Coming from Stanford. And you say, “Joelle, why don’t you believe in yourself?”
Listen. I’m sure Stanford professors will agree: the statistics speak louder than my hopes. Only 5% of all applicants get admitted, and the acceptance rate is even lower for people with my ACT scores. 97% of rejection.
That’s too damn close to 100%.
And I must mentally prepare myself for this so that I don’t fall apart weeping in about a week.
SECONDLY.
I have to talk about the hypocrisy of Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, and Google, talking about how “America collects too much data from its citizens” and “People lack privacy these days..”
These companies DESIGN their products to encourage consumers to share as much information with them as possible–they know our credit card information, our life history–shoot, they for sure know more about your love life than your best friend does. Sure, they claim to be reluctant to share our information to the government, but they have no qualms about making this data available to companies who will pay them.
WHY AREN’T MORE PEOPLE SAYING THIS?
Is my train of thought that ridiculous?
Because in my opinion, the only people not making sense right now are those tech companies.
Let’s talk about government surveillance: for example, people are getting hyped about such new technologies as visual recognition software, and some, rightly so, are afraid that the government could abuse such a technology. But guess who has almost perfected the art of visual recognition software, who has collected enough of your photos to scan for you? Facebook.
I feel the desire for America to stop sacrificing its citizen’s privacy for security as much as anyone, but for these companies to act like they feel the same way…
And we can talk about how hypocritical this all is later, but since y’all didn’t expect my sudden rant, I’ll stop now.
Good night.
Not Another Floundered Opportunity 