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This is the article in a nutshell. Google funds anti-monopoly think tank. Anti monopoly think tank writer praises the EU for fining Google for being anti compet

This is the article in a nutshell. Google funds anti-monopoly think tank. Anti monopoly think tank writer praises the EU for fining Google for being anti competitive, Schmidt gets guy fired by threatening to withdraw funding. I know that's just his side of the story, but it doesn't look great for the think tank or the Google. If you didn't know it already, think tanks are a euphemism for propaganda machine. Shortly after my group published a statement praising the European Union for fining Google for violating antitrust standards in June of this year, I was contacted by Anne-Marie Slaughter, the president of New America, who said that Eric Schmidt, Google’s parent company’s executive chairman, was furious about the statement. Schmidt, she said, was threatening to pull his name and substantial funding from New America in retaliation.

noir_lord 9y ago
> think tanks are a euphemism for propaganda machine. Yep and they go back in one form or another centuries possibly millenia, right back to when kings used to pay people to justify why they owed less money to the catholic church.
dmlorenzetti 9y ago
think tanks are a euphemism for propaganda machine I call them "thought tanks" exactly because all the thinking has been done well before any particular question gets asked.
- kazinator 9y ago
  The past tense form (and also past participle) of to think is glaringly ambiguous against the noun thought, suggesting that thought might be going on. I humbly suggest the alternative thunk tank. The bad grammar eliminates suspicions of thought and as a bonus, it rhymes with drunk tank. "I thinked and thinked real hard and real long till I couldn' think a nuthin' I ain't already thunk. So I then I passed on the remainin' reckonin' on to the fine folks in the thunk tank."
- planteen 9y ago
  I like that. So true. It usually seems the conclusion is also decided before much thinking goes on as well.
- kazinator 9y ago
  Seriously though, the agenda behind a think tank may be a thought-out given. But there can be plenty of conniving left for the think tank related to carrying it out. Obviously, this guy wasn't fit for a think tank, if he couldn't rub two brain cells together to learn the adage "don't bite the hand that feeds you". Or maybe he is meta-clever; no publicity is bad publicity. Get fired from a Google funded think tank for anti-Google thoughts and come out smelling like some kind of hero.
clarkevans 9y ago
The bulk of this article is a critique of corporate power. In particular, Barry Lynn argues that bipartisan deregulation of monopoly controls have permitted a concentration of corporate power: How did we drift so far from the founding generation’s deep fear of massive corporations? In the 1970s and 1980s, an alliance of economic and legal scholars from the right and left of the parties — including Robert Bork and John Kenneth Galbraith — combined to overthrow America’s two-century-old antimonopoly system. ... It’s a dangerous misperception that will continue to imperil democracy as long as the power of corporations continues to grow unchecked.
- foota 9y ago
  I realize you're quoting here, but two century old? Wasn't the start of US antitrust law at the beginning of the 20th century?
  - dgacmu 9y ago
    A tad bit earlier - the Sherman Antitrust Act was 1890. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act
  - clarkevans 9y ago
    The founding of the United States can be seen as a rebellion against British crony capitalism. http://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/tea-act http://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/tea-act https://core.ac.uk/display/76558315 https://core.ac.uk/display/76558315 # Monopolies and the Constitution: A History of Crony Capitalism
dsacco 9y ago
I see it repeated a lot that think tanks are really propaganda engines with an intellectual veneer, but can you back that up with specific examples? I subscribe to the Brookings Papers, Cato Journal, Chatham House and Council on Foreign Relations. Yes, the content is political, but discussions of economics and policy are necessarily political in nature. I think there is a lot in these publications that is descriptive, not just prescriptive. Certainly more rigor than you're giving them credit for. If you're expecting an organization without any bias, that's different. But your critique sounds as though there is no empiricism involved whatsoever. I take issue with that, because personally I find that I learn quite a bit by reading these, and often the value is in conflicting perspectives. I also think it becomes a little too easy for people to hear what you're saying and just start repeating it (as an example, see this thread where multiple people have piled on to agree with you without any examples cited). To make a comparison: I also subscribe to the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, because they have different implicit (and even explicit!) biases. That doesn't mean there isn't high quality journalism, it just means that the nature of information is often biased.
- yeukhon 9y ago
  Not to distract from the main point, but my experience has been NYT and WST lean towards the left than the right, although WST is more conversative on the financial side which is obvious.
  - walshemj 9y ago
    the WST is a left wing paper lol
    - yeukhon 9y ago
      Thanks the "lol", sarcasm.
  - subroutine 9y ago
    I recently wrote a little Python script to scrape the url from top submissions to Reddit's /r/The_Donald vs. /r/EnoughTrumpSpam to get an idea of the most conservative-leaning and liberal-leaning news outlets (e.g. more specifically which news sites conservative-leaning and liberal-leaning redditors use to support their respective narratives). Here are the results: https://i.redd.it/45ezt3j9hziy.png https://i.redd.it/45ezt3j9hziy.png Edit: Oh and I almost forgot (and to bring this full circle) a Googler saw my post about this and made an interactive version: https://medium.com/@hoffa/reddit-favorite-sources-the-most-linked-sites-expanded-and-interactive-79070d648573 https://medium.com/@hoffa/reddit-favorite-sources-the-most-l... Edit: and to really bring this full circle, this Googler made an interactive version about HN: https://medium.com/@hoffa/hacker-news-on-bigquery-now-with-daily-updates-so-what-are-the-top-domains-963d3c68b2e2 https://medium.com/@hoffa/hacker-news-on-bigquery-now-with-d...
rayiner 9y ago
One of my favorite plot lines is where someone is an unexpected ally but then circumstances and conflicts of interest cause the alliance to become untenable. E.g. the movie "The Siege," General William Deveraux (Bruce Willis) reassures the protagonists, after a terrorist scare, that he's a "card-carrying member of the ACLU." But eventually, he's rounding U.S. citizens up into camps. Big companies' alliances with social justice types strikes me as similar. It's tenable, to a point.
- CamperBob2 9y ago
  Hell of an underrated movie. If you liked The Siege but haven't seen Unthinkable, give that one a watch as well.
- dmix 9y ago
  > where someone is an unexpected ally but then circumstances and conflicts of interest cause the alliance to become untenable. It's not always unexpected as it is non-obvious. As the OP said: >> think tanks are a euphemism for propaganda machine. This is basically the reality that's being masked in this article: the Think Tank was never hired to tell the truth. Maybe find the truth, but it's certainly not Google's primary interest for them to publicly finance the promotion of an inconvenient truth. Which as far as I'm concerned makes business sense. You can't have your cake and eat it too as an activist (nor does it mean the activist is automatically right because they spoke out against the interests of their financiers either). Similar to how Google and Apple only make token efforts at 'securing' their messaging platforms and operating systems against surveillance - to the point where business interests don't align. Any business output is largely a product of competing interests, hidden or otherwise. Which is why voluntary donations (which includes personal time, such as open source) are so critical to tip these scales towards the general public's interest - particularly when it comes to things that also don't align with the interests of government agencies (see: surveillance) or the interests of mega-corporations/special interest groups with political pull. Depending on government or corporate programs alone is insufficient IMO, and it's unfortunate that this third option is typically treated as an afterthought in our culture. We tend to treat time/resources as merely a dynamic between personal benefit and our maximum capacity for taxation, where donations are merely a luxury of the wealthy and/or the compassionate non-industrious types, which ends up being a minority of the public.
tiggybear 9y ago
I'm sure all of the google employees that are concerned with social justice and contributing to a company that makes the world a more fair place will be standing up and calling on google to make this right or they will be quitting. Google employees have done it before and have contributed many thought-provoking articles in other scenarios where google was acting inappropriately. They have been strangely silent on this and that really emphasizes what a toxic culture google has these days. Google employees were willing to leave their job because of a co-workers opinion, yet none that I have seen are willing to stand up and leave because of their companies own actions. I think that says a lot about the type of people that work at google, they're willing to punch down on people with less than them but not punch up at their masters. Truly sad.
Bartweiss 9y ago
An interesting point: it's not at all clear to me that Schmidt actually made any statement about funding. This says "Schmidt, she said, was threatening to pull his name and substantial funding from New America in retaliation", but previous articles have said that Schmidt simply mentioned his displeasure and Slaughter took care of the rest. I'm not exonerating Google here regardless; calling the head of a think tank (as opposed to, say, the essay writer) to express displeasure is obviously a display of power. But it's interesting as a taste of how authoritarian behavior works. Schmidt couldn't have ordered the article spiked, and he would have looked terrible if he expressly said "I'm pulling funding if you criticize Google". So instead, he calls and says "I'm unhappy about this article". And Slaughter, not being an idiot, recognizes that she got the call for a reason and needs to act. If she hadn't been so blunt about her internal message, everyone could have quietly insisted the firing was "for other reasons" and left the whole point unproved. In one sense, the news story here is that an explicit message was sent. A sensible person ought to expect that soft power and unstated implications cause similar consequences every day.
- Clubber 9y ago
  >Schmidt couldn't have ordered the article spiked The comment from the writer happened, then Schmidt complained. I don't think the writer asked Schmidt his opinion before he gave his comment. In other words, Schmidt's actions were a result of the writer's comments, after the fact.
  - Bartweiss 9y ago
    Sorry, 'spiked' was incorrect. I should have said 'pulled', since the article was briefly taken down and then restored. Thanks for catching that.
- ehsankia 9y ago
  Also, is Google itself funding New America, or is Eric using his own funds? I think there's a pretty big different, and making it all about Google just because Eric happens to work at Google seems unfair. People are free to fund and support any cause they want in their own time with their own money. Yes, the person also happens to like Google a lot and doesn't want to see Google hurt, but I don't think Google should be held responsible for his personal actions.
kazinator 9y ago
When Google funds an anti-monopoly think tank, it should be clear to everyone working there that it's an anti-non-Google-monopoly think tank that is really about how to prevent other organizations form gaining monopolistic footholds in any areas that Google might be interested in, and how to skirt any laws and regulations which block Google from doing same.
hedgedoops2 9y ago
> think tanks are a euphemism for propaganda machine While I tend to agree, it's interesting that this think tank employee seems to have believed that 'think tank' means something closer to 'independent private research institute' or 'university department' than to 'paid propagandists, for moneyed special interests, kept on a leash by their masters'. What did he think his group was? Maybe not a 'think tank'? Are there any 'think tanks' that might be called 'independent'? Any 'think tanks' that might be said not to be 'propagandists'? 'Good' think tanks? I guess it's tricky to define, when merely being super dogmatic can already ensure that you'll be loyal to whatever special interests happen to benefit from your particular brand of dogmatism. So no direct control/intervention is needed. ACLU or EFF are also dogmatic in a way, and they're activist organizations, they exist to improve the world according to some ideology (civil liberties, free software). I guess the difference between 'think tank' and 'research institute' is that the latter is more interested in advancing science, than in saving the world. Among the 'think tanks' you can then, differentiate between those that serve (through control or dogmatism) the less powerful (EFF?) vs those that serve the more powerful (Kochs, arguably Cato, AEI). I guess a better, orthogonal way you can differentiate, is: does the organization end up adding or detracting from the ideal of educated public discourse? Are their arguments manipulative, or do they serve, in the end, to educate? (This is about effect, not intent, or bias.) You can ask about intent too, I guess. Do they presume ideas are at "war" or do they presume that ideas tend to combine to get closer to the truth? A highly biased, paid-for group can still be useful to discourse, either it refrains from demagogic manipulation (it 'plays fair' so to speak), or its ideology is so weird and fringe, rather than hegemonic, that it adds alot of new stuff to discourse. I'm sure there are other ways of dividing up the space of highly biased schools of thought. The ancient philosophical schools like the Pythagoreans were probably a species of think tank. Although they likely weren't 'propagandists'. Although they drowned the guy who came up with the irrational numbers. It's confusing. What we should avoid is trying to divide them just by "left" vs "right". That's just dumb. What's also kind of dangerous is falling into the trap of saying, everything is propaganda. The university is a propaganda machine, for the left, haha. That's moldbuggery. I think Voltaire would get cramps when being made to deal with mr Moldbug, I'll leave it at that.
eighthnate 9y ago
> If you didn't know it already, think tanks are a euphemism for propaganda machine. Exactly, the wealthy and corporations fund think tanks to support their interests, not for ideals. Think tanks don't exist for truth/objectivity. They exist to push an agenda. No matter how good this guy's intentions were, coming out against google's interests is a sure fire way of getting fired. Not only that, his career at any google or google affiliated/funded institutions are pretty much over.
1024core 9y ago
Schmidt, she said, was threatening to pull his name... Could this be the problem? It would look ugly if someone in an organization bearing Schmidt's name actually praised actions detrimental to Schmidt's employer.
- yuhong 9y ago
  I wonder if the other founders of Google got involved.
majormajor 9y ago
I've never looked into this much, how does peer review at a think tank work? Is your piece going to get reviewed by people who might be inclined to agree with you already? By people who might not share your views? How easy is it to "overlook" a study which has contradictory findings to your own, or misinterpret a stat in a way favorable to "your side" (whether intentionally or not)?
emmelaich 9y ago
Calling anything propaganda is not very helpful; is it biased or deceptive? And how much? There is nothing inherently wrong with propaganda. It is not necessarily manipulative or deceitful. (from wikipedia) "In the twentieth century, the term propaganda has been associated with a manipulative approach, but propaganda historically was a neutral descriptive term"
- Retra 9y ago
  There's nothing inherently wrong with using modern language to mean what it means in the modern world.
  - lordlimecat 9y ago
    In the modern language propaganda typically is a subjective descriptor that explains very little outside of your own views on the subject.
  - musage 9y ago
    Not inherently, except when it just destroys information. Let's say a couch is really light but made from good material, and has a design and colors I find very pretty, and it comes at a fair price, too. I might just call it "awesome" and be done with it, but that conveys nothing, and then when I am actually in awe, I have to talk about how something is "literally genuinely really awesome". Likewise, if propaganda "now means" propaganda one doesn't like, how does one call propaganda in general? I would guess "public relations", "public outreach", "engaging with the community", "influencing the narrative for a positive outcome", and a lot of others, but why not "propaganda"? I'm sure I use it in a purely negative meaning all the time myself, but I still can't see anything gained from that.
    - Retra 9y ago
      Propaganda has negative connotations under the presumption that the message is dishonest in some way. The original meaning was 'neutral', and in that sense more information is being provided by the modern term than the older one. >how does one call propaganda in general? Communication.
Balbazac 9y ago
> If you didn't know it already, think tanks are a euphemism for propaganda machine. Surely the proper response would be to pay less attention to think tanks / propaganda machines. Google's action here may even be morally neutral; while it is unfortunate that this fellow and his coworkers lost their jobs, (our part of) the world has been given a timely reminder of the true nature of think tanks.
dennisgorelik 9y ago
From the perspective of Eric Shmidt, Anne-Marie Slaughter mishandled that tricky situation by leaking Eric Shmidt dissatisfaction to the renegade employee.
c3534l 9y ago
> think tanks are a euphemism for propaganda machine Sometimes they are. Sometimes they do legitimate research and work, funded by people who care about certain issues. It's kind of a crap-shoot, really.
Iv 9y ago
Why doesn't it look great for Google? Google is a company and it moves according to its interest. The weird part is to expect a company to fund a group for the love of truth and public good. Companies are in a competition against each other and the amount of genuine benevolent collaboration they can do is limited by nature.
mychael 9y ago
> If you didn't know it already, think tanks are a euphemism for propaganda machine. I'm not sure if this is hyperbole or if you don't actually know what propaganda means. Propaganda refers to media/communication that influences a large group of people (citizens in the context of politics or employees in the context of business). Most think tanks (aei, cato, brookings etc) publish research for an academic and legislative audience, not for the masses to consume.
- loup-vaillant 9y ago
  1. That trickles down to mass media eventually. 2. They communicate to the few people who really matter —decision makers and their counsel.
growt 9y ago
I don't get this. The guy works for a think tank that is paid for by google and schmidt. So he is kind of an external PR person for google (put simply). Then he writes something negative about them and gets fired. So he got fired for not doing his job (or doing the opposite of his job). Why is anyone surprised he got fired, including himself?

noir_lord 9y ago

> think tanks are a euphemism for propaganda machine. Yep and they go back in one form or another centuries possibly millenia, right back to when kings used to pay people to justify why they owed less money to the catholic church.

dmlorenzetti 9y ago

think tanks are a euphemism for propaganda machine I call them "thought tanks" exactly because all the thinking has been done well before any particular question gets asked.

kazinator 9y ago
The past tense form (and also past participle) of to think is glaringly ambiguous against the noun thought, suggesting that thought might be going on. I humbly suggest the alternative thunk tank. The bad grammar eliminates suspicions of thought and as a bonus, it rhymes with drunk tank. "I thinked and thinked real hard and real long till I couldn' think a nuthin' I ain't already thunk. So I then I passed on the remainin' reckonin' on to the fine folks in the thunk tank."
planteen 9y ago
I like that. So true. It usually seems the conclusion is also decided before much thinking goes on as well.
kazinator 9y ago
Seriously though, the agenda behind a think tank may be a thought-out given. But there can be plenty of conniving left for the think tank related to carrying it out. Obviously, this guy wasn't fit for a think tank, if he couldn't rub two brain cells together to learn the adage "don't bite the hand that feeds you". Or maybe he is meta-clever; no publicity is bad publicity. Get fired from a Google funded think tank for anti-Google thoughts and come out smelling like some kind of hero.

clarkevans 9y ago

The bulk of this article is a critique of corporate power. In particular, Barry Lynn argues that bipartisan deregulation of monopoly controls have permitted a concentration of corporate power: How did we drift so far from the founding generation’s deep fear of massive corporations? In the 1970s and 1980s, an alliance of economic and legal scholars from the right and left of the parties — including Robert Bork and John Kenneth Galbraith — combined to overthrow America’s two-century-old antimonopoly system. ... It’s a dangerous misperception that will continue to imperil democracy as long as the power of corporations continues to grow unchecked.

foota 9y ago
I realize you're quoting here, but two century old? Wasn't the start of US antitrust law at the beginning of the 20th century?
- dgacmu 9y ago
  A tad bit earlier - the Sherman Antitrust Act was 1890. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act
- clarkevans 9y ago
  The founding of the United States can be seen as a rebellion against British crony capitalism. http://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/tea-act http://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/tea-act https://core.ac.uk/display/76558315 https://core.ac.uk/display/76558315 # Monopolies and the Constitution: A History of Crony Capitalism

dsacco 9y ago

I see it repeated a lot that think tanks are really propaganda engines with an intellectual veneer, but can you back that up with specific examples? I subscribe to the Brookings Papers, Cato Journal, Chatham House and Council on Foreign Relations. Yes, the content is political, but discussions of economics and policy are necessarily political in nature. I think there is a lot in these publications that is descriptive, not just prescriptive. Certainly more rigor than you're giving them credit for. If you're expecting an organization without any bias, that's different. But your critique sounds as though there is no empiricism involved whatsoever. I take issue with that, because personally I find that I learn quite a bit by reading these, and often the value is in conflicting perspectives. I also think it becomes a little too easy for people to hear what you're saying and just start repeating it (as an example, see this thread where multiple people have piled on to agree with you without any examples cited). To make a comparison: I also subscribe to the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, because they have different implicit (and even explicit!) biases. That doesn't mean there isn't high quality journalism, it just means that the nature of information is often biased.

yeukhon 9y ago
Not to distract from the main point, but my experience has been NYT and WST lean towards the left than the right, although WST is more conversative on the financial side which is obvious.
- walshemj 9y ago
  the WST is a left wing paper lol
  - yeukhon 9y ago
    Thanks the "lol", sarcasm.
- subroutine 9y ago
  I recently wrote a little Python script to scrape the url from top submissions to Reddit's /r/The_Donald vs. /r/EnoughTrumpSpam to get an idea of the most conservative-leaning and liberal-leaning news outlets (e.g. more specifically which news sites conservative-leaning and liberal-leaning redditors use to support their respective narratives). Here are the results: https://i.redd.it/45ezt3j9hziy.png https://i.redd.it/45ezt3j9hziy.png Edit: Oh and I almost forgot (and to bring this full circle) a Googler saw my post about this and made an interactive version: https://medium.com/@hoffa/reddit-favorite-sources-the-most-linked-sites-expanded-and-interactive-79070d648573 https://medium.com/@hoffa/reddit-favorite-sources-the-most-l... Edit: and to really bring this full circle, this Googler made an interactive version about HN: https://medium.com/@hoffa/hacker-news-on-bigquery-now-with-daily-updates-so-what-are-the-top-domains-963d3c68b2e2 https://medium.com/@hoffa/hacker-news-on-bigquery-now-with-d...

rayiner 9y ago

One of my favorite plot lines is where someone is an unexpected ally but then circumstances and conflicts of interest cause the alliance to become untenable. E.g. the movie "The Siege," General William Deveraux (Bruce Willis) reassures the protagonists, after a terrorist scare, that he's a "card-carrying member of the ACLU." But eventually, he's rounding U.S. citizens up into camps. Big companies' alliances with social justice types strikes me as similar. It's tenable, to a point.

CamperBob2 9y ago
Hell of an underrated movie. If you liked The Siege but haven't seen Unthinkable, give that one a watch as well.
dmix 9y ago
> where someone is an unexpected ally but then circumstances and conflicts of interest cause the alliance to become untenable. It's not always unexpected as it is non-obvious. As the OP said: >> think tanks are a euphemism for propaganda machine. This is basically the reality that's being masked in this article: the Think Tank was never hired to tell the truth. Maybe find the truth, but it's certainly not Google's primary interest for them to publicly finance the promotion of an inconvenient truth. Which as far as I'm concerned makes business sense. You can't have your cake and eat it too as an activist (nor does it mean the activist is automatically right because they spoke out against the interests of their financiers either). Similar to how Google and Apple only make token efforts at 'securing' their messaging platforms and operating systems against surveillance - to the point where business interests don't align. Any business output is largely a product of competing interests, hidden or otherwise. Which is why voluntary donations (which includes personal time, such as open source) are so critical to tip these scales towards the general public's interest - particularly when it comes to things that also don't align with the interests of government agencies (see: surveillance) or the interests of mega-corporations/special interest groups with political pull. Depending on government or corporate programs alone is insufficient IMO, and it's unfortunate that this third option is typically treated as an afterthought in our culture. We tend to treat time/resources as merely a dynamic between personal benefit and our maximum capacity for taxation, where donations are merely a luxury of the wealthy and/or the compassionate non-industrious types, which ends up being a minority of the public.

tiggybear 9y ago

I'm sure all of the google employees that are concerned with social justice and contributing to a company that makes the world a more fair place will be standing up and calling on google to make this right or they will be quitting. Google employees have done it before and have contributed many thought-provoking articles in other scenarios where google was acting inappropriately. They have been strangely silent on this and that really emphasizes what a toxic culture google has these days. Google employees were willing to leave their job because of a co-workers opinion, yet none that I have seen are willing to stand up and leave because of their companies own actions. I think that says a lot about the type of people that work at google, they're willing to punch down on people with less than them but not punch up at their masters. Truly sad.

Bartweiss 9y ago

An interesting point: it's not at all clear to me that Schmidt actually made any statement about funding. This says "Schmidt, she said, was threatening to pull his name and substantial funding from New America in retaliation", but previous articles have said that Schmidt simply mentioned his displeasure and Slaughter took care of the rest. I'm not exonerating Google here regardless; calling the head of a think tank (as opposed to, say, the essay writer) to express displeasure is obviously a display of power. But it's interesting as a taste of how authoritarian behavior works. Schmidt couldn't have ordered the article spiked, and he would have looked terrible if he expressly said "I'm pulling funding if you criticize Google". So instead, he calls and says "I'm unhappy about this article". And Slaughter, not being an idiot, recognizes that she got the call for a reason and needs to act. If she hadn't been so blunt about her internal message, everyone could have quietly insisted the firing was "for other reasons" and left the whole point unproved. In one sense, the news story here is that an explicit message was sent. A sensible person ought to expect that soft power and unstated implications cause similar consequences every day.

Clubber 9y ago
>Schmidt couldn't have ordered the article spiked The comment from the writer happened, then Schmidt complained. I don't think the writer asked Schmidt his opinion before he gave his comment. In other words, Schmidt's actions were a result of the writer's comments, after the fact.
- Bartweiss 9y ago
  Sorry, 'spiked' was incorrect. I should have said 'pulled', since the article was briefly taken down and then restored. Thanks for catching that.
ehsankia 9y ago
Also, is Google itself funding New America, or is Eric using his own funds? I think there's a pretty big different, and making it all about Google just because Eric happens to work at Google seems unfair. People are free to fund and support any cause they want in their own time with their own money. Yes, the person also happens to like Google a lot and doesn't want to see Google hurt, but I don't think Google should be held responsible for his personal actions.

kazinator 9y ago

When Google funds an anti-monopoly think tank, it should be clear to everyone working there that it's an anti-non-Google-monopoly think tank that is really about how to prevent other organizations form gaining monopolistic footholds in any areas that Google might be interested in, and how to skirt any laws and regulations which block Google from doing same.

hedgedoops2 9y ago

> think tanks are a euphemism for propaganda machine While I tend to agree, it's interesting that this think tank employee seems to have believed that 'think tank' means something closer to 'independent private research institute' or 'university department' than to 'paid propagandists, for moneyed special interests, kept on a leash by their masters'. What did he think his group was? Maybe not a 'think tank'? Are there any 'think tanks' that might be called 'independent'? Any 'think tanks' that might be said not to be 'propagandists'? 'Good' think tanks? I guess it's tricky to define, when merely being super dogmatic can already ensure that you'll be loyal to whatever special interests happen to benefit from your particular brand of dogmatism. So no direct control/intervention is needed. ACLU or EFF are also dogmatic in a way, and they're activist organizations, they exist to improve the world according to some ideology (civil liberties, free software). I guess the difference between 'think tank' and 'research institute' is that the latter is more interested in advancing science, than in saving the world. Among the 'think tanks' you can then, differentiate between those that serve (through control or dogmatism) the less powerful (EFF?) vs those that serve the more powerful (Kochs, arguably Cato, AEI). I guess a better, orthogonal way you can differentiate, is: does the organization end up adding or detracting from the ideal of educated public discourse? Are their arguments manipulative, or do they serve, in the end, to educate? (This is about effect, not intent, or bias.) You can ask about intent too, I guess. Do they presume ideas are at "war" or do they presume that ideas tend to combine to get closer to the truth? A highly biased, paid-for group can still be useful to discourse, either it refrains from demagogic manipulation (it 'plays fair' so to speak), or its ideology is so weird and fringe, rather than hegemonic, that it adds alot of new stuff to discourse. I'm sure there are other ways of dividing up the space of highly biased schools of thought. The ancient philosophical schools like the Pythagoreans were probably a species of think tank. Although they likely weren't 'propagandists'. Although they drowned the guy who came up with the irrational numbers. It's confusing. What we should avoid is trying to divide them just by "left" vs "right". That's just dumb. What's also kind of dangerous is falling into the trap of saying, everything is propaganda. The university is a propaganda machine, for the left, haha. That's moldbuggery. I think Voltaire would get cramps when being made to deal with mr Moldbug, I'll leave it at that.

eighthnate 9y ago

> If you didn't know it already, think tanks are a euphemism for propaganda machine. Exactly, the wealthy and corporations fund think tanks to support their interests, not for ideals. Think tanks don't exist for truth/objectivity. They exist to push an agenda. No matter how good this guy's intentions were, coming out against google's interests is a sure fire way of getting fired. Not only that, his career at any google or google affiliated/funded institutions are pretty much over.

1024core 9y ago

Schmidt, she said, was threatening to pull his name... Could this be the problem? It would look ugly if someone in an organization bearing Schmidt's name actually praised actions detrimental to Schmidt's employer.

yuhong 9y ago
I wonder if the other founders of Google got involved.

majormajor 9y ago

I've never looked into this much, how does peer review at a think tank work? Is your piece going to get reviewed by people who might be inclined to agree with you already? By people who might not share your views? How easy is it to "overlook" a study which has contradictory findings to your own, or misinterpret a stat in a way favorable to "your side" (whether intentionally or not)?

emmelaich 9y ago

Calling anything propaganda is not very helpful; is it biased or deceptive? And how much? There is nothing inherently wrong with propaganda. It is not necessarily manipulative or deceitful. (from wikipedia) "In the twentieth century, the term propaganda has been associated with a manipulative approach, but propaganda historically was a neutral descriptive term"

Retra 9y ago
There's nothing inherently wrong with using modern language to mean what it means in the modern world.
- lordlimecat 9y ago
  In the modern language propaganda typically is a subjective descriptor that explains very little outside of your own views on the subject.
- musage 9y ago
  Not inherently, except when it just destroys information. Let's say a couch is really light but made from good material, and has a design and colors I find very pretty, and it comes at a fair price, too. I might just call it "awesome" and be done with it, but that conveys nothing, and then when I am actually in awe, I have to talk about how something is "literally genuinely really awesome". Likewise, if propaganda "now means" propaganda one doesn't like, how does one call propaganda in general? I would guess "public relations", "public outreach", "engaging with the community", "influencing the narrative for a positive outcome", and a lot of others, but why not "propaganda"? I'm sure I use it in a purely negative meaning all the time myself, but I still can't see anything gained from that.
  - Retra 9y ago
    Propaganda has negative connotations under the presumption that the message is dishonest in some way. The original meaning was 'neutral', and in that sense more information is being provided by the modern term than the older one. >how does one call propaganda in general? Communication.

Balbazac 9y ago

> If you didn't know it already, think tanks are a euphemism for propaganda machine. Surely the proper response would be to pay less attention to think tanks / propaganda machines. Google's action here may even be morally neutral; while it is unfortunate that this fellow and his coworkers lost their jobs, (our part of) the world has been given a timely reminder of the true nature of think tanks.

dennisgorelik 9y ago

From the perspective of Eric Shmidt, Anne-Marie Slaughter mishandled that tricky situation by leaking Eric Shmidt dissatisfaction to the renegade employee.

c3534l 9y ago

> think tanks are a euphemism for propaganda machine Sometimes they are. Sometimes they do legitimate research and work, funded by people who care about certain issues. It's kind of a crap-shoot, really.

Iv 9y ago

Why doesn't it look great for Google? Google is a company and it moves according to its interest. The weird part is to expect a company to fund a group for the love of truth and public good. Companies are in a competition against each other and the amount of genuine benevolent collaboration they can do is limited by nature.

mychael 9y ago

> If you didn't know it already, think tanks are a euphemism for propaganda machine. I'm not sure if this is hyperbole or if you don't actually know what propaganda means. Propaganda refers to media/communication that influences a large group of people (citizens in the context of politics or employees in the context of business). Most think tanks (aei, cato, brookings etc) publish research for an academic and legislative audience, not for the masses to consume.

loup-vaillant 9y ago
1. That trickles down to mass media eventually. 2. They communicate to the few people who really matter —decision makers and their counsel.

growt 9y ago

I don't get this. The guy works for a think tank that is paid for by google and schmidt. So he is kind of an external PR person for google (put simply). Then he writes something negative about them and gets fired. So he got fired for not doing his job (or doing the opposite of his job). Why is anyone surprised he got fired, including himself?