People keep screaming "evil," but I'm just not seeing it. They're being "nicer" than any other multi-billion corp I can name.
You don't even see it after this direct quote from the CEO? He's effectively saying that privacy is immoral, and private people are shameful.
No, he's not. He said:
"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place,"
not,
"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
The first raises the question, the second makes a blanket statement. Whether the question is valid or not is up for debate, but it is not like in this article Eric Schmidt has said he's going to start taking steps to curb users' privacy beyond complying with legal requirements, nor has he said that privacy is immoral.
So, according to this conjecture if the manifestation or observation of the Higgs Boson eventually lead us to develop technology with which we might otherwise violate causality, we'll never discover it.
But what decides where the line is? If this theory is true, why didn't we get hung up before the discovery of the electron?
Why are they now recreating holographic media as Yet Another Spinning Disc device with parts that wear out quickly, go out of alignment, and put the media at risk of damage?
Because reusing existing spinning disc technology means saving a little money now and not improving on the future, whereas making a whole new, probably much better technology means expending more money now in order to save money in the future.
Numeric stability is probably not all that important when you're guessing.