4 ms·

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, ene

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.
        jpadkins 12y ago
        Can you give an example of communication that does not have an incentive to profit?
        tomp 12y ago
        My comment above. I assume yours as well. Most of the internet, actually (e.g. HN, Reddit, ...) - the owners of the website might benefit (pageviews & ads), but not the most often anonymous posters. (Of course, there are exceptions, and any post on the internet should go through a bullshit sensor, but it's a different bullshit sensor than when someone is trying to sell you something.
        mseebach 12y ago
        Not profit in a strict monetary sense, but you benefit in various direct and indirect ways from advancing your worldview and challenging mine. I see the focus on monetary profit as somehow 'dirty' at the expense of the myriad other ways people benefit from interactions as a further symptom of the snobbery described in the link I posted.
- mseebach 12y ago
  No, it's not.
- swalsh 12y ago
  Future comment on the twitter stream "Shit HN Says" https://twitter.com/shit_hn_says https://twitter.com/shit_hn_says
- cm2012 12y ago
  You realize that of all advertising methods, Google's is probably the least evil? "Searching for a product? Here is that product sold by a large variety of competitors."
  - seertaak 12y ago
    That's not the evil part. The evil part is how they appropriate, to varying degrees, the works of content creators, and then sell advertising on top.
    - cm2012 12y ago
      It is trivial to tell Google not to index your work if you don't want them to.
- smanuel 12y ago
  > Advertising is inherently evil Advertising in its basic form is a lie. When advertising you never speak about the competitors who are better than you, the flaws in your offering, you extrapolate your advantages, you "fake it until you make it" and so on, but... "evil"? Just like Churchill's saying about democracy (democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried), I would say the same about advertising. Advertising is the worst form of informing people about what you can offer, except all other that have been tried. Telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Pfft, that would be so boring.
  - dTal 12y ago
    What other forms have been tried, and how were they worse?
    - smanuel 12y ago
      The other form is when you try to be very objective and tell the whole truth. Try this next time when you pitch an idea or try to explain the benefits using some product / service. I bet there will be a lot of yawns and eye rolling. That's why engineers are usually not the best people to present something new (a product or just an idea). Because they try to be objective and stick to the facts. And most of the time people don't want that, they want excitement. And excitement needs some lying.
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.

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.
      - jpadkins 12y ago
        Can you give an example of communication that does not have an incentive to profit?
        tomp 12y ago
        My comment above. I assume yours as well. Most of the internet, actually (e.g. HN, Reddit, ...) - the owners of the website might benefit (pageviews & ads), but not the most often anonymous posters. (Of course, there are exceptions, and any post on the internet should go through a bullshit sensor, but it's a different bullshit sensor than when someone is trying to sell you something.
        mseebach 12y ago
        Not profit in a strict monetary sense, but you benefit in various direct and indirect ways from advancing your worldview and challenging mine. I see the focus on monetary profit as somehow 'dirty' at the expense of the myriad other ways people benefit from interactions as a further symptom of the snobbery described in the link I posted.
mseebach 12y ago
No, it's not.
swalsh 12y ago
Future comment on the twitter stream "Shit HN Says" https://twitter.com/shit_hn_says https://twitter.com/shit_hn_says
cm2012 12y ago
You realize that of all advertising methods, Google's is probably the least evil? "Searching for a product? Here is that product sold by a large variety of competitors."
- seertaak 12y ago
  That's not the evil part. The evil part is how they appropriate, to varying degrees, the works of content creators, and then sell advertising on top.
  - cm2012 12y ago
    It is trivial to tell Google not to index your work if you don't want them to.
smanuel 12y ago
> Advertising is inherently evil Advertising in its basic form is a lie. When advertising you never speak about the competitors who are better than you, the flaws in your offering, you extrapolate your advantages, you "fake it until you make it" and so on, but... "evil"? Just like Churchill's saying about democracy (democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried), I would say the same about advertising. Advertising is the worst form of informing people about what you can offer, except all other that have been tried. Telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Pfft, that would be so boring.
- dTal 12y ago
  What other forms have been tried, and how were they worse?
  - smanuel 12y ago
    The other form is when you try to be very objective and tell the whole truth. Try this next time when you pitch an idea or try to explain the benefits using some product / service. I bet there will be a lot of yawns and eye rolling. That's why engineers are usually not the best people to present something new (a product or just an idea). Because they try to be objective and stick to the facts. And most of the time people don't want that, they want excitement. And excitement needs some lying.

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.