Journal shanen's Journal: Is the google thrashing? 8
[Published elsewhere including the links, but the likelihood of constructive or even thoughtful reactions here on Slashdot is too small to worry about fixing it up properly.]
Is the google thrashing?
Why does the google appear to be thrashing? There are so many obvious problems to be solved, but (at least from the outside) it appears that the google has stopped moving towards those solutions because of the thrashing.
I do not think it's because all of the important innovations have been implemented. My current theory is that it's because the google has reached the limit of conventional money-über-alles economic models.
From an emulation of Laszlo Bock's head?
[Are the details available upon request?]
Okay, that's the 'teaser' I sent to a Googler of my acquaintance. More likely it should be described as a 'brain fart', but I'm going to try to flesh out some of the details here. Anyway, the 'teaser' has served MY purpose in that it got me to start writing this:
Starting from the back, perhaps this should be regarded as a kind of twisted and consolidated review of the google-related books I've been reading recently. Laszlo Bock's Work Rules! is the most recent, but among the 30 books I've finished so far this year, there is also How Google Works by two insiders and outsider Ken Auletta's book from 2009. I see Nudge and I remember recently reading a couple of other books mentioned in Work Rules! but I think he should have read Rework, too. (Considering the missing bits, he should have included the story about the three masons, too. (That's a weak version of the story, but I can't find a link for a version in which the third bricklayer understood he was glorifying god.))
Distracted again, but I can't help it. The world is overly connected and the solutions of the interesting problems are usually under-constrained. Imagine that the google wanted to create a happier-life search engine? Among other purposes, it would help people find satisfying and rewarding purposes for their lives, possibly even including gainful employment? Oh, wait. Where's the money?
Now I went and jumped a step, so I have to back up to the head emulation topic. (Unless you, the mysterious and unknown reader, have already read some of my writings on that topic?) In brief, a good writer creates mental models inside the heads of his readers. For example, Raymond Chandler can cause your brain to run an emulator of Philip Marlowe. (Serrendipitously, the centennial celebration of his character mentions "googol" on page xiv from a time machine in 1988. (Is the google thrashing again with this false positive? The copy I'm holding here only has 370 + xiv pages.) (This double parenthetic note now reminds me of The Shallows and how the Web tends to divert from deeper thinking.)) However, I think a really good reader does a sort of converse operation on the author's mind, so my goal in reading a book is to think like the author... To a degree, I hope I'm still thinking like Laszlo Bock, notwithstanding?
Okay, so now I can return to the solutions that the google has stopped pursuing. I think the Google Books project (that I've already linked to) is a good entry point. This project was certainly consistent with the google's original high "mission" (or goal) of making the world's information accessible and useful. From here it appears that the project mostly came to naught on the rocks of the publishers' unbounded greed. Their economic models DEMAND more money, and there is no limit on that "more". (This is actually an aspect of the larger problem of the distortion of copyrights, but I've already been diverted too many times this morning...)
The same kind of focus on getting more money has changed the google's perspective of the company's mission. Now the most important "information" that has to be made "accessible" is the paid ads and the ultimate metric of "useful" is the sales figures of the corporations that are paying for the ads. Even the google has to follow the money, and the delusion of the free lunch allows us to think we aren't paying for it. (Another diversion into "#1 Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice{5} â (Beer^4 | Speech | Trade)" beckons, but...)
Now I've popped the stack all the way back to the topic of thrashing... Hard to describe what it is... It's the internal chaos within the google that prevents deeper focus on the really hard problems? It's the diverting-but-shallow links that always beckon? (I've been fighting with many of them already...) It's the elitist closure that results from the googlers associating primarily with the tiny intersection of (1) extreme creatives, (2) super-productive engineers, and (3) money chasers?
Time for conclusions? I think there are a number of obvious problems that could be addressed, but I certainly wouldn't look to the google for solutions. At this point I can barely hope that their search results might lead in helpful directions. It also seems that the google itself has realized there is a problem and that they have reached their limits. At least that's my interpretation of the reorganization under Alphabet.
Wish I could go deeper, but my muse is already exhausted. Better luck next time?
Don't blame the publishers ... (Score:2)
Google is even more greedy. They want the content without having to pay for it. And they want the ability to make money off it without paying for it. Same as they do with news that people were paid to cover and write about. This results in fewer and fewer original sources, and more links to links to links to uncover those original sources (or in many cases, just blatant rip-offs). The end game is just a bunch of links with no original sources. Fake news, because nothing else is being produced.
Fake news wou
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Fake news wouldn't exist if adwords, etc., didn't exist.
I think that depends on how you define fake news. You mentioned earlier the case of fake news that is created just to bring in money (or to avoid spending money), but that is only part of it; there is a limit to how much of this can be created and achieve the intended aim.
However we have seen a rapid rise in the creation of fake news for other aims. We've seen that one can drop fake news on twitter (or other places) for nearly zero investment and with some luck it will take off and start masquerading
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there is a limit to how much of this can be created and achieve the intended aim.
In the case of fake news to make money, the limiting factor is the supply of stupid people. Just as there are still people who fall for the nigerian scam emails, there is an almost endless supply of stupid people who will continue to suck up fake news. And really, if you saw Donald Trump's very public delusional break with reality at his latest news conference, you know that his supporters will eat up all his sh*t and turn to you with a big sh*t-eating grin and say "That's mah man!"
At least now nobody else
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Donald Trump's very public delusional break with reality at his latest news conference
I would be more surprised to see him say something that actually reflects reality. The vast majority of everything that comes out of his mouth is a significant departure from reality.
the chance of the military obeying an order to launch is now unofficially zero.
If the order makes it all the way to the military I don't know that they have the choice to disobey. As far as I understand the order would keep going through people - and anyone disobeying would be thrown from their post - until someone hits the button. If you have career military people and they are told to hit the butto
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That's one of the dilemmas. You can be convicted of disobeying an unlawful order, and the fact that the order was unlawful might be considered as a mitigating factor in your punishment, but not in determining your guilt - you'll (most likely) be found guilty. Just as following an unlawful order doesn't free you from the consequences - the Nuremberg defense failed for that very reason.
The best you can do is do what is right, and accept that you will be punished. Same as people who protest, are arrested, and
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