22 ms·

I'm shocked by the distinct focus on fear and doubt about Google's intentions with this technology -- does it really matter that much? The rising tide lifts us

by ihsw 13y ago

I'm shocked by the distinct focus on fear and doubt about Google's intentions with this technology -- does it really matter that much? The rising tide lifts us all, and this technology can be ubiquitous within twenty years. Isn't that worth it?

gkya 13y ago
Google is enormously huge, and the breadth of their product line is jaw dropping. This fact causes the instant reaction of connecting every "innovation" that comes out of it to be connected to greed for more and hunger for data. This would be an overtly exciting Kickstarter project to find out about, but when it is from Google, the perception is that they are managing to invade one more market. They are the Internet, they have the half of cellphone market, they sell apps, books, CPU cycles, they sell Chromebooks, tablets, they make maps, they provide apps for chat, video conferencing, they've made an online office suite, they store your documents, they make the mobile OS that is sold on other company's mobile phones, they do mobile payment, they create programming languages, they employ Ken Thompson, Rob Pike, and probably the guy you envy the most, they have quantum computers and they do a sh*t load of other things that I can't bother to remember (Translate, Youtube, G+, Blogger, Groups, ...). It is not possible (for me, at least) to attach Google the childish excitement that two geeky weirdos with scruffy hair bear for their fundraiser. Google is now the hot kid in the school, who's tall, strong, handsome and athletic, who also plays guitar and is very successful at his exams, speaks three languages and represents his school in the drama festival, and also participates in the school band as whoever the guy who gets the most attention in a band. Innovation is good for science, but it is harmful to the collaborative efforts when it comes from companies that should've been saturated. When Google dies (like anything else), it will fell over the crowd that lives under it's shadow.
wpietri 13y ago
Did you ever read "The Transparent Society"? In that 1996 non-fiction book, sci-fi author David Brin suggested that the decreasing cost of data collection and storage gave us two basic paths. In one, data and data about access to data would be widely available, giving us an unprecedented level of citizen oversight of society. Think sunshine laws increased a thousandfold. In the other, access to data would be limited, and those who had the data would have incredible power. The kind of power that totalitarian states dreamed of but never achieved. Every Googler I've met, which at this point is quite a number, is a fine person. I trust them as individuals. But for my tastes, Google as a company is already more than sufficiently powerful. Power corrupts. Power attracts the corrupt. At this point, I think everything new they do should be treated with suspicion. Not hostility, but with the same sort of scrutiny that we should monitor every other dominant megacorp.

by ihsw 13y ago

gkya 13y ago

Google is enormously huge, and the breadth of their product line is jaw dropping. This fact causes the instant reaction of connecting every "innovation" that comes out of it to be connected to greed for more and hunger for data. This would be an overtly exciting Kickstarter project to find out about, but when it is from Google, the perception is that they are managing to invade one more market. They are the Internet, they have the half of cellphone market, they sell apps, books, CPU cycles, they sell Chromebooks, tablets, they make maps, they provide apps for chat, video conferencing, they've made an online office suite, they store your documents, they make the mobile OS that is sold on other company's mobile phones, they do mobile payment, they create programming languages, they employ Ken Thompson, Rob Pike, and probably the guy you envy the most, they have quantum computers and they do a sh*t load of other things that I can't bother to remember (Translate, Youtube, G+, Blogger, Groups, ...). It is not possible (for me, at least) to attach Google the childish excitement that two geeky weirdos with scruffy hair bear for their fundraiser. Google is now the hot kid in the school, who's tall, strong, handsome and athletic, who also plays guitar and is very successful at his exams, speaks three languages and represents his school in the drama festival, and also participates in the school band as whoever the guy who gets the most attention in a band. Innovation is good for science, but it is harmful to the collaborative efforts when it comes from companies that should've been saturated. When Google dies (like anything else), it will fell over the crowd that lives under it's shadow.

wpietri 13y ago

Did you ever read "The Transparent Society"? In that 1996 non-fiction book, sci-fi author David Brin suggested that the decreasing cost of data collection and storage gave us two basic paths. In one, data and data about access to data would be widely available, giving us an unprecedented level of citizen oversight of society. Think sunshine laws increased a thousandfold. In the other, access to data would be limited, and those who had the data would have incredible power. The kind of power that totalitarian states dreamed of but never achieved. Every Googler I've met, which at this point is quite a number, is a fine person. I trust them as individuals. But for my tastes, Google as a company is already more than sufficiently powerful. Power corrupts. Power attracts the corrupt. At this point, I think everything new they do should be treated with suspicion. Not hostility, but with the same sort of scrutiny that we should monitor every other dominant megacorp.