Comment by coldtea | Hacker News Reader

Comment by coldtea | Hacker News Reader

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>I've been waiting for the inevitable rhetorical attack that Silicon Valley's slowly-but-surely increasing crackdown on everything that happens to offend SV is itself a form of cultural imperialism. Without endorsing or rejecting that argument myself, I think it's inevitable that we're going to start hearing it soon.

As a non-American, I endorse the argument myself.

The US has a quite particular culture, and yet most of its population (from all my experience) seems to consider it either (a) the pinnacle of human culture that others countries should/do aspire, or (b) the natural state of civilization (what things just "are", with everything else being inconceivable).

Add to that the geopolitical force and might of the country, and the fact that its companies control most of the internet infrastructure, and it gets troubling that a country with very specific interests that it pursuits globally, and where Janet Jackson showing some tit was considered a major cultural "thing" the media and people wrote about for weeks, gets to decide such policies.

>* there is no culture that could run a centralized global social network without these sorts of problems becoming ever-larger, the only difference is where the flash points would be.*

Well, the EU for one has a much broader range of cultures within nation member states, and a much broader cultural and historical and geopolitical perspective.

> Janet Jackson showing some tit was considered a major cultural "thing" the media and people wrote about for weeks

I've heard people who work in radio describe the Janet Jackson Superbowl incident as a watershed moment. Not only did weeks of meetings and memos about "standards and practices" follow, but to this day it remains a moment in their careers that sticks out as a clear "before/after" point, a "life will never be the same" event."

At first, I thought they were exaggerating and being facetious or joking, but it actually was a major event for everyone in their industry: before the Janet Jackson incident, every radio program at their station broadcast live. If a caller on the air started swearing or saying "obscene" things, they would chide the caller and apologize to the listeners. Now, every program broadcasts with a 20-second delay, and they have a board operator with a "dump button" in case anything "obscene" is said. (As one talk show personality sardonically remarked, "What, are they afraid we're going to start talking about Janet Jackson's nipple?")

In most countries this would have been a little side note and forgotten the next day. The US is wasting a lot of time and energy on debating trivial things while the real stuff is going on behind the scenes.

If we (the US) did not waste so much time, energy and other forms of wealth on what is essentially busywork, we would be forced to deal with the full ramifications of how we have transformed our world.

As a German, I can assure you that our media are merely debating a different set of trivial things.

Like Promi Big Brother? I am German but have been living in the US a log time. It's hard to understand how that show can be on front pages.

>...but it actually was a major event for everyone in their industry: before the Janet Jackson incident, every radio program at their station broadcast live. If a caller on the air started swearing or saying "obscene" things, they would chide the caller and apologize to the listeners. Now, every program broadcasts with a 20-second delay,

A profanity delay has been used in radio for _much_ longer than that. The first tape delay was introduced by WKAP in 1952. The delay is usually more like 7 seconds, not 20 seconds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_delay

There's also the associated tall tale, best told by people in broadcasting. Of course, i'm going to butcher it.

The poor editor is sitting with their finger on the beep button, but a segment surprises them. "Those fuckers <long beep> ..." goes out over the air. It's 5:30 on the drivetime news, prime listening time. The host apologies to the audience and everyone tries to move on.

The general manager calls in, demanding to speak to the editor. Editor is terrified of losing their job. GM asks with as much fury and fire as possible, "Since you didn't have a problem with fucker, i have to know what the hell did they say after that that you decided was sooo much worse you had to beep it out?"

The editor turns bright red, everyone laughs and station pays a small fine. The story gets retold when there's a new audience or a retirement. Guys who tell their version of this story relish the details. even though you see it coming a mile away, almost all of fun comes from those great storytellers.

"Well, the EU for one has a much broader range of cultures within nation member states, and a much broader cultural and historical and geopolitical perspective."

I would say that, exactly as you phrased it, that's multiple cultures. "The EU" can't run a "Facebook", it would be "The French" or "The Polish" or something like that. The EU is definitely in a place where increasing the amount that one of the dominant cultures imposes on the rest decreases the ability of the EU to function. (I'm talking first derivative here, which as you may recall eliminates the original value; I'll leave it to the reader to decide how far the EU is or is not already down that road.)

>I would say that, exactly as you phrased it, that's multiple cultures. "The EU" can't run a "Facebook", it would be "The French" or "The Polish" or something like that.

It would have a base country where its HQ are yes.

But it would still have employees from multiple EU countries, and operate within EU's laws, guidelines and cultural frameworks -- giving it a much wider perspective than 10.000 Americans (+ some wannabe Americans that came there to study/work) in a building in San Francisco.

"and operate within EU's laws, guidelines and cultural frameworks -- giving it a much wider perspective than 10.000 Americans (+ some wannabe Americans that came there to study/work) in a building in San Francisco."

10 years ago I would have disagreed with that statement. Now I can't. SV has gone nearly ideologically monolithic. It may be literally the greatest danger facing SV right now, not that anyone in SV sees it that way of course. I don't live in SV, and I am starting to see people in my real life (not just on the internet, where all kinds of crazy things get said that don't really mean anything) start naming it as a problem. I haven't had to reassure anyone that I work for 'an SV company, but not that kind of SV company' yet but it's probably less than a year away at this rate.

> SV has gone nearly ideologically monolithic

So, are you referring to ideology of neoliberal economics mixed with social justice in the form of minority rights, or right-libertarianism, or something else?

In my humble European opinion, neoliberal economics mixed with social justice gone a little too far and puritanism intrinsic to the Anglosaxon culture but not shared by the rest of the world.

That sums up my impression as a New Zealander as well.

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