I would be interested in reading it.

Me too.
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