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Comment on The Man Who Killed Google Search

Hunter S Thompson wrote a scathing eulogy for Richard Nixon, which I think is relevant here:

“Some people will say that words like scum and rotten are wrong for Objective Journalism – which is true, but they miss the point. It was the built-in blind spots of the Objective rules and dogma that allowed Nixon to slither into the White House in the first place. He looked so good on paper that you could almost vote for him sight unseen. He seemed so all-American, so much like Horatio Alger, that he was able to slip through the cracks of Objective Journalism. You had to get Subjective to see Nixon clearly, and the shock of recognition was often painful.”

(Non paywalled link: web.archive.org/web/20150213034115/…/308699/)

Sometimes, you need one or two journalists who are in a position to say “you know what? These people suck, and I’m sick of pretending they don’t”. It doesn’t need to be every journalist, and it probably shouldn’t be, but someone needs to say it.

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masterspace@lemmy.ca ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Yeah, I mean that’s kinda of the whole conceit of Behind the Bastards, the host is explicitly and inherently calling everyone they cover a bastard by default, but if you listen to Ed Zirtron’s appearances, he always just immediately wants to boil them down to a bastard as the root cause of their actions, when the literal entire point of that show is to examine what factors and backgrounds turn someone into a bastard.

Or again, I just can’t understand why he would be flabbergasted by a company naming their alert system after an early engineers’ tank top colour. Yes, there’s value in calling people bastards and scum and villains, but Ed Zirtron does it immediately, every time, which makes his judgement of them untrustworthy. It seems more rooted in some pathological need to boil everything down to simple binary systems.

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- turmacar@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  There’s quirkiness and [whimsy?], and there’s needless obfuscation. ‘Code Yellow’ meaning ‘Code Red’ is dumb. Like I get it, it probably started as an equivalent to ‘Code Wayne’ and subverting expectations is funny, but it’s a punchline from an old adult swim show more than anything. I get that Google HQ isn’t a Hospital or the military, but sometimes clarity is important. More now because they’re actively doing contracts for governments and militaries, not a scrappy startup. They became a trusted resource and are now cannibalizing themselves for short term gains.
  
  Whimsy at the top of a company while their workers are protesting their actions isn’t great.
  
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  - masterspace@lemmy.ca ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    There’s quirkiness and [whimsy?], and there’s needless obfuscation. ‘Code Yellow’ meaning ‘Code Red’ is dumb. Like I get it, it probably started as an equivalent to ‘Code Wayne’ and subverting expectations is funny, but it’s a punchline from an old adult swim show more than anything. I get that Google HQ isn’t a Hospital or the military, but sometimes clarity is important. More now because they’re actively doing contracts for governments and militaries, not a scrappy startup. They became a trusted resource and are now cannibalizing themselves for short term gains.
    
    Lol, this is dumb AF. If someone at a company tells you “code yellow” do you stop what you’re doing and follow your drilled into memory code yellow training from school, or do you say “hey, what does cod yellow mean?”.
    
    Again, you’re being as big of a blind hater as Zirtron.
    
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- bitwaba@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  There’s the old adage that “if everything hurts when you poke it your finger is broken”
  
  I feel Iike the correct application of this analogy here is “if everyone you examine is a bastard, you’re the bastard.”
  
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