[nkwiatek]

Poetic and engaging writing, but ultimately dishonest. It relies on the symbol of the hoodie to carry the speech through pathos, and that does take it quite far, but no argument is given. Are we expected to fear Zuckerberg, or the consumer website Facebook? The author stirs drama but does not direct it, and the resulting flatness feels disingenuous -- yet another Facebook piece that feels important with no insight. The author has identified that there is something significant to culture in Facebook's work that is also frightening, but can't quite articulate it, because that is actually difficult to do given how bleeding edge these issues are; instead, lazily, the author appears to give up. Disappointing. I'd love something with more teeth.

[beatpanda]

It's giving you some things to think about without coming to a conclusion for you, and it's interesting how disorienting you find this.

[nkwiatek]

Well, that's the thing: I don't find that interesting, I find it lazy. It's already lazy to write about Facebook, especially in a negative or fearful tone. (How much of that mongering do you see in a day? One article on the frontpage a day on average, yes?) When a writer chooses Facebook's ethos as a topic I'm looking very critically for true insight, but most end up punting on this -- this author included.

[beatpanda]

I don't think it was really about Facebook's ethos at all, and I think people are going to continue writing about Facebook negatively until we all find some way to solve the problems they're causing.

It's not just going to go away because it's a dead horse. That's like saying that anti-war protesters should just stop showing up, "because, duh, we all know war is bad, so just put your little placard down, already."

[callum85]

That's not a fair comparison. A protester's purpose is simply to make it known that they are for/against a certain cause – to increment the number of visible proponents/opponents.

A blog post needs to do a lot more than that if it is to be deemed a success. Especially if it is quite long. It should bring some insight. @nkwiatek thinks this particular blog post didn't bring much insight. If this is true, then it's valid to use this as a criticism. A long blog post with a reflective tone implicitly promises to bring something more to the table than "I think X is wrong".

[corporalagumbo]

Nicely said.