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I quit Google because I could no longer be a part of the dystopian nightmare they envision as their version of the Nerd Paradise. You have no idea how strong t

I quit Google because I could no longer be a part of the dystopian nightmare they envision as their version of the Nerd Paradise. You have no idea how strong the reality distortion field is inside of that bubble. Googlers are breathtakingly naive about how the line has been pushed by the senior leadership in order to go from being mere billionaires to mega billionaires. And it's not that hard to see the mental model and economic conditions that gave rise to this situation. Assumption 1: Technology is a universal good. Assumption 2: Centralization is the most efficient mode of operation. (this follows directly from the mission to "Organize the world's information") Assumption 3: A dumb mantra like "Don't be evil", like intentions matter, and actions don't. Assumption 4: A centralized data-driven computer system makes the best decisions. Assumption 5: If the market rewards it, it's moral. Assumption 6: The more you know about people, the better you can manipulate them (c.f. showing them "more relevant" ads) Conclusion: Google knows best for everyone, its AI should run the whole world, and since it has a crapton of money, it must be right. Just pump that 25% year-over-year growth long enough, and you have a sprawling multi-national entity that literally knows everything about everyone. What they search for, what they buy, every website they ever visit, how long they stay there, and how they interact with it, what they watch, what music they like, who they talk to and what about, who they spend their time with, and where, exactly, to the meter, they are every single second of every day, what they look like, what they like to take pictures of, what their voice sounds like, their credit history, criminal backgrounds, and soon, their DNA. The world doesn't need Google to know this shit. I don't need Google to know this shit about me in order for it to tell me what Katy Perry's second album is named. For fuck sake, we need to stop this.

JohnFen 7y ago
> If the market rewards it, it's moral. This is a very common stance. It's also, in my opinion, the core rot that is setting the tech industry up for a huge (and entirely justified) comeuppance.
- FussyZeus 7y ago
  This won't be isolated to the tech industry. This is rot at the core of capitalism itself. As long as people worship money as the only real God, it's fine. But that sentiment is in rapid decline with the young.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
Your list doesn't really look that damning. All of them are true to a large extent (I suppose they wouldn't be enticing to smart people if they were completely wrong). The actual cause of Google's bad behavior isn't on the list, though it's hinted by Assumption 6. Namely, Google decided to become an advertising business at its core. When your very essence is poisoned, it's only matter of time when ethics go out of the window, and business practices become increasingly abusive.
- meowface 7y ago
  Exactly. That's what doomed it. Same with Facebook. There is no way to run an ethical business when your core business model is advertising. It's hard enough when you run a company whose income relies on advertising (like a newspaper), but impossible when you yourself make advertising your primary feature. I honestly, personally, would not care much if Google had a lot of information about me if their goal was something other than influencing me to buy products and services. I know many others are uncomfortable with any sort of privacy loss, but for me, it depends entirely on the end goal and exact nature of the data usage. And for others, they should have an easy universal opt-out (e.g. disabling all Google Analytics tracking without having to install a Google browser extension: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/181881 https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/181881).
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Agreed. Moreover, if their core business model wasn't related to advertising, their data collection practices could (and probably would) have looked much different. For instance, there's no reason to be opaque about exactly what data you collect, or to make the collection enabled by default, or apply dark patterns coercing people to opt back in when they opt out, etc. - no reason to do all that, if the data isn't used for shady purposes.
  - cameronbrown 7y ago
    > And for others, they should have an easy universal opt-out (e.g. disabling all Google Analytics tracking without having to install a Google browser extension Problem with that is you'd require installing yet another cookie, which is another data point to fingerprint people.
AndrewKemendo 7y ago
I mean, this is the dream of pretty much all technologists. Humans cannot achieve homo economicus status on our own, we need a machine oracle to give us directions.
IX-103 7y ago
The content of your response is so divergent than what I have heard from people working at Google that I interact with, both personally and professionally, that I find it difficult to believe you actually spent a significant amount of time (if any) at Google. 1. I've never heard anyone say or imply that technology is universally good. I've heard people talk about how making information readily available and accessible to all is good (though people disagree on how universally to apply it). 2. As far as centralization, from the things I've heard it seems that centralization is considered bad. Everything needs to be distributed, standardized, and redundant. Yes, they seem to like to keep things organized, but apparently they'd rather do it in a heterogeneously distributed manner (like each user request creates many internal requests to different functions and then the result is stitched together). 3. "Don't be evil" seems to be interpreted in the "Don't do evil things" sense instead of "Don't be motivated by evil". 4. I would say a "data-driven system" makes the best decision is the closest I could find to your assumption, and I would tend to agree with them. 5. I've never heard of anything like that. I have heard people mention things that Google could do but doesn't since it is considered not good -- an example of this is that there seems to be high level opposition to using browser fingerprinting for getting around browser cookie blocking for advertising (despite already having developed state of the art techniques that are used in anti-abuse). 6. This might be the closest assumption you have, actually, since it depends on your definition of manipulation. If you ask me if fire is hot and I teach you that fire is dangerously hot (and maybe also provide some example sets of protective items and clothing you could use to work with fire to mitigate the danger), I have likely manipulated you into not getting burned later. So sorry that I'm so manipulative ;)
- cameronbrown 7y ago
  > Everything needs to be distributed, standardized, and redundant. Being distributed within a single company's data centres is still centralisation.
- judge2020 7y ago
  For point 2, I think they mean in terms of product and not code, ie. "Google should create a centralized social platform (G+)" vs "Google should create a federated social platform or contribute to existing federated platforms (Mastodon)".
whataburg 7y ago
I've given my life over to Alphabet for decades now. They know more about me than any other entity, by far. I've witnessed Google participate in insidious manipulation of content in a way that has everything to do with experimental social manipulation, and nothing to do with advertising. For instance, content was shown to me by Google that mocked the suicide of a childhood friend, which had just occurred a week or so prior. It's difficult to see this as unintentional and as not malicious, even if it was unintentional.
ChuckMcM 7y ago
A large number of people have left Google after their understanding of the larger context changed. When I was there in the late 2000's I recognized that their internal and external narrative was very carefully constructed. For me, that is always a red flag as it suggests there is an alternative narrative that might not be quite so flattering, if not downright bad. That isn't to say that they "lied" or they mislead, just that they consistently worked to emphasize information that fed the narrative they liked, and downplayed information that suggested other narratives might be more accurate. I related some of this to a coworker at Google using an example that a friend of mine on the police force of Nashville gave me. He said, "I can tell you that this woman just picked up a gun and shot this guy in cold blood. Three people saw her, and she has admitted to doing it. She's a murderer right? That is a narrative. If I add in the fact that just prior to shooting the victim the woman had freed herself from a rope restraint system, and that the victim had kidnapped her and was holding her as a sex slave, now she is a hero right? The narrative changes. The fact that she killed him are the same, but the narrative is much different." I was having this conversation with my friend in the context of how difficult policing could be. There are people who construct narratives around the facts they choose to present in order to construct an emotion in the listener. Countering narratives require that more facts be made available. My Grandfather was a US Attorney and a big believer in honesty as the best policy, he would say "The truth of a matter doesn't change when you add additional facts." It took me a long time to appreciate the depth of that statement. The issue of narratives is further compounded if one side of the situation is constrained in supplying additional facts, like the police are about on-going investigations and Google employees are by their non-disclosure agreements. It gives an advantage to the side not so constrained to construct their narrative the way they want to construct it without fear of contradiction. I was told by a member of one of Google's many internal committees that I was considered something of a "trouble maker" for asking questions that "suggested the company was hiding something, even though I had no evidence to back up those suggestions." I appreciated that they were trying to help me be more successful at Google, but to be honest that was a reasonable characterization of my actions. Although the questions I asked tended to relate to a particular piece of data or fact that was missing and might change the current narrative. My assumption going in was that if there was a data point missing from the discussion, and I could see how that data point would change the narrative, then the entity constructing the narrative was likely hiding something. I generally want to know that data point because I prefer to make my own judgement based on all of that facts that are knowable rather than accept someone else's judgement using only facts they provide. Pro tip, this always bothers people who carefully construct narratives to serve their agenda :-) So don't do it unless you are okay with the person seeing you as a threat.

JohnFen 7y ago

> If the market rewards it, it's moral. This is a very common stance. It's also, in my opinion, the core rot that is setting the tech industry up for a huge (and entirely justified) comeuppance.

FussyZeus 7y ago
This won't be isolated to the tech industry. This is rot at the core of capitalism itself. As long as people worship money as the only real God, it's fine. But that sentiment is in rapid decline with the young.

TeMPOraL 7y ago

Your list doesn't really look that damning. All of them are true to a large extent (I suppose they wouldn't be enticing to smart people if they were completely wrong). The actual cause of Google's bad behavior isn't on the list, though it's hinted by Assumption 6. Namely, Google decided to become an advertising business at its core. When your very essence is poisoned, it's only matter of time when ethics go out of the window, and business practices become increasingly abusive.

meowface 7y ago
Exactly. That's what doomed it. Same with Facebook. There is no way to run an ethical business when your core business model is advertising. It's hard enough when you run a company whose income relies on advertising (like a newspaper), but impossible when you yourself make advertising your primary feature. I honestly, personally, would not care much if Google had a lot of information about me if their goal was something other than influencing me to buy products and services. I know many others are uncomfortable with any sort of privacy loss, but for me, it depends entirely on the end goal and exact nature of the data usage. And for others, they should have an easy universal opt-out (e.g. disabling all Google Analytics tracking without having to install a Google browser extension: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/181881 https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/181881).
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Agreed. Moreover, if their core business model wasn't related to advertising, their data collection practices could (and probably would) have looked much different. For instance, there's no reason to be opaque about exactly what data you collect, or to make the collection enabled by default, or apply dark patterns coercing people to opt back in when they opt out, etc. - no reason to do all that, if the data isn't used for shady purposes.
- cameronbrown 7y ago
  > And for others, they should have an easy universal opt-out (e.g. disabling all Google Analytics tracking without having to install a Google browser extension Problem with that is you'd require installing yet another cookie, which is another data point to fingerprint people.

AndrewKemendo 7y ago

I mean, this is the dream of pretty much all technologists. Humans cannot achieve homo economicus status on our own, we need a machine oracle to give us directions.

IX-103 7y ago

The content of your response is so divergent than what I have heard from people working at Google that I interact with, both personally and professionally, that I find it difficult to believe you actually spent a significant amount of time (if any) at Google. 1. I've never heard anyone say or imply that technology is universally good. I've heard people talk about how making information readily available and accessible to all is good (though people disagree on how universally to apply it). 2. As far as centralization, from the things I've heard it seems that centralization is considered bad. Everything needs to be distributed, standardized, and redundant. Yes, they seem to like to keep things organized, but apparently they'd rather do it in a heterogeneously distributed manner (like each user request creates many internal requests to different functions and then the result is stitched together). 3. "Don't be evil" seems to be interpreted in the "Don't do evil things" sense instead of "Don't be motivated by evil". 4. I would say a "data-driven system" makes the best decision is the closest I could find to your assumption, and I would tend to agree with them. 5. I've never heard of anything like that. I have heard people mention things that Google could do but doesn't since it is considered not good -- an example of this is that there seems to be high level opposition to using browser fingerprinting for getting around browser cookie blocking for advertising (despite already having developed state of the art techniques that are used in anti-abuse). 6. This might be the closest assumption you have, actually, since it depends on your definition of manipulation. If you ask me if fire is hot and I teach you that fire is dangerously hot (and maybe also provide some example sets of protective items and clothing you could use to work with fire to mitigate the danger), I have likely manipulated you into not getting burned later. So sorry that I'm so manipulative ;)

cameronbrown 7y ago
> Everything needs to be distributed, standardized, and redundant. Being distributed within a single company's data centres is still centralisation.
judge2020 7y ago
For point 2, I think they mean in terms of product and not code, ie. "Google should create a centralized social platform (G+)" vs "Google should create a federated social platform or contribute to existing federated platforms (Mastodon)".

whataburg 7y ago

I've given my life over to Alphabet for decades now. They know more about me than any other entity, by far. I've witnessed Google participate in insidious manipulation of content in a way that has everything to do with experimental social manipulation, and nothing to do with advertising. For instance, content was shown to me by Google that mocked the suicide of a childhood friend, which had just occurred a week or so prior. It's difficult to see this as unintentional and as not malicious, even if it was unintentional.

ChuckMcM 7y ago

A large number of people have left Google after their understanding of the larger context changed. When I was there in the late 2000's I recognized that their internal and external narrative was very carefully constructed. For me, that is always a red flag as it suggests there is an alternative narrative that might not be quite so flattering, if not downright bad. That isn't to say that they "lied" or they mislead, just that they consistently worked to emphasize information that fed the narrative they liked, and downplayed information that suggested other narratives might be more accurate. I related some of this to a coworker at Google using an example that a friend of mine on the police force of Nashville gave me. He said, "I can tell you that this woman just picked up a gun and shot this guy in cold blood. Three people saw her, and she has admitted to doing it. She's a murderer right? That is a narrative. If I add in the fact that just prior to shooting the victim the woman had freed herself from a rope restraint system, and that the victim had kidnapped her and was holding her as a sex slave, now she is a hero right? The narrative changes. The fact that she killed him are the same, but the narrative is much different." I was having this conversation with my friend in the context of how difficult policing could be. There are people who construct narratives around the facts they choose to present in order to construct an emotion in the listener. Countering narratives require that more facts be made available. My Grandfather was a US Attorney and a big believer in honesty as the best policy, he would say "The truth of a matter doesn't change when you add additional facts." It took me a long time to appreciate the depth of that statement. The issue of narratives is further compounded if one side of the situation is constrained in supplying additional facts, like the police are about on-going investigations and Google employees are by their non-disclosure agreements. It gives an advantage to the side not so constrained to construct their narrative the way they want to construct it without fear of contradiction. I was told by a member of one of Google's many internal committees that I was considered something of a "trouble maker" for asking questions that "suggested the company was hiding something, even though I had no evidence to back up those suggestions." I appreciated that they were trying to help me be more successful at Google, but to be honest that was a reasonable characterization of my actions. Although the questions I asked tended to relate to a particular piece of data or fact that was missing and might change the current narrative. My assumption going in was that if there was a data point missing from the discussion, and I could see how that data point would change the narrative, then the entity constructing the narrative was likely hiding something. I generally want to know that data point because I prefer to make my own judgement based on all of that facts that are knowable rather than accept someone else's judgement using only facts they provide. Pro tip, this always bothers people who carefully construct narratives to serve their agenda :-) So don't do it unless you are okay with the person seeing you as a threat.