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Editorial

Does Google = God? 294

lgreco writes "In an op/ed for the NYT, Thomas Friedman wonders "Is Google God?" Interesting article that disseminates things mostly known to and hopefully well understood by the Slashdot readership. The fact that such commentary made it to the NYT op/ed pages is remarkable." It's the NYT, so a free registration is required.
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Does Google = God?

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  • by handybundler ( 232934 ) on Sunday June 29, 2003 @09:16AM (#6324458) Homepage Journal
    cryptic. very cryptic. in fact, I like it!

    like pimpin', trolling ain't easy.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 29, 2003 @09:19AM (#6324467)
    God wins [googlefight.com]
  • by James Littiebrant ( 622596 ) on Sunday June 29, 2003 @09:19AM (#6324469)
    Give us now our dayly searches, forgive us of our articles, as we have put them in our keywords. Please O Google grant me now a privilige to use your mighty powers to find the answers to my searches.
  • by YOU ARE SO FIRED! ( 635925 ) on Sunday June 29, 2003 @09:19AM (#6324470) Journal
    So does this [nytimes.com]. Weird.
  • by BuddaPxx ( 636044 ) on Sunday June 29, 2003 @09:21AM (#6324480)
    Does Google = God? Yes. Always.

    Does Google == God? Yes. Could change...but not likely :)
  • by Hecateus ( 628867 ) on Sunday June 29, 2003 @09:26AM (#6324496)
    While Google is the first thing I look at when I start up my browser... ...I am still waiting for Goollot. ;)
  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 29, 2003 @09:34AM (#6324523)
    Sheesh. How many times has this come up on /. by annoyong posts just like this.

    google = god assigns the value of god to google, and as a consequence returns true.

    You want does google == god, using the comparison operator.

    if (google=god) will always return true, while if (google==god) will show the answer to the question.

  • by SunPin ( 596554 ) <slashspam AT cyberista DOT com> on Sunday June 29, 2003 @09:38AM (#6324535) Homepage
    ...specualtion by a talking head tech pundit...

    Thomas Friedman is the official gargoyle of the state. He's not a tech by any stretch of the imagination. I suspect he just lost a bet with someone who said he couldn't write an article without mentioning 9/11.

  • by GillBates0 ( 664202 ) on Sunday June 29, 2003 @09:43AM (#6324550) Homepage Journal
    If I can operate Google, I can find anything. And with wireless, it means I will be able to find anything, anywhere, anytime. God is wireless, God is everywhere and God sees and knows everything. Throughout history, people connected to God without wires.

    Drugs will do that to you sometimes, but the important thing is not to try and write articles and stuff in that "bent" state of mind. In my case, these delusions of grandeur usually pass in a few hours time. A good night's sleep should help too.

    Peace \\//

  • the original post can be found here [presroi.de].

    I hope the English translation is precise enough to preserve my argument.

    cnn.com: Is Google God?
    Slashdot|Does Google = God?

    In a nice column in the New York Times (article at the same time taken over of CNN ) the question is set up whether google God is.

    Naturally polemiken have again and again economic situation, if the reality is too contradictory or the purse calls thereafter, to fast still press a few lines into the next expenditure.

    Why should Google be God?

    Google supplies as well as all answers, if one knows the question. Here is the first thought error, because Google can only strengthen, which eh is already present. I have each day in my log file hit of retrieval queries, which are completely sense-free.

    Google steers nothing to this pool however at 1986 a google on the existing techniques - Usenet, Gopher, ftp - jokeless would have been and a completely grotesque view into the world would have revealed. The way, as google will possibly determine the everyday life in the future, should be reason of enough to up-save the picture of the all-powerful Google still another little.
    Google does not verify information. A little HTML Bastlerei is sufficient, in order to place * its * to view of the things in the net. The democratic beginning of google, through PAGE-climb the linking foot people on it co-ordinate to let, which sides are read worthy now, nothing changes in the fact that one makes oneself dependent on the majority and not by the truth.
    If I would ascend over night at place 1 of any search words, then nothing would change in the coming day. Neither I nor my tools google have here the breath of a power.

    Is a book God?
    Who writes, remains (closely: publish or perish) is the antiquity variant of "google is God". Only indirect power each writing (googlebaren) person lies in the chance to change the collective memory little. Possibly and perhaps only for short time. Also over the thought of the eternity the connection God and Google could not be designed.

    What is power?
    Friedman sees a power in the connection of up-to-date available technologies (google via WAP or other wireless DEVICES). It does not create it to bind the actual time of the exercise of power to google. It would be already for it power (power in the sense of goettlicher power?), if I can in a 5-Millionen-Dollar-Quiz Show with google find out, which request was the last one of our dear Wolfgang Goethe?

    If I chatte, besides always the google runs toolbar. It is an indication of attention opposite other persons, if one reads oneself in into its Hobbies and can them the feeling give to be interested in their requests. It is also fraud or espionage on my account, depends on circumstances. This is not divine action, this is also not striving for such a status.

    Is Larry PAGE God?
    If I look for in Google for President United States trust I to Dubya to be led and not too whitehouse.com or to Osama are Ladin. That I owe to the integrity of the people of Google Inc., which often gave reason in the past already to criticism. Keyword xenu.net. If in this whole Konstrukt someone makes has, then it is the administrator of the Google data base, which could return as desired search results. That is power, if at all.
  • by suss ( 158993 ) on Sunday June 29, 2003 @09:43AM (#6324555)
    ...and how in future everybody will be connected to everybody else.

    And it will be called "the great duck tape disaster of 2032"...!
  • by Ratcrow ( 181400 ) on Sunday June 29, 2003 @09:43AM (#6324556) Homepage
    If God == 0, then Google = God would be false.

    Then again, if you believe that God is real, or at least a float, then the specific test that God == 0.000000 is likely to come back true. Now, the real question is whether having strcmp("Google", "God") > 0 being true is a serious theological problem.
  • by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Sunday June 29, 2003 @09:52AM (#6324587) Journal
    Why do you need google for that? We all know that

    2B or (not 2B) = FF

    Or 'true', if you prefer a boolean value. I think you'll find a calculator is a better tool than a search engine for that kind of question...

  • OMG! (Score:5, Funny)

    by borgdows ( 599861 ) on Sunday June 29, 2003 @10:04AM (#6324630)
    Here is the results on GoogleFight :

    google is god = 157049 results
    google is evil = 204364 results

    Conclusion : Google is NOT God, Google is EVIL!! We are doomed!!
  • by gunix ( 547717 ) on Sunday June 29, 2003 @10:05AM (#6324632)
    Yet another stupid reminder from the C programming language. Do they mean that Google has become God, or are they checking if they are the same?
  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 29, 2003 @10:11AM (#6324655)
    Some of us already google wirelessly via WAP (cell phone browsing). I was at a bar about a year ago and the guy playing (who really wasn't that great) said I bet none of you can tell me who sang this song.. so I typed in a couple of lyrics and by the time he was done and asked "anyone know" I casually stated that it was "spinning wheel by Blood, Sweat & Tears written by David Clayton" which shut him up, but also made me look like a Blood, Sweat & Tears fan.. *sigh* mobile-google-power is really a double-edged sword
  • by StandardCell ( 589682 ) on Sunday June 29, 2003 @10:49AM (#6324781)
    Have you ever used the word "God?" Do you know what it really means? If not, is that ironic? Was Slashdot's "irony" [slashdot.org] really the cause of the utter collapse of civil society as we knew it? How ironic was it for Nietsche in Time magazine to declare God a victim of Nietsche's own nihilism process? The NY Times is running a brilliant article that muddles the confusion around a culturally critical and chronically misused word.

    (shaking head)
  • by jasontwarnock ( 196139 ) on Sunday June 29, 2003 @10:55AM (#6324802) Homepage
    I don't know if Google is God, but I do know that I accepted him as my personal savior.
  • by ShatteredDream ( 636520 ) on Sunday June 29, 2003 @10:59AM (#6324829) Homepage
    Do you not know that Google is powered by Python, the living software symbol of the tempter of the fall of Adam and Eve?
  • by twitter ( 104583 ) on Sunday June 29, 2003 @11:06AM (#6324863) Homepage Journal
    Note the last paragraph about the effectiveness of Osama bin Laden's recruiting videos, and the possibility of targeting them precisely via broadband video.

    GW Bush: Get me some of that broadband video! I'm so sick of targeting Ossama Bin Laden only to hit a camel in the ass. That Google [google.com] thing sucks. 2,900 answers but not one of them knows where I can find that asshole.

  • by diablobsb ( 444773 ) on Sunday June 29, 2003 @11:07AM (#6324865)
    Google is not a god... it's only 2 3rds of it... loook

    Gods = Omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient.
    google = omnipresent (accessible anywhere)
    omniscient (knows every fraggin thing)
    but still not omnipotent :)

    when it starts creating global cathastrophes or ressurecting people, please warn me....

    (sorry for my bad english)
  • by FatSean ( 18753 ) on Sunday June 29, 2003 @11:32AM (#6324944) Homepage Journal
    Well, he's a bitch. He only cleans up messes caused by the Devil. You know...if something bad happens, it's Satan. If something good comes out of it, hey, that's my God!
  • by A Commentor ( 459578 ) on Sunday June 29, 2003 @11:43AM (#6325005) Homepage
    Growing up I remember the quote "God knows the number of hairs on your head." I know that Google doesn't know the answer (I just searched to make sure). So that means that Google is NOT God.
  • by LiberalApplication ( 570878 ) on Sunday June 29, 2003 @12:13PM (#6325146)
    I kid you not, this is an entirely true story.

    I awoke this morning from a dream where Google was powered by some ancient, evil, seductive force. Just as I often am in real life, in my dream I found myself curious about some random issue, and decided to research it via Google. In this instance, I was curious about what the lives of precious-stone-traders/exchangers were like, how they travelled, and how they moved their goods.

    When I opened a browser to http://www.google.com, I suddenly found myself transported to a dark room, one which felt, smelt, and looked as though it was within a long abandoned motel in a rainy, cold, climate. A grimy stone slab of roughly 4:3 dimensions lay on a table before me, glistening with condensation.

    A beautiful woman appeared, dressed seductively in red and black, and bade me to enter my query. Somehow, I knew to put my fingertip to the slab, and the moment I made contact, wispy shadows swirled out from within its crevices and surrounded my fingertip. They nipped at it, they pierced the skin, and with my blood, I scrawled out, "precious stone jewel exchange trader carrier lifestyle travel".

    The shadows at once covered my bloody query, writhed and congealed and when they finally withdrew, I found that the writing had been rearranged to read, "I'm feeling lucky". I screamed in terror and pounded on the message with my fists, sending dark red droplets flying from the stone.

    I looked up to see the woman smiling. When I returned my gaze to the stone slab, I saw the shadows slowly etching out a shape, simple, symmetrical. Trickles of black ran down the face of the stone from its far side, creating soft curves. It... it was a vase, with a notch in its base. It slowly filled with color, a light sort of beige, taking on a photographic quality and it was then that I realized... it wasn't a vase, it was a top-down view of some chick taking it up the ass.

  • I wonder if they're hiring...
  • by SunPin ( 596554 ) <slashspam AT cyberista DOT com> on Sunday June 29, 2003 @01:00PM (#6325382) Homepage
    Blessed are the pretarded, for they will make comments like yours... Yes, I read the WHOLE article. Because he felt his usual overwhelming need to relate everything to 9/11, he LOST a bet that he COULDN'T write an article without referencing 9/11.
  • by cryofan2 ( 243723 ) on Sunday June 29, 2003 @01:12PM (#6325430) Homepage
    That explains SO MUCH!
  • by BrainInAJar ( 584756 ) on Sunday June 29, 2003 @01:31PM (#6325504)
    Evidently your dreams are actually AD&D campaigns.
  • by E_elven ( 600520 ) on Sunday June 29, 2003 @03:17PM (#6326071) Journal
    Bah. C has corrupted me from understanding natural markup.. I did read it as 'assign God to Google' first.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 29, 2003 @04:28PM (#6326401)
    ...that all it took was a robots.txt file to get rid of God, I'd have done it a long time ago!
  • of course! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Archon-X ( 264195 ) on Sunday June 29, 2003 @07:20PM (#6327224)
    Naturally Google = God, but the real question is whether Google == God :)

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