It's widely claimed (and IMO, correctly pointed out) that Fox News lacks journalistic integrity and is highly partisan, sometimes resorting to outright falsities to further an agenda.
Generally speaking, we prefer our news sources to be more objective, or if subjective, make their subjectivity more honest (i.e., by not painting it as an objective news program).
Fox News sensationalizes news for the sake of the story. This boosts ratings because it seems we are wired with a proclivity for stories, but when storytelling and ratings are your goals, something else has to give -- in this case, it's often objectivity.
I don't think the give-him-some-of-his-own reaction shows "how weak the defense is for this side of the argument".
You may be taking the reaction literally, but it likely just means this: If we mock this politician by threatening to apply his policy to himself, it may begin to dawn on his supporters that he is wrong.
So folks are just making fun of him, and rightly so. I just think that this particular joke may backfire (see my other comment).
Of course this would be an obvious demand and ironic. But I suggest one should only insist that he retreats from his policy aims: accept failure and/or step down.
Asking for his site to be taken down in accordance with his own misguided policy could give undue legitimacy to this policy.
The apologetic posts by Facebook engineers give deep insights.
Of course they can argue well on what are, for average users, technical details. On that level, it is possible to get entangled in endless discussions.
The real problem is that these posters seem to totally lack (or ignore) an understanding of the bigger picture of what they are contributing to.
I think timeline addresses some common needs and desires- personal reflection, recording your experiences, bonding over shared experiences. The profile and news feed have always seemed tailored to a certain type of content- what's happened recently. But it never really seemed important and the profile doesn't help you know someone. It feels like timeline lowers the virtual barrier between participants in online communication and lets them express themselves in a meaningful way. It feels like a departure from frivolity.
Of course, I have only seen the pitch at f8 but I haven't used the product yet so right now I think exactly what Facebook wants me to think :)
The way this is being debated here is quite emotional and superficial, resembling the discussion on Facebook.
As far as I see, there was an open unprotected commons, and some passer-by just took everything to do with it what he wants. You may rightly find this a sad thing, but you shouldn't be too surprised. This is a well known dilemma, there are enough studies dealing with this. There's a reason why copyleft licenses establish a commons protected by copyright law.
More than an olive branch, it appears to be more of an appeal to make the hate stop. If Sam Odio was unsure of the consequences or of his ability to handle the consequences of his actions, he should've kept a lower profile instead of cheerleading himself.
There appears to be an obsession with leaders and leadership in American corporate/political culture. I would like to understand it better. Can someone explain it to me?
America has enormous disparities in terms of wealth and power. If you're not a leader then there's a good chance that you won't be able to get good healthcare, you won't be able to afford enough food or at least enough nutritious food, your kids won't get a good education, no one will respect you, you're much more likely to end up in prison, and you're very likely to have a shorter and less happy life in general. Thus there are a lot of people who are obsessed with trying to figure it how to become leaders, because the stakes are pretty high.
In short, if you're not management then most likely this is a fairly accurate description of your life: http://bit.ly/qVqbOb. Imagine being 50 and not being allowed to use the bathroom without asking, not being trusted to use the cash register, being watched by video cameras constantly, etc. That's what the life of the average American is like.
I think that's a bit on the dramatic side of things. Most people with a desk job can afford all of the things you mentioned (which doesn't necessarily mean they're going to buy them, like nutritious food). You don't have to be management to be able to use the restroom at your convenience -- I've never been in management, but I've never had a desk job where I explicitly had to ask before I got up to use the bathroom. I just went to the bathroom.
You are exaggerating quite a lot here. There is some distinction between peons and management but in general it's mostly a status/mental thing, not a necessities-of-life thing. In the office, advancement and accomplishment is made by politics and promotion. It's not like a construction worker who can survey his work site and visibly see the progress he made; in an office-centric culture, people want to get into management because management equates with much-needed validation that you're actually doing something valuable. If you are made a manager, it means your managers think you're cool enough to join the manager club. And, again, in an office-centric environment, politics play a heavier role than they reasonably should.
Leaders set the direction and the tone of the organization. In a previous career, I was in the Navy. When our Commanding Officer (CO) changed, it was clear that leaders can dramatically affect their teams. We went from an A- CO to a C- CO who ran our submarine around, but who was then replaced by an A+ CO. Seeing all of that happen across 6 months convinced me that leaders are very important.
First this: "advertising is, ultimately, a form of discovery, a way of connecting people who want or need something with those that supply it."
Then this: "How exactly is it bad to connect people with things they want and need?"
And this: "How anyone can have a moral objection to that baffles me."
This is misleading. There may be people who object to advertising in principle, but even if you don't, if you are seriously trying to think about "moral objections", you need to at least consider what is being advertised and how it is being advertised. Instead, your comment is an example of how advertising advertises itself.
For almost any nonessential item, no one knows what they want until they see it. That might be seeing it when you are walking around a store, seeing your friend who had it, or seeing an ad for it on google but no one would ever think "I need an XBox360" if they have literally never heard of it.
There are rare exceptions, eg someone is hiking and their toes are too cold and they think "I wish I had boots that would keep my toes warmer", then they go find an item that matches that, but I think that is a tiny percentage of the purchases.
That's a weird way to read the OP comment, and I think you're way overreacting to it. You seem to be drawing some insidious connection between those two statements that simply isn't there.
OP didn't claim all advertisements were morally acceptable, but that there was nothing inherently wrong with the enterprise.
