The Art of War against corporate takeover of user rights"If you don't pay for the product, then you're not the customer, you're the product", media analysts have told us plainly a long time ago.Be that as it may, the GoodReads experience has both common and unique features. The past years have seen MySpace raise and fall, Facebook shamelessly mocking users privacy and still going on, Twitter changing their API according to the phase of the moon and keeping personal data hidden from users, Google purging G+ of "fake names" (that's pen names for us, booknerds!) and so on so on.These corporations have taken over the internet. You, the user, receive a service for free, to relate with your friends, to keep your personal photos, to share your thoughts on the books you've read. You're targeted by advertising, your personal data is being stored on the company's servers, and, sooner than you think, you're dependent on these companies because of social networking, because you made yourself at home into a sub-community with your friends and preferred groups or reviewers. While you can get away (easier or harder), you leave behind content, topics, friends, functionality you got used to.Your Content and Social Interaction Is Belongs to Them.These corporate services keep control over users in three ways.1. Proprietary serviceThe software is on the company's servers, and nowhere else. It's not available to users, no one knows how it works and what and how is data processed for storage, for reading (private data), for security and logging, for auditing, for removals.2. Over-reaching ToSUnder the excuse of needing it to function or to defend their business, the company takes more rights for itself over user content than actually necessary. GR ToU is particularly misleading because it claims all sub-rights of copyright, while telling users that they keep copyright (it's true, but they took all rights to do anything with the content, anything at all). The ToS is also contradictory and impossible to abide by. Really. Since users usually don't read the fine print, they assume common sense. Which is not that common after all.3. Reduced inter-operatibility for data exchangeThese sites are silos of content under a company's control. There are more or less features to retrieve your data, and more or less APIs to build alternative clients. On the first, GR stands well, comparing to others. You can send your review to a blog on two sites when you post it, you can export the cvs with your reviews. (only reviews, no topics, no comments, but other sites have nothing). On the second, the API seems relatively poor, compared to what it could provide.The Art of War against users rights: proprietary service, misleading on copyright, lack of enough inter-operability with other sites or applications.Aside from common traits shared by any proprietary service, there are essential differences, here on GoodReads.Community librariansGoodReads' mission has been to create a public database of all books ever published. GR has provided the software online, but it is community librarians who have added and maintain this database, their work for free, of tens of thousands of records edits, over the years. GR site has reached its market value through the work of its community.And it's this work they sold out to Amazon earlier this year.A site for readersGoodReads has been known and advertised as "a site for readers", to interact and share their opinions in book reviews and group conversations. The site has thousands of well-written, intellectually pleasing reviews, free essays prompted by the book, and opinionated pieces of booklovers all over the world.Nowadays, the success or failure of a book in the digitized and self-published world is no longer in the traditional, professional outlets alone, it's in the popularity and free dissemination of information of readers who shared their thoughts on this site.The value of this site has always been MORE the work of the users, than other services enumerated above. The GR community is not randomly composed of users signing up only for personal interest and personal friends (or marketing), as other social networks. It has been created by working together on the books library, by their reviews, by their blogs.TODAY...Some of these reviews are now removed. Bookshelves that remind of the authors behavior are now removed (and others remain). Reviews that inform readers about a children's book author being convicted of pedophilia (!), have been removed from the site. Reviews that use the book for an essay on GR/Amazon or on the faith of startups, or illogical terms in corporate ToS, have been removed. Reviews re-posting content of the removed reviews have been removed at their turn.Some of top 25 reviewers on this site are threatened by GR/Amazon with removal of their account. Paul Bryant's reviews, Manny's reviews, have been deemed "potentially off-topic" and have been deleted....I can see how the issue of exercising corporate control over users content is truly enraging here, on a site significantly made by these contributors. It's unavoidable we come to this, in my opinion (corporations always do), and GR/Amazon has all keys to the kingdom, but I can see why it's so disappointing and enraging. Your content is theirs to do as they please, their software works as they want, your choices are take it or leave it.The internet is no longer for sharing (nor for porn!), it's for corporations to exercise their control over users.The Community PowerGoodReaders have started protests all over the place. Many reviews have been posted, in protest, arguing their points against GR/Amazon actions. Many of them have been removed.Irony and sarcasm abound, in reviews posted the last week, in topics in GoodReads Feedback group, and on remote sites. Many of the reviews have been removed, some of the topics have been closed.Rounds of ironic flagging have been made; flags claiming to abide by the ToS language in its inept and auto-contradictory "rules" have been sent to GR staff, in the hope they'll come to their senses. They seem to have missed the irony.The only solution long term, to corporate control, is to create competitive services based on principles of freedom of users. In all three aspects: Open Source software, same license for content for the service as for other users (or minimal for it to function), and inter-operability of networked services.This content is also available at http://sftomorrow.wordpress.com/2013/... This work by Alfaniel is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally here.)The CCLaP 100: In which I read for the first time a hundred so-called "classics," then write essays on whether or not they deserve the label. The Art of War is essay #27 of this series.The story in a nutshell:More of a technical manual than a piece of general literature, The Art of War is a field guide of sorts by famed Chinese military leader Sun Tzu, written it's believed sometime in the 6th century BC (during the period when China was coming together as a unified empire for the first time in history), as a way of instructing other commanders how to have as much success on the battlefield as he had had. (And please know that there's a debate among scholars as well regarding whether Sun Tzu even wrote this book by himself, or if like many other classics from antiquity this isn't in fact a sly compilation, gathering up the best thoughts back then from amongst a whole group of military strategists.) Now of course let's not forget that Sun Tzu was a Taoist as well, so of course his particular advice is going to be Taoist in nature, a very important thing to understand in order to really "get" this book; he sees the best war, for example, as the one that's never actually fought, because you've already dismantled the enemy's forces through sabotage and cunning to the point where they can't put up a resistance in the first place. And so it is throughout this extremely slim book (which in fact is more like a long magazine article) -- chapter after chapter of surprisingly spiritual text concerning the fine art of getting what you want, even when other people are actively trying to stop you from doing so.The argument for it being a classic:It's a 2,500-year-old book still being read and studied on a daily basis, argue its fans; what more do you want? And in the meanwhile, it's influenced nearly every Western military leader since first being translated into a Romantic language (French) in 1782, racking up a whole list of self-declared admirers from Napoleon to Norman Schwarzkopf. And if this weren't enough, starting in the 1980s it also gained a whole new life as a surprisingly apt if not Machiavellian guide to the corporate business world, best typified by symbol-of-yuppie-greed Gordon Gekko from Oliver Stone's fantastic movie Wall Street, who is constantly walking around quoting from it as a way to justify his monstrous, inhuman actions. If all of this isn't enough to safely consider a book a classic, ask its fans, what is?The argument against:The case against this being a classic seems to be one used a lot with books over a thousand years old; that even if that book turns out to be historically important (and it usually does), it might be better at this point to actually study the book and how it affected society, not read the book itself for pleasure anymore. Always remember, that's part of how I'm defining "classic" here in this CCLaP 100 series, is not just how important that title has been to human history, but also whether it's worth literally sitting down and reading it page-for-page yourself, no matter if you have any specific interest in that book's subject or not. If it's yes on the former but no on the latter, as critics of this book claim, then by my definition it's not a classic, but rather simply a historically important book that should be studied by the general public but not necessarily read.My verdict:So let me start by admitting how surprisingly readable this is for being 2,500 years old, and that it really does translate metaphorically to the business world surprisingly elegantly; after all, since it's a guide to war written by a Taoist, it's more of a symbolic examination of how to get out of life what you want the most, even in the face of tough opposition, with advice that is surprisingly relevant to the modern world even when he's talking about the mechanics of medieval Asian warfare. (Just for one example, near the beginning he talks in one paragraph about how a successful commander will literally steal the food of their enemy, both to sap the enemy's strength and to avoid the burden of having to carry all that food to battle themselves; this may not seem to have much relevance to the modern business world at first, until you stop and think about it in terms of stealing talent from your competitors, literally the intellectual "food" nourishing their "army" of goods and services competing against your own.)That said, though, I think ultimately I'm going to have to side with the critics this time; that unless you're a military commander or corporate raider yourself, most people's eyes are going to quickly gloss over while trying to read this book, merely after the first few pages. Now, don't get me wrong, I definitely think this should be a primer for people who are getting into the profession themselves; this should for sure be a must-read not only for soldiers, for example, but also the politicians in charge of those soldiers' budgets. But this is a perfect example of the surprisingly complicated process of determining whether a book is a classic or not, the entire reason I started this essay series in the first place; because unless competitive strategy actually is your business, most people will find it more rewarding to spend their time reading up on how this book has affected history, and of the circumstances in ancient China that led to it getting written in the first place. There's really only one major lesson in The Art of War for a non-military general audience to get -- that most battles are won based on how well one can surprise the enemy, usually by deceiving them using their own weaknesses (to act incompetent when the enemy is haughty, for example, threatening when they're meek, picking them off at the edges when they outnumber you, destroying their supply lines when they're far from home); for those not interested in the nitty-gritty of how to actually accomplish such things, though, there's actually a lot more to be learned by studying how such a thing has been attempted over the centuries, making the book certainly important but not necessarily a classic.Is it a classic? No
What do You think about The Art Of War (2005)?
Hey! Look at me stepping outside my comfort zone!I saw this audiobook in the library, and I thought it looked interesting.Hell, I've got 4 kids. This could come in handy.Next year I'll have not one, but two teenage boys. I need to prepare myself to defend my babies home from the invading whores hoards. I figured this book would help me gird my loins (or whatever it is you do) when you head into battle.Back off, Skanks! You're not getting past the front door!Still, even teenage boys pale in comparison to the sheer terror that comes with sharing a home with pre-pubescent girls...Retreat! Retreat! We've misjudged the enemy's abilities!I can definitely use the help of a master strategist. Although, in retrospect, I actually have one of those living with me. She's 10, and she's been fully in charge of my home since she clawed her way out of my womb. My husband says I was hallucinating (bless whoever came up with drugs in the delivery room!), but I swear I saw her gnaw off her own umbilical cord.She's ruthless, clever, and has the smile of an angel.Lucifer was an angel, too...Anyway, I could have skipped this, and simply begged for the honor to sit at her feet and learn. Teach me your ways, Mighty Warrior!But the cover said this was only a 4 1/2 hour book.What? She probably wouldn't have shared her secrets anyway...Confession time: I did not make it all the way through the audiobook.I did, however, make it all the way through The Art of War. That part of it was short. I don't know what the actual length of time was, but I listened to it while I was making dinner, and then took it with me on a short jaunt to Wal-mart. Boom! Done! Thank you, Sun Tzu!The rest of this particular audio is supposedly speculation about Sun Tzu's life, and a history lesson on the politics of the time he lived in. Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah...All the names bled together in my head, and the words just sort of sloshed around inside my brain till I finally gave up on it.I'm not saying is was badly done or boring, but my tiny dinosaur brain isn't built to process books without pictures. So listening to someone with a smooth jazzy voice read from a history book, is just like asking for some sort of an internal meltdown to happen up there.So. The Art of WarI actually don't feel like Mr. Tzu had much to say that would help me out. I mean, a there were a few things translated into real life...Be consistent in rewards and punishments. Duh.Employ spies. Double duh. I've got every one of my kids on the payroll, and they each think they're the only mole I've got. Suckers!Make sure the enemy is tired before attacking. Hello? Why do you think I'm out at pool all day long with them? It's not like I enjoy basking in the glow of my cellulite, all while gaining a few more liver spots. If Sun Tzu had mentioned dosing the enemy with Benadryl before long trips, I would have been more impressed.A lot of it, however, was about how to fight on different types of terrain. Swampy, mountainous, flat, etc..That's no help to me, buddy!I need some sort of inside scoop that's going to give me an edge over the full blown she-devil I live with, the smaller demon-in-training (currently under the tutelage of the aforementioned she-devil), and the two walking hormones that used to be my little boys!I can't hold 'em off much longer! I'm going down! Going dow....*pants frantically*Anyhoo, I'm glad I read listened to it. It's one of those books you need to study...not read, though. So, I'm pretty sure I missed the vast majority of wisdom by doing it this way. But so what? I can say I've read it!I feel like a badass now, and that's all that's important.Pbbbt!
—Anne
If you've ever picked up a self-help book where the author is repeatedly stating the obvious, then you've experienced the writing style of this book. The overall concepts could've been summarized in a short essay rather than a book. Its length is a testament to its antiquity, though the author has done a noble job of re-ordering and editing bits of the chapters to provide continuity and to delete repetition.Oriental philosophy is often ripe with a kind of double-speak and this book is no exception.The main idea, covered ad nauseam, are that generals must be wise, adapt to changing situations, and maintain order.What people get out of this book is whatever they want to read into it. It was an alright read but, in general, the book is overrated.
—Lily
Quick Demo: On Ruining a Classic TextKaufman (author more than translator, I feel) boasts: In this work you will learn how people are to be treated and dealt with. The work was written for men in command and leaders of states. It is for the ambitious and strong spirited; do not seek morality lessons here.Sun Tzu has been translated and interpreted countless times by people with little knowledge of true combat reality on either the physical or mental level.Most of the available translations and interpretations maintain a poetic approach that really doesn’t pertain to the times we are living in. There is a tendency to maintain a “mystique” regarding ancient knowledge. This is quaint, relative to today’s aggressive personality. We are living in a global network and must think in decisive terms if we are to succeed.He also chooses to leave out the valuable commentaries, which are supposed to be as much a part of the work as the original.He says: In reality, who cares what Ch’en Fu thinks about Sun Tzu’s hidden meaning about the jade stalk in the midst of the enemy’s goldfish pond? We are grown-up and intelligent enough to develop our own understanding without the need for quaint allegories. There is nothing sacred here. I find that approach unnecessary, limiting, and a waste of time to the educated reader.And here is a fun fact:As an acknowledged and world-recognized martial arts master, a Hanshi (which is the highest rank attainable), I am thoroughly aware of my responsibility for the interpretation of this doctrine, and I have made it incumbent upon myself to explain Sun Tzu’s tenets as I perceive them in a definitive manner. — Must have recently taken a crash course on how to prepare a CV!Well, the book is a bore and a complete failure. It does no justice to Sun Tzu’s masterpiece and is worse than the regular self-help fare because it has only pretentiousness (of being tough, goal-oriented, warlord-like, if you please) and no real intention of even trying to 'help' any non-delusional executive.There is a reason why The Art of War is always presented poetically — it is so that the metaphors can be interpreted by the reader and applied as they want, so that they can understand the spirit of planned and prepared combat/conduct and apply that in life. That is why Art of war is an enduring an much loved classic.The author obviously has no clue about all this. He thinks it is a good idea to just present the text as-is, without ornamentation, without poetry, without any hints at broader applications beyond the battleground — Because the global corporation IS a battleground! Hello!Not realizing that once you strip away the poetry, you also strip the power of metaphor and what you have left is a dated txt that talks of war and claims to be for managers. It makes no sense to be told in plain prose to poison your enemy and insult his wife. Idiotic, without even being entertaining. Takes all the fun out of reading a bad book.
—Riku Sayuj
