7 ms·

Don't be Google

84 points by chris-at 12y ago

billynomates1 12y ago
Putting the punchline in the title totally ruined this.
- rushabh 12y ago
  Yeah, the title should just be "Don't be Evil"
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
jdbernard 12y ago
So how are "page ranking, search results, and cached data" inherently evil? These are some of the basic services that make the web as we know it work. Also, energy consumption? My understanding is that they were doing quite a lot to meet their needs with renewable sources[1][2]. I hardly think that qualifies as evil. Sure, there are times and issues we can point to where Google has failed their motto. You could make an argument that their mission to "organize the world's information" is evil when it is carried to it's logical extreme, or at least empowers evil. But this comic is not making those points. It's just grabbing a bunch of old headlines, some of which aren't even relevant. Though I confess I never really "got" Doonesbury. It's rarely accurate enough to pass as a political cartoon and rarely funny enough for the funny pages. [1]: http://www.google.com/green/energy/ http://www.google.com/green/energy/ [2]: http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/07/20/us-google-windpower-idUSTRE66J3BL20100720 http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/07/20/us-google-windpowe...
- mankyd 12y ago
  Doonesbury is not calling Google evil for these things. They're pointing out that others have, fairly or otherwise.
- lmm 12y ago
  Advertising is inherently evil, and Google is an advertising company first and foremost (it's where the vast majority of their revenue comes from, after all).
  - infinotize 12y ago
    Why? I hate advertising, and believe it's gotten way way way too pervasive in all aspects of modern life, but I still wouldn't even say it's inherently evil.
    - Infinitesimus 12y ago
      I think one 'problem' is that advertising's goal is to manipulate and condition the human mind to desire a product. Of course, there is a very blurred line (if any at all) between "informing" someone of a product and using subtle psychological tricks to make them desire the product. Idk, complex grey area for me which I find fascinating yet somehow conflicted about.
      - mseebach 12y ago
        The problem with that analysis is that damn near all human communication uses "subtle psychological tricks" to achieve ends, good, bad and neutral. When advertising gets called out specifically in that context, it's a consequence of the ancient snobbery towards commerce, pioneered by the aristocracy and improbably adopted by the academia. http://www.economist.com/node/21541857 http://www.economist.com/node/21541857
        tomp 12y ago
        That is correct, which is why I never trust communication done by someone who has an incentive to draw a profit from it.
        mseebach 12y ago
        That's the point. You don't trust anything, commercial or not, by default, you use your critical faculties and evaluate the information available to you to reach a conclusion. As such, advertising isn't special, and isn't inherently evil anymore than any other type of communication.
- tomp 12y ago
  The way I understand it, it's not that cached data or page ranking are evil, but the way Google does it; it's completely opaque, prone to random changes (even though many people depend on it for their livelihood) and, the most important problem IMO, when there is an issue, Google is handling it really badly (e.g. nobody can be contacted about it) - not really something inherently evil, but something a big company could do something about (and Google chooses not to).
- snowwrestler 12y ago
  They're not inherently evil. What the comic actually says with respect to Google is "They've had issues with" those things.
afarrell 12y ago
Google is 15 years old with almost 50,000 current employees. Of course it has done evil things. Now, don't know of a coherent widely agreed-upon definition of evil, but once you get to that scale, there is enough human behavior going on that some of it will be evil for pretty much any definition. The lack of a widely agreed-upon definition of evil is a problem for Google though. That word gets thrown around enough that "don't be evil", really only means "Don't use 'we're a for-profit corporation' as an excuse to do something egregious."
zatkin 12y ago
Google is also evil with their AdSense banning[1]. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7672910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7672910
throwaway283719 12y ago
If you're going to link to a comic with a joke in it, don't put the punchline in the title of the submission!

Don't be Google

84 points by chris-at 12y ago

billynomates1 12y ago

Putting the punchline in the title totally ruined this.

rushabh 12y ago
Yeah, the title should just be "Don't be Evil"

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

jdbernard 12y ago

So how are "page ranking, search results, and cached data" inherently evil? These are some of the basic services that make the web as we know it work. Also, energy consumption? My understanding is that they were doing quite a lot to meet their needs with renewable sources[1][2]. I hardly think that qualifies as evil. Sure, there are times and issues we can point to where Google has failed their motto. You could make an argument that their mission to "organize the world's information" is evil when it is carried to it's logical extreme, or at least empowers evil. But this comic is not making those points. It's just grabbing a bunch of old headlines, some of which aren't even relevant. Though I confess I never really "got" Doonesbury. It's rarely accurate enough to pass as a political cartoon and rarely funny enough for the funny pages. [1]: http://www.google.com/green/energy/ http://www.google.com/green/energy/ [2]: http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/07/20/us-google-windpower-idUSTRE66J3BL20100720 http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/07/20/us-google-windpowe...

mankyd 12y ago
Doonesbury is not calling Google evil for these things. They're pointing out that others have, fairly or otherwise.
lmm 12y ago
Advertising is inherently evil, and Google is an advertising company first and foremost (it's where the vast majority of their revenue comes from, after all).
- infinotize 12y ago
  Why? I hate advertising, and believe it's gotten way way way too pervasive in all aspects of modern life, but I still wouldn't even say it's inherently evil.
  - Infinitesimus 12y ago
    I think one 'problem' is that advertising's goal is to manipulate and condition the human mind to desire a product. Of course, there is a very blurred line (if any at all) between "informing" someone of a product and using subtle psychological tricks to make them desire the product. Idk, complex grey area for me which I find fascinating yet somehow conflicted about.
    - mseebach 12y ago
      The problem with that analysis is that damn near all human communication uses "subtle psychological tricks" to achieve ends, good, bad and neutral. When advertising gets called out specifically in that context, it's a consequence of the ancient snobbery towards commerce, pioneered by the aristocracy and improbably adopted by the academia. http://www.economist.com/node/21541857 http://www.economist.com/node/21541857
      - tomp 12y ago
        That is correct, which is why I never trust communication done by someone who has an incentive to draw a profit from it.
        mseebach 12y ago
        That's the point. You don't trust anything, commercial or not, by default, you use your critical faculties and evaluate the information available to you to reach a conclusion. As such, advertising isn't special, and isn't inherently evil anymore than any other type of communication.
tomp 12y ago
The way I understand it, it's not that cached data or page ranking are evil, but the way Google does it; it's completely opaque, prone to random changes (even though many people depend on it for their livelihood) and, the most important problem IMO, when there is an issue, Google is handling it really badly (e.g. nobody can be contacted about it) - not really something inherently evil, but something a big company could do something about (and Google chooses not to).
snowwrestler 12y ago
They're not inherently evil. What the comic actually says with respect to Google is "They've had issues with" those things.

afarrell 12y ago

Google is 15 years old with almost 50,000 current employees. Of course it has done evil things. Now, don't know of a coherent widely agreed-upon definition of evil, but once you get to that scale, there is enough human behavior going on that some of it will be evil for pretty much any definition. The lack of a widely agreed-upon definition of evil is a problem for Google though. That word gets thrown around enough that "don't be evil", really only means "Don't use 'we're a for-profit corporation' as an excuse to do something egregious."

zatkin 12y ago

Google is also evil with their AdSense banning[1]. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7672910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7672910

throwaway283719 12y ago

If you're going to link to a comic with a joke in it, don't put the punchline in the title of the submission!