
The anonymous Silicon Valley satire that has stumped tech world insiders - Libertatea
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/12/02/the-anonymous-silicon-valley-satire-that-has-stumped-tech-world-insiders/
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roymurdock
Self-referential, technology-focused and shaped texts like this make me wonder
what the new, dominant school of thought will be for this generation's western
literature.

Post-modernism [1] has been considered "dead" for about 10-15 years with no
discernible movement coalescing to replace it. SV, entrepreneurship, and
startup culture have had such a profound effect on the west that it would be
hard for authors today to ignore the tropes and heroes of this movement, which
is what these anonymous authors have addressed head on.

Will kids in high school 30 years from now still be reading Salinger,
Vonnegut, McCarthy, Orwell, Heller, Faulkner, Steinbeck and other classics? Or
will there be some literary movement borne out of SV culture to supplement
these classic texts?

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-
postmodernism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-postmodernism)

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AngrySkillzz
> SV, entrepreneurship, and startup culture have had such a profound effect on
> the west

Only in your tiny bubble. People seriously believe this?

~~~
jdminhbg
The bubble exists, but it's ludicrous to believe that SV startups don't have
profound effects outside it. What % of people use Google, or Facebook, or
Android/iOS every day in the west?

~~~
mattzito
I think it's important to differentiate between the effects the products these
companies create have, and the effects the companies themselves have on
world/US culture.

Clearly the products have had a profound impact on culture, but I think the
impact would have been the same if they had been developed by Exxon or
Halliburton.

As far as the cultural impact of the companies themselves, I think it's been
modest at best.

~~~
jdminhbg
> Clearly the products have had a profound impact on culture, but I think the
> impact would have been the same if they had been developed by Exxon or
> Halliburton.

But Exxon or Halliburton couldn't have developed these products. They wouldn't
even try and fail to develop these kinds of products.

~~~
cmiles74
I think your missing the point. The idea is that it didn't really matter who
made the product; it was the product itself that had the "profound impact on
culture".

~~~
adventured
The product and the company that created it cannot be separated in terms of
origination. The product required those specific inputs to exist. As such, it
was the company that created the profound impact on the culture. To remove
that connection is to pretend the product could have been created by any given
corporation and corporate culture.

~~~
cmiles74
Maybe the difference is more subtle than I thought. The culture of a company
like Google may be very tolerant and open, it may value self-actualization and
support of individuality. This culture could be critical to the creation of
Google products, like Search and GMail. It could even be said that products
like Search and GMail could _only_ have been created by a company with the
cultural values that Google possesses. Other organizations with different
cultures may not even have been able to understand enough about how these
products work to even try to produce them.

I believe the question is: "Do the cultural values of a company like Google
impact the values (or culture) of their customers through their use of
Google's products?"

I would argue that no, they do not. People want to find out where they can buy
the cheapest dog food or recipes for something they need to cook. For sure,
Google's may present articles that they might not otherwise see, but that's as
far as I believe this goes; this other content need not be consistent with
Google's values (very often it isn't). Ditto with GMail, I wouldn't think the
culture of Google, as expressed through GMail, will make much of an impact on
their customers at large.

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ritchiea
I bought the kindle edition and I don't get the hype about this book at all.
First of all it's barely a book, it's not even a novella, it's pretty much
zine length. It's a 10-15 min read. I'm thinking I made a mistake in getting
the electronic version since the charm seems to be in the physicality of it.
There is some cleverness in the story but it's so brief that the real
phenomenon here is not poignant satire, instead it's how the zine was
delivered to its initial recipients and that it got their attention in the
first place.

~~~
david927
I'm surprised you felt that way. I only read the (linked) introduction so far
and I was bent over laughing. The story, punctuated by the tweets, is
_hysterical_. I don't see how the length ( _Candide_ was also short) or
physicality of it matters. I find that it is, indeed, poignant satire, and
that is enough for me.

~~~
ritchiea
Most of the story and the best jokes are in the articles about the book and
the included text.

~~~
david927
I remember once, years ago, a member of a 70's band (Jethro Tull?) being asked
if he watched MTV. When he replied, "Yes," the commentator remarked that he
was surprised that this person liked that music. The band member's eyes
widened in horror and said, "I watch the news. That doesn't mean I like what I
see."

I guess I love the book for the same reason that I hate HN, despite that I
check it daily. Silicon Valley has had tremendous success financially, if not
technically, and that has spawned with it a strange micro-culture that is easy
to skewer when you take just a few steps away from it.

~~~
ritchiea
I didn't say the skewering was the problem. The book barely scratched the
surface of the material that's out there.

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gohome190
From the headline, I thought this was going to be a piece about who runs
@StartupLJackson

~~~
austenallred
I'm pretty sure there are a wide number of people who know who SLJ is.

~~~
govindkabra31
.. _large_ number of people..

~~~
austenallred
You're right. Shoot.

------
swampthinker
Got a good laugh at this: "When it comes to any sort of stunt that gets a lot
of attention on social media, all roads lead back to Taco Bell or Mountain
Dew."

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jpwagner
from the text: "Crooks never tweeted. He never retweeted. But he had developed
his own, impassioned way of favoriting."

This is great.

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elmar
"We were promised flying cars and all we got was 140 characters"

Peter Thiel

I bet in Peter to be one of the authors of the book.

~~~
austenallred
There are a lot of quotes in there from a ton of people. I'm actually in
there, and I'm neither famous nor do I know who put the book out.

~~~
Artistry121
I read on your blog that you were getting off HN. Glad to see that's not true.

~~~
austenallred
I'm trying to get off HN like it's an abusive significant other. I don't know
why, and I don't think it's healthy, but somehow I keep coming back for more.

~~~
logfromblammo
We're sorry. We didn't mean to take your productivity out to the back and
throw it under the lawnmower. Twice. Can't you procrastinate with us, just a
little, please, for old times sake? It'll only take a minute. You can stay for
a minute, right?

Hey, did you see there's a new release of Dwarf Fortress out? You should look
at some of the engineering behind the B-29 cannon system. Isn't it interesting
how the human body responds to long-term microgravity? How would you like to
buy a South Dakota hamlet? Do you think malware could effectively exploit any
flaws in multiprocessor computing?

~~~
headgasket
that made my day. really.

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marknutter
This is off topic, but why is WaPost only giving me 30% of my screen in which
to view the article:
[http://i.imgur.com/QwnLoIh.png](http://i.imgur.com/QwnLoIh.png)

I sometimes wish these news publications would just use Medium or similar
blogging platforms.

~~~
austenallred
The rest of the page is ads. I presume you have adblocker turned on.

~~~
TeMPOraL
And publishers are surprised we use ad blockers...

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humbertomn
I know who wrote it... Hint: He was very active on HN on Feb/2015!

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GalacticDomin8r
> He was very active on HN on Feb/2015!

Hence the inspiration.

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prezjordan
Some think this might be why the lucky stiff.

[https://twitter.com/leahculver/status/671713994441293824](https://twitter.com/leahculver/status/671713994441293824)

~~~
sevensor
It doesn't _not_ seem like something _why would do.

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zatkin
All I can think of when reading this is to ask myself whether or not the work
that I do is good for my mental stability.

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smcl
This reminds me a little of "Being or Nothingness" by _Joe K_ (hehe)
[http://lukemuehlhauser.com/the-riddle-of-being-or-
nothingnes...](http://lukemuehlhauser.com/the-riddle-of-being-or-nothingness)

~~~
applecore
Joe K's _BorN_ is a great read. Love Hofstadter's quote on the matter:

“People who are normal, i.e., sane, sensible, don’t try to open lines of
communication with total strangers by writing them a series of disjointed,
weird, cryptic messages.”

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s986s
This was a really great essay, very funny. Before I jump in with the rest of
you claiming "sv echo chamber", I'd like to point out that these tweets can be
made to look like asshats and can be made out to be inspirational and telling
of a the silicon valley mind set. These are the bourgeoisie that are looking
for that perfect work/life balance and want to see future push forward, though
usually by building really simple technologies. They have the opportunity to
become senile or play with philosophy because they are doing everything in the
power to bet big.

As much as this essay shows how alien their world is to my own, it also shows
what successful marketing/operations people think about while pushing for
success.

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gadders
>> that has stumped tech world insiders

... and bored anyone not in the SV echo chamber.

------
DaveWalk
Another discussion about the piece:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10652145](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10652145)

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peter303
Yawn. Just more Millennial narcissism.

~~~
kaonashi
In the tweets?

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hendzen
There are quite a few young founders getting trampled to death by llamas
(users) after being (easily) influenced by tweets (and essays...) from
thought-leaders.

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allemagne
So if there are really only 140 copies, how long until the book is put online?

~~~
wf
It links to a copy in the article:
[https://fusiondotnet.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/iterating-g...](https://fusiondotnet.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/iterating-
grace_digitized_small.pdf)

~~~
SloopJon
The article also notes that the essay has been picked up by a publisher (now
available on Amazon for $5 - $8), so I presume this copy is not authorized.

