I am not a Communist — Crooked Timber

An interesting discussion on the meaning of innovation in the era of social networking. Namely that the most interesting work being done today is communal and shared, and implicitly anti-capitalist but noone wants to admit it for fear of being branded a Marxist. Except, as Henry points out:

The degree to which Marx and Engels might or might not have approved e.g of the methods employed by Russian Communists to come into power is still the topic of vigorous controversy. The degree to which Marx and Engels invented, or ‘helped invent’ the command economy is not. Neither had any role whatsoever in inventing it, except as conveniently dead sources of rhetorical justification to those who came after them. They were themselves extremely vague as to exactly how the economy would work after socialism.

So the future could look increasingly communistic without necessarily moving toward a scary command economy and leading us down the path to Hayekian serfdom.

Does what you like define who you are? | Music | The Big Questions | The A.V. Club

The A.V. club asks:

It’s the question that launched a zillion angry message-board comments: Are you defined by what you like? Is it appropriate to judge people based on their iTunes playlists and Netflix queues? Are people who prefer a particular artist or genre inherently smarter, more interesting, more attractive, and better-smelling than those who prefer another, perhaps less-favorable artist or genre?

Most folks will bend over backwards to say, no. I mean what kind of snob, hipster, elitist would you have to be to judge someone on their cultural tastes? But really they know the answer is yes. Because if you strip away all of those likes and dislikes, ideas and passions, what's left? To know someone is to understand what gets them up in the morning. What gets them excited and what bores them out of their minds. To pretend that it doesn't matter is like pretending that Birthdays, Anniversaries, and Christmases don't matter. It's like giving everyone the same generic present over and over, because it's not like a gift can define you.

OKCupid Study Reinforces Vague Racial Pop-Culture Stereotypes -- Daily Intel

Data mining singles ads online dating profiles, reminds you that by-and-large people are lame:

White dudes like: Tom Clancy, Van Halen, Golfing, Harley Davidson, Ghostbusters, Phish, The Big Lebowski, Soundgarden, brew, and boating. (Also Burn Notice, Tenacious D, and "software.") Sounds like a bad joke, right? Like, when you get to the word "Phish," you think, "Nothing could be whiter than that, right?" And then you get to brew.

But if you go here and scroll way down, they have a weird chart that correlates religion and writing ability. Talk about burying the lede:

Note that for each of the faith-based belief systems I've listed, the people who are the least serious about them write at the highest level. On the other hand, the people who are most serious about not having faith (i.e. the "very serious" agnostics and atheists) score higher than any religious groups.