http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/26570/
This would be funny if it wasn’t true.
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http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/26570/
This would be funny if it wasn’t true.
rastard 3:14 am on September 3, 2010 521 days ago Reply
The video would be funny if it was, well, actually funny.
It isn’t (and that has nothing to do with it being true… or not). It just isn’t funny. Period.
It’s just creepy (i.e. Consumer Watchdog was *very* successful in evoking the sensations it had in mind when it created the toon).
Zee 4:48 am on September 3, 2010 521 days ago Reply
Rastard. For many, creepy as a genre is extremely funny; oddly enough. According to Aristotle one of the wonderful things about the dramatic arts is that people can experience things vicariously. I’ve never been a fan of gory films or anything that was too gratuitously perverted. Nevertheless. I had a pass to a film festival. So I decided to check out a slasher film during one of the midnight madness offerings. I took an aisle seat towards the side at the front so I could watch the audience watching the film when I was curious of their reactions. First of all no two audiences are alike. But if you filmed the audience that I saw watching the slasher film, you’d have thought they were watching the best comedy during the film festival. That experience was one of the most surprising things that I’d ever witnessed. And it shed a new light on my thoughts and memories of living and walking around the Roman Colosseum. I never mentioned this to someone that told me they were going to organize a performance of graduating doctors. But I did suggest they create a musical. And I mentioned what could be done with special effects and prosthetics. They weren’t amused. Then again few seemed to be versed today on the rich history of medical humor. Humor is not a bad way of handling difficult things. Its human nature. If the Consumer Watchdog video was without humor then it’d be pure propaganda. What’s the difference? Propaganda often has no substance whatsoever. So I agree with GotWake’s position on what would appear to be funny and an example of dramatic irony.
rastard 8:18 pm on September 3, 2010 520 days ago Reply
@zee
“If the Consumer Watchdog video was without humor then it‚Äôd be pure propaganda. What‚Äôs the difference? Propaganda often has no substance whatsoever.”
Um yeah, exactly: http://techrights.org/2009/05/04/consumer-watchdog-exposed/
Reasonable people can disagree and everyone here has a right to keep their own opinion on Google, but for me — the cartoon was nothing but substance-less anti-Google propaganda:
- It purports that Schmidt reads your e-mails and search history,
- and then shares that personal information with others indiscriminately in a way that is purposefully harmful.
- It portrays him as a creepy pedophile.
That’s not “dramatic irony” — it’s the lowest form of FUD and personal attack possible.
Google has never proven to do serious harm even in an unintentional way, let alone as maliciously as portrayed. Sure — they have a *lot* of information, that most certainly has the potential to be misused and abused. But they haven’t done that. Instead, they’ve stood up to China. They’ve stood up and challenged U.S. Government subpoenas for user information, when all of their competitors bent over and gave the info up. They’ve led the entire industry in establishing dashboards and tools to help their own users anonymize or delete the information that they have (on Google services).
So yeah, it’s not funny. Btw, you want some “dramatic irony”? Here’s some:
http://www.businessinsider.com/anti-google-privacy-group-consumer-watchdog-is-tracking-your-clicks-with-google-analytics-2010-9