I feel like I'd be a lot more convinced by this if the author made a genuine attempt to understand the conference instead of interpreting his ignorance as proof

I feel like I'd be a lot more convinced by this if the author made a genuine attempt to understand the conference instead of interpreting his ignorance as proof of tech's "rot". "brings the next generation of B2C, B2B, B2E platforms to a high qualified partners network supported by a great business model,” you can make the vague assumption that all this gibberish might actually mean something to someone somewhere." Sure, we have jargon, just like any other industry. For anyone who cares to take 2 seconds, it's really not difficult to understand that B2B is a business selling to other businesses. "This isn’t meaning, in any of its usual senses, something that exists to be understood, but the zombie signifier, words building and feeding on each other to form a system terrifyingly self-sustaining and utterly opaque." Again, that's basically how all language works. Language is a self-sustaining thing. I agree that it's opaque, but not uniquely so. As much as I dislike this article though, I do agree with the basic premise that tech really is filled with claims like “data is the new performance” and an overuse of "innovation", I just don't believe that glorifying your alienation is useful for anyone. Aside from using Google to understand specific pieces of jargon, we can actually take a step back and understand why it develops in the first place. In a world where companies rely on VC backing, and startup valuations obey a power law[0], entrepreneurs effectively have no choice other than grandiose claims if they want any hope of securing funding. Due to massive uncertainty, it's literally not worth it for VCs to invest in a company that doesn't have the potential to become hugely successful[1]. None of this is to say that the jargon is justified or good, just that there are actually ways to understand this stuff that can be useful for people who want to help shape the world instead of leaving us with "The end of humanity had already arrived; it was everywhere around us." [0] http://reactionwheel.net/2015/06/power-laws-in-venture.html http://reactionwheel.net/2015/06/power-laws-in-venture.html [1] https://blog.ycombinator.com/why-vcs-sometimes-push-companies-to-burn-too-fast/ https://blog.ycombinator.com/why-vcs-sometimes-push-companie...