Googolopoly

If you teach rhetoric and technology, you might be interested in “Googolopoly,” a version of the classic Parker Bros. game that charts the search giant’s quest for web-wide domination.

FYI: Rich Uncle Pennybags’ pitchfork is a clue that the creators are ambivalent about Google’s quest to “organize” your data and “make it universally accessible and useful.”

Googolopoly board

Those of you who have time to kill in during these last few weeks of class can download the entire game here.

via TechCrunch

Comments

Fear and pity: a monster is devouring the internet!

It's "interesting" how Box.net's "ambivalence" ("It's questionable whether such a powerful position made the world better or worse…") is "balanced" by descriptions of Google "controlling the information age," "ruling the internet," and finally by asking what happens when the "Google monster gobbles up all that is left in the web world." All to promote what they claim is their superior products that keep the Google monster at bay.

I think that this could be good material for teaching fallacies in a rhetoric classroom. I see several of the famous "Ad" words at work here (although it might be confusing to think of a corporation finding itself on the bad end of an ad hominem, emphasis on the hominem). The makers' concerns are shared by a large (and growing - growing monstrously?) community of users, so you could avoid the trap that students often fall into that fallacies render and argument false or erroneous. Instead, you could look at the rhetorical strategy behind the game and its description, how a shared enemy (Google) but also importantly a shared victim** involve the reader (in this case the player) in the stakes of the argument. Oh, and make that reader also feel generous towards those knights-errant that "keep those mountain-viewers honest."
**If the argument falls under the umbrella of ad misericordiam then it is self-pity - that's YOUR internet Google is devouring.

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