The Pied Piper of Everywhere

Published in

Quandoo

9 min readJan 16, 2020

The Pied Piper works his magic to banish the rats (image credit: Wikimedia Commons)

“… In 1284, while the town of Hamelin was suffering from a rat infestation, a piper dressed in multicolored (“pied”) clothing appeared, claiming to be a rat-catcher. He promised the mayor a solution to their problem with the rats. The mayor, in turn, promised to pay him for the removal of the rats (according to some versions of the story, the promised sum was 1,000 guilders). The piper accepted and played his pipe to lure the rats into the Weser River, where they all drowned.
Despite the piper’s success, the mayor reneged on his promise and refused to pay him the full sum (reputedly reduced to a sum of 50 guilders) even going so far as to blame the piper for bringing the rats himself in an extortion attempt. Enraged, the piper stormed out of the town, vowing to return later to take revenge. On Saint John and Paul’s day, while the adults were in church, the piper returned dressed in green like a hunter and playing his pipe. In so doing, he attracted the town’s children. 130 children followed him out of town and into a cave and were never seen again. Depending on the version, at most three children remained behind: one was lame and could not follow quickly enough, the second was deaf and therefore could not hear the music, and the last was blind and therefore unable to see where he was going. These three informed the villagers of what had happened when they came out from church.
Other versions relate that the Pied Piper led the children to the top of Koppelberg Hill, where he took them to a beautiful land, or a place called Koppenberg Mountain, or Transylvania, or that he made them walk into the Weser as he did with the rats, and they all drowned. Some versions state that the Piper returned the children after payment, or that he returned the children after the villagers paid several times the original amount of gold. “ — source

Hi everyone! In case you’re wondering if you’ve got a wrong page open in your browser, I hurry to re-affirm that you’re still reading a publication which covers (or uncovers) subtle yet meaningful perspectives related to tech and to start-ups, in particular. Why then have I started my today’s story with a medieval tale of a piper wizard? And… since we’re into tech, you might have guessed, that maybe, there has to be a connection to… Pied Piper? As in, Pied Piper, the fictional start-up company from Silicon Valley, the award-winning comedy ? I’d rather call it “dramedy”, though.

Here’s what the series’ fandom wiki says about Pied Paper, the company:

“[It] was started when Richard Hendricks, a software engineer who was working at Hooli, created a songwriter-oriented music app called Pied Piper that made it easier for songwriters to determine if their work infringed on other’s copyright.”

The wiki page also features an image of a feathered green hat which, to me, proves the fact that whoever designed this logo, knew about the connection that the show’s creators must have had in mind for the fictional start-up.

…and, at that point, the left hemisphere of your brain would probably say this: “Hmm, what a fun fact, I didn’t know that. So, what’s the big deal about using an age-old story to source a start-up name?” Let me take a stand of your right brain hemisphere *which probably is on the verge of crying merely upon hearing such a question from its sibling*: “Isn’t that obvious? You do see the many connections, don’t you?”

And, before the brain calls 911 to save itself from implosion, I’ll try to answer the left hemisphere’s question in the terms that probably would be more clear to it than tears →

There’s quite some talk to re-establish the role of arts and humanities in education, and there are numerous write-ups that go on and on on that. Most of those write-ups make their argument in the fashion that suits the left side of the brain, for example:

“… it’s very important to be aware of the dangerous scenarios of new technologies. The corporations, the engineers, the people in labs naturally focus on the enormous benefits that these technologies might bring us, and it falls to historians, to philosophers and social scientists who think about all of the ways that things could go wrong”. — source

Or, here’s another piece — and I’m just linking to it, not including it to the references because, in my world, this read is a specimen of a not deep enough thinking — whose author, based on what he writes, does not regard the letter “A” in STEAM, with all the width and respect it deserves. Question: if/when you care to, can you see why am I saying this? My answer will come in a later post, promise :)

So, rather than pen another boring piece on how we all should pay more attention to humanities, and to arts, I thought I’d ditch the should’s and give you a live demo of how arts and humanities can teach us and save us from a greater trouble that tech simply ignores (until there’s someone who interferes and kicks it in the butt). And, you do see the metaphor in what I’ve just written, don’t you? The reason I’m asking… first off, I’m not being arrogant. I’m just scared because I don’t want to be the only one in town — or in the whole world wide web — who sees a connection between Pied Piper, the company in Silicon Valley, and Pied Piper, the medieval tale (except the show’s creators, of course). However, as of today — I’ve searched the web and found no other piece that would muse upon the intent of the creators, and of their reasons for using that name — the www. has produced no account that plots the implications of the Pied Piper original story on the canvas of tech, big tech, and the troubles that have become synonymous with tech (as I’ve written recently in (Not) My Circus, (Not) My Monkeys?).

Without further ado, here’s my version of some possible connections that the original tale of Pied Piper cross-bred with Pied Piper, the start-up, evokes *with the right hemisphere*:

First off, the Pied Piper story teaches to give credit and to show respect. You never know how powerful the mysterious Pied Piper is, and how he (or she) can take their rightful vengeance (sometimes, even unwillingly). In the show, Pied Piper is the name of the software that hunts down possible copyright infringements. And, there have been many write-ups in tech media on work ethics that profess the same. If you’ve watched only a few episodes of Silicon Valley, you’ve seen the issues of not giving credit, disloyalty, and disrespect exposed not in a grave, but in a lighter way, as a comedy. But — and here’s the crucial difference — Pied Piper is a shared story that should have been known to all of us since childhood or since adolescence (and don’t get me started on how our naive reliance on machine models has fed into polarizing and intolerance. The news “reels” produced by “machine intelligence” which they claim to be made “just for you” … This is a big subject which I hope to write on in more detail later). Back to Pied Piper. If this story is told in a classroom, by a teacher, and comes with an imagery, the kids are simply fascinated by it, and… in all certainty, the story’s lesson will stay imprinted in their psyche. That’s how people get educated. By a human teacher, in a classroom, as adolescents. No training later in life will catch up if this ethical imprint hasn’t been given to a kid in their tender age. As a side note, there’s another argument unfolding now in the media which speaks not so optimistically about AI/machine models and gadgets in education, and it’s another big subject which I’ll probably write on another time.
Then, if we think of it, who is Pied Piper? I see this mysterious figure in the following way: Pied Piper might be the arts & humanities itself. Those disciplines haven’t been getting due respect for many years, and, unwittingly, the Piped Piper is taking the revenge, because, to all appearances, what we see in the Silicon Valley characters is the condensed curse of the whole generation, or a group of *not so* youngsters, who… well, are unequipped to discern and to see why their tech businesses are tumors and why their ways of “working together”, or “doing business”, or “being a tech entrepreneur” are dysfunctional and detrimental to them (and to those who “copy-paste” them). Not to mention the climactic moment, featured in the series finale (spoiler alert). And, I could have written up the same idea as a “should”. But… my goal is to bring more unity into the relationship between our right and left brain hemispheres. That’s why I’m putting this idea not into a “should” but into a story. Dear left hemisphere, do you get my point?
Next, we can regard Pied Piper as a trickster who lures the kids into some sort of a trap. Or, into an illusion. The start-ups illusion. The whole start-up movement, the heroics, the imagery, the life of a start-up-ster … is it all worth it? I’m not suggesting it’s not but… we gotta decide for ourselves. Or, has the trickster stolen away our best and finest, leaving only a few behind, the impaired ones, but… maybe there’s a certain symbolism in the ways they are impaired as well?

The Pied Piper steals the children from Hamelin (public domain)

4. Next, you might want to check this analysis. I’m citing it here to back the point about some tales being timeless and universal. The legend of Pied Piper has been an inspiration for artists from the other centuries, as they used this story as a mirror for the issues that plagued their contemporaries. And — back to crediting arts & humanities — the more of such stories are known to kids, and the more they are aware of how these stories have been relevant throughout history, the more those kids are capable of empathy, of discernment, and of spotting connections in what has already happened to what they are dealing with, in the 21st century. Very pragmatically, if you know that someone somewhere has already bumped into a similar issue or a dilemma, wouldn’t you embrace an opportunity to use this knowledge and safeguard yourself against similar mishaps? Well, at some point in their lives, people might be willing to experience everything by themselves. A mountain goat would climb and climb up high, stubbornly, until it gets to the edge of a cliff… where the only option would be to collapse into an abyss. Or, to be devoured by a gang of vultures. The question is: would you follow someone who acts like one such goat, or… would you act prudently, as a sentient human being? And… wouldn’t it be the right thing to equip people with the complete set of tools and with knowledge, before letting them take their free-will decision about doing what they choose to do? This is especially relevant for kids who are encouraged to follow a “tech” path, as shown in Silicon Valley… and in life.

5. … The list can go on and on. I just don’t want to get overly “humanities”-y here :)

On a final note, I literally savor the wit and intelligence of the folks who created Silicon Valley. Their craftsmanship with plot, with words, and with connections is admirable . Here’s one other example, which might or might not be a connection intended by the show’s creators. Since I speak Russian, I could not miss this one :) It’s about Hooli, the name of another company in the series. Actually, “Hooli”, in Russian, is a very obscene way of saying “what for?”. Like, “what the f… for?”

Seriously, Hooli?

Related:

(Not) My Circus, (Not) My Monkeys?

The Greta Thunberg In You

In Praise of Libraries

The Human-Speak Wizardry

The Tricks of Us vs. Them

Better The Devil That You Don’t Know

The Roots of Copy-Pasting

A Manifesto for Big Picture Pragmatism

Small Talks and Hidden Killers

Beware Flat Hierarchy