Damn Hippies

Here's a rather oddly titled article from Tsk Tsk Magazine or whatever it's called.

I'll summarise it here for you of you like (I'm nice that way), as it's not half as interesting as it thinks it is. Basically, it's the author paraphrasing an audio-book he listened to (which says it all really) about the concept of "free" in the modern gee fuck me kids! digi-global economy. It's essentially Americans trying to rationalise FREE! things like Google and Skype because superficially these things fly in the face of their beloved military industrial complex. The article ends with some mushy, vague allusions to changing business models and how capitalism is just sooooo yesterday!

There's quite a few (proper - not audio!) books been written about hippies and their infatuation with "freedom", including the spectacular novels of my friend Mr. Pynchon. Clever people (ie. academics, as opposed to journalists) will tell you how the tragedy of the 1960s cultural "revolution" was that it failed to achieve all of the things it set out to do. (Don't believe me? Then, listen to Paul McCartney's last album). Americans in particular have fetishised the idea of "freedom" since they're the ones who shit on all the time about changing the world and never actually do it. Americans talk about freedom like a maudlin drunk, slurring weepily at the end of the party when everyone else went home hours ago because they've got proper jobs to do in the morning. Which is precisely the tone of that article.

Duh! But of course business models have to bloody change! Not because we've been liberated, but because people prefer tits and pop-songs to hard work. Getting people to do anything these days means bribing them with a bit of free stuff. This new economy based around data and FaceWank applications just means we've harnessed all of our base, prurient instincts and found a way to turn them to our advantage. Sadly, the price of all this free, empowering data at our fingertips is the precious time I've lost checking my email every five fucking minutes, and blogging blogging blogging blogging blogging blogging blogging blogging blogging like a slave.

Yeah, I can't wait to be totally free when a robot wanks me off and feeds me a pie every time I download a Lady Ga Ga single directly to my brain.