
Talks at Google: Noam Chomsky [video] - famil
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C-zWrhFqpM
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k1m
The last part is great:

Khalil: "It's not every day that a non-Googler gets to sit in a room full of
people who work at Google, and are software engineers, and are advertising
experts, and are you know market experts in different fields. Do you have
anything that you'd like to ask us?"

Chomsky: "Why not do some of the serious things?"

:)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C-zWrhFqpM&t=59m21s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C-zWrhFqpM&t=59m21s)

~~~
aptidude187
What does he mean by that? Can you elaborate please?

~~~
Vinalin
I think it's in the same vein as the quote by Jeff Hammerbacher: _“The best
minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads”_.

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mistermann
This is in my opinion one of the most important and relevant to current events
Chomsky excerpts that I've ever seen:

Noam Chomsky - Neoliberalism Is Destroying Our Democracy

[https://youtu.be/uh8PpYRD5to?t=152](https://youtu.be/uh8PpYRD5to?t=152)

(Starts at 2:35, "and then a third thing happened..."; personally, I would
suggest ignoring the various TV clips spliced in as that to me seems like the
projections of the politics of the editor of the video and not necessarily the
specific idea Chomsky himself intends to convey.)

To me this illustrates how those who actually "control" things in the US and
the world have split those who should be allies into two camps. The perfect
weapon in this strategy is the "proper" and well-intended anti-racist
propaganda Westerners have been subject to for decades - combined with the
dulling of the average Western mind to the point many are near incapable of
critical thinking, the result is that perfectly common sense public
discussions on incredibly important matters such as international trade and
immigration can largely be stopped in their tracks by cries of "racism!"...and
even better, the ones who are being most harmed, the younger generations of
the (former) middle class, are the very ones who are stopping the dialogue
that affects their future!

Human nature is really amazing if you step back and observe it critically.

~~~
varjag
It's a perfect example of the modern far-left and far-right convergence. Both
have anti-globalist agenda, contempt for human rights and only slight
disagreement over who exactly has to be eliminated for peoples' better life.
Only now they were able to peacefully face off over the Internet and like each
other's tweets.

~~~
mistermann
The far left has an anti-globalist agenda?

What do you mean by "contempt for human rights" in this scenario?

"who exactly has to be eliminated for peoples' better life." \- what do you
mean by eliminated? And who are the candidates?

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keymone
> Chomsky explains his decision to focus on criticizing the U.S. over other
> countries as being because, during his lifetime, the country has militarily
> and economically dominated the world, and because its liberal democratic
> electoral system allows for the citizenry to exert an influence on
> government policy.

chomsky is incredibly smart and i love listening to what he has to say and
agree with most of it, but this focus on criticizing US is definitely not one
of them. i get the argument, but he's either blind to or doesn't care that his
well intended criticism is more effective as a political tool in hands of
enemies of the liberal democratic system which he supposedly wants to succeed.

not saying that US must not be criticized, it just feels very disproportionate
compared to the amount of injustice and atrocities in other parts of the
world. hell, on a majority of this planet's surface chomsky would have been
disappeared long time ago for the kind of criticizm he directs at US - is that
not a reason to begin your every speech with "keep in mind, matters are very
much worse pretty much everywhere else but...".

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thaw13579
I wish someone more interested and prepared could have conducted the
interview, but the talk is worth watching anyway.

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contingencies
20:00 has an interesting snippet where Chomsky relates the breakdown of
working class cultural institutions and education then takes a stab at Google
(one gets the sense the real audience response was edited heavily in post
production).

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Veratyr
I don't think I see what you see...

"And they may not have gone to school. They certainly didn't go to Oxford, but
the working class, the rising working class, had its own institutions of
education and culture, which was significant. A lot of that has been destroyed
in all kinds of ways. Google doesn't help."

Maybe there's some extra context in the minutes prior that gives this a
different meaning but it sounds to me like he's saying that Google changed the
way the middle class accesses information, which has destroyed the old ways. I
did go back 20 or so seconds and he mentions that they read books, which I
think backs this up somewhat (they used to go to libraries, now they don't
need libraries, they have Google).

And the laughter doesn't sound edited to me, though there's clearly a cut
there.

~~~
gkya
Nope, he wasn't referring to google at all until the end of the video.

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Frogolocalypse
The world will lose one of the great modern-day thinkers when Chomsky is no
longer with us. It's hard to fathom how he remains such a clear thinker at his
age.

~~~
demonshalo
His contribution to linguistics is definitely great and no one can take that
from him. But to call him a great modern-day thinker is a bit of a stretch.

~~~
Frogolocalypse
Hey, if you haven't read any of his books, I would recommend it some time. He
has a mind like a steel trap. His books are meticulously researched, and he
has a sad dry humor.

But what you also get is hope. I've always felt that the reason he does what
he does, is because we can point to openness, and draw a clear line between
today and the past. Not recognizing what we do in the world leads to
barbarism. The world has been rejecting barabarism consistently for centuries.
Even a century ago, in america, the discrimination was horrendous. It is
better because democracy allows us to question the implementation of
government. And he asks the big questions.

