I suppose he's gotten slightly better at talking. He seems nervous, but isn't a complete wreck (see interviews from 2 years ago, he has improved a lot since then). As I understand it the markets responded well to Zuck's talk with Arrington and now with Bennet -- fb stock shot up after each of the interviews. But that doesn't excuse the fact he is a cartoonishly twisted guy and entrepreneurs and consumers alike should be leery of his every move. Does he seriously expect people to buy his latest spiel about immigration? This is the guy who created a political movement that went so far as to fund ads for oil drilling in arctic national wildlife refuge and putting down Keystone XL pipelines, so, sorry, I'm not buying that he's in this cause because he met someone who couldn't attend college because they were illegal immigrants. Having talked at length with people who knew him in his Harvard days, he's ruthless, relentless, and rapacious -- he has determined he's going to approach the immigration issue in the public arena with stories about illegal immigrants not getting accepted into colleges, and this seems to be the way he's going at it. Pity. He's the face of a serious issue that warrants genuine people looking at it with sincerity and good faith, instead we're stuck with Zuck.
This is the guy who literally called the users of his site "dumb fucks", and was literally willing -- no, eager to hand over private details of his site's users to his friends. I ran forums that garnered about 12k users per month when I was 16, I took the responsibility of safeguarding my users' private information very seriously.
The only thing that's changed about Zuck is he's learned to not say these things out loud, play a nice PR game, and meet people and convince them that he's a nice fella who wants best for everybody and "connect the world!" through Facebook (no matter if you want to be connected to it or not).
> The only thing that's changed about Zuck is he's learned to not say these things out loud
I am not a fan of Zuckerberg, but I don't think you have any right to claim such a thing. People can change.
It's good to hear you were so responsible at age 16, but not everyone matures so quickly. My own personality has basically done a complete 180 since my high school and uni days, from the biggest prick you ever met to someone who genuinely tries to show compassion and consider others' points of view. Is it all a façade to conceal the inner asshole? I'm sure you could make that case, but in the end it's outcomes that matter. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but the flip-side of that is that sometimes people who might still be assholes internally can do a lot of good.
Track record is important, yes. But giving sincere people second chances is also important, and that goes for Zuck, too.
He's also very normal on a human level if you just step back for a moment.
He's a programmer, so being awkward in interviews makes sense when he's starting out. He's young and arrogant, and therefore there's probably records of dumb comments he's made. He's also getting older and more mature, so I'm sure he's changed his mind on a few things.
All of this strikes me as a normal, reasonably honest person, and really that's about as much as you can ask for.
This comment seemed to me a perfect specimen of the type that drags down forums: vitriolic and ill-informed. I've hypothesized before that the problem is not that people make such comments (which seems inevitable if you have open, anonymous signups) but that others upvote them. So I analyzed the votes to see if there was a pattern, and indeed there is. The median karma of upvoters was 644, and the median karma of downvoters was 1814, almost 3x as high. If this pattern holds up it could be very useful.
What does the ratio look like on a "neutrally controversial" comment look like? That is, a comment that isn't toxic, but merely dividing the community.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if that pattern is sustainably observed, then it almost certainly means the upvote/downvote privileges should be changed, correct?
Elsewise, the pattern will continue like entropy, until the majority of comments are like that.
There already are certain privileges to karma: you need a certain threshold to downvote comments at all, and I suspect that thresholds to get onto the front page are based on the karma of who upvotes your story. (There've been times where my upvote alone, going from 2 to 3 votes, is enough to get something on the front page, while many times I've seen new stories with 4-5 points that don't make it.) I suspect PG is thinking of tweaking the weights, automatically, until there's enough of a weight to high-karma downvotes to kill bad comments. You could easily train an SVM or other classifier on some set good/bad comments and then pull out the coefficients to figure out what signals should go into weighting point totals.
Karma doesn't necessarily translate to expertise. Most of my highest-karma comments have been utter nonsense. High karma can mean people have agreed with you, or that you've been here longer than not, and it probably is a good measure that you can conform to the norms of the community, but it doesn't necessarily mean you know what you're talking about.
I mean, people will listen when tptacek talks about cryptography, but that doesn't mean his opinion on design should necessarily matter more than that of a designer with less karma just because tptacek has the bigger integer attached to his name. It's not really more 'fair' for votes by high karma users to outweigh votes by lower karma users.
Unless it already works that way in which case it's the best thing ever and clearly pg is going God's work.
I've worked on content-based Bayesian voting schemes. They work well weighting votes by content words. tptacek + cryptography should matter more.
Here, though, it seems as if HN experts and novices may be representative. pg used to run the front page based on karma. Comments seems like a place where that simplistic approach could work well.
I can't understand this comment at all. Do you think Zuckerberg secretly agrees with ~50% of America about building a new oil pipeline through Canada? Or do you think he's ambivalent about oil pipelines and happy to quid pro quo them for immigration law support? Or is it something else?
Pure projection. You can't possibly know such a thing.
To be a public figure is to be a cartoon character in a lot of imaginary dramas. Elsewhere on the front page right now is a story about successful companies with founders no one has heard of. It's easy to see why they'd prefer to keep it that way.
I'm pretty sure I said worse things to my friends in private when I was that age. I shudder to think what it would feel like to have it disclosed publicly.
I strongly disagree with your characterization of him as 'cartoonishly twisted' and think that if you're going to write someone off for being overly glib in a private conversation while they're in college, then you're casting an incredibly wide net.
There are other people saying the same thing about immigration law's effect on high school students [1]. So don't discount this particular argument just because it comes from someone you don't trust.
I'm confident that if you or most people existed under as much scrutiny as Zuck, they'd find something equally damaging you'd said somewhere in the past.
I was made aware of how much propaganda there is in Western movies by a comment here on HN:
"The major exception here is the Department of Defense, which has an ‘open’ but barely publicized relationship with Tinsel Town, whereby, in exchange for advice, men and invaluable equipment, such as aircraft carriers and helicopters, the Pentagon routinely demands flattering script alterations."
Do you recall any big American movie in the last decade (or even more) that painted America's military in a non-positive light? I don't. I do remember Zero Dark Thirty (if you watch carefully you'll see how they basically say that torture works great in getting prisoners to hand over information), I do remember The Hurt Locker, and a whole list of other movies, Iron Man and Captain America being the latest examples (Iron Man originally used to be about fighting communism, now it is about fighting terrorism).
Hollywood output is a very valuable export to the world in this way of framing America's image in the world, and I'm betting America is becoming even more aware of this and will put even more resources to this effort in coming time.
To me, truly the most amazing thing about this is that pretty much no-one knows about this! Tell someone that there's a lot of American propaganda in Western movies and they'll take you for a conspiracy nut.
I don't think "The Hurt Locker" was particularly critical of the military and didn't count it. Also not counting documentaries like "Restrepo".
I hereby dispute the idea that the DOD has made it impossible for big-budget Hollywood movies to criticize the US military, and suggest instead that the bias Hollywood in favor of the military is responding to customer preferences and not leading it. Given what I presume to be America's default position of "supporting our troops", I'm struck by how many films Hollywood produce that challenge that default.
Remember also that Hollywood confronts at least two vectors of consumer preference in marketing films: first, Americans (in the large) have a (typical) diffuse nationalistic home-team support for our overseas adventures, and, more importantly, there's a less-political less-issue-oriented reverence expected for the sacrifices made by the young people we send into combat which is especially intense during times when large numbers of people are serving in combat zones. In other words, it's especially tricky to criticize the military during active conflicts.
No, Three Kings paints a few AWOL oddballs on a quest to steal a treasure as benevolent, and apart from the whole theme of the movie being the ill impact of our involvement in the Middle East, goes out of its way to talk about how the US military killed children.
Three Kings is critical of the decision to encourage and promise to support an uprising by anti-Saddam Iraqis, then failing to deliver that support/not invading.
Whether you respond to this criticism by saying "we shouldn't have encouraged it" or "we should have invaded" or just "ain't war hell" depends on your politics, of course :)
* The training of US Army soldiers, who kill innocent and/or surrendering Iraqis,
* the relationship between the US Army and the media and the careful control the military exerts over the media,
* the entire US mission in the (first) Iraq war ("what are we doing here?", &c),
* the American bombing of Iraqi civilian centers, which, in a long monologue that is basically the heart of the movie, are revealed to have killed the antagonist's baby son.
There is no way to watch this movie and come away thinking that it glorifies the US military.
(Also: it's a great movie that is nothing like what it's marketing suggested it was; it's David O. Russell, who is a smart and funny storyteller, and is not a Clooney/Wahlburg action vehicle; if you haven't seen it, do! It's not a masterpiece of American cinema, but it's thoroughly engaging. Three stars.)
>I hereby dispute the idea that the DOD has made it impossible for big-budget Hollywood movies to criticize the US military, and suggest instead that the bias Hollywood in favor of the military is responding to customer preferences and not leading it.
Yeah, the problem with anti-military movies is nobody wants to watch them. It certainly hasn't been a lack of effort on the part of film producers.
I'm not sure if there's data to back it, but my guess would be that critical success correlates to a longer, slower run-out of money, as opposed to box-office returns.
Would be an interesting analysis.
I hereby dispute the idea that the DOD has made it impossible for big-budget Hollywood movies to criticize the US military, and suggest instead that the bias Hollywood in favor of the military is responding to customer preferences and not leading it.
That's a bit difficult to defend in light of the fact that this film and Zero Dark Thirty were demonstrably influenced by the DoD.
And my assertion wasn't that DOD has made it altogether impossible to create movies that shed America in a bad light, they've just made it really, really difficult.
When your competing movie has all kinds of bells and whistles, shots of real helicopters and aircraft carriers and all -- and you can't afford to have that because you don't have access to the stuff that the competing movie got for free, this puts you at a disadvantaged position at the box office. Movie production is pretty damn expensive: these days it's not at all surprising to see film production budgets exceed hundreds of millions of dollar (the last Pirate of the Caribbean cost $300 million to make). When movie studios are under the kind of financial pressure that they usually are -- leaving aside advertisement costs, this can actually be a make or break point for them. So, the government is incentivizing the production of a certain kind of movies... and we see the effects of that play out.
A recent Pew research piece revealed that 7% of Americans use Reddit, and the significant majority of that 7% is millennials. If you go to Reddit you probably know they overwhelmingly support Wikileaks (and/or Assange), so the argument that there's no demand for content that challenges America is very weak (whether it be related to the Wikileaks scandal or not). If a high production value movie unabashedly cast Assange as a hero without faults, the movie would be accepted fine by a sizable amount of people, it would make a lot of money: a lot of people see Assange as a mystical hero, they'd shell out money to see that movie.
Actually if you go to Reddit you'll see that support for Assange is not universal, even on subreddits like /r/worldnews.
The day used to be that being negative of Assange at all got you "downvoted into oblivion", but that's no longer the case. People are even able to mention the idea that Assange might have actually did it without having their comment necessarily achieve negative karma.
For example, go read the /r/movies link talking about Benedict Cumberbatch's comments from Fifth Estate about the topics. Assange was certainly positively mentioned, but he had a lot of opposition as well, along with people simply keeping their minds open.
I'd bet only some tiny fraction of that 7% is part of the crowd that supports wiki leaks. Reddit is a very diverse community. My wife frequents several mommy/pregnancy subreddits. She's totally not on board with the political views you might see on /r/politics.
> When your competing movie has all kinds of bells and whistles, shots of real helicopters and aircraft carriers and all
But that's expected I presume. Military owns all those toys (well technically we as a people do but military is the one in charge of them). So if they want to see fit to use them for advertising whatever position they want they can. Most of the time it will be 'Merica Fuck Yeah! position.
Remember one of military's primary PR role is to attract young American men to join it. It is very conscious of marketing. If it also help promote a large goal of justifying war, torture and invasions, I imagine it is a secondary effect.
I don't even know how to possibly "fix" the perceived problem you pose. Make a law to disallow military to give, lend, advertise, promote? Maybe. Or force it to provide equipment, time and expertise to movies it doesn't want to support?
> I hereby dispute the idea that the DOD has made it impossible for big-budget Hollywood movies to criticize the US military, and suggest instead that the bias Hollywood in favor of the military is responding to customer preferences and not leading it.
Of course it's not impossible. There is a scale from possible to impossible, and the truth is somewhere in between. Contrary to what you suggest: (1) clearly the DoD doesn't think that this propaganda strategy doesn't have a substantial effect, otherwise they wouldn't be spending their funding on it (2) clearly Hollywood's script writers think that their audience would prefer the original less pro-DoD script. It's not impossible to go with the original script, but the original script without aircraft carrier would be a less competitive movie than the modified script with aircraft carrier (according to Hollywood decision makers).
A bunch of exceptional films in that list.. you have good taste.
So, you acknowledge that there is a default, and that the films you mention challenge that default. I think everyone can agree on this.
Why are films like 'the thin red line' or 'full metal jacket' so powerful. The only pro-american-military film which I can remember having such a deep impact on me was 'black hawk down', and I think we all know the story behind that one.. I would argue that they tell a truth, and in the face of 60 years (give or take) of holywood military propaganda. And what does it matter that a dozen critical films come out over a thirty year period when, lets say 50 films a year come out pro-military.
Breaking it down your essential argument is - there is no propaganda because people like the propaganda. Question you should be asking is, who created that default?
The default is in the hearts and minds of the American public. The American public usually are not anti-military, even if they are anti-war. They usually oppose military policy set by the administration, and not the soldiers or the military itself.
If Hollywood went against this mindset, they'd be going against the default, and they would need good reason to do so.
That is just such a lazy answer, and to a question i did not even ask.
I would point you back to my original comment (which you either did not read, or did not understand) but for fear that it may create a recursive loop from which there may be no escape.
Anyways, the world isn't a ball which is pushed once and moves with constant velocity.
There are always forces tugging and pushing to modify the default. So unless the military is actively changing the default, they aren't not manipulating the default.
No I did not, but thanks for the clarification.. which I quite like (though I don't really understand the double negative).
I think along pretty similar lines, and the ball analogy is quite apt. It took a lot of propaganda to get the ball moving in the first place, but only takes a little bit to keep it going in the same direction. But make no mistake, it is manipulation and it is forced, however gentle that force may be..
For the record, I understood that your assertion about 'the bias' against the relative impact of propaganda is not the same as 'there is no propaganda'.. I concede my pointless hyperbole clouded my argument.
However, implicit in your assertion is that the effect plays a minor role, whereas I would argue it plays a compounding role. My contention is given time and a reduction in military involvement, the marketability of pro-war propaganda would naturally decrease.
I haven't seen all those movies, but I have seen many of them and the thing that IIRC all of them have in common is that they all use props that Hollywood can get their hands on without the cooperation of the US Army, Navy or Air Force. For example, if you wanted a military helicopter in your movie, you can probably get your hands on one, but if you wanted an aircraft carrier, then you are going to have to cooperate.
The bright side is that CG is now good enough that you can recreate most of those props entirely digitally without relying on cooperation from the military. On top of that, it is probably now also cheaper to do so in CG than seeking any cooperation in the first place. Where cooperation is still needed is consulting work to keep things realistic, but even that can be had by employing private citizens that served previously.
Both of those sites that you cited are terrible, filled with conspiracy theories and shrill rhetoric. Unfortunately more and more people on HN seem to be citing them.
Anyway:
> Do you recall any big American movie in the last decade (or even more) that painted America's military in a non-positive light?
The Bourne series. Though that was about the CIA.
Safe House, also CIA.
Avatar, as someone else mentioned, analogously painted the US military in a bad light.
Full Metal Jacket certainly shows some of the more brutish and shameful sides of the US military.
> I do remember The Hurt Locker, and a whole list of other movies, Iron Man and Captain America
So are you upset that these movies didn't pause to lecture the audience about the horrors of American imperialism? Are you upset that they don't serve your particular political agenda?
> To me, truly the most amazing thing about this is that pretty much no-one knows about this!
The people who don't know don't care. This information is readily available. And even some of the people who do know don't care (like me).
"Iron Man originally used to be about fighting communism, now it is about fighting terrorism"
Uh? Let's look at the villains in the recent movies:
Iron Man 1: Terrorists, later revealed to be puppets of a corrupt American military contractor.
Iron Man 2: A Russian scientist with a personal grudge, later teams up with a corrupt American military contractor.
Iron Man 3: Terrorists, turn out to have been entirely made up by a corrupt American military contractor.
In every movie the real villain is a representative of the military-industrial complex. In two of the three, cutting-edge American military technology is publicly and embarrassingly subverted and used against American citizens. In the related Avengers movie, American military authorities order a nuclear attack on New York City.
There is a lot of American propoganda in American movies (oh God, Battleship), but Iron Man is a pretty poor example.
more like terrorists, which turn out to be terrorist trying to infiltrate and undermine the holy american militar complex posing as honest contractors.
Not really, no. All three were legitimately respected industrialists before getting hit with the villain stick, and are motivated only by money and power. In the one film that involves actual ideological terrorists, the villain makes them his patsies and then has them all killed to tie up loose ends.
There was a documentary about Apolcalypse Now and I think it was Coppola who said that they had to remove footage which showed US soldiers desecrating vietnamese corpses (even though these shots were based on actual photographs/eye witness accounts) because otherwise the US government refused to give them helicopters and whatnot.
Coppola didn't use American helicopters though, he borrowed them from the Philippine army. That's what Hearts of Darkness (the documentary you probably saw) revealed, at least.
If I recall; these helicopters kept getting re-routed due to a nearby conflict and this not only annoyed Coppola but was one of the reasons why the film was delayed and ran over cost.
The effectiveness of Western propaganda comes from the high production values and the degree to which the propaganda agenda is concealed. Modern propaganda techniques have evolved over nearly a century[1]. Employers at media companies covertly liason with the CIA, deals are made with the US military exchanging access to military props for script approval, controlled opposition is used to create a sense of objectivity, etc.
I think people here are making this out to be a considerably bigger deal than it actually is.
Studios that make war films like having DoD support. It is a useful benefit. However, it's not required. Indeed, if you're shooting your film in Canada or Australia (which is fairly common) you're not going to really be able to make much use of the platoon of extras the US army is willing to lend you.
Similarly, the DoD doesn't have to spend money 'buying' the support of movie studios because the American public already want pro-US military films. Studios want to make films that will bring in buckets of money. Audiences in the US are far more willing to go and watch patriotic films than those that question the actions of the military or government.
You'd have lots of pro-US war/military films with or without DoD support. What's interesting is that we're starting to see films being edited - and entirely new scenes being added - for non US markets that are not quite so American-centric. A good example of this would be Iron Man 3, which had several minutes of additional footage added in for the Chinese market.
>Studios want to make films that will bring in buckets of money. Audiences in the US are far more willing to go and watch patriotic films than those that question the actions of the military or government.
>A good example of this would be Iron Man 3, which had several minutes of additional footage added in for the Chinese market.
Yeah, doesn't seem like it worked too well for them[0]… if they really wanted to make 'buckets of money' in this case, why not add footage that would resonate with the audience (possibly non DoD supportive stances) instead of irrelevant shots of a local pop star? How can one go about hand-waving this situation that presented itself? They didn't feel like taking the time to understand the Chinese audience? Easier to employ Edward Bernays techniques of misdirection and diversion in order to try and associate good feelings with the movie?
They didn't feel like taking the time to understand the Chinese audience? Easier to employ Edward Bernays techniques of misdirection and diversion in order to try and associate good feelings with the movie?
This is the same film industry that still seems to typecast roles by race, to the point of whitewashing minorities out of leading roles they feel American (read "white") audiences will be uncomfortable with.
I doubt they thought it through much further than "You know what Chinese people want to see? Other Chinese people!"
Possibly, considering all the work that goes into A/B testing in general even in software (even for the most mundane of things with less money on the line than motion picture budgets), I doubt it was that simple.
Besides there's a basic premise behind statements like "You know what Chinese people want to see? Other Chinese people!" that is often overlooked, especially when its used to justify an action meant to display an image or viewpoint of some kind that is usually to the benefit of nobody but the person/company who wants to shape that viewpoint and related parties interests who are aligned with it, no matter how misguided it may appear…
Interestingly enough, they talk about how the technique of 'giving people what they want' as way of control in Adam Curtis' Century of Self in the second half [0; 1h57min]…
Fair enough, I don't know how much effort actually goes into testing recuts of a movie for foreign markets - you're probably right about it being more complicated than I suggest.
Nevertheless, I still believe their primary and overriding goal is making money. If those interests intersect with the interests of the American government in making sure it gets perceived well overseas, so be it, but I don't think major studios are going out of their way to make propaganda consciously.
>I don't think major studios are going out of their way to make propaganda consciously.
I used to think the exact opposite, because being aware of how the interests of the state align with ones monetary goals would enable those to take advantage of situations more so than those who aren't aware… However over time and because of events like those of the nature that took place with Russell Brand being kicked out of the GQ awards, I've taken a more nuanced position.
To me this whole discussion boils down to Murphy's law. We know the DoD is pro-military and has a huge budget for PR. We know making a movie requires a lot of cash (and for most non-scifi movies: props.)
There is need; there is opportunity; there is will on both sides. What can happen, will happen, and has happened.
To what extent I have no idea, but while I haven't yet seen an American-made movie that is wholly critical of the US military and the politics governing it, I wouldn't shout conspiracy. In my opinion, Hollywood is the least nationalistic of all countries' film-community, because it doesn't have to answer to their main audience's constant need for re-affirmation. The rest of the western world may have lost respect for the US the last decade or two, but we still envy the hell out of you, no denying that.
One can't actually blame the military and DoD for attaching strings to any filmmaker who wants an aircraft carrier or fighter jets or what have you. If you want to involve their personnel or their multi-billion dollar equipment (which is, essentially an incorporation of the 'brand' of the US government) in your work, you have to do so on their terms or else go elsewhere. That's not propaganda, that's just the government acting in its own self-interest.
You don't understand how it works, think about it as AB testing. They aren't interested in one movie, they are interested in lots of movies. They will try something different next time.
I'm thinking you didn't read my comment below about AB testing, or detected the sarcasm, or maybe me using the conditional of wanting to make buckets of money in this case wasn't clear enough…
You are forgetting the key point: it really shouldn't be the DoD's business to influence movies. That is an incredibly perverse role the DoD is taking.
You act like DoD is going out into Hollywood to change the movies directors are making.
It's almost precisely the opposite: Hollywood studios are trying to enlist DoD help in making their movies.
DoD doesn't always help. They didn't help with the famous movie "Officer and a Gentleman", for instance (and not because the Class Drill Instructor was mean in the screenplay either).
Likewise, DoD did not assist with the film 'Crimson Tide' as the Navy objected to the core portions of the screenplay.
But like any other business relationship, it's not DoD's job to volunteer to help in situations where the movie itself would portray DoD in a negative light. So they do ask for changes to movies to be made if the director wants assistance sometimes, but that's always up to the studio/director to decide.
Well good luck finding movie topics that don't touch positively on any government agency anywhere.
E.g. a movie where a team of Federal prosecutors and investigators bring down a megacorp CEO and Board for conspiracy, fraud, etc. while having to fight through an insider within the government who's in on the conspiracy might cause agencies as disparate as the SEC, FBI, DoJ to be looked upon favorably.
Is it your position that no one from the SEC, FBI, DoJ, etc. should be allowed to advise moviemakers on how such an investigation and prosecution would proceed in real life?
My point wasn't that they shouldn't help movies that portray them under a good light, but that they should help them regardless of how the movies portray them, or they shouldn't help at all.
Essentially, if everything else is the same, a movie where the FBI saves the country should received the same help as a movie where the FBI breaks it apart.
> A movie where the FBI saves the country should received the same help as a movie where the FBI breaks it apart.
I disagree. That means that the FBI would have to help every filmmaker everywhere. Which is just another way of saying that the FBI should help no one, only with more rhetoric and weasel words.
I'm tired enough of living in a world where I have to keep telling sailors "this is why we can't have nice things". The solution to bad people doing bad things can't always be to hack the legs off of everyone at the kneecaps and put everyone in a "safe" wheelchair.
A better solution is that if you see a government agency misrepresenting themselves in media... point it out. Freedom of speech and freedom of press are there for a reason.
That means that the FBI would have to help every filmmaker everywhere.
Nope, it just means they'd need criteria other than what makes them look good. Which in fact I'm pretty sure they already must have, besides the PR angle.
The solution to bad people doing bad things can't always be to hack the legs off of everyone at the kneecaps and put everyone in a "safe" wheelchair.
This is an extremely broad argument to a particular situation, and those are rarely fruitful. But in any case: Bad people are rarely the real problem, they are relatively few. The real problem is culture and institutions that lead regular people to do bad things. Facilis decensus Averno. And if in a private context I believe the imposition of such rules should be avoided, I don't think the same applies to a public institution.
A better solution is that if you see a government agency misrepresenting themselves in media... point it out. Freedom of speech and freedom of press are there for a reason.
Point out what, that film makers are portraying a certain institution better than they would've had there been no help? How would I know? It's not like I'm claiming they would require outright lying or anything; it's just that it can introduce subtle but dangerous bias in the whole process.
It's not the DoD's job to help with movies period. The fact that the DoD does not assist with all movies makes it worse, not better. If the DoD were assisting with all movies it would merely be a waste of funds.
Anybody who remembers Iron Eagle I-III and Red Dawn knows Hollywood is full of propaganda. Goebbels found that it was difficult to change the movie viewers’ beliefs, but easy to reinforce their prejudices. He preferred entertainment that propped up these preconceptions instead of blatant political messages. Assange has been advocating for nobody to watch this flim after he read the Iranian prejudice in the script and dismissed this as Goebbellian manipulation.
According to a friend of mine who was close to Wikileaks and had some access to this production, the Iran subplot was scrapped completely, and replaced with a still-fictitious but entirely more plausible Tunisia subplot. Which is rumoured to have since been replaced with yet another fictitious and potentially less-plausible Libyan or Syrian subplot, probably on account of American audiences not knowing what Tunisia is...
'Tptacek mentions a great list. What I'll add to that is that, contemporaneously, criticism of the military doesn't sell movie tickets. Nobody wants to watch a movie about how American soldiers might be put in harm's way for a bad reason, or might not behave honorably, at least not unless the event is historically removed enough that the audience can separate the message of the movie from their own family, friends, and kids on the front lines.
Agreed. Additionally, it's thematically popular that when part of the US military becomes the bad guy, it's usually limited to "those guys" and not the entirety of the Military. Typically "those guys" comes in the form of a well meaning but rouge unit, a General with a vendetta against an opposing force (i.e. hasn't gotten over the end of the Cold war), a traitor of some kind, an indifferent chain of command, etc etc.
These are things audiences will rally around. Behind Enemy Lines is an example[1].
I only remember Stargate SG-1 that very early on dissed the NID (=NSA) and other agencies (but I rarely watch TV). They went so far to criticize agencies and senators and many other privately working corporations as control addicted, corrupt and inhuman moneybags. Senator Kinsey was exposed telling lies to the voters like: "We do the best a christian can for our God blessed America", just to get their votes. Even though he seemed to believe what he said, the actions he made were all but "christian". He willingly destroyed an entire solar system, just to test a bomb. The arrogant evil joy was truly revealing his real character. He was obviously an opportunist, who collaborated with evil aliens just to remain in power. And that last part sounds like our governments, who sell our data to other governments, when the price is right.
That's why I really admired how this was the only series (except star-trek) where most stuff, contrary to most beliefs (imho) was a pure mix of fiction and actual ancient history. Although it was clear that Colonel Jack O'Neill had strong prejudices against the Russian and communists in General (and russians always died first) he had deep respect to them as a Soldier. To me it looked like the authors tried to express some of their true thoughts, but were often forced to change or include parts into the script to reflect a more positive America, that really stood out. Unfortunately Star-Trek was very pro American, which is hard to believe, because a developed human in the future would most probably see all of us as greedy, barbarian, war-hungry hypocrites and not focus one just one continent.
To me it looked like the authors tried to express some of their true thoughts, but were often forced to change or include parts into the script to reflect a more positive America, that really stood out.
I'm not stating flat out you're wrong, but do you have any actual evidence of parts they were "often forced to change?" Isn't it possible they included pro-American material because they didn't necessarily have a completely negative point of view about the US and the military? Not every opinion that America is less than evil necessarily has to be propaganda.
@krapp thanks for asking. I have no real evidence, except that he worked closely with military and you cannot be against your feeding hand. See interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iF6hOMY2vxA So obviously he is pro USAF, but that didn't mean he needed to portray the US Government in a good light in StarGate SG-1. He showed the USAF in a very good light though. He also supports the Greenpeace (Sea Shepard) and Charity.
When you take into consideration that propaganda films have "disappeared" it seems like common-sense that the message is still getting out there.
You can just look at Jerry Bruckheimer's career and make mental notes how every movie since Top Gun has seemingly garnered him more and more access to military assets for his films.
Interestingly the US military involvement in Top Gun was a reaction to their contribution to Final Countdown.
A US Navy Commander was dismissed for having authorized the use of US Navy assets for the latter film without appropriate 'controls' ( and technically he wasn't of appropriate rank to have signed it off ) . That's not a mistake they made with Top Gun.
The Navy actually charged Paramount Pictures for the costs of operating a carrier for the film scenes.
Paramount tried to get the Navy to agree to refund some of the cost if Paramount let the Navy run a recruiting pitch before the movie in theaters, but Naval officials concluded (correctly) that Top Gun itself was as good a recruiting film as anyone could develop, and charged full price.
Just about anything relating to Vietnam. But yeah, that's been a while.
But what we have today is absolutely nothing compared to films produced right after WWII. I think one factor in that is there was a massive amount of combat footage just lying around waiting to be spliced together, as well as a whole bunch of surplus equipment just waiting to be blown up.
The Pentagon even red-lighted Forrest Gump and refused support. They said:
"the generalised impression that the army of the 1960s was staffed by the guileless or by soldiers of limited intelligance" was unacceptable. "This impression is neither accurate nor beneficial to the army."
Avatar was quite negative. Syriana, Rendition, and Jarhead were as well. Your general point definitely stands, post 9/11 at least, but those are notable exceptions.
The last film to mock the U.S. military was Dr. Strangelove, after which there was no military-sanctioned Hollywood film until Top Gun, 30 years later.
Read good books -- the classics will do (I'd say this list is pretty good, until the 75 number: http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/449.Must_Read_Classics). This is a reasonably good list of nonfiction books: http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/non-fiction. If you have trouble reading through it all try looking into audiobooks (or better yet, listen to the audiobooks while reading it). If you can't afford audiobooks, get them from your local library.
Consume good media -- FoxNews is bad, MSNBC is bad. PBS Newshour is good, BBC is generally pretty good.
Don't spend your time on inconsequential things (this can be difficult to do -- e.g., news media is all about pandering and sensationalizing things, you'll see everyone partake in it and you'll find it difficult to stay out of it). I think a good way to keep yourself from getting sucked into that trap -- of keeping up with latest Miley Cyrus scandal or whatever, is to just stay away from the crowd that spends too much time on it. So no more Reddit frontpage (at least the default one), instead go to nytimes.com (or HN! :-) my favorite commenters are rayiner, tptacek, potatolicious, and some others -- reading their thoughts will probably do you good).
Keep on taking those coursera courses, do projects in areas that interest you. Along the way you'll start picking up more specific interests and feel compelled to explore specific directions. Hopefully then you can even become a community leader in some area... and then you can start showing the light to other guys newcomers in that area.
All great advise. One thing about reddit that many may not realize, did you know that you can subscribe to specific subreddit groups? And your front page is customized to you, based on your subscriptions.
Those two sentences make perfect sense. People go to Facebook to socialize, to Google to search. This naturally leads to the conclusion of Facebook going with very constricted models of monetization like having intrusive ads, selling your private information, showing sponsored posts. Google is in a more natural position to advertise, it doesn't have as much to gain by showing you annoying ads as Facebook. In addition to all of this, Google does not seem afraid to venture out into completely new areas. I'm not saying Google is an innocent saint that'll never do any wrong, but it's pretty clear Google's future is markedly brighter than Facebook's. It'll be interesting to see how Google+ shapes in the coming years. One interesting possibility is Google+ having no ads at all (it currently does not have any) for all of its life, because Google can afford to do that and everyone will like that.
Google's future is markedly better than Facebook's ? No way.
Facebook has stickiness and the network effects to keep people on it. Google has none of that. If a better search engine appeared overnight everyone would switch to it and that would be the end of Google. If a better social network appeared very few people would switch. In fact I would postulate that if Microsoft managed to convince Mozilla and Apple to change the default search engines to Bing that it could be almost enough to send Google into a death spiral.
Literally one-hundred percent of the people I know who are really serious about email are moving away from Gmail. It was only in mid-2012 that they passed Hotmail for being the biggest email service in the world. Gmail is very popular among certain types of (mostly technical) people.
In fact, it's probably Android that has put them over the edge. Gmail still has a fragile position. At least as far as my browsing habits are concerned, using Gmail didn't lead me back to google search or any of their other services.
Could you imagine what the world would look like if somehow in 4 or 5 years Firefox OS ended up eating Android's lunch?
Search is a major component of their advertising business, which these days is their core business. If people switched they'd definitely be in a major pinch.
Most people I know use gmail, and not a single one of them is thinking of changing due to privacy concerns (as far as I know). What better option is there for a non-technical person anyway?
80%+ of people who own smartphones use android, and they have phones for most niches - big, small, cheap, stylus, unlockable, replaceable battery etc. They have several manufacturers making phones with it. Their position there is not fragile either.
I'd love to see Firefox take off, but there is no way it is going to be bigger than Android.
Sure, there is a very small chance that everyone will stop using Google's products, but the chances of people moving off Facebook is much greater.
You are missing my point. It is not that it is impossible for people to move away from Google, just that it is far more likely that they will move away from Facebook.
And I don't remember anyone saying that people wouldn't eventually move away from iPhones, blackberries and Palm pilots. People might move away from Android, but it would take many years, and it probably won't be en masse to FFOS.
Facebook has stickiness and the network effects to keep people on it
People thought that about Myspace as well.
If a better social network appeared very few people would switch
Yeah, right. A wholesale exodus from Facebook isn't just possible, it's likely, if not inevitable, IMO. Just based on historical trends... the Internet is fickle, man.
> If a better social network appeared very few people would switch.
As evidenced by MySpace? With social networks you can split your time between many, the worse ones' usage gradually decaying. The network effect is there but it's not like everybody has to switch at the same time.
No, it did not. Myspace existed before the concept of social networking really solidifed. Not to mention that Myspace was much more niche in that its main userbase was the young and somewhat technically savvy. Myspace was more of a homepage-builder than it was a social network the way we think of it today.
The concept of social networking solidified with Facebook, and they were in the perfect position to capitalize on the masses moving to the internet for a large chunk of their pass-time. Network effects just didn't exist for Myspace, as seen by the handful of social networks that existed simultaneously with it. Facebook changed the game, and they will dominate until something else similarly changes the game. Whatever it will be, it will look nothing like Facebook.
No they don't make perfect sense, in fact they should switch companies. Google monetizes on my privately shared data on email, meant only to be consumed among people that i contact privately. It tapping and constructing my future is as much an invasion of privacy as there can be. Now FB monetizes on my publicly shared data, on statuses and hobbies that I want to share with the world voluntarily. View nice little snippets of videos that I view on other timelines. FB Graph is a idea of such niche venture for them. FB does not have to imitate Google, Apple is there to provide competition on that behalf. FB has to just be an essential time pass for masses, just more than Google.
The casual dismissal of their sincerity is annoying ("don't know if they're telling the truth, or just saying government-friendly things because the governmental people are here right now!"). At least do the due research if such claims are going to be made by trying to get interviews from these folks without governmental people's presence, or just don't doubt their sincerity. But please don't just sprinkle in the there's-no-freedom-in-China FUD willy-nilly that we've all heard enough of already. This is like how when the hacker faction of PLA is talked about there's an ominous music in the background and serious faces of reporters looking at you to set the tone of the piece as if China is this mysterious and strange entity that is going to bring us down, all the while America's Olymic Games programs hardly even ever get a mention.
Anyway, I think we might be looking too hard for large problems where there might not be any. Don't forget that we have a similarly ridiculous situation in America: for every homeless person there are 26 houses that are vacant. Considering that China's population is a 1.35 billion (about a billion more than America's), at least in one respect it would seem like a prudent choice to build high-rises in place of crudely-made one or two-storey building houses in anticipation of future housing issues.
I'd be more interested in why two such different countries as the US and China seem to have independently arrived at the same problem of ghost cities. We know that China's problems arise from a top-down, state-directed model of development under a one-party rule. But that was never the case in the US, right?
Conversely, there are very few instances of such ghost cities in India (at least that I know of). Possibly because India's urban development has up till now (though today many new cities are currently being proposed as urbanization becomes the need of the hour in India) been much more organic and bottom-up, largely because we couldn't afford otherwise.
Is my sarcasm filter off here? The ghost towns in the US are dramatically smaller, were pretty much all the result of organic growth, and were actually populated at some point. They're ghost towns now because the populations moved away for any number of reasons (the end of a boom, economic shift, major catastrophe, eminent domain).
The situation in China is completely different. Regional governments are naively trying to stimulate their economies with these huge construction projects. So, they're building giant cities without proper planning or consideration for population shifts. These cities have never been occupied and it looks like they never will. Worse, they're being paid for by highly rated bonds issued from the central government. The whole thing looks like a real estate bubble that could tank the Chinese economy.
And while I agree with you that they weren't unoccupied to begin with, unlike the case with many of China's ghost cities, I beg to disagree on the rest of your argument - namely that the US model was appropriate for its time (we have decades of hindsight) and that the Chinese model isn't appropriate for the present (we don't know).
Many experts have been prophesying a crash for China's investment driven economy for years now, and a dramatic correction in real estate prices. Yet, after a small correction prices are still rising - http://www.economist.com/news/china/21577118-soaring-house-p...
We may only know a decade or two later whether a few dozen ghost cities was a small price China paid for continuing to power ahead economically.
>> namely that the US model was appropriate for its time
There was no model other than freedom. Freedom to invent, create, build, farm all as we saw fit. This is completely different and perhaps antithetical to what the Chinese are doing now. Their government is trying to will the result of prosperity into existence rather than allow it to culminate on its own as it does in a truly free society.
Without defending the Chinese model (which for the record I despise), let us also not forget that "freedom" is relative and defined from the POV of the winners/majority.
In the case of the "building" of America, so to speak, were there not people who did not quite enjoy the same freedom you speak of? In fact millions would have forfeited their freedom so the rest could "invent, create, build and farm as they saw fit".
Ehhhh, lets not get crazy. I'm a US citizen and have lived in the US all my life, and I could name a handful of countries much better, based on GDP, happiness, or the accessibility of affordable housing and healthcare.
Are these "generic" bonds, or does the government issue bonds explicitly tied to the development of one or another city development? Are these bonds to be paid out from new-city tax revenue streams? (Not enough plugged in to the China finance system to search for myself.)
If so, I'm surprised that financial institutions would buy these bonds, despite their high ratings.
I don't know if you're baiting for a conspiracy, but I'd go as far as to say top level politics are to blame in both countries, albeit more directly in the case of China.
America's ghost towns were once thriving and now are deserted. China's ghost cities are relatively new and have never thrived before; they are just symptoms of a huge real estate bubble.
China overbuilds way too much, even in thriving cities like Shanghai and Beijing will you find almost completely deserted shopping malls.
I only observed that America and China both arrived at the same end result independently - ghost cities. I am not saying that they followed the same approaches, or took the same time.
Interesting reading! A lot of the ghost towns in the US are pretty small, maybe 100-200 inhabitants maximum. They eventually seem to fold into nearby communities with better road/rail connections.
FWIW there are ghost towns like the US examples in Spain too - villages of about 50-100 inhabitants that eventually just seem to dry up as populations give up on agriculture/subsistence/mining or whatever and younger generations move to larger cities.
Then there's Valdeluz. Political corruption at its finest, producing a semi-ghost town with less than 2000 people living there. http://desertedplaces.blogspot.com.es/2013/06/the-spanish-gh... - I visited there a couple of summers ago. Nice and peaceful, plenty of playgrounds for the kids to play on, no queues at the supermarket :-)
True, but the examples in these cases are of cities that appeared to have been created anew - in China'a case in the middle of nowhere. India could never afford to create massive new cities using state funds like that, so it's city growth was organic by force, not by choice.
Also the reason these cities are ghosts isn't because there aren't enough people in China (it is after all the world's most populous country), but because they were ill-planned in terms of economic/social benefits for residents.
I wonder how the YC guys feel about the abundance of "how to get accepted to YC" articles. Just as you can prepare for the SAT you can now prepare for the YC tests -- there are a lot of examples of accepted applications, videos, thoughts from founders, etc. just like this very submission. The point is, there is probably less differentiation in the new pool of applicants in terms of their submission applications which makes YC's job more difficult. My theory is that now they're going to place more importantance on filters like past work experience (I've noticed a considerable amount of acceptees having ex-Googlers in their teams) and academic pedigree (I've noticed a high amount of acceptees having big-name school people in their teams).
Such articles can be good. It depends on their focus. It wouldn't be good if people wrote articles talking about how to trick us. But if they tell applicants how to avoid mistakes that will make it harder for us to appreciate them, that's great.
I share your concerns -- I don't want YC to get inundated with masquerading applications.
However, while you can prepare for the SAT, those scores alone are insufficient to guarantee you admission into top universities. You need something unique. In the case of YC, this will be either team, traction, or idea. It's pretty hard to fake a history of making (or pedigree), numbers, and wild ideas.
Although I can't speak for YC, I can provide some info from the applicant side, specifically those outside the existing community.As an Aussie putting in an application for W13 we're geographically and somewhat ideologically separated.
We've spent the last 3 months getting to beta and reading these articles is what's spurred our interest to apply. For those outside the immediate community, it's a great bridge, plus what zeckalpha said!
I doubt any of these articles make or break an application. They're just good publicity, for both YC (for appearing difficult to get in) and the author(s).
What was behind China's economic success then? (not snark, genuinely interested in hearing your thoughts)
As far as I know Deng did advocate a more open and free policy when it came to the markets, not in very concrete terms but certainly in veiled terms like "pragmatism" and "we must do whatever works" [1]. I'm not saying Deng made China a Randian libertarian's wet-dream but it seems he did push for free markets a little bit.
What was behind China's economic success then? (not snark, genuinely interested in hearing your thoughts)
Imitating the free-enterprise model of Hong Kong and Taiwan, decades after those territories had far outpaced China in prosperity. And one of the great advantages China has enjoyed in economic development, as compared to several other territories, is the large number of people who can communicate in local languages (various forms of Chinese) but who grew up without communist influences on their primary and secondary education. "Compatriots" from Taiwan and Hong Kong, and also "overseas Chinese" from many places in southeast Asia played a crucial role in boosting China's economic growth through direct investment after the beginnings of system reform in 1978. (Basis of knowledge: I began studying Chinese during the Cultural Revolution, and have met quite a few people from outside China who have invested over there, after investment began to be permitted.)
"Capitalism" means private ownership of capital. 30% of industrial and service sector assets in China are stated-owned: http://blogs.worldbank.org/eastasiapacific/state-owned-enter.... About 45% of the industrial sector is state-owned, down from 70% in 1999 (still more than two decades after Deng left office, and more than a decade after China's economic boom began). The profit share of the state owned enterprises is even higher: 43% of industrial and business profits in China yield from state owned enterprises: http://thediplomat.com/2013/06/19/reforming-chinas-state-own....
In a purely definitional sense, China is at best a hybrid economy now, and was a primarily communist economy long after its economy started booming.
Even to the extent that China's economy is ostensibly privately owned, the government still exercises tremendous control. For example while the banks are joint stock companies, and thus reflect substantial private ownership of equity, the Chinese government still owns the majority of the shares in many of them giving them tremendous power over those banks.
I don't think China can be fairly called a "capitalist" economy. It's a managed economy where the managers have allowed the free market to allocate resources at the lower levels, while the central government directs broader, longer-term economic objectives.
This will result in a significant thought paradigm shift in all things health-related, and it's a great thing that a company with as many resources and as high of a profile as Google is looking into this. Google is a company that is making self-driving cars, providing incredibly fast internet to consumers, providing Internet to suffering areas with a new idea (the Loon), exploring definitively new ideas for hardware (Google Glass) -- and now they're looking into aging.
I'd say Google guys are sufficiently more respectable than the political chameleon who's lobbying DC today [1], and just recently directed considerable resources on ads advocating a host of anti-environmental causes [2].
He's making fun of the buzzwords, not the message itself. Frankly, if you think "catalyzing paradigms" is a good way to say something, I'd recommend taking an English literature class.
I recommend not taking an English lit class, and instead going to your local library and borrowing some well-worn books on how to write by actual authors. And not literary authors either.
Err... catalyzing a paradigm change makes perfect sense to me. I think Thomas Kuhn might have used that in his book, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions".
A lit class isn't going to make any comment on a phrase like that, or management speak in general. Management speak is just a jargon.
Its mostly not. Jargon is specialized use of terms used to facilitate clear communication of ideas within a specific community/domain. Management speak -- at least the form that is often mocked -- is just using flowery language to conceal the absence of substance, and is pretty much the opposite of jargon.
I disagree. I hear your complaint from many people, but I spend enough time talking to managers to understand what they mean, and I actually think there's content there.
I spend a lot of time talking to managers, and most what they are saying isn't what people describe as "management speak" (which is, despite the phrase usually used to describe it, more the language of marketing and PR -- which, to be fair, managers frequently necessarily engage in and all too often are also victims of.)
There is a jargon of management -- an array of terms with precise meanings in the field that are either not used outside of the field or are used outside with different meanings, and which facilitate clear communication in the domain.
But that's really not what people are talking about when they are talking complaining about "management speak", which seems to be all about marketing/PR buzzwords which are used to create certain feelings while minimizing communication of clear commitments and detailed information, which are used by management either when they are acting to promote the business in marketing/PR role, or when they've been successfully snowed over by some vendor's or other industry player's marketing.
All the talk of jargon while a paradigm has shifted... No doubt, you are all very smart (and literate) but the point was to notice how f^@k1ng big this is.
>Err... catalyzing a paradigm change makes perfect sense to me. I think Thomas Kuhn might have used that in his book, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions".
And I think he wouldn't have touched that phrase with a barge pole.
>Management speak is just a jargon.
No. Jargon comes out of necessity and field-specific needs.
Management speak comes out of the desire to unecessarily dress-up bullshit.
>To catalyze something means to speed it up. (...) I don't see the problem with this. Could you be more specific?
The problem with this is that "make it happen faster" is already clear and sufficient.
People understand it -- including people who don't have an idea what "catalyst" means (for me it's a totally transparent word, as its origin and etymology come from my language. YMMV).
If you want to dress it up to make it sound more impressive, then you're not communicating effectively.
And if you include 3-4 other unecessary buzzwords in the same sentense you're just name-dropping words.
"I saw a very puissant pismire lifting 100 times its weight in a sweven yesterday". Do you see anything wrong with this sentense?
"The problem with this is that "make it happen faster" is already clear and sufficient."
I disagree. Catalyze is more succinct. In addition, to catalyze has the connotation of making change happen via the injection of a catalyst, thus connecting the agent of change with the change it brings. It's a better word.
Simple English Wikipedia sacrifices nuance to fit to its constrained lexicon. It is possible to explain pretty much anything using only 1000 words (and probably fewer), but it's going to be awkward because language is more than just conveying ideas through words. Words also have sounds and rhythm and evoke different images and emotions beyond their literal dictionary definition. For that reason, Simple English Wikipedia fails at being literature, but succeeds in communicating ideas to people that don't speak English. Since the latter is its goal, it's successful. But it's not something to imitate if you desire to communicate rather than just describe.
And, some phrases are simply used too often by people trying to sound smart when they really have nothing to say. There is nothing wrong with catalyzing synergy, but because so many people have applied those words when they had nothing to say, the phrase has gradually become meaningless. Omit meaningless words.
Management is itself a field, with its own jargon. You can have good management and poor management (just as you can have good engineering or poor management) but don't pretend that the use or absence of "management jargon" is somehow intrinsically connected to that.
Managers have their jargon because they often trade in abstract concepts (Plan of Record, Resources, Asks, Action Items, OKRs) peculiar to their trade that are ripe for shorthanding, which is pretty similar to the reason you see it in other fields.
In his view, it occurred over generations as adherents to older scientific models died of old age - e.g. the Copernican model replaced the Ptolomeic model because Ptolomeic astronomers went extinct.
yes, but it's much faster now (look at how quickly the RNA World Hypothesis took over after Noller, Woese, and Cech demonstrated their results. One might say we're catalyzing paradigm shifts through network effects. Then engineers would complain I was using management talk, but I can assure you, that's a succinct and accurate way to explain it.
If it's a "succinct and accurate way to explain it" then why do so many people find it jarring and confusing? If management speak really is a jargon then it is useful only when talking to other managers, not to people in general. (And, it would appear, especially not when talking to engineers.)
No (nor is it an oxymoron, which I think is more relevant); a paradigm is a defining pattern, and quite including a pattern of action. Its frequently used in a way which implicitly references a pattern of thought, but its not redundant to make that explicit.
But your comments are factually wrong. None of Google's products you mention are new or really that much better (so far.)
>> Google is a company that is making self-driving cars
So is every major car manufacturer out there. Who's ahead of the game? I don't know because Google gets all the press and fawning from fanboys--like you.
">>providing incredibly fast internet to consumers
Experimenting in a few ares with plenty of subsidies doesn't count. The much hated Verizon has done a LOT more on that regard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_FiOS
">> providing Internet to suffering area with a patently new idea (the Loon)"
">> exploring definitively new ideas for hardware (Google Glass)"
Not a new idea at all. Different thinking of course but the verdict is still out.
One day--the focused like a laser--Google will manufacture their toilet paper and you'll be here to wonder how we managed without toilet paper before Google invented it.
> Who's ahead of the [self-driving car] game? I don't know because Google gets all the press and fawning from fanboys--like you.
It's Google. They have the right people, the right ideas, the resources, and they started first. Source: I'm a prof in a related field with graduated PhD students at Google.
The Google cars get press because they are really very good.
Sebastian Thrun's team was the first winner of DARPA driverless vehicles (2nd year) challenge, the year before that contestants failed very early. Do you know car manufacturers with such know-how ? They probably had research about it but I doubt they were as complete. Since Google backed the project they did very extensive tests in the real world. GM and such are bringing back computer aided driving but I'm sure they're too busy sustaining their business to put resources in something as disruptive and risky.
Google didn't start first at all. Maybe they have the right people but as far as resources, other car companies have them too. That's their bread and butter, not some experiment
By the way: " Mercedes missed a barn-door sized opportunity last week when it revealed technical details of next year's 2014 S-class, which showed that while this flagship model could potentially have been the world's first autonomous driving car, Mercedes has decided not to give it that capability. For now, the driver's hands have to remain on the wheel at all times.
"The car would do it [autonomous driving] today," said Jochen Haab technical support manager, "we have had test cars doing that, but what happens if a child steps out into the street and the radar misses it?"
http://www.roadandtrack.com/go/first-looks/new-car-tech-2014...
"... Mercedes-Benz announced Monday that it had successfully driven an autonomous S-Class sedan 62 miles on German city streets."
Well, shit, that quote right there plus your hostile attitude sure have me impressed. 62 whole miles! They're clearly on the doorstep of releasing a production autonomous car, as you were trying to imply over at <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6408590>.
Meanwhile, that other company's car has made the trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles (at least 380 miles, in case you didn't know):
Well, shit, that quote right there plus your hostile attitude sure have me impressed. 62 whole miles! They're clearly on the doorstep of releasing a production autonomous car
I'm here to impress you sir, that's my mission in life.
Now who said that they drove a total of 62 miles vs a 62 mile trip? Did the car crash at mile 62 or they reached the destination? All these are little details that need to be taken in consideration before an idiot exclaims "Google is #1 in autonomous cars..."
Well, sorry to say that you're failing pretty hard at your mission then. But do keep ramping up the snarky rhetoric. It looks like I hit a nerve.
I didn't say anything about total miles; I was comparing Mercedes' single 62 mile trip against the other car's single 380+ mile trip. But if you want to bring up total miles logged, That Company In Mountain View hit 300k miles last year [1] and there are absolutely no public numbers from Mercedes. If the figure were impressive, they'd probably have released it.
But now you want to make a fuss over the LIDAR on top of That Company's car while the S Class gets by on just radar. Your earlier post quoted a Mercedes engineer saying "we have had test cars doing that, but what happens if a child steps out into the street and the radar misses it?" -- well, gosh, maybe that funny spinning thing is doing something useful. Wouldn't you want an autonomous car to use any and every available method to detect obstacles? Details indeed.
Okay, I'd say you're both off here. I think you're right that Bsullivan should take Google more seriously - I think he's going to have to eat his hat with the way Google is heading. But you shouldn't dismiss Mercedes - the German car companies are very smart, and have the potential to be top players over the coming decades.
There are more people who believe the google brain washing of "Google itself is singularly advancing the world of driving, ubiquitous computing, and medicine!" than realize google is just very noisy about the things it does (plus the fan-blog-fawning multiplier of hearing about the same thing in 10,000 different outlets).
> Despite all the music out there, people continue to gravitate towards the big record label stars. Nobody is competing by producing something people like as much as Rihanna, except cheaper.
You seem to be under the impression that people determined her art to be of greater value and thus a higher demand for it was created than all of Rihanna's competitors. That is only very slightly true. Demand for Rihanna's music is created mostly by record companies' aggressively promoting it and advertising it in various venues, not because people decided with no outside influence that her music is better than the competitors'. Rihanna won because her record company is better at salesmanship than her competitors. Now her popularity is soaring in a bandwagon effect, as is typical of popstars or really any popular phenomenon.
Your point that music should not be free because of its marginal cost of production being zero is an interesting one -- just as there isn't an expectation for the iPhone price to be $200, it does indeed make sense that music shouldn't be free. But, with all the talk about capitalism being a faulty economic system these days, a particular recipient of rage -- and rightfully so, in my opinion -- is that entity which charges bad prices [1] for its goods. Now, you might be wondering why it's music which gets all this drama about people objecting to its costs, and not the banking sector or something. That's because it's a thing that's close to people -- everyone listens to music, and naturally everyone wonders why it costs so much when the means of its distribution are effectively zero.
Personally I think we as a society need to first think deeply about corporations that operate essentially on a rentiering model of monetization (the recent wave of 'sharing startups' are a prime example) and then we should worry about what is a good model of music distribution. But hey, record companies are basically rentiering companies as well.
[1]: Bad as in socially or morally irresponsible. If some company finds a cure for cancer -- and that cure, it turns out requires only $2 to make for every pill, it would not be ethical to charge an exorbitant price like $20,000 for it, no matter how much the research costs were (people dying is a bigger concern than people not getting paid). This is obviously an extreme example, but you get the point.
Wait, hold on. Exactly why is it legitimate to feel outrage over entities that assign bad prices for luxury goods like music? In our economic system, those entities should either (a) progress us towards discovering the real value of those goods to their consumers (ie, they were worth more than people offended by the price thought), or (b) be punished by the marketplace.
Exactly nobody is harmed by an entity that charges $100 for a single song. Where does the "outrage" enter the picture?
> In our economic system, those entities should either (a) progress us towards discovering the real value of those goods to their consumers or (b) be punished by the marketplace.
Speaking for a moment only about the everyday man's necessities of life (luxuries are not included; food, shelter - and music (i.e. culture) are), it seems to me that letting reign that tentative and fickle process of price discovery is an act that can potentially cost dearly. When biodiesel fuel was once thought to be a promising source of energy a few years back, prices of food promptly shot up and this resulted in the poor having difficultly affording food.
Now, I am aware this makes for a tenuous argument if we're talking about music, but I don't think it is outright inapplicable. Consider not the one-off luxury item, consider items you expect mass public to consume in large quantities -- consider itunes, a highly scaled platform which can now just sit and take in money. Indeed itunes bears a responsibility by virtue of it being a highly scaled avenue to buy music from -- unlike a local store which can only dream of seeing such business traffic, to charge reasonable prices. I think any such platform is obliged by social responsibility to charge a reasonable price. That in a purely capitalistic economy this is not a reasonable expectation, I think is one of its great faults.
tptacek, I'm sure I am being rational here, but what value is my confirmation of this to you? :) I have elsewhere on HN made note of my socialistic views, I recognize it is not proper of me to digress into vague political tangents (they're the worst), and I apologize for having done that, I'll stop here.
So what's happening here is that you're citing "our economic system" while attempting to relitigate the concept of a market. The "tell" for that is your use of the term "reasonable price". If you think there's a "reasonable price" for music that any seller is in any way obliged to offer, you probably don't really believe in market economies.
I'm not going to say I think our existing system is without flaws, but here's some food for thought: pop media is a wholesome product. It doesn't destroy the environment like Apple's or Samsung's phones. It doesn't con people into giving up personal information like Facebook. It doesn't take advantage of desperate third world labor like everything Wal-Mart sells. It doesn't use up scarce resources like gasoline production, contribute substantially to our carbon footprint like shipping, pollute precious water resources like manufacturing, clog up our rivers like farming. It doesn't destroy our precarious fish stocks like the seafood restaurant I went to last night. Music and movies are actually priced so most people can afford them, unlike say life-saving drugs or medical care.
So even if we're reevaluating the basics of our economy, it seems to me like music and movies are among the last things that deserve our philosophical ire.
> It doesn't destroy the environment like Apple's or Samsung's phones.
"Looking at the 44 concerts, U2 will create enough carbon to fly all 90,000 people attending one of their Wembley dates (in London) to Dublin," Helen Roberts, an environmental consultant for carbonfootprint.com, told the Belfast Telegraph. Put another way, U2's CO2 emissions are reportedly the equivalent to the average annual waste produced by 6,500 British people, or the same as leaving a lightbulb running for 159,000 years. [1]
> It doesn't con people into giving up personal information like Facebook.
You're comparing apples and oranges. The carbon footprints of iPhones alone sold in a single quarter is in the millions of tons. You point to a couple of privacy breaches versus Facebook whose entire business model is based on breaching privacy.
The carbon footprints of iPhones alone sold in a single quarter is in the millions of tons.
Yes, and humans exhale almost a billion of tons in the same period. I don't think just measuring the total is very helpful; you'd need to analyze carefully the value of each things, and what they replaced. How many carbons were saved when teenagers start defining themselves based more on their smartphones that on their cars?
You point to a couple of privacy breaches versus Facebook whose entire business model is based on breaching privacy.
Sure, but being less bad than Facebook is not an achievement.
That could not be further from the truth though, pop media is trash. Would you want your children exposed to the misogynistic, sexist, racist content being pushed by record companies these days?
We have been talking about environmental sustainability for a long time... pollution is bad, rare material scarcity is bad - it is time we started caring just as much about social sustainability. Pop media 40 years ago had stars that partook in peace activism, the founder of the most famous band wrote peace anthems like 'Imagine' and 'Give Peace a Chance', the most popular stars today are all involved in pointless stupid drama- Rihanna (beaten viciously by a guy, still wants to protect him), Thickle (http://vimeo.com/64611906), Cyrus - the girl my little sister was a big fan of when she was younger is making videos like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My2FRPA3Gf8.
A lot of pop media content is anti-intellectual, a lot of it objectifies women, a lot of it perpetuates racism. It is markedly worse than it once used to be. And there is less of an expectation of a news program or a record company to place the interests of its consumers before its own than there used to be. This is a problem, because it is very much polluting the minds of our young (and old).
Why are we presupposing the market economy to be free of human behavior in any case? In practical terms a market economy will always be involved with human behavior... because it's a market where all parties involved are human.
A market economy presupposes a market ruled by supply and demand, free from regulatory interference. In such a market, there is no inherent mechanism to make the rich richer, or the poor poorer.
Rather it's human behaviour which determines wealth and distribution of wealth. So while this effect is certainly something that economists study and will continue to study, it's entirely due to human behaviour, independent of the 'type' of economy. Even in Communist countries you see this effect - the ruling party consolidate their wealth and power while the subjects are handed out a finite amount of resources/wealth.
Excuse me. I spent some hours in high school physics learning the non-relativistic way to add velocity vectors, to say nothing of simplifying assumptions ignoring friction or wind resistance. Turns out it's a pretty good approximation in a variety of common cases. This is as much "fantasy" science as the example you're complaining about is "fantasy" economics, and either are darned useful ways to idealize problems where the discrepancies between the real world and the fantasy world are small.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to go work on my Turing machine with infinite memory and all that jazz...
Hmm, I definitely agree it's entirely due to human behaviour, that's where my confusion came from. I'm confused about how you expect this "meme" to die. It's never going to. It's inherent in any system with a disparity in power between the involved actors if the actors are even remotely free in their choice of actions and even a single actor is willing to act selfishly.
An economic system with the controls in place to stop the Matthew effect would look nothing like a free market.
This is the guy who literally called the users of his site "dumb fucks", and was literally willing -- no, eager to hand over private details of his site's users to his friends. I ran forums that garnered about 12k users per month when I was 16, I took the responsibility of safeguarding my users' private information very seriously.
The only thing that's changed about Zuck is he's learned to not say these things out loud, play a nice PR game, and meet people and convince them that he's a nice fella who wants best for everybody and "connect the world!" through Facebook (no matter if you want to be connected to it or not).