With Friends Like These...

I've always found it odd when I read a text that rails against the risks of hyper competitiveness. In his article, "With Friends Like These..." Tom Hodskinson makes apparent his dislike of Facebook, its founders, and in some parts, capitalism as a whole. Specifically, he discusses venture capitalist Peter Theil and his statement of, "Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser." Hodskinson goes on to brand Theil as a neo conservative and an uber capitalist trying to make money out of friendship.
So what?
The founders of Facebook established a social network that is in high demand and does well because consumers choose to use it. Furthermore, in accusing three American venture capitalists of being "uber capitalists" in an economic system based upon the tenets of capitalism, Hodskinson comes off as yet another agitated communist or socialist symphathizer that does not necessarily have problems with Facebook but the American economic system as a whole. In stating that, "Clearly, Facebook is another uber-capitalist experiment: can you make money out of friendship? Can you create communities free of national boundaries - and then sell Coca-Cola to them? Facebook is profoundly uncreative. It makes nothing at all. It simply mediates in relationships that were happening anyway" Hodskinson detracts from his main point towards the end of the article that Facebook is more than just a social network but a way for one to be checked up upon and exploited. Instead, in railing against competitiveness, conservatism, and capitalism he hinders his point by sounding desperate and not at all like an op/ed journalist trying to convey information through opinion.

Ironically, Hodskinson has a problem with one staying in on a Saturday night on the internet but no problem with staying and reading Keats' Endymion.