Maureen Dowd, "The Google Art Heist": Artsy Fartsy

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Oh dear, the demise of culture as we once knew it.

On Friday, David Brooks, writing from St. Petersburg, decried the "withering" of Russian counterculture. In response, I observed that The New York Times had come under fire for creating an infographic listing Democrats opposed to Obama's nuclear deal with Iran and indicating the estimated percentage of Jews among their constituents. I asked if there would be even a single Times columnist brave enough to address this outrage, which suggests that Democratic opposition to the nuclear deal stems from Jewish influence over government and not from ethical considerations.

Apparently, Maureen Dowd will also not be opining upon this topic.

Today, writing from Paris in her latest Times op-ed entitled "The Google Art Heist," Dowd is preoccupied with the decline of the arts:

"[W]hen I heard that, building on its plan to digitize all books, Google had opened a Cultural Institute in Paris to digitally replicate and curate all art and culture on earth, I wanted to check it out. Europe is, after all, hostile territory for the Alphabet, with its highest court upholding an individual’s right to be forgotten and lawsuits looming over the tech giant’s suffocating business practices.

Despite the cheeky sign on the door of the grand building on Rue de Londres — 'I’m feeling lucky' — I wasn’t the only one with mal de mer."

The digitalization of all books? The replication of all art? Sorry, Maureen, but I would be more concerned about the worrisome resurrection, back in New York, of an ugly phenomenon which made its home in Berlin in the not so distant past.

Thomas Friedman, "How to Get a Job at Google, Part 2": Why You Wouldn't Want a Job at Google, Part 2

Yes, I know you're only 20 years old, but what do you want out of life? A job that's a way station, or are you already hungry for more?

In a prior New York Times op-ed entitled "How to Get a Job at Google" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/opinion/sunday/friedman-how-to-get-a-job-at-google.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss), Thomas Friedman sought to provide advice for youngsters considering college and careers. After describing a meeting with Laszlo Bock, the senior vice president responsible for hiring at Google, Friedman concluded:

"Google attracts so much talent it can afford to look beyond traditional metrics, like G.P.A. For most young people, though, going to college and doing well is still the best way to master the tools needed for many careers. But Bock is saying something important to them, too: Beware. Your degree is not a proxy for your ability to do any job. The world only cares about — and pays off on — what you can do with what you know (and it doesn’t care how you learned it). And in an age when innovation is increasingly a group endeavor, it also cares about a lot of soft skills — leadership, humility, collaboration, adaptability and loving to learn and re-learn. This will be true no matter where you go to work."

In response to Friedman's opinion piece (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2014/02/thomas-friedman-how-to-get-job-at.html), I agreed with Mr. Bock that "people who don’t go to school and make their way in the world . . . are exceptional human beings." I also observed that my years in college and law school were a waste of time, which did not teach me anything of value.

Today, in his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "How to Get a Job at Google, Part 2" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/20/opinion/sunday/friedman-how-to-get-a-job-at-google-part-2.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss), Friedman tells us that he returned to Mr. Bock in search of more advice for job hunters. Friedman concludes this opinion piece by asking him "What’s your best advice for job interviews?" Mr. Bock's response:

“What you want to do is say: ‘Here’s the attribute I’m going to demonstrate; here’s the story demonstrating it; here’s how that story demonstrated that attribute.’” And here is how it can create value. “Most people in an interview don’t make explicit their thought process behind how or why they did something and, even if they are able to come up with a compelling story, they are unable to explain their thought process.”

But if you're really a hotshot, i.e. the best of the best of the best, and are better than anyone else at explaining your thought processes and triggering innovation, are you honestly interested in devoting your youth to online searches, data storage and advertising? Google is so big, can you have an impact upon the organization? Sure, the salary and perks are fabulous, and maybe Google is a great way station, but perhaps there's so much more you can do with your talent.

Yes, I know: I'm a fine one to talk. I wasted years with a financial institution, until discovering the courage to leave and take my chances. Perhaps I was not ready to go it on my own until after I turned 50. Fortunately, however, roads can diverge in a wood more than once in a lifetime.

Thomas Friedman, "How to Get a Job at Google": Sorry, Tom, I Wouldn't Want a Job at Google

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "How to Get a Job at Google" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/opinion/sunday/friedman-how-to-get-a-job-at-google.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss), Thomas Friedman is back with more advice for youngsters considering college and careers. After describing a meeting with Laszlo Bock, the senior vice president responsible for hiring at Google, Friedman concludes:

"To sum up Bock’s approach to hiring: Talent can come in so many different forms and be built in so many nontraditional ways today, hiring officers have to be alive to every one — besides brand-name colleges. Because 'when you look at people who don’t go to school and make their way in the world, those are exceptional human beings. And we should do everything we can to find those people.' Too many colleges, he added, 'don’t deliver on what they promise. You generate a ton of debt, you don’t learn the most useful things for your life. It’s [just] an extended adolescence.'

Google attracts so much talent it can afford to look beyond traditional metrics, like G.P.A. For most young people, though, going to college and doing well is still the best way to master the tools needed for many careers. But Bock is saying something important to them, too: Beware. Your degree is not a proxy for your ability to do any job. The world only cares about — and pays off on — what you can do with what you know (and it doesn’t care how you learned it). And in an age when innovation is increasingly a group endeavor, it also cares about a lot of soft skills — leadership, humility, collaboration, adaptability and loving to learn and re-learn. This will be true no matter where you go to work."

Well, I agree with Mr. Bock that "people who don’t go to school and make their way in the world . . . are exceptional human beings." Me? I regard my years spent in college and law school as a waste of time, which did not teach me much of anything.

Sure, I subsequently got jobs at top law firms, but this did not translate into joy or a sense of accomplishment.

I suppose everyone is different, but I believe that leadership and innovative skills - if any - came to me later in life, but not at school. They were born out of crises and acquired at a significant emotional price.

Can leadership and innovation be taught? Is there a link between the two? Do they have a strong genetic component? Do these traits derive from one's upbringing? I don't have the answers.

Google? I wouldn't want it, not because it's Google, but because it would be just one more stifling body corporate. Online searches? Data storage? Advertising? Not for me, regardless of the corporate culture, but perhaps for others. In my instance, given that we pass through life only once, there has to be much more.

David Brooks, "What Our Words Tell Us": Are Books Still Being Read?

I have three children, ages 25, 21 and 18. At the moment, not one of them is reading a book for pleasure. Texting? Yes. Surfing the Internet? Yes. Reading a book? No.

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "What Our Words Tell Us" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/opinion/brooks-what-our-words-tell-us.html?_r=0), David Brooks tells us that the words found in books during different periods can attest to cultural shifts. Brooks writes:

"About two years ago, the folks at Google released a database of 5.2 million books published between 1500 and 2008. You can type a search word into the database and find out how frequently different words were used at different epochs.

The database doesn’t tell you how the words were used; it just tells you how frequently they were used. Still, results can reveal interesting cultural shifts. For example, somebody typed the word “cocaine” into the search engine and found that the word was surprisingly common in the Victorian era. Then it gradually declined during the 20th century until around 1970, when usage skyrocketed.

. . . .

Evidence from crude data sets like these are prone to confirmation bias. People see patterns they already believe in. Maybe I’ve done that here. But these gradual shifts in language reflect tectonic shifts in culture. We write less about community bonds and obligations because they’re less central to our lives."

Yet another fascinating, ever so valuable exercise in data mining.

Community bonds and obligations have become "less central to our lives"? Probably, given that we live in an age of narcissism, from the president on down.

Is the Google database of any real value going ahead? Probably not. In my humble experience, young people no longer read books.

David Brooks, "The Machiavellian Temptation": Don't Urinate in Your Garden

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Machiavellian Temptation" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/opinion/brooks-the-machiavellian-temptation.html?ref=opinion), David Brooks observes that we are creatures of habit and that today it is very hard to break those habits:

"The 19th-century character model was based on an expansive understanding of free will. Today, we know that free will is bounded. People can change their lives, but ordering change is not simple because many things, even within ourselves, are beyond our direct control.

Much of our behavior, for example, is guided by unconscious habits."

Brooks concludes:

"As the Victorians understood (and the folks at Alcoholics Anonymous understand), if you want to change your life, don’t just look for a clever trigger. Commit to some larger global belief."

Commit to some larger global belief? My larger global belief, as the slaughter in Syria goes unchecked and Iran continues to build its first nuclear weapon, is that the world is not getting better and that I am almost powerless to effect change.

But wait! Although churches and synagogues today might have a harder time instilling values, a new habit-changing force has emerged from cyberspace: Google. Consider the following story from France (http://www.heraldsun.com.au/technology/peeing-frenchman-sues-google-for-making-him-laughing-stock/story-fn7celvh-1226286940524):

"A FRENCHMAN is suing Google for making him the laughing stock of his village after the firm's Street View service put on the internet a picture of him urinating in his garden, his lawyer said overnight.

'He discovered the existence of this photo after noticing that he had become an object of ridicule,' lawyer Jean-Noel Bouillaud told AFP, asking for the name of the village not be published.

. . . .

'My client lives in a tiny hamlet where everyone recognised him,' said Mr Bouillaud, adding that his client was on his own property and the gate to his garden was closed at the time the photo was taken."

Thanks, Google. I'm certainly not going to urinate in my garden anytime soon.

Who Needs Obama When We Have Google?

In his New York Times op-ed of today's date entitled "Google vs. China", Roger Cohen seems to approve of Google's challenge of Chinese censorship, although Cohen is careful not to condemn China too harshly:

"Openness for China is a means to an end — prosperity and development — but not a value. This is the Chinese paradox Google now appears bent on challenging. Google is right to do so."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/opinion/15iht-edcohen.html?hp

A pity that Cohen is unwilling to tackle China's oppression of its Tibetan and Uyghur minorities. Also no mention by Cohen of the fact that China executes more people each year than the rest of the world combined. But why should Cohen's silence surprise us, given his unwillingness to dirty his hands with Iran's horrific abuse of its Baha'i minority?

But did you happen to notice something else peculiar about Cohen's op-ed? There is not a single mention of President Obama's visit to China earlier this year, when Obama didn't dare whisper the words "human rights". Have we indeed reached a time when we must rely upon "profit-hungry" corporations, and not our elected officials, to protect freedom of speech and expression?

Instead of donating money for Obama's reelection, maybe the U.S. electorate should consider buying Google shares?