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While this would make a statement, somewhere I saw a good point--someone will be googling to see if the snake that bit them was poisonous. Google is now critica
by ericb 15y ago
While this would make a statement, somewhere I saw a good point--someone will be googling to see if the snake that bit them was poisonous. Google is now critical infrastructure, like power. If it goes out, people will quite possibly die.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- moocow01 15y agoBing.com ?
- josefresco 15y agoHow long does it take to see that Google is down and switch to Bing? It adds 5-10 seconds to your search which if you factor in the resulting time it takes for you to read the article seems minimal. Also the thought of using Google to literally "save your life" from a snake bite is a whole separate argument.
- ericb 15y agoFor you, or for my elderly neighbor, who just has a bookmarked google page and knows of nothing else? Note: This is actually true--I "fixed their computer" recently.
- orijing 15y agoI'm not trying to troll but is Google much better for that query than Bing? Or is it lack of awareness of Bing?
- nextparadigms 15y agoGoogle seems a lot better with long tail terms than Bing.
- burgerbrain 15y agoI don't think that is a particularly good point. If a snake bites you, and you are not sure if it is poisonous or not, assume that it is and go to the hospital. Life or death health issues should not be googled, they should be taken care of by professionals.
- ericb 15y agoOK, lets use our imagination. How about heart attack symptoms? Directions to the hospital? The phone number for your doctor (on his website, which you find by googling). How to safely use a chainsaw. What do when your toddler stops breathing. How to perform CPR. Drug contraindications. Where to call in a gas leak.
- burgerbrain 15y agoThe answer to most of those is "911" (or your regional equivalent). The others are not time critical, read the manual, ask whoever you rented it from, or figure out how to use Bing. I'm starting to feel old here...
- mike-cardwell 15y agoWhilst you may not like his examples, you do understand the point he's making right?
- daeken 15y agoThe point he's making, largely, is that Google going out is a bad thing because people use internet searches as a replacement for common sense. That's not Google's fault.
- ericb 15y agoUsing google to fill in gaps in your knowledge is not "replacing common sense"--doing so is USING common sense. Lets remove the straw man who visits the hospital and calls 911 for all possible emergencies from the argument. Learning that a numb right arm is a heart attack symptom changes the picture, and for better or worse, google is the main spicket for knowledge these days. Fault is irrelevant once the dependence is there. If you're at google, flipping a switch, just like our dependence on power, could cost lives, and if you care about human life, you have to think about it before you do it regardless of whether would say it is your "fault." I am about as anti-sopa as they come, so I'd personally like to see a gigantic message, and see them name names and explain what services won't exist if this passes.
- schrototo 15y agoThat's utterly ludicrous.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- steamer25 15y agoA full blackout of every opposing site wouldn't be necessary to make a very strong statement. Google, for instance, could do a full black out of YouTube but put a full frame, 'click here to continue to your results' ad on their search pages.
- ssharp 15y agoI don't think going dark completely is good, for that very reason. That wouldn't stop Google from making a very prominent display of their argument against SOPA/PIPA -- placing the message on the homepage, featuring it on SERPs, etc. I think if Google just put the message at somewhere on the homepage, it would have a profound effect, given how bare the Google homepage is. That, of course, wouldn't get the message across to the many people who use built-in search in browsers and other such methods of accessing SERPs.
- coderdude 15y agoSounds an awful lot like "too big to fail" rhetoric.
- ericb 15y agoReally? I google medical conditions frequently. I think this is common practice. I have also met a good number of folks (mostly older) who know only of google search engine-wise. Some of them are unsure what input field to type in at times. Comparing critical services to political slogans is mentally lazy. Yes, the power grid in my city is "too big too fail" this winter--because people can and do die when that happens.
- coderdude 15y agoThe last thing Google will tell you is that they are critical infrastructure. They would never want that much liability or responsibility to be placed on them. Searching for information about a medical condition is something I think a lot of people do, but they shouldn't come to rely on Google (or the Web in general) for that. The information Google returns can be false, misleading, under-researched, or all of the above. You can't actually rely on the information you find. Even something as simple as 'what to do in the event of receiving a concussion' can be riddled with misinformation. Practicing Web-medicine is illadvised. I'm not sure if you're suggesting that it was you or I who is guilty of mental laziness but the entire world laughed as we called our banks "too big to fail" and you're regurgitating the exact same mantra. The only difference is you've switched Goldman Sachs with Google.