jrspruitt

We are very consumer based, at some level even the producers are just consumers, that use what they consume to create something else for someone else to consume usually. I would say that is just part of our way of living, in a society of people. The only way for us to have no consumers, is if we are all self sustaining, hunter gatherers really.

Perhaps at one point our species was consumerless, but the fact is, we work way better in a group, which means there will be consumers. I like turning steel into usable objects, I don't like mining it, there for I must be a consumer at some level. If I was forced to produce everything I needed to build something complex, like say a PCB board and components, it would take a life time to get everything necessary to produce something not all that spectacular.

I think the "bad" part of consumerism, is more a psychological state, like using drugs to escape a problem. Consuming on its own, isn't necessarily bad and you're right, very necessary. Perhaps its all psychologically based, I feel better building something, more than I do just waiting around for the next movie, or video game to distract me from my life. But really, whats the difference if what I produced just ends up sitting in the corner collecting dust, why I'm building something else?

In that sense, being a Producer, requires a Consumer, someone else to find what you have made useful. Otherwise all I've been is a consumer. Producing at worst, is a consumer, at best, helping make society a better place. Consumer at best is a Producer, at worst, just collecting, and creating a market, for junk to be eventually thrown away.

I totally agree with you. To me the producer is already doing what they enjoy doing, the financial gains are a side effect, and will pretty much just be used as funding to buy what's needed for them to keep producing. Would be like someone who enjoys running a business, the money is a part of it, but not the only goal, it blurs the line between hobby and work. The consumer spends their time consuming, the side effect of that is waste, once the consumption is over, the thrill is gone, the usefulness, if there was any, runs dry, it's tossed aside, as something new needs to be consumed.

There are things I want, that are not needed for my survival, but they are things I actually enjoy having, they serve some constructive purpose. I don't understand buying stuff just to buy stuff, just to have a new car, or just to have the latest version, it doesn't make sense. I think that is where some people that come into lots of money go wrong, spending it becomes their hobby, with out a job you got a lot of free time to keep yourself entertained. Producers would seem to inherently have the ability to deal with that free time in a much more fiscally responsible manor.

I really liked his thoughts on this. While I understand social media is a powerful form of promotion, its not the be all end all, there is more too it, especially when you do something outside of social media that you are promoting. The part about going for the little applause was great, you get hooked on each tweet, each video, each blog post and its performance in regards to audience reaction, instead of the entire body of work you've created. It has the ability to chop your "art" into micro bits, because it has got to fit inside the constraints of social media. In a way you become your product, it sounds like he stopped being a musician and was selling John Mayer on Twitter, it wasn't about the music anymore.

Which is kind of hard to stop doing, because its what the majority of the internet audience wants. Jeri Ellsworth made an interesting statement about the electronics/hacks she creates, the audience likes the simple ones, and don't care much about the much more technical and in depth videos she creates. The audience to some effect seems to be only interested in the short and simple. Which I would imagine, if John Mayer spent all his social media time, talking about music, and music theory, and the kind of things you would think someone would want to know from a talented artist, I doubt he'd have the followers. Where as, if he sticks to the one liners, and small talk, its vastly more popular.

As for the mental changes is causes, I fully understand this. I've read a bit about how the human brain changes according to how it is use. And also, when I was still blogging, I noticed an interesting change in myself. I started consuming the world in a "how can I blog this" sort of way. Anything even remotely interesting that happened, instead of me enjoying the life experience, quickly turned to, how can I phrase this on my blog? The short time I was on Twitter, I found I spent more mental capacity, sorting through my thoughts to Twitterize them, than on the actual thoughts. If you're famous for social media, that is great. If your a musician, author, electrical engineer, etc, it has the side effect of changing how you think, and then how you create, if you focus on it too much.

I've tried this many times in my life, and all I have found, is that there are people out there, who absolutely refuse to do anything about the problem. No matter how well the argument is laid out, how evil they have been acting, the only thing they will respond to, is force, because at that point, it is not up to them to change.

Yeah they do give off more of a riot like atmosphere, with the breaking and entering tactics. For this to be more equivalent, they'd need a permit to take up so much traffic on public roadways, or in this case, internet connections. Plus there is no clear cut description of what is causing the disruption. If a building was surrounded by protesters, there would be plenty of signs, clearly stating what the group of people felt was so terrible that they needed to protest about. The way it is now, average person thinks the website is having technical difficulties, and knows no different, until the news informs them. Which gives the media all the power in framing what the protest was about. Still regardless of this particular incident, I wonder if it is a tactic that could be used to any sort of degree of effectiveness, as a means for people to express their displeasure in the virtual world of the internet. We the People are powerful only as a group. People doing evil things, might not always respond to a PR attack through Twitter or Facebook.

I agree with there being a huge problem of it becoming vastly too easy to do. And there does seem to be a huge discrepancy on the internet, between what people feel is important enough to cause such a ruckus and what's not worthy. Ranging from real human rights issues to he said she said pointless crap. Perhaps it would mean more if you had to sit there hitting the refresh button in unison with a group, instead of just running a script to do it for you. You no longer need to be a charismatic leader to rally the troops, just infect computers with a botnet. Such singular power executed through such forceful means does seem more like tyranny than justice. I wonder what a better equivalent to such traditional means of the public showing disapproval would be online?

Since it is an act of political protest, I wonder how this plays out. Seems it is a lot like the cyber version of picketing/marching/protesting at a business, government building or any physical location like that. Where would you peaceably assemble online, in such a way it makes a statement? If everyone joins a chat room so what? Only they notice it, where if you protest in public, you get noticed, for disrupting the day to day flow of things. This seems like one of the few ways to accomplish that same effect online.

Well technically you can use racial slurs all you want, the only thing stopping people, is the social circles around them's willingness to accept such behavior. Or if you are a media figure, loosing your job.

If it was me, I'd rather know they were, than have them hide it, at least I would know who I could trust. And I think once exposed, its a problem that could be better dealt with. Instead of teaching people just keep those thoughts to your self, and let your racist, sexist, ways come out more passively. Which allows people to constantly be suspicious about other peoples motives and causes a lot of tension between people.

Though admittedly, getting people to stop needing some other group to put down, so they can feel better about themselves, is not ever going to be easy. Its a shame, in the "survival of the fittest" certain members of the species, find it easier to hold people down, than excel at it themselves. But we are what we are, and have been. At some point in our history there may have been a point to all this, but not anymore. Maybe it made more sense when we were doing these things over food, because there wasn't enough? Who knows.

I think its more effect to actually talk to people about why they think this way, what caused it. It was socially acceptable when they were kids, some one picked on them, stole their girl friend, cultural conflicts, etc. Getting to the root of the problem, than just telling them, you can't say it, but keep on thinking it.

I understand the issues that arise with forcing people to expose more about themselves, than they are comfortable with. From a personality standpoint, my google+ account is a well defined sliver of who I am as a whole, by design. Mostly because I consider it something that could be put on a resume.

As far as the social issues of such public knowledge, I wonder, is hiding from the problem, by sexually, racially, and or religiously homogenizing profiles ever going to help cure the problem in society that makes, making these things public, an issue? Certain males, act like jackasses around women, is putting them in an isolated bubble going to cure the problem?

Does training people that you can't say xy or z around people of a certain race, stop them from being racist? It just makes them Pavlov's Dog, they know saying those things are socially bad, and keep saying and doing the same exact things, when society is more lax about those things being said or done to a different group of people, say, homosexuals.

Sure it makes it harder for them to find people to act that way around, making it seem like its less of an issue, but does nothing to change the mentality that causes the behavior, they'll just find someone else to do it to, that is more socially acceptable, like Muslims. Hiding from it, is not the way, dealing with it, which is going to cause some discomfort is the you cure it.

"Call your dad on fathers day" as politically incorrect? This seems like overkill. There is a 1000 other vastly more important things to get worked up over. Its not like Google took your dad away or made him someone you despise, and then flaunts how great it is having a dad you'd want to honor on fathers days in front of you. It's a little something to give their service a slight personality. Perhaps its like Field of Dreams, give people somewhere to complain, they will complain, which is fine, but complain about the problem, the people that caused it, not the things that remind you of it, which end up getting those things taken away from the majority of people that would enjoy the rather innocent reminder.I could see being pissed off if you were in jail for a crime you didn't commit, and you were being forced to celebrate the 4th of July or something, but this is not even close to that.

I was thinking pretty much the same thing. I'm guessing extroverts need to "fit in" a lot more than introverts, and this challenges the extroverts needs perhaps. Also it could be found that when you aren't being talked to, that there is something wrong with yourself, instead of it being the other person's issue. So perhaps it causes some issues that way too. I think society is sort of conditioned to think someone who doesn't socialize at a certain level, somehow has a problem. Which we are a society, socializing keeps us together, so its understood why this is probably seen as a bit more of an issue. Being introverted I like to maintain a low level of socializing, I do it when I want to, I have no problem doing it, its just not as much as other people. But not all people have that ability, and I think people assume the worst, that the person somehow needs "fixing" and isn't happy with their social life and doesn't know how to socialize. Where me, bottom line, I'm not talking to you cause I don't want to. Whether its because I find the person terribly annoying, or just can't think of anything worth while to say is dependent on the situation. Which is why I either really like extroverts or really hate them, they keep the conversation going and are fun, or they never get the damn point, I don't want to talk to you, and annoy the hell out of me.

My first reaction was this is terrible, just giving someone the silent treatment, does nothing to clue them into what they did to deserve it. Assuming they are not a troll, who know what they're doing is wrong, the person may not understand, what they are doing is not acceptable, perhaps a cultural difference, perhaps social issues they have, ignorance whatever. Giving them the silent treatment will do nothing, they already have issues with socializing obviously, "getting the hint" probably isn't their strong point.

Then I started thinking about what was said, about this being "reality altering". Which I disagree with, if you are not good at socializing, annoying even, no one is going to want you to be involved in conversations, or participate in activities with you. Much like ratings/web hits, if people don't like you or what you have to say, you effectively get the silent treatment, or are completely ignored or worse. If you do have relevant things to say, and are socially well behaved, people aren't going to ignore you, and will want you to participate in their activities, because you have something to offer, and its in their best interest to let you participate. That is of course assuming they don't have some prior misconception about you, because of race, sex, jealously or other social failures on their own parts. They will accept you in instead of doing all those things that they do to try and give you the hint to "go away" like ignoring you, not telling you about social gatherings, or whatever. This is all very natural, and mimics the real world quite well.

ah, I apologize, I didn't realize there was a difference when it came to people under 18. Still seems a bit odd they would cut kids slack for one, but not the other.

I think it will be interesting to see if he is tried as an adult or not. Seems a bit odd, someone his age has the potential for a lesser sentence had he committed a violent crime, but perhaps not for copyright infringement. Either way, I think the MPAA/RIAA proved legally roughing up kids isn't the best habit to have.

This is the kind of stuff I think will cause more damage, than do any good. Yeah ordering pizza's is funny, but when you start digging into someones family, I think it goes over the line. This is something criminal thugs would do. This isn't going to do their cause's PR any good at all, which perhaps I'm wrong, that their goal is to help support the "little guy" against the "big powers", to accomplish that, its best to get the support of the people, to expose corruption, not threaten people like this. Which, when this goes to national news, its going to look really bad. Not to mention, this is stalker grade stuff, which that freaks me out for some reason, I imagine socially dysfunctional people, looking for some attention sitting around thinking, Anonymous is doing it, people like them, I know... I'm going to go do something completely insane so people will like me. These sort of tactics can easily blow up in their faces, perception of the people is everything these days, stuff like this can make it real easy to look really bad.

Would have to disagree with competition being bad, its not the cure all, thats for sure, but its not pointless by any means. AT&T proved this quite well when they had a monopoly of the telephone system. Innovation was on its door step, but it had no motivation to let it in, because they were the only gig in town. Competition in the business world also keeps you on your toes. The initial idea, the building of the business, might motivate to start, but a threat of competition keeps you trying to improve for the long haul. Perhaps there is a distinction in there, competition is great for the end users, it gives them better products, for business it makes a sporting event out of it, where you can win or loose. Competition is good of course when, the people competing play nice, and strive to be the best at what they do, and actually make a better product. Instead of doing what ever it takes, no matter how dirty to win. Where then its not about a competition of skill in the chosen market, its about cutting down the competition so you look better. Sort of like patent squatters, nothing to do with the skill of creating a great product, and everything to do with profiting off someone else taking it from idea to product.

In a hollywood romanticized way, I think Anonymous is a great idea, along the lines of Robin Hood. But in a practical way it causes me concern. Both for, and because of. Politically my biggest concern is with power, who has it and why. This sort of tactic goes against everything I believe in. There is a fine line between fighting tyranny, and fighting to be the new tyrants, which these tactics can easily cross that line. I also think of the 1960's when groups like this were vastly more common, and how those groups were broken up and taken down. I fear such a decentralized group, seemingly manifesting their missions out of chaos, could easily succumb to some tactile social engineering to destroy them from with in. No centralized command, leaves any sort of agenda in a constant state of flux, and leaves the identity Anonymous up for grabs when taking the blame for anything that is done. Which considering they are a threat, and relish in that, their image amongst the people who do not understand, who do not follow, can be easily swayed, ending up doing more harm than good, towards any agenda Anonymous and myself share in common. I wish them well in sticking up for the masses, against centralized abuses of power. But I fear this does not end will, either for them, or because of them. Power always seems to have a way to corrupt the good that can be wielded with it.

This site has been my go to place for reading material for a year to more. The other day I finally got an account, to test the waters of participating in the comment section, which often times are more interesting than the articles linked to. I hope my participation maintains the expected levels, but there in lies the problem. Anything based on a community, is bound to that community, like democracy, freedom to choose doesn't necessarily mean, the people are going to choose well. One universal truth through out human history, what rises, shall fall, when it involves a community of people. I figure, if my participation isn't rewarded, its not the place for me, so I'll move on, or just refrain from creating more noise. Its hard to convince people to self regulate like that, which is the only way to deal with it not becoming an over generalized, overly watered down link repository, that lost its niche in a flood of popularity, which would be a shame.

The miner in this reminds me of the movie Easy Rider, make a big score, then take the money and do what ever you want, which in the end turns out to not be what they thought it was. I've never had the fortune of making it into the industry, so from an outsiders perspective. I wonder since it seems a lot of what internet start ups are based on, is having a following, as in, your app is useless unless its got users to go with it. If some of the mining is similar to creating a product and selling it to someone with the ability to manufacture it. Like if I thought of a cool toy, patented it, and then sold that to Mattel, because I don't have the resources to capitalize on it. In the start up internet world, to prove the worth of the design, you need users. So the mining concept is just the adjustment needed in the internet world, for inventors to sell their inventions. Seems kind of similar. For me at least, I would probably want out as soon as possible, the business side of it, isn't as interesting as the building side of it, I would loose money on a successful business for sure, but it would give me the lateral mobility to pursue my interests, which are not being a CEO of a company.

I like what the Tesla company is doing, in regards to attempting to make alternative fuel cars, I'm all for such things. And yes, its an up hill battle, which I'm sure the internal combustion engine faced, while trying to oust horses for a viable mode of transportation. Not only is the technology not up to par/cost effective on a mass scale, there is the issue of charging station locations, and the nay sayers like the host of Top Gear, who isn't the only one that grumbles at the thought of electric or "eco-friendly" read Hot Rod magazine sometime. Which seems to be what Tesla wants to answer, electric cars can go fast to. But this lawsuit seems like its disingenuous, more like they are playing off a couple social issues for their benefit. 1 "Environment" is an emotional trigger second only to stuff like racism and sexism level stuff, its got some emotional appeal just by saying the word, either for or against. So claiming foul on someone who is notoriously pro fast powerful cars, who inherently isn't going to like commuter based cars, really nails that emotion. 2 Taking it to the media, to hit a full scale marketing campaign about it, years after it happened, to help fuel that emotion and go after the media justice that seems to easy to do, like O.J. we all "know" he did it, but was proven innocent pretty much. Enough press coverage to one side, and we all start forming our own judgments. I think these are dirty tricks, that only add fuel to the opposition's fire. Like the scientists who were busted with bad data on global warming. Regardless if the position is true, getting caught doing dirty tricks, is going to make you look bad regardless, doing more harm than good. Just because I agree with their environmental position, doesn't mean I have to look the other way, when they break other beliefs of mine. I'm angered cause of the damage this could do for environmentalism, which I believe in first, their company second.

This is exactly what I was thinking, while reading through the comments, the phrase "Neeerds!" kept playing in my head from the Revenge of the Nerds movie. The American culture has not been favorable to intellectuals socially, at least in my life time, 36 years. I believe most people tend to gravitate to what is socially acceptable. Also there is a sense I get from the political media, that intellectuals are to be demonized. Intellectuals generally seem to speak of complex problems, with complex solutions. Which are a hard sell in a form that seems to live off the 30 second sound clip, not to mention any ideological conflicts. And then there is the part where being an intellectual is hard work, it takes dedication, sometimes a complete lifestyle to gain, and maintain. Something that you'd have to put down the remote control, get off the sofa and go get. Its an up hill battle, TV, which is the most powerful form of dispersing to the people, what their culture is and thus, what they should be doing, to maintain their social status, is easy to do, more so than learning about a topic. Also the people making it, want to do what ever it takes, to make sure you keep watching instead. Then the people through ratings, tell the producers what they want to watch. So it is rather easy for this process to spiral out of control. The race to the bottom if you will. The internet has changed things a bit, it brought fame and glory to some smart people, the innovators and the builders, but I would still wager the vast majority is still tied up in social networking. Recently getting a twitter account I've noticed whats on TV tonight, seems to trend quite often.

I don't think its any more stupid than them trying to associate scantily clad women with a domain name registrar. At least he actually has something to do with the company. It might be different if the models actually helped you fill out the forms, but they don't, they have nothing to do with the process, except creating a memory associated with the company name. It is a live by the sword die by the sword situation when it comes to brand identity.

I just watched the video, and can't figure out where the malice is. Its a relatively new build of car, and a car based on a Lotus, the chances of there being reliability issues are pretty good, this type of car isn't built for being the go to commuter car, its built to zoom around in. As far as the vastly less miles per charge claim, they were running it on a race track, take any car you want, under any form of power you want, and drive it hard like that, its not going to get best case efficiency. This sure seems like a lot of noise, about nothing surprising. I think I agree it might be for publicity or inspired by some other rationale than just libel.

I would agree with most on here, this is par for the course considering the companies branding already, which is pretty cheap low rent stuff. He's coming across as the "dickish" "most interesting man in the world" here. And I agree it should be a game warden duty to handle such situations, for the same reason McD's wouldn't allow old food to be eaten by employees, because it would increase the chances of there being more "old food." But the thing that really bugs me is the end, why not have it properly butchered and dispersed that way? Instead of something that reminds me of Bum Fights. Class is obviously not part of their branding in anyway.