lol Wired

So I read Wired magazine.  I'm not proud of it, but I read it pretty much cover to cover every month.  It comes to my apartment for a paltry $12 per year and the understanding that I will submit myself to a magazine chock full of adds and stories about ads.  I like shiny things and Wired fits perfectly in my plexi-glass bathroom magazine rack, its only stop between my mailbox and recycling.

And Wired is an excellent source of non-reality.  Or, a form of reality dreamed up by a bunch of futurists who act and write as if they take "web 2.0" companies mission statements to heart, which requires a hearty suspension of disbelief and thick set of blinders.  Sometimes things in Wired are related to what I'm thinking about for dissertation research, or are things I generally care about, such as data center design, or the possibility of an anti-trust lawsuit to be filed against Google.  But never have I wanted to cite Wired.  Academics, especially those who write about techy, software-ish, networky things I'm interested in love to cite Wired.  Which is often silly and sometimes appropriate when people think well about discourse and have some perspective on the magazine.   For the first time, after laughing out loud to dispel slight anger and annoyance, I thought: this is the most perfect encapsulation of something I've been meaning to address and it could only come out in these circumstances, I should write this down.

"The first encounter with students is at a get-together at the al-Rasheed Hotel in the Green Zone.  A show of hands indicates that the young people are skilled users of YouTube, Google, and Facebook.  But when Heiferman [CEO of Meetup] asks what they want for their future, no one envisions creating wealth and innovation in the private sector.  Instead, they want to work for the government.  They want job security and pensions.  This makes the Silicon Valley group crazy.  'You should think of yourselves as social entrepreneurs!' Hieferman says."

LOL, in anger and amusement.  The article goes on with Open Source promoters explaining business models of innovation and liberation to the students, who are not feeling such rhetoric at all.