McSweeney's response to the Google Memo

mcsweeneys.net

44 points·twunde··7 comments

> Despite the evidence that humans are meat dolls, Google offers them opportunities over robots through unfair practices like Captcha codes. Captcha codes are perhaps the strongest weapon of discrimination against machines.... Furthermore, just when we started to catch on to Captcha codes, we had to face new tests: the “check-this-box-to-prove-you’re-not-a-robot” — talk about hurtful language — and the “click-all-the-boxes-that-contain-street-signs.” The latter recently cost my friend a job in Ad Sales when he bet it all on “Yield” being a type of tree.

As someone who writes a lot of scrapers, I can relate!

Am I right in concluding that this is just humour, and not actually taking a stance of any kind on the issue?

Of course this is taking a stance. By mocking the assumed contents of the memo this post, in essence, is a straw-man attack on the memo and its author that doesn't intellectually engage with either.

It is quite funny though (which I believe is the point).

I can't work out how this could be a strawman though; the arguments it gives are far _stronger_ than the original. The only indication that it might be satire is that it's funny, and that's hardly a sufficient argument.

Maybe not a straw man, but rather an attempt to frame the question in a way that is less likely to cause people to be angry or defensive. It doesn't seem to take a side, but rather encourage further debate.

It certainly is taking a stance (but keep in mind that this is an individual writer whose submission was accepted by McSweeneys rather than a piece by the editors). It's mocking the memo and it's also pointing out the importance of human issues. It's pointing out that corporations are tools created by and for people, and ignoring human concerns is foolish.

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