<videovortex> facebook behind the scenes

[Seth Keen]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook

"Thiel’s philosophical mentor is one René Girard of Stanford  
University, proponent of a theory of human behaviour called mimetic  
desire. Girard reckons that people are essentially sheep-like and  
will copy one another without much reflection. The theory would also  
seem to be proved correct in the case of Thiel’s virtual worlds: the  
desired object is irrelevant; all you need to know is that human  
beings will tend to move in flocks. Hence financial bubbles. Hence  
the enormous popularity of Facebook."

"Thiel says that PayPal was motivated by this belief: that you can  
find value not in real manufactured objects, but in the relations  
between human beings. PayPal was a way of moving money around the  
world with no restriction."

 >>
seth.keen at rmit.edu.au
http://www.sethkeen.net/blog/
http://www.networkcultures.org/videovortex/


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