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Nicholas Carr Says Tech 'Utopia Is Creepy' (cio.com)
itwbennett writes: It probably won't come as a big surprise that Mr. 'IT Doesn't Matter' isn't a big fan of Silicon Valley's vision for the future, a future defined by autonomous cars and the inevitable rise of robots. In his new book, 'Utopia is Creepy: And Other Provocations,' Carr takes aim at the irrational exuberance of Silicon Valley, where tech is the answer to every problem. One of the exuberances that Carr takes particular exception to is the notion that social media is a better, freer form of media than 'old' media, which maybe makes sense coming from a former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review, but he does have a point. "The old gatekeepers, to the extent they were gatekeepers, have been replaced by companies like Facebook and Google and companies that really now have become the new media companies and are very much controlling the flow of information," Carr told CIO.com's Clint Boulton.
Funny is it not how a rich guy, who has done really well in his life is so in favor of the old media "gate-keepers". I bet he might feel differently is say, he were a maybe a member of a race or ethnicity that is targeted on a regular basis and then have all their concerns ignored by those gate keepers.
Remember it was all those good old gate keepers that kept those pesky reports of cops killing poor people from the news. Those same gate-keepers that helped cover up the real story of the Veit Nam war - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir!_No_Sir!
Who is Nicholas Carr? Let me guess: he is a "thought leader".
Yep, the whippersnappers probably don't realize how profitable local newspapers used to be. Indeed, they were one of Buffett's favorite investments in the early days. From a 1977 WSJ article: "Warren likens owning a monopoly or market-dominant newspaper to owning an unregulated toll bridge. You have relative freedom to increase rates when and as much as you want." [1] When the economics are like that, you can afford prestige journalism and professional reporters.
The WSJ article also notes how Buffett made a killing buying the Washington Post Co. at a significant discount to book value; the company's huge investment portfolio wasn't factored into the stock price at the time. Fast forward several decades, and now Bezos owns the actual newspaper and WaPo brand.
While there are legitimate *technology* companies in Silicon Valley, the ad-delivery/social media "it's 1999 all over again!" outfits for some reason get all the attention. Looking at some of the large employers in the area, you realize a huge number of people earn a paycheck from firms that sell ads, make CRM software, and run social media services (in the red quarter after quarter). It's sort of like the West Coast Wall Street: too many overpaid assholes doing stuff of no useful value to human civilization. (And both groups are enabled by the torrent of easy money from the central banks, which makes all sorts of bullshit possible.)
[1] http://www.rationalwalk.com/wp...