The Internet Is A Ginormous Blow Job

This is the third and final post in a series about the internet I've written this week. You might also read Part I or Part II if you haven't already done so — Dave

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What is it about blow jobs and golf?
    — Kilgore Trout, Kurt Vonnegut's alter-ego

After you thought about it, I'm sure it came as no surprise to you that the way the internet is structured is largely determined by the profit motive which drives what you see there. Necessarily, the internet had to turn out this way because it is a human product, and it's money that makes the human world go round.

But before I trash the internet, allow me to damn it with faint praise. For every person who uses the internet to read or publish, the internet offers seemingly endless possibilities. The internet is only as "good" or "bad" as what that person brings to it. Although humans are very confused about this point, technologies are always morally neutral. It is true—guns don't kill people; people kill people. Guns simply make it easier to do so. And if restraint is impossible, then the next best solution is to restrict access to guns. The best solution would be for people simply to have no desire to kill other people with guns. But that solution is out of reach.

And what an amazing technology the internet is! Unfortunately, it's also a lot like hand guns. If we have a scumbag, and the sole motive of this asshole is to use the internet to scam people and rip them off, well, the internet offers the perfect opportunity to do so. On the other hand, if we have an angel, and his sole motive is to save endangered species, then the internet also offers this enlightened person the best opportunity to do so. Each of these people will be "successful" on the internet in their chosen work to the extent to which such activities, good or bad, are "successful" in the human world.

So the internet is a simply comprehensive reflection of the humans who use it. Thus ends the "faint praise" portion of this post.

I ran across a perfect example of what the internet usually is—what it had to be. I had millions of candidates to choose from, but none so fitting as this one. It is no accident that I found this perfect example at The Huffington Post, which is perhaps the website which most exemplifies the crass, rapacious, money-grubbing nature of the world wide web. The perfect example is an editorial which was co-authored—prepare yourself—by Arianna Huffington, the owner of that exemplary website, and Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of the premier Evil Banking Establishment on Earth. It is called Our Common Goal: Empowering Entrepreneurs and Creating Jobs.

This week, politicians, writers, activists, and non-profit leaders are gathered in Davos, Switzerland for the 43rd annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. While the issues to be addressed range from health care to regulation to the environment, the two of us share a common interest in one particular topic — economic growth and job creation. While many European countries are struggling with double-digit unemployment, and America's recovery continues to limp along at best, many of us gathered in Davos will draw important lessons, not just from one another -- amidst the well-intentioned talk and catchy phrases — but from the individuals around the world who are building growth and creating opportunity every day, often overcoming extraordinary obstacles.

[My note: Davos, Switzerland is hosting the annual World Economic Forum this week. Every year the Earth's wealthy elites flock to Davos to hobnob, have their pictures taken, and plan out our Happy Future.]

To this end, we want to put the spotlight on those who are starting up small businesses, creating jobs, and improving their lives and the lives of their communities.

People like Kabeh Sumbo, the owner of Passama Agriculture Trading Company in Monrovia, Liberia. Kabeh survived her country's civil war as a refugee in Guinea. Upon returning to Monrovia, she started a palm oil business with a single gallon of oil, bought off of the back of a truck. Today, she provides employment for 65 Liberians and exports 1,200 gallons of palm oil to the United States.

Kabeh is a graduate of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women program. She is just one example of the millions of untold stories of entrepreneurs around the globe who, every day, are driving economic growth. This kind of grassroots growth must be recognized, encouraged, replicated, and multiplied manyfold if we are to build a resilient and dynamic global economy.

And real economic growth is essential if we are to create opportunities for all and healthier, safer, better educated communities. But prosperity and the broader benefits of growth are not always distributed equitably by the markets. The public and private sectors must therefore offer support to help build growth that is both sustainable and widely shared.

And around the world, one of the best investments we can make to spur growth is in women entrepreneurs.

As U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put it earlier this year, "to achieve the economic expansion we all seek, we need to unlock a vital source of growth that can power our economies in the decades to come... women."

Research by Goldman Sachs, the World Bank, and others has shown how investing in women can have a real impact on GDP growth — specifically, how narrowing the gender gap in employment could push income per capita as much as 14 percent higher than baseline projections by 2020, and as much as 20 percent higher by 2030. This same research also suggests that educating and empowering women positively affects the health, education, and productivity of future generations.

The Huffington Post and Goldman Sachs come at this issue with different perspectives, but a common goal.

In 2008, Goldman Sachs made a $100 million investment through its 10,000 Women program. This initiative provides women-owned small-to-medium businesses in more than 20 countries with a business and management education, access to mentors, and links to capital. This year, the program will reach its initial goal by serving its 10,000th woman.

This past summer, The Huffington Post broke new ground in the way the media commonly report economic news. Frustrated by the relentless coverage of disaster, tragedy and scandal in traditional media sources, The Huffington Post launched "What is Working," dedicated to covering stories of progress and success, particularly when it comes to creating jobs in the United States, and brought 100 startup entrepreneurs together at both political conventions to showcase all the different ways they're creating jobs.

Today, our two organizations are joining forces. Together we will examine what entrepreneurs are doing to drive growth around the world and apply the lessons we have learned.

Now, I could stop writing this post right now, for surely this marriage made in Hell, this astonishing editorial, which in their own words describes all the Good Things these enthusiastic servants of the Prince Of Darkness are doing to help the Little People, proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that the internet is a Ginormous Blow Job.

But I have more to say, so I will continue.

In so far as Part II of this series was about corrupt linking practices, I thought I would give you the tally for this editorial—

• there are 4 links to goldmansachs.com
• there is 1 link to huffingtonpost.com
• there is 1 link to state.gov (Hilary Clinton)
• there is 1 link to aacu.org (universities and colleges)

In Feburary of 2011, The Huffington Post was acquired by AOL for 315 million dollars. This acquisition made Arianna Huffington even wealthier than she already was.

AOL, the online media company that has recently snatched several smaller content firms, has agreed to purchase news blog service The Huffington Post for $315 million, the two companies announced Monday.

The companies said Arianna Huffington, The Huffington Post's co-founder and editor-in-chief, will be named president and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post Media Group, which will include all Huffington Post and AOL content.

And of course in Part I of this series, I described how Sensational Content Mills (SCMs) like The Huffington Post do their very best to get your attention and turn those pageviews—"eyeballs" as they are known in the business—into dollars in the substantial hope that you will click on the eye-catching advertisements which appear on SCM web pages. They will publish any trash imaginable to accomplish this noble goal.

And toward that end, here is Arianna herself describing just how superbly The Huffington Post did in the first year after being acquired by AOL.

Nearly a year ago, after the news broke that AOL was buying The Huffington Post -- to be precise, it broke at midnight on February 5th, just after the Packers won the Super Bowl — I wrote in my announcement post that, for HuffPost, the merger would be like "stepping off a fast-moving train and onto a supersonic jet" -- or 1 + 1 = 11.

Coming up on our one-year anniversary, a look at the numbers shows that our math was way off. It turns out that 1 + 1 actually equaled 44. And 54,000,000. And 1,200,000,000 (those figures are, respectively, the number of new verticals launched since the merger, the number of comments posted last year, and the number of page views we got in December 2011).

Here are some other notable figures from the past year:

Unique visitors a month: 36.2 million (an increase of 47 percent)

Comments in the last month: 6 million

Comments on a single day: 253,331 (Jan 25, 2012)

New commenters signing up per day: 5,500

Social referrals in a month: 21.6 million (December 2011)

Facebook referrals in a day: 1.4 million (January 4, 2012)

International editions launched: 3 (Canada, UK, France)

Additional international editions scheduled in the next three months: 3 (Quebec, Spain, Italy)

Editors and reporters added: 170

New bloggers: 9,884

Blog posts in last year: 61,688

Stories published per day: over 1,000

HuffPost e-books published: 4

HuffPost sections ranked #1 in unique visitors in their category, according to comScore: 3 (HuffPost Politics, HuffPost Green, HuffPost Gay Voices)

Naps taken in the HuffPost nap rooms (NapQuest 1 and 2): 1,874 (estimated)

But as impressive as these numbers are, more important to us are the core values that are part of our DNA. Starting with engagement — putting the HuffPost community front and center, and creating a civil environment in which thousands of conversations can take place at any moment. Indeed, we've committed a lot of resources (both in terms of state-of-the-art technology and a dedicated team of moderators) to pre-moderating comments in order to foster a non-toxic atmosphere where people can let their voices be heard and often disagree — passionately but civilly. As a result, we've been rewarded with one of the most active communities on the web, and over 130 million comments since we launched.

Core values? As reflected in this joint venture with Lloyd?

My advice to you, and I hope you will take it seriously, is to watch the Bonus Video attached to this post because then you will fully understand what I mean when I say Blow Job.

The internet is a faithful reflection of the society that spawned it, which itself is a faithful reflection—perhaps the best we have in modern times—of Human Nature. Garbage In, Garbage Out.

Have a nice weekend.

Bonus Video — Blow Job! Eat Me!

 

Comments

[Aboc Zed]

Dave,

Tahnks for this last installment of your Internet series. Indeed Garbage In, Garbage Out.
It must be very lonely at times to feel so different from the average, from the norm, from the median. But this is why I think I would express the sentiment of the people who read you daily , WE VALUE YOU.

And even if not all of us can give you moeny to keep going in this material world at a minimum we can say big THANK YOU.

[JohnWDB]

Heh. And Huffington just ran this "CEO's who look like villains" slide show 4 months ago. Guess who's #1!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/13/ceos-who-look-like-villains_n_1880455.html

"CEOs have a lot of unpleasant tasks, like job slashing, pleading the fifth and pursuit of world domination. And that can sometimes have them looking like the bad guy. Well, maybe leave world domination to their counterparts in the movies and TV."

*Looking like* the bad guy. Yes, "world domination" is just stuff of cinema. Propaganda has many forms. As access to information grows, and people get wise to overt brainwashing tactics, subtlety is key. A progressive can click through the slide show and feel like HuffPo is on the side of the common folk (they're outing these villains!). They come away thinking, "God that Mike Myers is funny. Those guys really do have tough jobs."

[John D]

I'm sure that Goldman Sachs has developed some 'Women Entreprenuer' Hegde fund that they're secretly shorting...

[Ben]

Blowjobs feel absolutely fucking great though! Reading The Huffington Post's crap is a tedious chore. lol couldn't resist.

[Diogenes]

Dave...I absorb your crapless deconstuctions every day. Most often I have nothing to add that would be meaningful in a comment format and it sure seems silly to comment with various versions of "well done" after every post, but...

WELL DONE

As I read and reflect, my mind has its own flow of "garbage in, garbage out" and much of that is music..."marriage made in hell" brought this to mind:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqGzOpUylSo

Regards

[Ben]

@ Diogenes

I hate commenting on Dave's stuff because most of the time I can't say anything of value. He's so damn on point that I think to myself: Okay, what the hell am I going to say here? Do I risk communication, & perhaps say something that may piss him off? Or do I put the keyboard down and walk away? Most of the time I walk away lol

[Capt. Bat Guano]

If Arianna is so into creating jobs and economic growth maybe she could actually compensate the writers that contribute to the septic tank that is AOL and Huffpo. In the words of Harlan Ellison, "Pay the fucking writer." Good old Arianna, once a greed head Republican always a greed head Republican.

[Oliver]

It may be a blow job, but what emanates from the Huff herself smells like pure puke.

[Mike Roberts]

That nailed it. Thanks.

[J. Drew]

Goddammit Dave, did you have to paste the whole Blankfein/huffington article into your post? I just don't have the stomach for premium grade bullshit that early in the morning. The mind is repelled. TYhe howitzer sized holes in their logic, the nefarious dynamics behind their assumptions... I can see the evil. You deserve some of the credit for that. Thankyou.

[Oliver]

PS - "I'll Huff and I'll Puff and I'll blow your balls off."

[paulina]

very nice put up, i certainly love this website, keep on it