Interesting Read: Facebook Exposed - "You" Are The Product

Hey, everyone!

So I just had some time to sit down and give this article by John Lanchester of The London Review of Books a read. The article was re-published on Zero Hedge, the site where I read it.

Super interesting. I hope you all can give it a read. I think it will reinforce why you are all here on Steemit.

I'll leave you with this interesting excerpt than a link to the full article.

Thanks for stopping by.

The idea was that people wanted to look at what other people like them were doing, to see their social networks, to compare, to boast and show off, to give full rein to every moment of longing and envy, to keep their noses pressed against the sweet-shop window of others’ lives.
This focus attracted the attention of Facebook’s first external investor, the now notorious Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel. Again, The Social Network gets it right: Thiel’s $500,000 investment in 2004 was crucial to the success of the company. But there was a particular reason Facebook caught Thiel’s eye, rooted in a byway of intellectual history. In the course of his studies at Stanford – he majored in philosophy – Thiel became interested in the ideas of the US-based French philosopher René Girard, as advocated in his most influential book, Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World. Girard’s big idea was something he called ‘mimetic desire’. Human beings are born with a need for food and shelter. Once these fundamental necessities of life have been acquired, we look around us at what other people are doing, and wanting, and we copy them. In Thiel’s summary, the idea is ‘that imitation is at the root of all behaviour’.

Read the full article HERE.