Pray for her. This is not necessarily a good thing for a young person–not that she isn’t obviously very talented, but hitting something that big, that young, is like winning the lottery.
Back in the 1960s, Brian Josephson got the Nobel Prize for his master’s thesis and never did anything of remotely comparable importance again. What a curse.
It’s possible, but there seems cause for hope in this case. She got lucky, certainly, but luck doesn’t turn into success by itself — it takes brains and drive to take advantage of what luck drops in your lap, and brains and drive she clearly has in abundance.
Even if the worst happened and her business got wiped out, she seems — in as much as one can glean from such an article — the kind of person who would shrug and start over.
On the other hand, if your business is trash, there is an enormous battery of dumps waiting for what you make. She is a flash in the pan, what happens when novelty hits the right second with a taste for novelty. LIke Facebook, she will be superseded in a jiffy, and she will join the many Americans who are simply rich and have no idea what to do with it – and she has a lot of time to be rich and worthless.
In fact, what has happened to her is a curse, a dreadful curse, and she will live long enough never to be aware that it is her own fault.
The internet has a vst number of crimes for which it will never answer – facebook being an obvious case – and her case is just another one. In America, nothing fails as surely as success, the more complete the success, the more thoroughgoing the failure. AS the old saying is, “In America, a fool and his folly are soon rewarded.” LM
How is Facebook (or myspace, as noisy a site as it is) a crime? Connecting people isn’t a crime anymore than allowing them to come together in cities is. More people together means more opportunities for sin, certainly, but it also means great opportunities to care for one another and spread the Gospel.
In response to the young ladies ingenuity and wealth, I pray that she will have the wisdom to use it rightly and in the service of others. As for her support of Hillary, there are many people who are older and supposedly wiser who fall into that political camp. Besides, the fact that a 17 year-old is interested in politics is something positive.
It would be good for folks to remember that it is the love of money that is the root of all evil, not money itself. If she has direction, and continues to do well, she could have a great impact in her life. My primary concern was with the fact that she has dropped out of school… I wonder if she finished her High School equivalence and if she will go to college. Learning should be valued for learning’s sake, and unless she’s a voracious reader of all sorts of material, dropping out of school and not pursuing college will reflect in the breadth (or lack thereof) of her knowledge. Of course, such a decision does reveal the utilitarian logic the bulk of our society runs on…i.e. you go to school to get an education in something useful that you can make money and hopefully become rich off of–if you’re already rich, why go to school?
#6. I didn’t mean that facebook is a crime in the sense of breaking criminal law. I mean it is a cultural crime because it makes exhibitionism and narcissism even more widespread than it is and it favors, in its encouragement of exhibitionism, the exposure of the foolish young to risks that they seem unusually unable to be aware of. The y oung have always been gullible because they think that t hey know all there is to know, but these most recent generations seem particularly naive, in spite of all the streetsmartness.
Facebook and youtube also favor a particular psychosocial evil because they give a utterly false sense of what a friend is and they make the ersatz social connection via electronics as substitute for face-to-face connections – the distant and secondary is taking the place of the real and primary.
In short, both are serious psycho-social evils and we would be well off without them. Larry
Definitely disagree about Facebook. It’s a great utility that lets people who otherwise would lose touch with each other keep in touch, from family to camp friends. Also, no one turns someone decent down as a Facebook friend. That’s got to be helpful for a high school kid who’s unsure of him/herself in the social scene.
I see what you are saying, but don’t you think that is a problem with all technology? Any technology atomatically amplifies certain already existing traits and characteristics of its users and in some cases helps to normalize behaviours by allowing people with similar interests to form affinity groups across much larger areas–so while the internet has brought Christians together on sites such at T19, it has also served as a meeting place and normalizing agent for paedophiles and others. I believe you’re right to point out the tendency of technologies such as facebook to encourage narcissism, but I think it’s important to recognize it’s not the fault of technology, but human sin–and Christians have to decide the best way to deal with the sin: do we spurn the technology and stay separate from its negative effects, or do we attempt to use the technology in positive ways to help counteract the negative effects? I tend to favor the latter choice in most situations simply because the technology is not usually intrinsically evil, and if Christians aren’t involved, the bad would be even more amplified… salt and light you know…
Yes, Jody, you are right about techonology which is, like money, morally neutral. But, like money, some technology panders to the worst in us. It is whiskey to the drunk, a cigarette to an addict. And I would ask, therefore, whether those who create the temptation for the sake of making money are not, in a very real but invisible way, the agents of the worst in us through their creations? After all, Facebook is not the same as a CATscan. The technology is neutral, but the purposes that move it are malign – if greed is malign. How shall we separate the purpose from its embodiment, even if the embodiment is value neutral?
Facebook and you tube are dreadful social evils because they start by allowing the actor to feel safe-by-distance, and by granting the anonynimity that distance implies, and it encourages the actor to lie about himself, to present a false face, a mere persona, as this blog encourages writers to hide behind masks. Starting with that false safety, the actor can then show himself at his very worst and be pleased with himself, for the pleasures of exhibitionism are very real and very powerful: Go to a march of the Homosexual/Lesbian enclaves and watch the marchers. What do you see?
“Also no one turns someone decent down as a friend.” Someone decent? And one knows this how?
The evidence is that the watchers are notorioously the reverse. And friendship? This is friendship? Rand R, is this what a friend means to you? I simply find this hard to credit. And as to adolescent who are unsure of themselves socially, do you want me to believe that ersatz reality is what will give an adolescent confidence, or will it essentially falsify what real friendship is and unfit him in still one more way for dealing with face-to-face relationships.
I sat in Barnes and Noble and watched a gaggle of adolescents sit right next to each other on stools – literally right next to each other! – and babble over cells phones to a person two feet away!
THIS is the new adolescent reality, and youtube raises the irreality (if I may invent a word) by a quantum factor. Let us suppose you and I talk on this blog a hundred times – let us suppose that we often agree – are you my friend therefore? I am going to be friends with someone named Reason and Revelation? That would be a revelation indeed!
Wholly Averse to shaking an Electronic Hand in Maine
Amazing what this young girl has done and is doing.
Pray for her. This is not necessarily a good thing for a young person–not that she isn’t obviously very talented, but hitting something that big, that young, is like winning the lottery.
Back in the 1960s, Brian Josephson got the Nobel Prize for his master’s thesis and never did anything of remotely comparable importance again. What a curse.
Cheers,
Phil Hobbs
I was excited for her until I read the “Go Team Hillary” button part.
#2:
It’s possible, but there seems cause for hope in this case. She got lucky, certainly, but luck doesn’t turn into success by itself — it takes brains and drive to take advantage of what luck drops in your lap, and brains and drive she clearly has in abundance.
Even if the worst happened and her business got wiped out, she seems — in as much as one can glean from such an article — the kind of person who would shrug and start over.
On the other hand, if your business is trash, there is an enormous battery of dumps waiting for what you make. She is a flash in the pan, what happens when novelty hits the right second with a taste for novelty. LIke Facebook, she will be superseded in a jiffy, and she will join the many Americans who are simply rich and have no idea what to do with it – and she has a lot of time to be rich and worthless.
In fact, what has happened to her is a curse, a dreadful curse, and she will live long enough never to be aware that it is her own fault.
The internet has a vst number of crimes for which it will never answer – facebook being an obvious case – and her case is just another one. In America, nothing fails as surely as success, the more complete the success, the more thoroughgoing the failure. AS the old saying is, “In America, a fool and his folly are soon rewarded.” LM
Larry #5,
How is Facebook (or myspace, as noisy a site as it is) a crime? Connecting people isn’t a crime anymore than allowing them to come together in cities is. More people together means more opportunities for sin, certainly, but it also means great opportunities to care for one another and spread the Gospel.
In response to the young ladies ingenuity and wealth, I pray that she will have the wisdom to use it rightly and in the service of others. As for her support of Hillary, there are many people who are older and supposedly wiser who fall into that political camp. Besides, the fact that a 17 year-old is interested in politics is something positive.
It would be good for folks to remember that it is the love of money that is the root of all evil, not money itself. If she has direction, and continues to do well, she could have a great impact in her life. My primary concern was with the fact that she has dropped out of school… I wonder if she finished her High School equivalence and if she will go to college. Learning should be valued for learning’s sake, and unless she’s a voracious reader of all sorts of material, dropping out of school and not pursuing college will reflect in the breadth (or lack thereof) of her knowledge. Of course, such a decision does reveal the utilitarian logic the bulk of our society runs on…i.e. you go to school to get an education in something useful that you can make money and hopefully become rich off of–if you’re already rich, why go to school?
This sort of venue lets girls be girls. There are worse things in the world than that.
#6. I didn’t mean that facebook is a crime in the sense of breaking criminal law. I mean it is a cultural crime because it makes exhibitionism and narcissism even more widespread than it is and it favors, in its encouragement of exhibitionism, the exposure of the foolish young to risks that they seem unusually unable to be aware of. The y oung have always been gullible because they think that t hey know all there is to know, but these most recent generations seem particularly naive, in spite of all the streetsmartness.
Facebook and youtube also favor a particular psychosocial evil because they give a utterly false sense of what a friend is and they make the ersatz social connection via electronics as substitute for face-to-face connections – the distant and secondary is taking the place of the real and primary.
In short, both are serious psycho-social evils and we would be well off without them. Larry
Definitely disagree about Facebook. It’s a great utility that lets people who otherwise would lose touch with each other keep in touch, from family to camp friends. Also, no one turns someone decent down as a Facebook friend. That’s got to be helpful for a high school kid who’s unsure of him/herself in the social scene.
#9, Larry,
I see what you are saying, but don’t you think that is a problem with all technology? Any technology atomatically amplifies certain already existing traits and characteristics of its users and in some cases helps to normalize behaviours by allowing people with similar interests to form affinity groups across much larger areas–so while the internet has brought Christians together on sites such at T19, it has also served as a meeting place and normalizing agent for paedophiles and others. I believe you’re right to point out the tendency of technologies such as facebook to encourage narcissism, but I think it’s important to recognize it’s not the fault of technology, but human sin–and Christians have to decide the best way to deal with the sin: do we spurn the technology and stay separate from its negative effects, or do we attempt to use the technology in positive ways to help counteract the negative effects? I tend to favor the latter choice in most situations simply because the technology is not usually intrinsically evil, and if Christians aren’t involved, the bad would be even more amplified… salt and light you know…
Thanks for clarifying.
Yes, Jody, you are right about techonology which is, like money, morally neutral. But, like money, some technology panders to the worst in us. It is whiskey to the drunk, a cigarette to an addict. And I would ask, therefore, whether those who create the temptation for the sake of making money are not, in a very real but invisible way, the agents of the worst in us through their creations? After all, Facebook is not the same as a CATscan. The technology is neutral, but the purposes that move it are malign – if greed is malign. How shall we separate the purpose from its embodiment, even if the embodiment is value neutral?
Facebook and you tube are dreadful social evils because they start by allowing the actor to feel safe-by-distance, and by granting the anonynimity that distance implies, and it encourages the actor to lie about himself, to present a false face, a mere persona, as this blog encourages writers to hide behind masks. Starting with that false safety, the actor can then show himself at his very worst and be pleased with himself, for the pleasures of exhibitionism are very real and very powerful: Go to a march of the Homosexual/Lesbian enclaves and watch the marchers. What do you see?
“Also no one turns someone decent down as a friend.” Someone decent? And one knows this how?
The evidence is that the watchers are notorioously the reverse. And friendship? This is friendship? Rand R, is this what a friend means to you? I simply find this hard to credit. And as to adolescent who are unsure of themselves socially, do you want me to believe that ersatz reality is what will give an adolescent confidence, or will it essentially falsify what real friendship is and unfit him in still one more way for dealing with face-to-face relationships.
I sat in Barnes and Noble and watched a gaggle of adolescents sit right next to each other on stools – literally right next to each other! – and babble over cells phones to a person two feet away!
THIS is the new adolescent reality, and youtube raises the irreality (if I may invent a word) by a quantum factor. Let us suppose you and I talk on this blog a hundred times – let us suppose that we often agree – are you my friend therefore? I am going to be friends with someone named Reason and Revelation? That would be a revelation indeed!
Wholly Averse to shaking an Electronic Hand in Maine