There's a lot of odd insinuations and expectations in this piece. I found particularly strange the part where he talks about his joy in talking communist politics in Berkeley and then immediately muses about how to make these skills 'marketable' and about his resentment that he might not be rewarded with a comfortable bourgeois middle-class existence. Feels like there are a lot of unstated assumptions and arguments behind his opinions and actions which he never makes explicit or considers.
Thats the least of it. The entire second half of the piece is flagrant self promotion and self-congratulatory humblebrag.
I dislike Google as much as anyone, but this author is no better.
Or abusing the system to score income on the sale of his house. I nearly snorted at that point.
I think you're misinterpreting this. I think he moved into a unit of a luxury building (that was required to be rented to a low income person) and lived there until the unit was sold.
True, seems like that at second reading.
(Seems like a pretty silly requirement to me. Can't they just use the tax and welfare system to combat inequality in a sane way?)
>the awesome lifestyle of flitting from grant to grant as a semi-celebrity in the international jet-set art world
This reads like a snide remark toward art and artists in general... if it is, why?
Apparently this lifestyle is only available if you're a (to use the author's term) "Marxist." But then again, I suppose anyone can read Negri and Hardt if they're patient enough.
No word on what, if any, ideological filters Google is supposed to apply to its contractor pool so this doesn't happen again. Perhaps they could ask trap questions about postcolonial theory, rejecting anyone who answered correctly...