The Social Network

I watched The Social Network with my siblings last week. The movie was excellent. It dealt with the present phenomenon of Facebook, and it was interesting to see the web site's origins, albeit in a slightly fictionialized account. The story is built around the deposition transcripts of two lawsuits involving the primary Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg. The first lawsuit was brought by three individuals who alleged that he stole their idea when creating Facebook. The second lawsuit was brought by one of his co-founders who claims he was wrongly forced out of thee company. Both of those lawsuits have settled.

Not unsurprisingly, I was most interested in the lawsuits. The depositions of the principal characters showed how adversarial litigation can be. Truly, the process is not about truth-seeking. Rather, it is about entrenching one's position, highlighting the strengths of one's case, and trivializing the other side's position. I found myself wondering -- to what extent do lawyers actually affect the outcome of litigation, or is the success generally driven by the factual circumstances, something that a lawyer does not have control over when a client walks into his or her office. But then one of the junior associates in the film talked about how simple questions could persuasively skew a juror's perspective altogether, and I found myself wondering . . .

about how seeds are planted in our minds. You can neglect these seeds, and perhaps they die and rot away. But when a seed takes root, man, it grows and grows. (Quite unlike my plants, I should add. I attend to them so carefully. I prune them. I cut off the dying leaves. I give them adequate exposure to sunlight. I keep the water out overnight so that the chlorine settles. I put a few drops of plant food in the water. I talk to them. I nurture, I nurture, I give and I give and I give and right now the peace lily in my living room has decided that it simply hates me, and is withering away. By the way, this is peace lily #2. I sound like a crazy person right now.).

Where was I? Once an idea plants itself in your mind, it's really hard to let it go. To see things in a different light. How things could have been otherwise.

What does this have to do with the movie? Ah, such is the nature of my movie reviews.

Next post: The Mad Men Season Finale. If I ever have a daughter, I want her to be like Peggy.