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>I think Google is responsible in 2018, now that they offer extremely tailored results. Duckduckgo, maybe not. But if Google is going to say "we're going to sho

>I think Google is responsible in 2018, now that they offer extremely tailored results. Duckduckgo, maybe not. But if Google is going to say "we're going to show you listings for restaurants in SF in your simple 'restaurants' search because we know you live in SF," I think they should also say "we're going to show you results for LGBT resources when you search for 'gay men' because nothing about your query indicates a desire for pornographic content." Are you are saying that, in a scenario where there are more results for one sub-query than for another, Google has an obligation to assume someone is searching for the sub-query it finds more politically acceptable? This seems like a bad idea to me. We should want to reduce the political/social influence of Google, rather than think of ways to give them more tools of influence and assuming they will have a positive effect. These two things are completely different "Because you live in SF, if you search restaurants you probably want results pertaining to restaurants close to SF" "Because subject X-A is socially unacceptable, if you search for subject X we will only show results pertaining to subject X-B"

V-eHGsd_ 9y ago
Neither here nor there, but as a conversational style I find that when i'm asking a legitimate but pointed question, people are more likely to take accept my question as an honest one if I open with > Are you saying that ... vs > You are saying that ...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
frahs 9y ago
Well, it's like the restaurant example. If I search for "restaurants", it shouldn't give me restaurants in Shanghai because that's the city with the largest population. It should give me Northern California, since that's where I live and Google knows that. Similarly, Google might reasonably infer that if someone is searching for their own race, sexuality, or religion, they're probably more interested in information or support groups than porn. Not that both can't be served as results... just... priorities of what people are looking for.
- ryanmonroe 9y ago
  > Similarly, Google might reasonably infer that if someone is searching for their own race, sexuality, or religion, they're probably more interested in information or support groups than porn. Sure, if they have data to back that assumption up. My interpretation was that the parent commenter wanted them to make assumptions just based on politics, which I think is a bad idea.
- wutbrodo 9y ago
  > Similarly, Google might reasonably infer that if someone is searching for their own race, sexuality, or religion, they're probably more interested in information or support groups than porn. Not that both can't be served as results... just... priorities of what people are looking for. Don't they already do this for porn? I thought that feature was in place years ago. It's even a minor Internet joke that Bing is only good for porn (since they're more lax about letting porn into their results).
- 2muchcoffeeman 9y ago
  How would google infer that you’re looking for information about your own race and gender? Ideally it should know nothing about me!
  - CaptSpify 9y ago
    Ideally, you are correct. In reality, however, I'm willing to bet that Google could pick you out of a lineup.
- strken 9y ago
  Why would that be true, though? Are straight men more likely than gay men to be looking for gay pornography? At some point you've got to accept that googling "hot teens" won't get you resources on the treatment of hyperthermia in young people.
narrator 9y ago
Political correctness and affirmative action are based on the idea that pretending the world is an ideal version of itself will eventually make it that way. In reality though, the world is a complex place and the ideal pretend version can only be implemented in a carefully controlled environment such as a movie, a theatrical presentation, a video game or a situation where all participants agree to or are pressured into behaving in a way in which that pretend world is real. When the rest of the world leaks in, it is impossible to maintain that pressure on everyone. About the best we have so far is "safe search" since pornography and obscenity follow fairly regular patterns. Political correctness though is constantly evolving and requires a trained academic to determine if each piece of information should be censored or allowed. Ideally in the future we'll have google glass and advanced AI classifiers constantly scanning our vision and providing us with tape delayed audio of the outside world in order to present the world to us and filter any politically incorrect content 24/7. For now we have to do it ourselves and ignore any inconvenient facts that may make maintaining the illusion difficult. This constant struggle to deal with cognitive dissonance can be tiresome and one should restrict oneself to heavily moderated news feeds and not using search features for now. To create the carefully controlled virtual world in an interface to the rest of the world such as Google is an overwhelming task because you would need a highly sophisticated trained AI agent to maintain that illusion and to even invent information, such as lists of Nobel award winners from disadvantaged peoples, in order to maintain the illusion.
- komali2 9y ago
  I feel like that's a remarkably pessimistic view of the world. I don't think optimism necessitates "filtering the world out," I think one can be optimistic about the future while being aware of actual problems. This viewpoint has served me with a perfect success rate in all of my interpersonal reactions, including relatively combative ones (handing a beer can a drunk has thrown on the street back to him and asking if he could throw it away next time, random example). Are there any specific example of things you think are incompatible with optimism without horse blinders?
- jacobreg 9y ago
  >Political correctness and affirmative action are based on the idea that pretending the world is an ideal version of itself will eventually make it that way. That is the opposite of how it works. Affirmative action is accepting that the world has bias against certain groups, and attempting to take that into account. Political correctness is about realizing that certain groups have been marginalized or traumatized and some words perpetuate that. In a perfect world neither are necessary.
wutbrodo 9y ago
> This seems like a bad idea to me, especially in the context of a discussion about how to reduce the political/social influence of Google. It seems to me that there's an enormous contingent of people who wants to yell about the influence of Google and Facebook and then yell even louder about how they're not actively intervening to skew content towards their political preferences (ie increase their influence massively). This split-personality approach is baffling to me.
- komali2 9y ago
  Irrelevant to the content itself, but I have noticed a tendency in myself to treat the media and the internet as a homogeneous entity. So I might see a bunch of articles and comments about how people want to punish Hollywood for sex abuse, and a bunch more about how a given politician isn't actually guilty, and I think in my brain "well which is it!!" But then if I start paying attention to the papers themselves and the history of commentors, I'm noticing that it's not the same people calling for both. I started doing this after alt right trolls started saying things like "I thought you liberals LOVE new taxes?" and realized it was happening to me. I'm getting a sense of that from your post.
  - wutbrodo 9y ago
    No, I'm definitely aware of that phenomenon and definitely check for it before I say things like this. I'm thinking of specific individual people I know, whether in real life or consistent pseudonyms on communities I have exposure to. It happens often enough in that small, detailed dataset that I'm comfortable extrapolating a little bit to the larger dataset instead of assuming that it's different subgroups with contradictory viewpoints. I come across thoughtful people all the time who have a baseline assumption of intelligence and intellectual honesty that doesn't match almost any group you're likely to actually come across. My prior for people having obviously contradictory views is simply higher than yours.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  >It seems to me that there's an enormous contingent of people who wants to yell about the influence of Google and Facebook and then yell even louder about how they're not actively intervening to skew content towards their political preferences (ie increase their influence massively). This split-personality approach is baffling to me. It's pretty straightforward to understand the view. 1. It would be better if Google and Facebook didn't even have the power to skew content. 2. Since they do have that power and seem determined to use it they should be judged on their choice to use (or not use in this case) and implementation of content skewing.
pnloyd 9y ago
I don't think it's right that because there's some highly backlinked content with with some keywords, that you should assume that's what people are looking for when they search those keywords. Shouldn't helping connect poeple with what they're looking for be the bottom line? Even if you have to manipulate your algorimths natural results to do so.

V-eHGsd_ 9y ago

Neither here nor there, but as a conversational style I find that when i'm asking a legitimate but pointed question, people are more likely to take accept my question as an honest one if I open with > Are you saying that ... vs > You are saying that ...

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

frahs 9y ago

Well, it's like the restaurant example. If I search for "restaurants", it shouldn't give me restaurants in Shanghai because that's the city with the largest population. It should give me Northern California, since that's where I live and Google knows that. Similarly, Google might reasonably infer that if someone is searching for their own race, sexuality, or religion, they're probably more interested in information or support groups than porn. Not that both can't be served as results... just... priorities of what people are looking for.

ryanmonroe 9y ago
> Similarly, Google might reasonably infer that if someone is searching for their own race, sexuality, or religion, they're probably more interested in information or support groups than porn. Sure, if they have data to back that assumption up. My interpretation was that the parent commenter wanted them to make assumptions just based on politics, which I think is a bad idea.
wutbrodo 9y ago
> Similarly, Google might reasonably infer that if someone is searching for their own race, sexuality, or religion, they're probably more interested in information or support groups than porn. Not that both can't be served as results... just... priorities of what people are looking for. Don't they already do this for porn? I thought that feature was in place years ago. It's even a minor Internet joke that Bing is only good for porn (since they're more lax about letting porn into their results).
2muchcoffeeman 9y ago
How would google infer that you’re looking for information about your own race and gender? Ideally it should know nothing about me!
- CaptSpify 9y ago
  Ideally, you are correct. In reality, however, I'm willing to bet that Google could pick you out of a lineup.
strken 9y ago
Why would that be true, though? Are straight men more likely than gay men to be looking for gay pornography? At some point you've got to accept that googling "hot teens" won't get you resources on the treatment of hyperthermia in young people.

narrator 9y ago

Political correctness and affirmative action are based on the idea that pretending the world is an ideal version of itself will eventually make it that way. In reality though, the world is a complex place and the ideal pretend version can only be implemented in a carefully controlled environment such as a movie, a theatrical presentation, a video game or a situation where all participants agree to or are pressured into behaving in a way in which that pretend world is real. When the rest of the world leaks in, it is impossible to maintain that pressure on everyone. About the best we have so far is "safe search" since pornography and obscenity follow fairly regular patterns. Political correctness though is constantly evolving and requires a trained academic to determine if each piece of information should be censored or allowed. Ideally in the future we'll have google glass and advanced AI classifiers constantly scanning our vision and providing us with tape delayed audio of the outside world in order to present the world to us and filter any politically incorrect content 24/7. For now we have to do it ourselves and ignore any inconvenient facts that may make maintaining the illusion difficult. This constant struggle to deal with cognitive dissonance can be tiresome and one should restrict oneself to heavily moderated news feeds and not using search features for now. To create the carefully controlled virtual world in an interface to the rest of the world such as Google is an overwhelming task because you would need a highly sophisticated trained AI agent to maintain that illusion and to even invent information, such as lists of Nobel award winners from disadvantaged peoples, in order to maintain the illusion.

komali2 9y ago
I feel like that's a remarkably pessimistic view of the world. I don't think optimism necessitates "filtering the world out," I think one can be optimistic about the future while being aware of actual problems. This viewpoint has served me with a perfect success rate in all of my interpersonal reactions, including relatively combative ones (handing a beer can a drunk has thrown on the street back to him and asking if he could throw it away next time, random example). Are there any specific example of things you think are incompatible with optimism without horse blinders?
jacobreg 9y ago
>Political correctness and affirmative action are based on the idea that pretending the world is an ideal version of itself will eventually make it that way. That is the opposite of how it works. Affirmative action is accepting that the world has bias against certain groups, and attempting to take that into account. Political correctness is about realizing that certain groups have been marginalized or traumatized and some words perpetuate that. In a perfect world neither are necessary.

wutbrodo 9y ago

> This seems like a bad idea to me, especially in the context of a discussion about how to reduce the political/social influence of Google. It seems to me that there's an enormous contingent of people who wants to yell about the influence of Google and Facebook and then yell even louder about how they're not actively intervening to skew content towards their political preferences (ie increase their influence massively). This split-personality approach is baffling to me.

komali2 9y ago
Irrelevant to the content itself, but I have noticed a tendency in myself to treat the media and the internet as a homogeneous entity. So I might see a bunch of articles and comments about how people want to punish Hollywood for sex abuse, and a bunch more about how a given politician isn't actually guilty, and I think in my brain "well which is it!!" But then if I start paying attention to the papers themselves and the history of commentors, I'm noticing that it's not the same people calling for both. I started doing this after alt right trolls started saying things like "I thought you liberals LOVE new taxes?" and realized it was happening to me. I'm getting a sense of that from your post.
- wutbrodo 9y ago
  No, I'm definitely aware of that phenomenon and definitely check for it before I say things like this. I'm thinking of specific individual people I know, whether in real life or consistent pseudonyms on communities I have exposure to. It happens often enough in that small, detailed dataset that I'm comfortable extrapolating a little bit to the larger dataset instead of assuming that it's different subgroups with contradictory viewpoints. I come across thoughtful people all the time who have a baseline assumption of intelligence and intellectual honesty that doesn't match almost any group you're likely to actually come across. My prior for people having obviously contradictory views is simply higher than yours.
frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
>It seems to me that there's an enormous contingent of people who wants to yell about the influence of Google and Facebook and then yell even louder about how they're not actively intervening to skew content towards their political preferences (ie increase their influence massively). This split-personality approach is baffling to me. It's pretty straightforward to understand the view. 1. It would be better if Google and Facebook didn't even have the power to skew content. 2. Since they do have that power and seem determined to use it they should be judged on their choice to use (or not use in this case) and implementation of content skewing.

pnloyd 9y ago

I don't think it's right that because there's some highly backlinked content with with some keywords, that you should assume that's what people are looking for when they search those keywords. Shouldn't helping connect poeple with what they're looking for be the bottom line? Even if you have to manipulate your algorimths natural results to do so.