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Your post reminded me of my recent encounter with the phrase "damning with faint praise". It is interesting how applicable it is in authoritarian governments; y

Your post reminded me of my recent encounter with the phrase "damning with faint praise". It is interesting how applicable it is in authoritarian governments; you can't simply praise, you must give enthusiastic encomiums. That is particularly interesting in business, where it may be obvious to business leaders that something is wrong, but anything lackluster brings about government condemnation, which is part of the problem the business people can see. Startup founders are usually sharp, rebellious individuals trying to upend current business practices, so the condemnations damper the business spirit to some degree. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damning_with_faint_praise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damning_with_faint_praise)

trumpeta 6y ago
I mean, I get the same feeling from Apple events, everything is constantly the best ever.
- mordymoop 6y ago
  The worst possible condemnation of a powerful national government: to compare its normal everyday functioning to a corporate product launch. Orwell was too optimistic.
  - toxik 6y ago
    Eh, it was just a more relatable example. If anything, it shows you that our idea of oppression is Apple overstating their product's capabilities.
    - zepto 6y ago
      The Orwellian part is people talking as though it’s a fact that Apple is overstating something. As far as I can see that’s bullshit. They say what they are measuring, and people do check it. They’d be open to straight up legal action from both customers and shareholders if they were lying.
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    The Orwell's of the future will be writing about China and western social media (and a bit of Apple thrown in there)
- coldtea 6y ago
  Compared to other companies that present new products with something like "this year we've made a product worse than what we had before"?
  - acct776 6y ago
    Haven't been following Macbook quality much, huh?
    - coldtea 6y ago
      I'd reverse the question. Keyboard design aside (which was fixed a year ago, and wasn't a poor production standards/cheap materials, etc. issue, it was a BS make-it-thinner-design issue), you mean the best built laptops in the industry, or the CPUs, battery, etc. with universal praise (M1)?
- ekianjo 6y ago
  > everything is constantly the best ever. Not just the best ever, always 3x or 300% better according to fake benchmarks that nobody can audit. It's beyond Marketing, basically propaganda.
  - amelius 6y ago
    "It's Magic!"
  - zepto 6y ago
    They indicate what they are comparing in the smallprint and they do get audited by people like AnandTech or Ars. So far, every single time, they have been shown to be accurate.
    - ekianjo 6y ago
      > They indicate what they are comparing in the smallprint (smallprint) * tested in very specific condition X that does not reflect at all everyday usage of 99.9999% of users. (The tech media) Apple did it again with 300% perf increase! Mad engineering! That's just legal department finding a way to make propaganda harder to challenge. It's still propaganda in effect.
      - zepto 6y ago
        The fact that you are using a made up exaggeration doesn’t help your point. They don’t in fact make exaggerations like that, otherwise you’d be able to quote a real one.
    - sangnoir 6y ago
      Accurate, with an asterisk (i.e. technically true, but intentionally misleading), which results in headlines like "No, the new Arm MacBook Air is not faster than 98% of PC laptops" when they are "audited".
      - zepto 6y ago
        "No, the new Arm MacBook Air is not faster than 98% of PC laptops" The piece with that headline is about the only thing that has been audited and found to be false. Search for commentary anywhere on that piece and you’ll find it has been completely debunked.
netsharc 6y ago
Reminds me of the legend that the first person to stop clapping for Stalin in a meeting would be arrested, interrogated, and executed for treason.
- abecedarius 6y ago
  That was an episode in The Gulag Archipelago. (I'm not sure how factual that makes it. I don't doubt it illustrates a real dynamic.)

trumpeta 6y ago

I mean, I get the same feeling from Apple events, everything is constantly the best ever.

mordymoop 6y ago
The worst possible condemnation of a powerful national government: to compare its normal everyday functioning to a corporate product launch. Orwell was too optimistic.
- toxik 6y ago
  Eh, it was just a more relatable example. If anything, it shows you that our idea of oppression is Apple overstating their product's capabilities.
  - zepto 6y ago
    The Orwellian part is people talking as though it’s a fact that Apple is overstating something. As far as I can see that’s bullshit. They say what they are measuring, and people do check it. They’d be open to straight up legal action from both customers and shareholders if they were lying.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  The Orwell's of the future will be writing about China and western social media (and a bit of Apple thrown in there)
coldtea 6y ago
Compared to other companies that present new products with something like "this year we've made a product worse than what we had before"?
- acct776 6y ago
  Haven't been following Macbook quality much, huh?
  - coldtea 6y ago
    I'd reverse the question. Keyboard design aside (which was fixed a year ago, and wasn't a poor production standards/cheap materials, etc. issue, it was a BS make-it-thinner-design issue), you mean the best built laptops in the industry, or the CPUs, battery, etc. with universal praise (M1)?
ekianjo 6y ago
> everything is constantly the best ever. Not just the best ever, always 3x or 300% better according to fake benchmarks that nobody can audit. It's beyond Marketing, basically propaganda.
- amelius 6y ago
  "It's Magic!"
- zepto 6y ago
  They indicate what they are comparing in the smallprint and they do get audited by people like AnandTech or Ars. So far, every single time, they have been shown to be accurate.
  - ekianjo 6y ago
    > They indicate what they are comparing in the smallprint (smallprint) * tested in very specific condition X that does not reflect at all everyday usage of 99.9999% of users. (The tech media) Apple did it again with 300% perf increase! Mad engineering! That's just legal department finding a way to make propaganda harder to challenge. It's still propaganda in effect.
    - zepto 6y ago
      The fact that you are using a made up exaggeration doesn’t help your point. They don’t in fact make exaggerations like that, otherwise you’d be able to quote a real one.
  - sangnoir 6y ago
    Accurate, with an asterisk (i.e. technically true, but intentionally misleading), which results in headlines like "No, the new Arm MacBook Air is not faster than 98% of PC laptops" when they are "audited".
    - zepto 6y ago
      "No, the new Arm MacBook Air is not faster than 98% of PC laptops" The piece with that headline is about the only thing that has been audited and found to be false. Search for commentary anywhere on that piece and you’ll find it has been completely debunked.

netsharc 6y ago

Reminds me of the legend that the first person to stop clapping for Stalin in a meeting would be arrested, interrogated, and executed for treason.

abecedarius 6y ago
That was an episode in The Gulag Archipelago. (I'm not sure how factual that makes it. I don't doubt it illustrates a real dynamic.)