Commentary by Kip Hansen
BREAKING NEWS — SABOTAGE @ The Library of The World
The Library of the World — the greatest collection since the Ancient Library of Alexandria — is the world’s largest and most complete library ever collected — and which is claimed to hold a nearly complete written record of human knowledge — has been found to have been secretly sabotaged by a cabal within the library’s Indexing Department.
The sabotage was so subtle that it has only become apparent within the last few days. Here’s what we know so far: Over the last year, the group within the Indexing Department, calling themselves The Enlightened, have been quietly altering the Master Index to the vast collection by altering the individual indexes of works they consider “objectionable” or “evil” or “not helpful” to the social, political and scientific world view of cult’s leaders.
The result of this sabotage is that as of this moment when library users search the computerized library index they no longer find any materials that contradict the views of The Enlightened — the cross-indexes and “popularity ratings” have been manually altered to bury materials The Enlightened have deemed “ill-informed” — which simply means in practice that they are contrary to what The Enlightened think you should know.
The deception has escaped detection for so long because no materials have actually been removed from the library shelves. Original index entries have not been removed. If one knows the title and author, the computerized index returns a pointer to the material and it can be called up. But, no matter how popular the specific item or material, if one searches the index for a list of entries by subject, the resulting list of library materials returned to the user is listed in an order pre-determined by The Enlightened — showing at the top all materials the cabal has secretly tagged as “authoritative” and wishes users to read (in order of its own preference), then all materials not specifically proscribed by them, and only then, buried under all the other entries, are listed the materials marked down by the malefactors as “not-Enlightened”. The determination of what is “authoritative”, “Enlightened” and “not-Enlightened” has depended entirely on the whim of those heading up the secret cabal.
Bringing immediately to mind the fictional themes of 1984 and Farenheit 451, investigators have found that this secret campaign has been carried out with the misguided intention to “make the world a better place” by combating “bad ideas” held by the common man who is, in the view of The Enlightened, “self-interested and dumb”.
The full scale and scope of the sabotage is unknown at this time — investigators are digging into the indexes to determine how many topics, and exactly which topics, have been affected. At this early stage in the investigation, it has been discovered by mere chance that the following topics appear to have been subject to sabotage: gun rights, abortion, illegal immigration and climate change……
More at 11…….”
This fictional news flash is horrifically not fictional at all….only the name of the “library” has been changed — in reality, it is today’s World Wide Web and “The Enlightened” are the top executives at Google.
More to follow in this series as the story breaks.
# # # # #
Author’s Note:
I only wish that this were a joke. Unfortunately, it is shockingly true.
Some of the background on story was covered by Adam J. White in an article in the New Atlantis titled “Google.gov”.
White’s worst fears for the future have been already realized …this series will cover the story, its real world effects and its societal implications.
As always — this is a societal controversy — verify facts for yourself. Try a Google Search for “Climate Change”. Try a Yahoo Search for “Climate Change”. Try a Bing Search for “Climate Change”. Compare results. Try Google searches of other controversial topics with which you are personally familiar — see if the listings are obviously tampered with.
Hint, search engines are not independent. Guess who they depend on.
# # # # #
Not Climate change but equally controversial, GMO’s. I was wondering how my latest article did not appear on Google news no matter how I searched. The article is about the sudden appearance of a genetically modified wheat in Alberta. There are lots of articles on the discovery that blame, directly or indirectly the biotech industry, but none that like mine that say it is likely sabotage. If you want to read it it can be found at
http://dailycaller.com/2018/07/12/canada-gmo-wheat-mystery/
Rob ==> Interesting story, thank you for the link.
Cheers
Okay, Robert, I did a search specific to the title of your article. Here is a copy of what I got on Google:
About 561,000 results (0.41 seconds)
Search Results
The Mystery Of The ‘Rogue Wheat’ | The Daily Caller
dailycaller.com/2018/07/12/canada-gmo-wheat-mystery/
The Mystery Of The ‘Rogue Wheat’. 9:41 PM 07/12/2018. Henry Miller and Rob Wager | Vancouver Island University, Stanford Hoover Institution. share on …
There are other articles on the same subject further down the page. If you are title-specific and/or subject specific, you can easily find it. If 561,000 results aren’t enough, what is?
That’s the point, Sara. If you don’t know the title or author and do a less specific search, you will get 561,000 results (or more) with articles with opposing view points (no matter how popular) buried in the last 20,000 results. Are you going to scroll through 6,000 pages of results to get to the bottom? Those are supposed to be the worst and poorest and least popular articles, not those that someone has decided for you in advance they don’t want people to read.
Okay, Bill W 1984, but I have yet to find myself being blocked from anything I want to read, or sent on a wild goose chase while searching for information. And I have searched through several hundred pages to find one thing, because it was related to something specific and was necessary to find it. My search terms were too generalized.
Using generalized search terms such as ‘weather’ or ‘climate’ will not do the job. It seems to me that if a site has 10 visitors a year, but something similar to it, but different in many ways, has 100 a month, it should be common sense to use specific terms, or at least taking the time to make a written entry in a log book, with the full title available – which I have done, if need be – will solve that ‘can’t find it/someone’s hiding it’ problem very quickly.
“Okay, Bill W 1984, but I have yet to find myself being blocked from anything I want to read…”
Fair enough, but then you likely haven’t written thousands of words over the years and have Google suddenly be unable to find them based on a simple word search that used to find them. To find something based on a complex string that you know occurs in the document requires prior knowledge.
Did a Google Search for “Alberta Canada GMO Wheat” and found it on the fifth page down
Only the fifth page…they are slipping
I went out in a wheat field and found a google! Now it just watches me 24/7!
That’s scary.
Duckduckgo goes right to it – of course, this is the next morning and it’s likely been called a lot.
I get results on the first page, as I did with StartPage.
A search for “canada gmo wheat mystery” (w/o quotes) in Google comes up #1 for me:
https://www.google.com/search?q=canada+gmo+wheat+mystery&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-1
A search for “rogue wheat” (w/o quotes) comes up #2:
https://www.google.com/search?q=rogue+wheat&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-1https://www.google.com/search?q=rogue+wheat&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-1
Of course, not doing Google News above. Like you, I can’t find it searching in GNews.
Say Rob, found a couple errors after a quick glance at your homepage (emphasis added):
“My webiste has pages for my in-person appearences, my peer-reviewed publications and for links to other sources on GE crops and derived foods, as well as related topics.”
Just FYI
Thanks I am a point a click guy (can’t be good at everything) and have some one administer my website. Will pass that on.
Fire them…they can’t spell…
🙂
https://www.google.at/search?q=Robert+Wager+genetically+modified+wheat+in+Alberta+canada-gmo-wheat&oq=Robert+Wager+genetically+modified+wheat+in+Alberta+canada-gmo-wheat&aqs=chrome.
like many gmo “escapes” intentionally helped for sure.
if theyd followed the supposed regs on trials and destruction of material than it couldnt have “escaped”
same in Australia gm wheat grown in roadside paddocks NO screen to keep birds foxes rabbits or roos out of the crops
thereby ensuring seed was carried far n wide
then throw in a flood.
Canadian uni and Triffid Flax seeds a doozy also. thats spead globally
the gmo lawngrass on golfcourses thats resistant to sprays already and travelling fast
the recent data on CRISPR once again is reported to be showing very wide and unexpected DNA changes that they say theyre hard pressed to find due to scale n degrees of change.
heaven help the humans theyve tried it on so far
and the poor animals! who cant speak out.
The articles I read clearly stated this is not a health threat, but rather an economic one because people are irrationally afraid of GMO wheat.
This is why I boycott Google. Every freedom-loving person should
I would love to have an alternative search engine. not a fan of Bing
DuckDuckGo.com
Duckduckgo.com and thirteen more at link below. Took a couple of seconds.
http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/search-engines
acementhead
My understanding is, virtually every search facility is simply a rebranded Google.
Kip gave us all a heads up: “Hint, search engines are not independent. Guess who they depend on.”
Bill
Bill, I believe Duck Duck Go is unique in that it doesn’t track your activities, however, it is otherwise an extension of Google.
Use it myself though.
Agree! I’ve been using DuckDuckGo as my default search engine for quite awhile now. Search results are definitely skewed as to what shows up at the top.
I did a search for “alternatives to google” on google – nothing came up except a 404
Mine says.
About 401,000,000 results (0.30 seconds)
Must have been a glitch in the matrix.
Try gibiru.com or swisscows.com (yes, really).
I’ve been using swisscows.com or a while and I prefer it over duckduckgo.
TDBraun ==> It may come to that.
“This is why I boycott Google. “
And you can. Google has no monopoly. Google has users who find that Google does give results with the priorities they are looking for. That is really the only test. Other engines can say the same.
Hello Nick.
First Google is not a Library. It is a store, a service. If it is going to edit suppress or restrict the service that it provides it needs to post a disclaimer admitting it.
It is called false advertising. Ever hear of switch and bait.
If all references that you wished to access were restricted you would be distressed
michael
The complaint is that Google doesn’t accord some items the priority that you think they should. That is always going to be subjective, and the only test is whether their users like it. Otherwise they will go elsewhere. So why pick on Google? It’s prominent because a lot of people like their results.
Does that reasoning work for computer models too? Climate models also have users who find that they give results “with the priorities they are looking for.” Such models are “prominent because a lot of people like their results,” not because they are accurate and unbiased. So, apparently, a biased search engine is perfectly okay if a lot of people prefer it that way. Likewise, a biased climate model must also be okay if a lot of climate scientists prefer it that way. That must be why objective science must now take a back seat to popular consensus. Right Nick?
The problem started when Google decided to change the algorithms to give establishment propaganda priority over web traffic. The ranking of results used to be determined by all of us, collectively, not by a few control freaks at Google.
A search for information on the global cooling scare of the 70’s, for example, now yields pages of establishment lies claiming that it simply didn’t happen:
https://www.google.com/search?&q=global+cooling+scare
Do want Big Brother determining your search results, Nick?
Do you really want prolefeed?
Well, I also think there was no scientific global cooling scare, so I would be happy with Google’s links in that case. And so it goes. No search provider can please everybody. It is in the nature of lists that they have a top and a bottom, and the lister must make judgments. Google’s judgments suit me, else I would look for another provider. That is the right remedy, not kvetching about Google, which is obviously successful in giving lots of people the lists of links they want.
Google, did not have to make any judgements about results until they politicized them. As I already stated, results were determined by web traffic, not by executive decision. Such is still the case for non-controversial subjects. It seems that you do prefer Big Brother to make decisions about consumption of information, rather than leaving it to the free market.
“…I would be happy with Google’s links in that case…”
translation: Nick is happy with Google’s promotion of disinformation in preference to primary source material.
*********
O’Brien smiled faintly. ‘You are no metaphysician, Winston,’ he said. ‘Until this moment you had never considered what is meant by existence. I will put it more precisely. Does the past exist concretely, in space? Is there somewhere or other a place, a world of solid objects, where the past is still happening?’
‘No.’
‘Then where does the past exist, if at all?’
‘In records. It is written down.’
‘In records. And –?’
‘In the mind. In human memories.’
‘In memory. Very well, then. We, the Party, control all records, and we control all memories. Then we control the past, do we not?’
‘But how can you stop people remembering things?’ cried Winston again momentarily forgetting the dial. ‘It is involuntary. It is outside oneself. How can you control memory? You have not controlled mine!’
*********
You picked a bad week to defend Google
https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-faces-uphill-battle-in-appealing-eu-android-fine-1532014040
Google may have more to worry about.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-18/ftc-chair-says-commission-very-interested-in-eu-s-google-fine
“That is the right remedy, not kvetching about Google, which is obviously successful in giving lots of people the lists of links they want.”
Yup, the “they” in your sentence is Google.
Try googeling idiot.
I Googled Idiot; but all I get is pictures of Trump.
The bias is strong with this one. I didn’t even get dictionary definitions as you would expect. It was just Trump, Trump, Trump.
Try this instead
https://www.google.com/search?&q=idiot+-Trump
For more on this story see
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/google-does-it-again-a-web-search-for-idiot-will-show-you-trumps-pictures/articleshow/65065719.cms
I’ll be darned, it’s true, Trump does come up!
One of the search entries says “trolls pushed Trump to the top of the search list”.
Someone posted earlier that it used to be human web searches which determined which entries got listed first in the search list, but now computer code is making those decisions. So which is it? From the looks of the search results the human factor is still being taken into account and pushing Trump to the top of the list.
“No search provider can please everybody. ”
Nick you continue to miss the point. (Why is that sentence so familiar?)
It is not the role of an unbiased search engine to “please” anyone.
“and the lister must make judgments..”
No, an unbiased lister does NOT have to make judgements (with the obvious exception of obscenity and similar limits).
“Well, I also think there was no scientific global cooling scare”
Aerosols and Climate, Petr Chýlek, James A. Coakley Jr., Science 11 Jan 1974: Vol. 183, Issue 4120, pp. 75-77, DOI: 10.1126/science.183.4120.75
Cirrus Clouds and the Climate, Stephen K. Cox, Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 1971, https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0469(1971)0282.0.CO;2
The effect of atmospheric aerosols on climate with special reference to temperature near the earth’s surface, JM Mitchell Jr – Journal of Applied Meteorology, 1971, https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0450(1971)0102.0.CO;2
Nick, what justification do you have for your belief that these journals aren’t “scientific”?
Where is the scare? They simply noted that there had been some cooling, attributed to aerosols from pollution.
Nick,
You really believe that forecasting a new ice age isn’t a scare tactic?
Were you even alive in the 1970s? If you were an adult then, and in college, you couldn’t have missed the new ice age scare.
It was in all the papers and on TV.
“Were you even alive in the 1970s? If you were an adult then, and in college, you couldn’t have missed the new ice age scare.
It was in all the papers and on TV.”
I was in first year university in 1969, and yes it was in the MSM, most notoriously Newsweek, and on TV in the early 1970s. Nigel Calder made a TV series called The Weather Machine for the BBC who also published a book based on the series. Calder had been a journalist and editor of New Scientist. Lengthy extract follows:
[Nigel Calder, The Weather Machine 1974, pp 45-46]
Pompous Git
Interesting there’s no response from Nick to your comment.
I also remember the media coverage on the topic at the time.
#PG.
Then there is this opinion piece from the famous climatologist Hubert H Lamb described as “an international authority on the long term processes of climatic change” (remember him?) published in August-September 1973:-
Lamb, H. H. (1973) Is the Earth’s Climate Changing? For the past 30 years the temperature of our planet has been steadily dropping. The UNESCO Courier: a window open on the world; Vol. XXVI (8/9), 17-20.
I recommend that all internet searches include the judicious use of the negative filter option –
For example; identify a keyword that is biasing your expected search results, in this case myth is clearly being used as a pejorative filter.
Compare what happens when you use the following search string
https://www.google.com/search?&q=global+cooling+scare+-myth
EU bets 5billion of Googles money that it’s prominent due to unfair monopolistic practices.
The two biggest fines in EU history have been to Google. So what they are doing is illegal. That’s a good reason to pick on them.
“The two biggest fines in EU history”
The European Commissioner for Competition has deemed that Google is in breach of antitrust rules. That is being appealed. I’m surprised that folks here are such fans of the EU bureaucracy.
Here’s a criticism of the EU’s fine; it argues that the motivation is European resentment at American success with its Internet apps, plus protectionism.
https://reason.com/archives/2018/07/18/eu-hits-google-with-5-billion-ginned-up?utm_medium=email
Here is another criticism.
I loathe the eurocracy
I also loathe the worst capitalist americanist setup like goog fkbk and your privatised screw the consumer healthcare/medicine etc thats being foisted on other nations -as they buy in on the sly-
the crap re russia n china being a threat?
well maybe
but usa isnt a friend to many either in spite of what your agitprop says;-)
It’s a lot better with Trump in charge, don’t you think?
Trump just shamed some drug companies into freezing their drug prices. He is in the process of reforming the health care system, one little tweak at a time, and turning it into a free market which will reduce prices. If he had any cooperation in Congress, these thngs would already be done.
Ozspeaksup,
Great, then don’t expect the US yet again to save you from Asian expansionism. Japan lacked the manpower actually to invade Oz, while bogged down in China, SE Asia and the Pacific islands, fighting Americans. But China has far more men than it needs to take over Oz any time it wants.
Even your most pacifist leaders recognize that the US is all that keeps China from conquering Oz, which is why they begged Obama to deploy Marines to Darwin from Okinawa.
But Japan also wants US Marines to stay on Okinawa, to keep China from occupying the Ryukyus, which the Communists claim, along with everything else in the East and South China Seas and beyond. After they seize Mindanao, Borneo, Sulawesi and New Guinea, only America can keep the Chinese Communists out of Oz.
But given your attitude, why should we bother?
I switched to DuckDuckGo several months ago. My google front page always had several little news sites below the search box. The political topics of these sites were clearly and distinctly allied to the searches I had made but almost universally had a counter view to the nature of my searches. No, it isn’t paranoia but certainly climate searches produced a whole lot of topics opposed to my needs. This does not happen on DuckDuckGo.
That’s not what the Judges said. “The European Union’s antitrust fine of 4.34 billion euros was almost double the bloc’s fine against Google last year over the company’s unfair favoring of its own services in internet search results. ” Your propensity for sticking your foot in your mouth is amusing.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/technology/google-eu-android-fine.html
EU, Google – so which one is Big Brother?
Nick Stokes
Two wrongs don’t make a right.
so which one is Big Brother?
Why not both?
Reminds me of Elliot Ness – could’nt nail Capone on major crimes, so got him on tax. This way the EU avoids reminding its subjects that their fake news is anyway filtered – theme off the table!
Nick Stokes ==> Google has operated from a position of trust and has achieved a “virtual monopoly” in Internet Search based on that trust.
They have now abandoned the very ideal that was the basis of that trust — which was their promise, their social contract, to “Provide internet search results based upon neutral algorithms, not human judgment; unbiased and objective.”
And while they have every right to operate their business as they see fit, they have now thrown away the values that made them what they are. There will be an accounting —
Stay tuned for the followup essays.
Kip,
One of my favorite aphorisms is, “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.”
One that I think Watermelons should take to heart is, “When the gods wish to punish us, they grant us our wishes.”
I think that one might conclude that humans tend to be short on wisdom, even those who consider themselves so smart that they think they know what is best for everyone.
Clyde ==> You scare me — you have peeped into the future and guessed the title of my next Google essay…..
They have now abandoned the very ideal that was the basis of that trust — which was their promise, their social contract, to “Provide internet search results based upon neutral algorithms, not human judgment; unbiased and objective.”
Unless objectivity logically follows consensus, they contradicted themselves the second they began moving a website up in the search rankings based on popularity. That is, the day Google was born.
Nick ==> As background, read the Adam White piece in New Atlantis, linked at the bottom of the essay, after the blockquote.
I thought that sort of thing only occurred in China?
WXcycles ==> Welcome to “A Better World — brought to you by Google.”
At least Twitter doesn’t shadowban. (Do I need to use a sarc/tag?)
R. Shearer ==> No, taken for granted.
I’ve been using DuckDuckGo almost exclusively since 2009, when I learned they were actively burying Climategate stories. They were still a little rough on accuracy back then, but they’ve gotten loads better since. I do bounce to other engines, if I can’t find what I’m looking for in the first 5-10 pages (depends on obscurity of subject), but I try not to too much.
Someone in the past mentioned StartPage. It’s google based but says it doesn’t track you. I use it now. DuckDuckGo was not getting the results I wanted. In reality, I end up using Google, Bing, StartPage, DuckDuckGo and Info many times trying to find information. It’s sad one has to use 5 search engines just to find what should be simple information. Plus, one has to rearrange words and change them to get the desired info. However, most serach engines seem to be giant sales engines, so it is to be expected. If only there were a simple program that could search. At one time, I think there was, but probably not anymore.
So all the conspiracy theories just got a lift? Anyone naive enough to believe there isn’t a cabal intent on a One World Government needs to reassess their beliefs. They will do anything, anything, to gain your support and they are not the least bit concerned whether or not its’ truthful.
I get the impression Wikipedia entries related to climate change have been butchered too.
They have . That is well known. One guy by the name of Connelly I think
So much so he was actually banned from editing articles for 6 months.
Wikipedia on steroids.
Yes, I’ve done the same searches for things in the last year and not found the links that I did find in previous years.
Wankerpedia, last I checked, had removed all mention of our early failed experiments with communism at Jamestown.
Jamestown? I believe you mean Plymouth Plantation, a few miles further north and 13 years later. Unless both expeditions made identically bad decisions, which I doubt, since Jamestown was a purely commercial venture.
Wikipedia, being what it is: a user edited web site is always going to reflect a hard leftist point of view since only leftists, mostly the indoctrinated on college campuses and those without marketable skills have the time to constantly police entries and remove any vestiges of non-leftist thought.
Those with more reasonable and fact based views are busy at gainful employment and raising decent offspring.
I find it hard to believe that every search engine depends on Google
AFAIK, Bing and Yahoo don’t rely on Google. There may also be a few remnants hanging on, like Jeeves.
Alan Tomalty
Perhaps not all, but certainly most of them. The prominently touted Duck Duck Go is good, because it doesn’t track you as an individual, but I understand it still uses Google.
And as I understand it, Google rankings are low for climate scepticism not because Google doesn’t like the subject, but because their ranking depend on a number things: the top ten or so results in any Google search are paid for, although that’s not obvious. The rest must fight for prominence by conforming to Google’s algorithm which prioritises the popularity of a site by the number of links TO it from other well populated sites.
e.g if you have a web site that has links to it from say, Ford, General Motors, Nissan, the Times, The Guardian and Amazon, you will be ranked well. On the other hand if your site has a link to it from your best friends site devoted to photo’s of his dog’s new collar, no matter how important your site, it will rank low.
It’s far more complicated than that, hence the reason for SEO and people making lots of money from that alone, whilst Google jealously guards it’s algorithm, which also makes me wonder how these people do so well.
Huge amounts of money is spend by companies on PR to ensure their stories are featured on ‘reputable’ sites with links to theirs, because Google will rank them favourably. And it’s continuous as I believe the Google algorithm considers the time decay of a links relevance. So a site with hundreds of links to it from 20 years ago, falls off the radar because it’s considered no longer appropriate.
That’s my limited understanding of it having looked into it a few years ago for marketing purposes.
It seems it’s no use reinventing the wheel when anyone can ‘rebrand’ Google for their own purposes, at a cost.
HotScot ==> The simple truth here is that Google has “hard-coded” certain sites to head results for certain issues, by entering in human judgements into the algorithm for certain subjects.
The immensity of evil in this change is hard to communicate in short comments, but I have a series of essay in the pipe on this.
This is an IMPORTANT issue — it is not just about Google fiddling the Climate Change search results.
Kip
You clearly know a lot more about the subject than I do.
But it puzzles me that if, as I understand it, Google’s algorithm is a closely kept secret, how do we know how it works? I spoke to numerous SEO organisations a few years ago and they all admitted that whilst they could surmise how it works, they can never be sure.
I just typed “climate sceptic site” into Duck Duck Go and WUWT showed up 9th and http://www.climate-skeptic.com 1st. The BBC, the Guardian and others were between them. So WUWT is up there with sites people consider credible.
I tried the same with Google and the GWPF was 9th and WUWT 16th, albeit on page 2.
Over simplification I know, but were it that bad, surely WUWT would be buried somewhere on the 200th page.
Considering the activity from the overwhelming numbers of alarmist articles, blogs, media etc. I’d say those are quite remarkable results.
When I first discovered WUWT it was in an effort to understand what the composition of the atmosphere was. A simple enough question, but no matter how I framed it, I could barely find a reputable web site that included water vapour. That had nothing to do with Google, the sites merely erased it, deliberately or otherwise. And I’m talking government, education and reputable science sites as well.
As for hard coding sites to show up at the top of searches, Google used to be quite open about the fact paid for advertorials would appear at the top of searches.
And if the algorithm is tampered with, I don’t imagine the process is the work of one individual locked away in a dusty room somewhere. I would suspect there’s a small army of people working on it, and amongst them there’s bound to be a whistle blower.
I don’t know if someone has stepped up in the last 20 years or so of Googles existence, but wouldn’t it be a big deal if they did?
And if the algorithm is tampered with, I don’t imagine the process is the work of one individual locked away in a dusty room somewhere. I would suspect there’s a small army of people working on it, and amongst them there’s bound to be a whistle blower.
Google isn’t shy at all about informing webmasters how the algorithm works. They have forums aimed specifically at answering questions from the public regarding SEO.
That doesn’t mean the conspiracy isn’t true, of course. But I can’t find myself caring whether it is or not. So what? Assume it and move on.
Google’s control over information stops where their control stops, which is right at the search input textbox at google.com, unless Alphabet is running my local library or bookstore as well. No, the “Argument from Ease” objection isn’t convincing. If one is afraid of Google, don’t rely on them. If one chooses to obtain information from Google, assume you’re not getting the whole story and go from there.
If I allow Google to control all of the information to which I have access, that’s my own fault.
…e.g if you have a web site that has links to it from say, Ford, General Motors, Nissan, the Times, The Guardian and Amazon, you will be ranked well.
Actually not quite (at least as of a few years ago when I cared about rankings). What Google looks for is high traffic links between sites with similar content. So, from Ford, GM, Nissan, etc., to your automotive review site is a plus to googlebot, i.e., you’ll get some “juice” from those other sites. But from Ford, etc., to your fun family photos website, not so much.
The idea is to try to return search results for particular content more effectively, rather than some annoying page with nothing but links coded into it (remember those?), or that has nothing at all to do with your search for “Ford.”
sycomputing
Both fair comment. I’m certainly not any type of authority so thanks for your input. I might add, however, that whilst Google doesn’t control your local library, that’s ‘yet’. Which does validate Kip’s concerns.
Having said that, Lady Chatterley’s Lover was banned from UK libraries, along with others.
And the thought occurs to me that if Google was manipulating data to suppress certain results, over how many subjects do they do that? Surely it’s not just confined to climate change? In which case, every government, scientific and social document would have to be read and vetted for suitability. Potentially every example of the written word, not only current but into the distant past.
AI could be employed to do that I guess, but what an enormous waste of resources to turn the world into a socialist utopia when it would probably be far cheaper to directly sponsor an entire global political movement to achieve the same end.
Google itself would then either be nationalised, or shut down as an enemy of the state.
Or am I just wandering through flights of fancy now?
I might add, however, that whilst Google doesn’t control your local library, that’s ‘yet’. Which does validate Kip’s concerns.
I don’t think it does until they do.
Having said that, Lady Chatterley’s Lover was banned from UK libraries, along with others.
In the U.S. as well.
It would seem there always has been, and therefore likely will always be, someone trying to ban something or other from the general public’s view for whatever reason they deem good and true. This is problematic when it’s government, but not so much (in my opinion) when it’s Alphabet Corp. I can easily grant the author’s assumption and go from there, just like I do when I read a story from the Washington [com]Post. Google’s “power” over me stops at google.com, and that presupposes they have any real “power” in the first place.
Regardless, of all the instances where such banning was done, we made it to the next instance where it wasn’t, but something else was. Propagandizing isn’t a new idea.
And the thought occurs to me that if Google was manipulating data…[s]urely it’s not just confined to climate change? In which case, every government, scientific and social document would have to be read and vetted for suitability…[o]r am I just wandering through flights of fancy now?
I think you’re flying a recorded path of Reason. Furthermore, even if I grant the proposition of the conspiracy, I don’t see where I’m much worse off than having a so-called, “Mainstream Media” in the United States that’s bound and determined to push the Progressive agenda upon me, and has been since I’ve been paying attention (+/- 30 years). I managed to find the information for which I was looking when it was the MSM, how will Google prevent me?
I look at it this way: The election of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States is clearly either – 1) objectively verifiable proof for the existence of a benevolent God who interferes in the affairs of mankind to achieve His purposes; or 2) we the people aren’t as capable of being manipulated quite like Google, the MSM, and the rest of their ilk believe.
I personally go with 1), but if you object, well then it would seem you’ve got to accept 2). Either way, I don’t have to fear Google.
sycomputing
Personally, I would have stopped at “I managed to find the information for which I was looking when it was the MSM, how will Google prevent me?”
That and the foregoing parts of your post makes complete sense to me. ‘Truth will out’ I think is the expression. No matter the propaganda hurled at mankind, there is always intelligent people like you able to do something about it.
I don’t get the final two paragraphs though.
I like old Trumpet pants. I didn’t before he was elected, but he’s done as much as he could, of what he promised in his manifesto. I have never known a politician to actually execute his manifesto in my life, far less, go hell for leather in his first term.
I’m not sure if you mean what you say in point 1), or you are just making fun of me.
I don’t get the final two paragraphs though.
Just silly logic games…everyone’s so serious around here all the time!
🙂
I do, however, fully believe in proposition 1. Not sure why that would be making fun of you though?
sycomputing
Personally, I wouldn’t compare Donald to God. And as much as I don’t believe in God, I’m not sure it’s reasonable to compare anyone to him/her.
And after your well considered and reasonable arguments, you pop that one into the discussion. Which makes me feel I missed some ‘in’ joke or something.
Personally, I wouldn’t compare Donald to God. And as much as I don’t believe in God, I’m not sure it’s reasonable to compare anyone to him/her.
Heh…wow I messed that one up…sorry about that. No, I can assure you none of the above was my intent!
Here’s what I was trying to get across with the DJT thing in the context of the Google discussion.
If DJT can be elected President of the United States with the full force of the American press, and what appears to be the full bad faith and [dis]credit of the United States government against him, then the Google conspiracy is likely less to worry about than what I think Mr. Hansen plans to argue in the future.
It’s really bad here. People have lost their farging minds over this guy, and yet he remains as popular (+/- a couple points) as he ever was. They flat out make stuff up about the man regularly in our press (Fake News), so I wonder how this popularity could be possible with pretty much the entire world hating him and not being shy at all about expressing that fact everywhere I look?
Well, it’s because of 1) or 2) and regardless of which you choose to believe, there’s no need to fear Google.
I guess I should leave the joking to those more adept at it than I.
I hope this helps and apologies for the confusion.
sycomputing
The Donald gets a lot of stick over here in the UK. When he was elected he was supposed to take us all to war but gets no credit for doing precisely the opposite.
The video posted here a few days ago where anti-Trump protesters in London were questioned as to why they were there was enlightening, none of them had a clue, it just seemed a good idea.
No need to apologise though, most of my posts verge on the undecipherable.
🙂
” 1) objectively verifiable proof for the existence of a benevolent God who interferes in the affairs of mankind to achieve His purposes; or 2) we the people aren’t as capable of being manipulated quite like Google, the MSM, and the rest of their ilk believe.
I personally go with 1), but if you object, well then it would seem you’ve got to accept 2). Either way, I don’t have to fear Google.”
1 and 2 aren’t the only choices. But if you choose 1, you are clearly delusional. An all-powerful god could surely find someone better than Trump, a womanizing, petty individual, to achieve his goals. And what are god’s goals exactly?
Jeff Alberts
“Trump, a womanizing, petty individual”
I would like to see some evidence of his “womanising” other than MSM tittle-tattle.
Apart from which, what’s wrong with being a womaniser, if he is? Quite a natural male function methinks. His wife might not like it, in which case, she’s perfectly entitled to leave him. He also seems to have a devoted family, hardly the marque of a philanderer.
Unlike one Bill Clinton, need I mention Monica Lewisnsky, and as I recall, a cigar? What disturbed me more than anything about his conduct was that Hilary stuck around, evidently to pursue her own career. Machiavellian doesn’t begin to describe her activities.
And the “petty” individual managed to bring N. Korea to the negotiating table, more than any other country leader in the western world has done in the last 50 years.
He’s called out the EU for what it is, a miserable bureaucracy, bent on largely Germany’s self-interest. Yes, that’s the country that brought us two world wars and has embarked on a political and financial campaign to finish what they couldn’t achieve militarily.
The world has stagnated into a financial impasse over the last generation or so. Each country seeking to appease every other country. Low growth, falling wages and rising prices are a feature. Trump’s thrown a grenade into the mix and is stimulating markets.
“to achieve his goals”
What goals would they be? To be wealthy? He’s done that. To be POTUS? He’s done that. Wine women and song? He doesn’t drink, smoke or do drugs, he could have any number of women and he doesn’t seem the party going type.
So what’s left? He’s taken a job he doesn’t need, made commitments he doesn’t need to, he employs thousands of people, prefers earning money to going to war for it, and all he asks in return is that immigration is controlled, in part to ensure Islamic extremists aren’t imported en mass under cover of refugee status.
He may be a bit of a twat in the oral delivery of his objectives, but as he’s the first western leader I have known in my 61 years to systematically tick off his lists of manifesto promises to America, I fail to see what he’s actually doing wrong.
The fact is, he confronts the rest of the world with pragmatic politics and they don’t like it because it disturbs their comfortable collusion to slowly bleed the world dry whilst they gradually occupy their collective thrones of elitism.
But if you choose 1, you are clearly delusional.
Sounds like you’ve had a bad day Jeff…that’s unfortunate. Maybe tomorrow will work out better!
An all-powerful god could surely find someone better than Trump, a womanizing, petty individual, to achieve his goals.
I dunno…King David did a fairly good job according to what I’ve read. Maybe God knows what He’s doing after all?
Take care!
I have mentioned this before, when the books are digitised, you will only find approved material. IIRC Google is working on a project to digitise books IIRC.
What is approved? I just read some ‘The History of America’ (1777 or something), and _boy_ there was material that I find ‘not useful’.
In fact, some searches, like gmo, vaccins, afrocentrists, etc spout incredible crap.
Thanks for the -1 and for not telling why you gave it.
I was just saying google does give a lot of very low-quality or controversial hits. And that they would not approve the ‘History of America’, if they’d read it and think.
Kip,
the great thing about a free market is that you are free to make your own search engine that
ranks sites according to your own preferences. And then if people agree with you you can get rich
and google can go the way of “ask jeeves” or alta-visita. And thanks to freedom of speech google
is free to rank sites however it likes. Or are you suggesting that google should be forced to rank
sites according to your prejudices?
The libertarians always get fooled. See NSA chief Keith Alexander praising Google’s logistics – where do you thing the outfit comes from? Did they spontaneously spring forth in an unknowable way to bring goodnees to all (to paraphrase von Hayek)?
No. Google exists to sell your data to advertisers. Nothing altruistic about it at all.
Percy == One used to be able to use alternatives. Read the backgrounder by Adam White — try a few searches yourself on social controversies, use just the SUBJECT, not a long string, like “Abortion”.
What Google has done is manually “ranked” sites according to the social and political views of a handful of Google execs — injecting “human judgement” into its search algorithms something they vowed never to do.
If your worldviews align perfectly on every controversial topic with Eric Schmidt and Sergy Brin, then you are pleased with the result —
If however, you believe that a free and open society is a good thing — that free speech, freedom of expression, freedom of thought and equal access to ideas are positive social ideals. Then this Google change is EVIL.
Kip
All algorithms are “human judgement” and search algorithms are no different. Assuming that google will give you the results you want when you type in search terms that you think are relevant is asking for trouble. Plus there is a whole industry devoted to “search engine optimisation” which tries to artificially manipulate the google’s algorithm to give particular websites rather than the ones you might be looking for so google needs to constantly change its algorithm for it to continue to be useful.
on the other hand searching for “did the holocaust happen” now nolonger brings up
stormfront as the top hit. So there are some advantages to the changes.
Also I am not sure what solution you are proposing. Google is a company that is free to write any computer program it likes. Just as you are free to write any search algorithm you like. Or are you proposing a government mandated search algorithm that everyone can use that will rank the web according to some criteria that only you get to decide on?
People should read the recent book by Catherine Nixey , a young Classics historian , “The Darkening Age- the Christian destruction of the classical world”.
It is a terrible account of how , from the 3rd cent onward the works of classical authors , the art of the time, the libraries and the educated themselves were systematically destroyed by the Christian vandals who insisted that there was only one truth and the rest is lies that must be destroyed .
The result is that only 1% of all classical roman literature survived – only 1%: difficult to believe , but not when you read of the ISIS-like attack by the Christian mobs.
It started as described in this post by the censoring and defacing of classical literature and culminated in the order from Justinian that anyone owning , let alone reading , a non christian text would be executed , the property destroyed. The start , as Catherine Nixey says , of the Dark Ages.
What helped of course is the sycophancy of those who initially supported the gradual destruction and the closing down of the european intellect – which was, in part , ultimately saved , ironically as it may seem today , by Muslim scholars.
Roman Emperor Caracalla in 215AD had another approach – he called to assemble all young scholars at the Library of Alexandria, and had them slaughtered. The books he did not fear, rather their crime was to be educated active citizens. Its final burning in 270AD everyone mourns, but Caracalla ? Christians moved into a vacumn. Some travelled accross europe not seeing a single bird or person for 27 days – completely depopulated, never mind literate. Western literacy began with these Christian monks – see the Scriptorium Museum at St. Gallen.
Google it seems is following in Caracalla’s steps – it does not fear content, rather educated voters. The endless wars they now voted against is the slaughter, Caracalla style.
Odd that Rome , the *** of Babylon, seems to always get a free pass.
I doubt that Ms. Nixey spent much time at the library of Monte Cassino.
A reasonable assumption given that the author is a fairly recent Cambridge graduate , born about 40 years after the destruction of Monte Cassino by the combined efforts of the Germans , British and Americans in WW2.
However the point of my post was not an attack on christianity itself but the attitude of the media giants . politicians and archive sources to anyone who is not fully committed to the climate change meme ,seeming to echo what started in Alexandria , Athens and Constantinople 1500 + years ago.
Certainly the early monasteries started copying some of the classical literature , but they were very selective. Nixey points out that in the entire 6th cent only scraps of 2 manuscripts of Juvenal were copied and some parts of the 2 Plinys. In the 7th Cent , just a fragment of Lucan. In the 8th Cent – nothing . Oh yes the scriptoria were busy , churning out copies of Jerome and Augustine , but not the literature of the wicked pagans – who ” deny ” Christ and the one true God.
No doubt I am overdoing the comparison between the early Church ‘s attack on what it saw as “pagan” literature and the attack by warmists on anyone who is not fully baptised into their faith and on any source of information contrary to their beliefs . At least I hope that I am , because otherwise the future is bleak.
Considering it was the Christians who preserved the works of the ancients during the dark ages, Ms. Nixey is engaging in a politically correct re-writing of history.
actually it was the muslim scholars who preserved the works of many
ancient authors while christian scholars either ignored them or deliberately destroyed them.
“Considering it was the Christians who preserved the works of the ancients during the dark ages…”
To be fair, they kept Plato, but lost Aristotle. The Muslims preserved Aristotle’s lecture notes and St Thomas Aquinas restored Aristotle through the Muslims in Spain. The Romans generated very little in the way of literature, preferring the Greeks to provide them with “culture”.
The greatest destruction of books occurred in the 15thC when the secular authorities took over from the Church in the persecution of heresy. The English Reformation saw hundreds of thousands books destroyed.
Then there’s Napoleon Bonaparte who authorised the destruction of a considerable amount of material in the Vatican library because his empire was short of paper. To his credit he did ensure that the documents relating to Galileo be preserved.
Nobody really knows how much book burning occurred in the Dark Ages. They are called “Dark” because there’s almost no documentation of the period. The number of books destroyed following the invention of the printing press was many times greater than the capacity to generate books manually.
Scholars like Copernicus were able to learn Greek and read the classics in their original form rather than Arabic translations into Latin, thanks to the exodus of savants from Byzantium after the Ottoman conquest of 1453.
Knowledge of Greek in the medieval Latin West
More here: https://www.bl.uk/greek-manuscripts/articles/knowledge-of-greek-in-the-medieval-latin-west
That’s how history works in the modern age.
It’s re-invented to fit the biases of the elite.
Always has been…
Get another search engine
thingadonta ==> If one only really could….
When I was a kid, if you called the telephone company (AT&T) with a complaint, they would laugh in your face and say “If you don’t like our service, get another telephone company!” Of course, for 99% of purposes, there was no other phone company.
Read my follow-up essays in this series as they come out, and you will understand the magnitude of this issue.
Of course, for 99% of purposes, there was no other phone company.
And now there is, confirming the proposition that in all likelihood, “this [Google thing] too, shall pass!”
Here in the Land of Under, we used to have a monopoly telephone service owned by the gummint called Telecom. Telecom provided an adequate though not stellar service and their profits were calculated to offset the losses of the Postal Service. Americans coming to live here often remarked on the fact that by the 1970s subscriber trunk dialling (STD) was universal here whereas rural USA services were often still on manual switchboards; pyramid switchboards even and earth return systems.
Then the government privatised telecommunications, Telecom became Telstra and Optus, Vodaphone and others compete with Telstra. All provide truly execrable service. Frankly I preferred when we had a reasonably well-run monopoly rather than what we now have.
Odd that you would say that. I just bought a new computer as my old one was stolen. So knowing what web pages I like to visit but couldn’t remember the url or correct name. But no matter how much I searched, I couldn’t find this one particular site (not WUWT, another particular site). I thought it was just on page 200 or something, and I never got that far. Ok then; DuckDuckGo gets more traffic from me then.
Don’t be evil.
HA Ha Ha, progressives are funny.
Greg Cavanagh
I believe Duck Duck Go is a rebranding of Google. It’s USP is that it doesn’t track you as an individual.
If you use the Chrome browser, or the Opera browser, you can have all your bookmarks backed up for you on their servers so you can log back in on any computer and your bookmarks will be unaltered.
Chrome is an intrusive browser but there is a version of Chromium (I think it’s an open source version of Chrome) with the snooping disabled. https://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php
Someone on WUWT suggested it last week and I’m trying it out. Seems faster than Opera, which has been my preferred browser. Backups of your favourites are still subject to having a Google account though.
Hot ==> Using Chrome ties you directly into the Google-plex — they track your every move, every purchase, would track your every thought is they could…..
Kip
That’s why I’m looking into ‘iron’ browser (link above). Evidently it has all the unacceptable parts of Chrome stripped out.
I also use PIA (Private Internet Access https://www.privateinternetaccess.com) whenever I can as they don’t keep records of browsing activity unlike most proxy services.
Hope it’s useful info.
Interestingly enough, I can’t get your link to work on Chrome.
Well, it worked if I cut and paste.
Ree
Try using another browser. Perhaps Chrome blocks access to it, which would be worrying.
Both my posted links work for me in iron and Opera.
Worked for me on Chrome.
The “Index” is Map-Reduce, the famed algorithm. All very techie impressive. But as Alice reminded readers a dog in Lilliput will follow a stick exactly like a dog in Brobdingrag. Map-Reduce is basically a dog with 280,000 legs (servers). Anyone who ever owned a dog must know how happy they are to deliver a dead rat on your shoe, wagging joyfully at the find.
Google-Poodle!
within the first couple of Paragraphs I twigged it;-) prob because like like many here we’re used to finding tampering/adjusting/vanishing info and reports
goog is NOT your friend and neither is anything microsoft.
even the better engine still have linkages to those deceitful and algo corrupted results.
from info I found before thats vanished- I now copy n print it if I think its of interest or likely to be tampered with.
annoying but you can scan n share it later at least
The solution is obvious – stop using Google. There are other providers/search engines such as Brave & DuckduckGo & Protonmail for your emails – means you are not tracked and your privacy is respected. Google are only able to do this whilst we just moan but carry on using them. Google users are a product – remove the product, they have nothing to sell
Well – ain’t that a pinch on the arm? The Lilliputians (Google, MSN, etc., etc, etc.) are trying to engage in thought control and censoring everything???
Da Horreurre!
I see people complaining here about having difficulty finding WUWT. I have NEVER had a problem finding it because I am NOT too lazy to type in the whole name of the website. There are others that I go to which would be lost in the Clouds if I used nothing more illiterate than searching by initials.
If you are subject or name specific in how you look for something, you will find it, if it’s on the internet. If I type in the full name of my own blog, I get there in a heartbeat, but if I type in a shortened version of it, I get links to at least 72 novels with the same title as the shortened version of my blog’s name.
It is your name search method that is at fault, not the Googlers or Bingers or the internet itself.
As a P.S. (post script), if you want to know how any literature at all was saved from extinction, read ‘How The Irish Monks Saved Civilization’. I doubt that everything was destroyed. The Vatican has a massive vault as a library, and it’s likely that most of the stuff stored in it has been forgotten. But if Roman lit was so completely destroyed, then how come Martialis’s scatty epigrams weren’t burned, too?? Anyone have an answer to that? Anyone? Bueller?
Just be more specific in your search and stop being lazy typists. I have NEVER EVER had any trouble finding this site or others that I go to. They are NOT buried by anything other than your lack of willingness to search by specific words or titles.
And no, I do not care whether you agree with me or not.
That is a great book, although the monks did it, the title is simply ‘How the Irish Saved Civilization’.
Why did God invent whiskey?
To keep the Irish from conquering the world!
(That was a joke.)
And all these years I thought it was true….
It is indeed a great read. BUT it’s more about saving Greek lit. than Roman lit., the latter being the subject of Ms Nixey’s thesis.
Sara ==> Point taken, and made in the News Flash.
If you already know what you are looking for you can find it, even search for it.
But imagine that you’d like to better understand the issue of Abortion in America. Imagine you really want to find out what the controversy is about, you are trying to become an educated voter. Google Search will offer you only “authoritative” sites in results — hint: no Right to Life results, only Abortion Rights sites — because that is the worldview of Google execs. They have hard-coded the results — they only want to give you one side of the issues — which they have decided is the Right Side.
How many and which subjects have been altered is not yet known.
No, I think you did miss the point. You have to be very specific in your search terminology.
For example, I typed “abortion rights in America” into the search block, and all the pro-Roe v Wade stuff showed up. I changed the search terms to “abortion rights and right to life in America” and an equally large number of right-to-life links came up. So what is hidden or blocked from my having access to it? Nothing!
When I said “specific”, I meant exactly that.
It is not Google that is playing games with anyone’s search for information, or anyone else’s, for that matter. Nothing has been altered or hidden or made inaccessible.
I don’t know what the storage capacity is in Google’s Cloudbanks, but it is vast and the more information that is added to it, the more specific YOU , the searcher, have to be. Same thing with Bing, which I don’t use any more as a search engine because I detest MSN’s constant money-grubbing ads in my e-mail account.
The larger this storage of information, or database, becomes, the more specific you have to be in your search terms. For example, you can type in ‘tabby’s star’ and many articles about the star studied by Tabitha Boyajian will come up. However, if you type in ‘stars that are dimming’ instead, only the most recent discoveries, such as the article about a star swallowing planets posted a couple days ago on this website, will come up. “Tabby’s star” info will be buried in this maze of more recent information.
Sara ==> I do understand your point — I was an internet professional, and designed the web site search for the Olympic Games sites produced by IBM.
Finding things is possible, even fairly easy, if your know what you are looking for.
When you don’t yet know, Google will be happy to tell you what it thinks you should know.
This is a Social Engineering project — Google trying to change what the general public thinks by directing them to certain, per-determined, information sources.
If you don’t understand the inherent anti-democratic anti-freedom danger in that … then you don’t.
Let Google be your guide and my best to you.
Kip, this is why I make note of exact captions or titles for websites that I may want to return to in the future.
For example, when I’ve typed WUWT into my search block, I get a TV station’s site WUWT-CD, not Watts Up With That. I’ve found that simply keeping that kind of list makes it easier and speedier to find what I want and not get frustrated. They may simply be trying to see how lazy people are, too. Apps are everywhere, very few of them are secure, and you have to pay for them, and they are supposed to save time, money, etc. But if you don’t use them, you forget where they lead and you’re still paying for them.
It’s coming down to “I don’t swear by whatever, I mostly swear at it.”
“This is a Social Engineering project — Google trying to change what the general public thinks by directing them to certain, per-determined, information sources.”
Kip, Google has always done that. Nothing has changed. Back before Google I used Alta Vista and that worked based entirely on words, not semantics. Google uses semantics to derive meaning from your search terms. This produces much better results than the old Alta Vista method. If we all marched to the same drum, then all would be hunky dory, but we don’t.
Google isn’t so much interested in social engineering as it is advertising revenue. That means they must appeal to as wide an audience as possible. Intellectuals (for lack of a better term) tend to decry what interests the hoi poloi. Skewing results in any direction is inherently “anti-democratic anti-freedom”. But that’s the price of having a semantics-based search rather than just word-matching.
Kip,
There are always two sides to a story. Hearing only one side is hearing a half-truth.
The issue is not those of us who already know all about WUWT.
The issue is how do those who have never heard of WUWT, or who are paying attention to the whole climate wars issue for the first time going to find it?
The issue is how do those who have never heard of WUWT…
I found WUWT through “word of mouth”, i.e., another website. Maybe Drudge I can’t remember.
Point being, Google didn’t stop me from finding anything.
How would you know, if you haven’t found it yet?
Since the beginning of recorded history — and, most likely, from countless generations before — there have been those warlords, tyrants, dictators, cabals and etc who wanted to dominate and control their fellow citizens, their nations, and, if taken to full extension, the entire world.
The only difference now being the nature of the “tools of control”; where, these days, such evil “wannabes” are oh so much more “civilized”; where, instead of a focus on bodily and material damage, these “wannabes” focus more on the control — brainwashing — of the mind.
In general, aside from the odd alpha-level psychopaths — a true pathology — we know the primary reason why such people emerge: “poor” or absent parenting; where such has led often to the development of a young adult with strictly a self-serving attitude — they see themselves as the focus of the world — where they see all others, essentially, to be lesser human beings.
Until we, as a family, community, and planet, recognize and work to reduce the occurrence and development of such offensive personality types — just as we need to do the same with battered wife/husband syndrome, battered child syndrome, battered scientist syndrome and etc — most likely, from those who desire to control others, we will always be confronted with their self-serving challenges.
The fundamental question is: how do we motivate ourselves — particularly the future parents of our world — to address and correct, to whatever degree necessary, this local and global challenge?
PS: I suspect that many of us, in general, know the answer to this question; where, further, I am hoping that readers — if any — see my question as rhetorical. I pose this question, nonetheless, because I assume that some may have a different opinion … and am looking forward to reading of them.
At the “US Government’s” “Understand Climate-Change” comes these assertions:
“Climate change is happening now. The United States and the world are warming, global sea level is rising, and some types of extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and more severe.” . . .”Evidence from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans, collected by scientists and engineers from around the world, tells an unambiguous story: the planet is warming, and over the last half century, this warming has been driven primarily by human activity—predominantly the burning of fossil fuels.”
https://www.globalchange.gov/climate-change
In 2010 the American Physical Society adopted a policy statement stating: “The evidence is incontrovertible: global warming is occurring.”
1973 Physics Nobel Laureate Prof Giaever then resigned from APS declaring
John Christy (2016) and (2017)found that the widely predicted “hot spot” “anthropogenic signature” of the “Tropical Tropospheric Temperature” cannot be found in either the satellite record, the radiosonde (balloon) record, or in reanalysis.
How then can attribution to “human activity” be “unambiguous”?
Call your legislator to have this government overstatement corrected.
In 2015 the APS revised its climate statement removing “incontrovertible”. While still strongly implying major human attribution it did add some scientific reality by acknowledging:
I’ve noticed this in the last few years. I cannot find several papers that I have read in the past, including a meta study on marine chemistry that clearly detailed how partial pressure of CO2 was not an important factor.
Try typing in the titles of those papers. I found several ODFs related to CO2 exchange.
I doubt anything has disappeared unless the author took it down.
@ Robert and Sara
I had no problem finding papers relating to global cooling in the period 1965–75 today using Google Scholar. Even when an author takes stuff down, it still exists in the Wayback Machine. https://archive.org/web/
Mind control at work, here and now! In the days before the World Wide Web you could emigrate to escape mind collectivisation but where do you escape to now?
There were no escape routes in the book 1984 either.
Try turning off the computer for about three weeks. I’ll bet money you can’t leave it alone.
If someone pays – they influence. Advertising is a mechanisms of social messaging, but also a mechanism to pervert or slant social messaging to one point of view. To believe that where money is involved there isn’t also some attempt to favor one type of message over another is naive. The best remedy I can think of is to tear off the veil and let everyone see how google, facebook, and all of the other social and commercial media are slanting their messaging to promote their favoured political/social/religious/economic viewpoints or those of their advertisers. Be skeptical.
Looks like William Connolly of Wikipedia Global Warming editing fame has resurfaced.
Hide the scrolls before the Chinese masters order their burning at the diligent hands of Google employees.
I think you folks are assuming that everyone sees the same search results in the same order from a search engine like Google. I’m not completely sure why I don’t think that’s the case, But I’m pretty sure that it isn’t true.
For one thing, check out this Wikipedia article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Personalized_Search
I’m guessing that personalized search probably isn’t the only variable controlling what you see vs what I see vs what that guy over there sees when the same keywords are used.
If browser history is a major factor, why is it that when I google “climategate emails” SKS comes up first in the search results, and WUWT is on page 3. I’ve visited this site nearly everyday (for many years) and only been to this SKS propaganda site maybe a dozen times.
It’s clear that google rigs the results if it suits them, either for financial or political reasons. You have to be incredibly naive to not believe that.
Do you clear your browser history?
“when I google “climategate emails””
OK, I did it (with quotes). Screenshot below. Top is David Archibald’s skeptic Lavoisier Group. Next Wiki, then Guardian, but it’s Fred Pearce, a bit on both sides. Then an anti-CRU article in Forbes, then Heartland, then Carbonbrief, with also an anti-CRU analysis.
https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/www.moyhu.org/2018/07/google.png
ps I put the phrase into the WUWT search box. Just 1 result. Apparently the reason WUWT is not high is that it rarely uses the phrase in articles.
Nick, I suspect that many are too lazy to learn how to make the most out of their Google searches. A few years ago I was approached by an acquaintance who wanted to build his own oxygen generator. He’d asked a friend who declared there was “nothing on the Internet”. It took me about 60 seconds to discover full instructions for a device intended for use in third-world countries.
20 Tips To Use Google Search Efficiently just scratches the surface: https://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/20-tips-use-google-search-efficiently.html
Yep, most people suck at google-fu. I can’t stand watching most people try and find stuff. I either have to walk away, or do the search myself.
Nick ==> A lot of the readers here are missing the point — it is about entering human judgement into the “ranking” system — basically hard-coding certain sites to stand as “authoritative” and demoting other sites, again hard-coded, as “unreliable” or “ill-informed” (read: “bad”) — based on the subjective bias of the Google hierarchy.
It currently affects mainly broad TOPIC and SUBJECT searches…. the closer one hones in on specific site information — which requires prior knowledge or familiarity, the less effect it has.
Google “climate change” and look at the first two pages….The Environmental Defense Fund, a radicalized propaganda outfit, is shown as an “authoritative” site…..
This piece is listed, for me, as # 5 on the list of “authoritative” sites “When Will Climate Change Make the Earth Too Hot For Humans?” from the Daily Intelligencer.
TakePart, a public relations/media firm, that helped produce An Inconvenient Truth, get a page 2 slot.
“Google “climate change” and look at the first two pages….The Environmental Defense Fund, a radicalized propaganda outfit, is shown as an “authoritative” site…”
No it isn’t. That’s what you get. What I get is mostly Australian government websites, a few university websites, a couple of MSM websites and two websites outside Australia (Nature and Wikipedia). “The Environmental Defense Fund” did not feature in the first 20 pages, never mind the first two. Similarly there were no hits for “Daily Intelligencer” in the first 10 pages. “TakePart” didn’t get any hits in the first 5 pages.
I think it might just be you that’s missing the point, Kip. Google is the premier ad-flinger on the planet and what it does is whatever it takes to remain so. Part of that is making an assessment of what keeps most Google users coming back for more. If Google are conspiring to privilege The Environmental Defense Fund, The Daily Intelligencer and TakePart as you claim, then they’re doing a lousy job of it.
Reg Nelson said:
“why is it that when I google “climategate emails” SKS comes up first in the search results,”
I get https://www.lavoisier.com.au/articles/greenhouse-science/climate-change/climategate-emails.pdf as the first result…
If that’s a result of google is rigging the search results, then it must be that they are on the other side of the issue to what you expect.
I too get the lavoisier.com hit at the top. Never been there to my recollection. The wiki-bloody-pedia gets second place. What’s yours?
I think we’re getting the same. I posted mine a few comments up.
You are correct Don K. Google tailors the result based on browser history and purchasing history. Quite why it’s assumed I’m in the market for another television when the one I have just purchased is for the benefit of the Missus rather than me… There’s a reason I likes me books 🙂
My wife once used my Amazon account to purchase some romance novels. That was probably 3 years ago. They STILL pop-up on my amazon recommended stuff.
What is anyone going to do about it? What can anyone do?
Power an corruption have been with us since humans existed it seems.
Correction is in order. How is this going to happen?
What is anyone going to do about it?
Nothing.
What can anyone do?
Assume it, not care, and move on, else, spend your days worrying about that over which you haven’t a smidgen of control.
Power an corruption have been with us since humans existed it seems.
Thank you, sir!
Now you’ve stated the key to the entire problem in my view. Power and corruption have always been with us, but somehow we’ve still managed to make it through to the next time power and corruption were with us.
If history offers any evidence upon which to make a judgement regarding this matter, then it would appear the best evidence suggests we’ll somehow yet again muddle through this instance of power and corruption (assuming it is) as well.
Very good satire. + + + +
Here’s the thing… As Google tampers with search ratings, they open the door to new search engines to maybe catch on. It happens all the time when big business gets arrogant. There will be regulations passed to start tempering how much they can control (going to happen, for better or for worse, they need to be regulated, but when a government sticks their nose in its usually inefficient).
Likely a small search engine already in existence will start promoting itself as a more fair and balanced one, and researchers will start using it. At first the flow of users will be small, and then sudden there is a huge wave as the new search engine catches up to the features that everyone really uses (as opposed to the billions of nice to haves that few use).
When Google finally wakes up to the revenue loss, they will either compete and try to become more fair, or more likely become more extreme like most cable news outlets did until they have a small fanatic group of followers.
I for one have already stopped using Google as much as possible. Yup, I still have an Android device but I have deleted most of Google apps off of it. If you don’t like the way Google turns information into propaganda, then abandon it.
subtle2 ==> Think again — Google, like Microsoft, is so big it crushes or buys out any competition.
See EU news of the 5.1 BILLION DOLLAR FINE for anti-competitive behavior.
OK. So I was trying to remember the movie-maker that had challenged Marc Morano to a climate debate – and backed out at the last minute. It was just an idle thing so I Googled it. Nothing. Just now I tried duckduckgo “Marc Morano debate movie maker” and the tenth line was James Cameron. Maybe it’s just me though – I can be a real techtard; but score one for duckduckgo.
I don’t think this is off-topic, maybe, and I don’t know any more than this article says:
https://medium.com/@martingeddes/wwg1wga-the-greatest-communications-event-in-history-698ba926df64
Bonfire of the (advocacy) Vanities
Are there special job titles for this at Google? like maybe….
Director of Chinese Yes-Man Services
CIO, Chief Inflame Officer
Darkweb Director
PR companies do exactly the same.
If you pay a PR company to place your news release into all the majors, like reuters, nyt and yahoo, they will do so. And there will be a web-page there with all your details. And they will charge you $2,500 dollars for the service.
But…… Your page will in none of their indexes, and will not be on GoogIe, and so nobody bar you will ever see your expensive PR news release.
Ralph
I usually “throw away” the first page of a google search as it is mostly advertising. Drilling down through pages gives you the feel for what is being manipulated and allows you to construct a better search, even to the point of using minus signs to specifically exclude certain items. My behavior has been trained in this area by the google environment. In my opinion google still has the most complete searches, they have just become weighted by SEO and biases of all kinds.
Try Googling Roy Spencer, Judith Curry or Jordan Peterson.
“Try Googling Roy Spencer…”
Google proffers me the choices of roy spencer uah, roy spencer architect, roy spencer temperatures, roy spencer permaseal, roy spencer actor and roy spencer. What’s wrong with this thing that it can’t tell which roy spencer I’m after? [/sarc]
Kip, I think Ray Wiley Hubbard said it best in a song title a while back…
A: Enlightenment, B: Endarkenment, (Hint: There is no C)
Google’s Alphabet Eric Schmidt now heads up Pentagon Innovation. Google has come home to roost. Maybe now the Pentagon will find where all that money vanished to.
Duck Duck Go.
Why use Google at all? I don’t
JCalvertN(UK) ==> If you are only worried about yourself — and do not care about the larger societal implications of this issue — well…..then you don’t.
Later on, when you discover that free expression has been even more actively blocked, it may matter to you.
I have designed search engines/systems myself professionally — I think the Internet is a Public Good and fiddling the Major Indexes to it is a Public Offense, a Major Evil.
I got a wild hair in 2015 and wrote a short piece of techo dystopia fiction: The Time Rift of 2100: How We lost the Future It describes in retrospect a series of successive ‘innovations’, each a worthy improvement, but hidden in growing complexity a fragile thread weaves through everything. Probably the best and only story ever written about Network Time Protocol.
Google and The Cloud makes an appearance though not by name. As is happening now, paper was nil and everything — including essential documentation — was stored in ‘The Cloud’, a global storage array that was storage and index combined. An excerpt,
So when you’re fixed on deliberate censorship and evil derrings-do, always remember the words of Einstein,
Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity.
Hence use Duckduckgo.com for independent searches.
the Enlightened is a very poor use as the Enlightenment sprung Freedom, Liberty, Capitalism as many of USA’s founders were of the Enlightenment. more accurate would be ‘the Progressives’ ‘the Left’ ‘the Liberals’ ‘the Socialists’