We’ve talked before about how Google is actively suppressing climate skeptics, including yours truly.
The business motto for Google used to be:“Don’t be evil.”, seen below as archived by the Wayback Machine on April 21, 2018:
“Don’t be evil.” Googlers generally apply those words to how we serve our users. But “Don’t be evil” is much more than that. Yes, it’s about providing our users unbiased access to information, focusing on their needs and giving them the best products and services that we can. But it’s also about doing the right thing more generally – following the law, acting honorably, and treating co-workers with courtesy and respect.
“Don’t be evil.” Googlers generally apply those words to how we serve our users. But “Don’t be evil” is much more than that. Yes, it’s about providing our users unbiased access to information, focusing on their needs and giving them the best products and services that we can. But it’s also about doing the right thing more generally – following the law, acting honorably, and treating co-workers with courtesy and respect.
The Google Code of Conduct is one of the ways we put “Don’t be evil” into practice. It’s built around the recognition that everything we do in connection with our work at Google will be, and should be, measured against the highest possible standards of ethical business conduct. We set the bar that high for practical as well as aspirational reasons: Our commitment to the highest standards helps us hire great people, build great products, and attract loyal users. Trust and mutual respect among employees and users are the foundation of our success, and they are something we need to earn every day.
Then, in a stunning turnaround, they removed the phrase from their website, giving themselves a license to follow the dark side.
By now you may have heard about the in-house “private” Google video (created right after the 2016 presidential election) leaked to Breitbart. It was never intended that the public see it. Fortunately, we have. After Trump won the election the video shows the Google management team doing group hugs, tears, and wailing about how Trump won and how Hillary was wronged.
It’s quite revealing. In the video we have the Chief Executive Officer, the Chief Financial Officer, two Vice Presidents and the two men who founded Google in 1998; Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
The opinions expressed in that video were in my opinion, outrageous. Basically the Google execs saw American voters who voted for Trump as irrational, xenophobic, lazy, and stupid. Brin suggests that Trump voters were acting out of “boredom”, which he says has in the past have been one of the factors giving rise to fascism and communism.
Google has since issued a rebuttal saying this was just some employees and executives expressing their own personal opinion, saying “For 20 years, everyone at Google has been able to freely express their opinions at these meetings”
In their rebuttal, Google claims that nothing those executives said in that video suggests any political bias in their products.
I don’t buy it, not one bit.
The Google CFO in that video, Ruth Porat, is a perfect example She gets highly emotional, to the point of tears and talks about the moment she realized the election was “…going the wrong way”, and then the first moment she realized “WE were going to lose. It was like a “ton of bricks”.
Later in the video, the Google co-founder, Sergey Brin, asks what they can do to ensure a “better quality of governance and decision-making.”
Newsflash: Google HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH GOVERNMENT DECISION-MAKING. For Brin to suggest they need ensure a “better quality” is a tacit admission of their intent to bias in a way they see fit.
Here’s excerpts from the Breitbart story:
THE GOOGLE TAPE: Google Co-Founder Sergey Brin ‘Deeply Offended’ by Trump’s Election
Allum Bokhari, Breitbart
Sergey Brin, co-founder of one of the most influential companies in the world:
““As an immigrant and a refugee, I certainly find this election deeply offensive, and I know many of you do too.”
Walker says that Google should fight to ensure the populist movement – not just in the U.S. but around the world – is merely a “blip” and a “hiccup” in a historical arc that “bends toward progress.”
CEO Sundar Pichai states that the company will develop machine learning and A.I. to combat what an employee described as “misinformation” shared by “low-information voters.”
Here’s another story, from the Powerline Blog
Powerline: It’s Official, Google Is a Democratic Party Front
All of the speakers express grief over Donald Trump’s election. All of the speakers assume that every Google employee is a Democrat and is stunned and horrified that Hillary Clinton–the worst and most corrupt presidential candidate in modern history–lost. There is much discussion about what Google can do to reverse the benighted world-wide tide exemplified by Brexit and Trump’s election. The insane doctrine of “white privilege” rears its head.
You really have to see it to believe it. Having suffered through the hour-long cri de cœur–OK, to be fair, there is a huge element of schadenfreude, too, and you will relish much of it–you probably will have several reactions:
1) These people may have certain valuable technical skills, but they aren’t very bright and are unusually lacking in self-awareness.
2) It is remarkable that they can achieve such an extraordinary monoculture in an organization with thousands of employees. It must require vigorous enforcement of right-think.
3) It is easy to see how these uniformly left-wing robots/people seamlessly transitioned into Resisting the duly elected Trump administration.
The video:
So, what can you do?
Dump Google. Dump Gmail and searching via Google
When searching, I recommend DuckDuckGo, and Mojeek. Of the two, Mojeek is the better tool in my opinion, becuase it doesn’t make use of a Google oriented indexing library.
UPDATE:
An email obtained exclusively by ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ reveals that a senior Google employee deployed the company’s resources to increase voter turnout in ways she believed would help Clinton win the election.
“You Americans are so gullible! We don’t have to invade you! We will destroy you from within without firing a shot! We will bury you by the billions! We spoon feed you socialism until your Communists and don’t even know it! We assist your elected leaders in giving you small doses of Socialism until you suddenly awake to find you have Communism. the day will come when your grandchildren will live under communism”
Reminds me of the elders… Oh wait.. That’s just tin foil
“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
Abraham Lincoln
I love the way Brin says he finds the election “offensive”. How can you be offended by an election. It’s like being “offended” by the climate.
Clearly if someone is “offended” , then the election itself can be declared a hate crime and the result can be nullified.
Maybe if they declare 0.7 deg C of “anomalously” warm temperatures offensive, that can be made to go away too. It’s worth a try !!
Of course, Brin did not comment on Obama freeing up $160 billion for his buddies in Iran. Complete with $400 million non USA non traceable cash delivered in the dead of night. Talk about offended….. Does anyone think he did this without a commission payment? I will bet he has a billion $ in hidden accounts.
The irony there is Russia parked its Navy at NY and SF with clear warning to Britain sand France to stand down while the civil war raged. The only country to recognize the CSA was Britain, the consulate was still there not long ago. Today the very same Britain run the Dodgy Dossier of MI6’s Steele and the entire Skripal theater to run Trump out of office.
True, rabid Dems and some GOP cheer it on, so Lincoln’s words still ring alarms.
For Britain it was purely an economic decision.
British mills needed southern cotton, which politicians in the US north were trying to keep for themselves.
British industry wanted to sell industrial equipment to the South, something northern politicians had been trying to prevent.
I call bull on this – fake news a hundred a fifty years late…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_and_the_American_Civil_War
Join the discussion…Duhhhh. And you aren’t too bright, either.
http://Www.duckduckgo
My expertise is energy, and I will compare my track record with anyone. What matters most is that Trump gets energy right, unlike several previous American administrations, who got it entirely wrong.
Cheap, abundant, reliable energy is the lifeblood of society – it IS that simple. If you mess up energy enough, you and your family will just freeze or starve.
Fossil fuels comprise 85% of global primary energy, the rest is almost all nuclear and hydro. Green energy fails due to high cost and intermittency. Grid-connected wind and solar power would be zero, except for tens of trillions of dollars in wasted subsidies.
Compare Trump’s policies with Obama’s or Hillary’s – the USA was on a road to disaster, and Trump is pulling it back from the brink.
In politics as in life, you don’t always get to choose between good and bad – you get what you get, with all its imperfections. Most people cannot understand that, and chose to vilify Trump because of peripheral, irrelevant issues. When you consider your alternative – Hillary – American did not just dodge a bullet – you dodged a nuke.
Frequently, while trying to give someone a link, I have had trouble finding a document on the Internet while using a direct cut and paste from a previously downloaded copy, while using Google. Other search engines show the document on the first page. Also seems like putting a + in front of a keyword no longer finds that topic.
How does Google explain that?
That custom search engine Google is deploying for China is their standard search engine. Google is just giving the Chinese government the ability to add additional words the search engine is told to ignore.
Yes, it seems unlikely that Google would develop a set of tools for the Chinese Government to manipulate search and yet not use those same tools for their own ends.
http://Www.duckduckgo.com
I wonder how many “Googlers” are H1B ?
Yes, how many non-citizens at Google have been working to influence our elections? If it is wrong for Russians to involve themselves in our elections, why isn’t it wrong for other foreigners to do so? Democrats invited illegal aliens to campaign with them and speak at their rallies. Can you imagine how they would react if Republicans invited Russian nationals to do the same? It’s a clear double standard. Democrats will tell you that foreign nationals that worked to help elect Hillary Clinton were a benefit to our democracy. But those who worked to elect Trump were undermining our democracy. See how it works?
This whole thing started because Clinton and the democrats were trying to work with Russia to get Hillary elected….when it came out, Obama said to ignore it, it was nothing…and stopped the investigation into it
I was working at a company where the H1Bs, particularly from India, were loud and proud, self-proclaimed “Socialists”. Each and every one of them dreams of the day they will be granted citizenship so that they can vote for Socialism. When asked why they came to the US rather than stay in relatively socialist India, or seek opportunities in true socialist countries, they claimed that the US was a better place to live. It never occurred to them why. but whatever it is, it must be replaced with the ideology of Cuba, Zimbabwe and Venezuela.
This is a problem with most migrants the world over. They leave their own country because they do not like it, and because it fails to give them the support and opportunities they seek, they come to a new country which they like more because it gives them the stuff that they cannot have in their original country, and then they try to change the new country into the sh1thole that they left, ny seeking to get the new country to adopt the same backward leaning laws, customs, practices and procedures.
In my experience most immigrants are usually happy with America. They have a different mind set and culture but they try their best to fit in and are grateful for the opportunity to be here. It is only when they are separated from the melting pot and live among other immigrants from their homeland that they don’t truly become Americans. In my opinion the single best way to prevent radicalization is to make them feel welcome and show them a better way. And no, I’m not a Democrat or an immigrant, I’m just a student of history.
Michael C,
While that is a nice notion, the problem is that today the idea of immigrants assimilating into our culture is considered racist. Assimilation is equated to stripping them of their cultural identity, so we must accept their culture and make accommodations for them – forever.
It’s really the illegal ones that went this way. How more welcoming of these folks can you get? I’m afraid history isnt a useful source for this.
That’s like saying someone asking to take your picture in front of the White House is the same as someone using a drone to film you in your bedroom.
“Democrats will tell you that foreign nationals that worked to help elect Hillary Clinton were a benefit to our democracy. But those who worked to elect Trump were undermining our democracy.”
So are you saying immigrants shouldn’t participate in the election process, or it’s OK for foreign governments to use criminal means to get their favorite in office? Individuals have something to gain if they think a candidate supports a certain immigration policy. Did Russia know they had something to gain by getting Trump elected?
It’s mentioned in the video. Google has 10,000 H1B employees.
I have some hope that the Democrat party will clue in. Here’s a link to a conversation between Jordan Peterson and Gregg Hurwitz, a Democrat strategist. Hurwitz at least gets the point that it is counterproductive to trash the half of the population that voted for President Trump.
The question should not be, how did the Republicans cheat their way into the White House? The question should be, what did the Democrats do wrong? The answer to that question is very long indeed. It includes the arrogance of the Democrat elite, including especially the folks at Google.
The Democrat party leadership knows they cheated in 2016. They believe their loss means the Republicans cheated more. So no, they will not “clue in.”
Psychological projection is rife among Dems to a pathological degree.
I frankly hope they never get a clue. Talk about “idiot child[ren]” and machine guns! I don’t want them in any position to grab the tiller again.
what did the Democrats do wrong?
Nominate Hillary
Vote Democrat
Absolutely. They must have had somebody who’d just win the election against Trump.
Now they’re trying to sell the idea Uranium-selling Clinton was replaced with America-First Trump by Putin.
I wonder how much social media has polarized thinking? Googke puts desmogblog in the top five and regard that shitsmear as a valuable hit that ‘does good’.
Actually, Hillary would have beat all Republicans other than Trump. They would have played by the Marquess of Queensberry rules — like McCain and Dole did — and she would have swamped them.
Even then, it would have been a squeaker, Hillary is not well liked (despite what the loony left thinks). All it would have taken is a Republican that came across as even half-way likeable to put in doubt her “inevitable coronation” regardless of what dirty tricks Hillary and here team would employ. Bottom line, even the “play nice” candidates would have had a shot at beating Hillary (despite what the biases polls may have claimed, we saw how accurate such polls are) because Hillary was that bad of a candidate
I’m looking forward to seeing the work of Charles Ortel, who is exposing the Clinton Charitable Fund tax fraud on ‘Crowdsource the Truth’ with Jason Goodman, become common knowledge. There is a deadline for filing taxes that is going to reveal this fraud in the very near future. There are serious legal ramifications for this fraud. The Clinton’s ‘Climate Action Plan’ was never legal. This might be of interest to WUWT readers around the world. I wonder what the folks at Google will have to say about it.
I would provide a link but lately, for some reason, copying and pasting the link does not seem to be working. Perhaps ‘the powers that be’ do not want people to know what Charles Ortel has been exposing.
What did they do wrong?
They promised Hillary if that she step back and let Obama take the nomination in 2008, she would have the nomination in 2016.
The problem was. a more likeable and (in my opinion) forthright person than Hillary was leading the party, Bernie Sanders. And so Bernie had to go. The DNC, Hillary, superdelegates and the media colluded to ensure her nomination. Ironically, they had no clue that there were people on the Democrat side of the aisle that didn’t like her either.
So in the end, they simply picked the wrong horse.
The only thing I believe about Bernie is that he is a Marxist socialist/communist whose policies have caused the world a lot of anguish. That said, I do believe that if he had won the nomination, the election would probably have gone in his direction over Trump. There were an awful lot of millenials and gen-x/gen-y ‘ers that thought he was the next best thing. Was there anything that Bernie didn’t promise to give them?
Man am I glad that we dodged that bullet too!
Oddly enough, there is a “sense” of the Republicans cheated there way into the Whitehouse in your comment. Somehow, you seem to have forgotten that the Republicans really didn’t campaign for Trump, Trump campaigned for himself. The People elected Trump, they didn’t elect the Republican party, though Trump’s coattails helped a lot of those into Congress that have fought with him ever since. And most of these posts all ‘have presumed that Putin and company elected Trump, that the Russians really influenced the election. and in this case, Trump has the right saying – “so sad.” If our elections are so “loose” that they can be hacked, then we are the least technological country on the planet, and deserve to be the laughing stock that a lot of posters like to make us.
Indeed Tom, the Republican establishment ran away from Trump at every opportunity during the election. Each “trump-slaying” so-called news story that the left-wing media pedaled was greeted by establishment Republicans castigating Trump and putting as much distance as they could between Trump and themselves. And yet Trump managed to win the necessary votes despite that lack of support.
commieBob,
You didn’t watch the video, evidently. The speakers repeatedly talked about it being a fair democratic election. They said that employees should respect those with different views. They talked about conservatives feeling disenfranchised, and about wanting to “build bridges” of discussion and understanding.
One speaker talked about the fact that it wasn’t the blue collar workers that got Trump elected; the skew toward Republicans was more associated with the wealthy. This doesn’t sound like arrogance to me.
They talked a lot about values. A lot! They didn’t complain about conservative values; they didn’t even talk much about Trump. They emphasized what they can to better, to make the world a better place. Decreasing poverty through access to information. Education, including donation of laptops. And yes, improving governance and decision-making (which is not the same as government decision-making, and Anthony asserts) – but this was in general, not just about the U.S. And it’s about providing access to information, not about determining what information gets out – though part of it is curbing propagation of misinformation, including that spread by foreign governments.
I interpreted the video very differently from the way Anthony did. I think it’s extremely offensive say it proves Google is “evil.” It’s an hour long, and few people are going to watch the whole thing; they will take others’ word for what’s in it.
Those who provide biased information have no justification for whining about others providing biased information.
Perpetuating prejudice by accusing others of prejudice is going to achieve nothing but increased misunderstanding and hatred. We are all prejudiced. Get over it and stop playing the victim. Do something constructive if you want change.
Wow, that is some first class grade A google shilling, Bravo sir you are very talented and a testament of virtue to shilling everywhere. Too bad you practice your craft for pure evil but either way very admirable skill.
Jacob,
That’s ridiculous. All I did was watch the video and comment on what I heard. Someone had to provide an alternative viewpoint to “the video proves they’re evil.”
Try horse racing, you’ll get used to losing.
Maybe even learn to lose gracefully, and hopefully not taunt the losers when you win.
(At least not in mixed company).
Interesting comment. Doesn’t make any sense, but interesting, nonetheless.
As a man who has own several businesses I can tell you that mottos and mission statements and the like are usually where the board feels the most insecure. So for instance a company that doesn’t feel like they’re and authority will say “The experts in widget making” to try to cover for their insecurity.
“Don’t be evil” is a motto only an evil company can come up with. It wouldn’t occur to anyone else that being evil is a possibility or something they may be accused of.
Excellent point. A Freudian slip, if there ever was one.
Back in the day I thought of it more as a pointed dig at Microsoft.
Back then MSFT was known informally as The Evil Empire”; that what Google’s slogan was an allusion to.
Google itself could be called “the oval umpire,” assuming “oval” stands for uneven.
I remember those days. Oddly today Microsoft wouldn’t even make it top 4 in evilness – Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook are way ahead. Microsoft has become fairly tame – and therefore the company I prefer to do business with.
“Evil” is a matter of perspective. The suicide bomber doesn’t think he’s evil. Google employees don’t think they’re evil when they try to influence an election or political procedures.
Most people know innately if an act is evil or not.
The justification for it is where the lines blur.
I guess you must hate medical doctors.
I’ve got news for you: medical doctors don’t actually swear a hippocratic oath.
They swear what now? That they’ll mindlessly apply the instructions of the State/Board/Random medical association and ignore the will of the patients and despise the skeptics?
The best joke I have heard about mission statements was a real life experience of a colleague who went for an interview for a senior position with a new company. He was asked by a typically intensively serious female director what the company’s mission statement should be. He replied, “I didn’t realise you’re going to the moon!” Needless to say this director was not pleased, particularly as her colleagues were laughing loudly. He didn’t get the job, but from what he saw he didn’t want it !
So true, the reality is the opposite of the motherhood statements.
Years ago, I went for a job interview with a government department. While I sat in the waiting area I noticed that the department had posters everywhere on the internal walls, doors, windows, hand outs on the coffee tables, etc, about their values:
working together.
making it happen.
respecting other people.
serving the community, and.
acting with integrity.
I was struck by a similar thought to the one Adam has expressed, the fact they have those posters up indicates they have serious problems in those areas.
Needless to say, I didn’t get the job. By chance, sometime later I found out that the job had been reserved for some lame-duck relative of one of the executives and the whole recruitment process had been a sham. I was a patsy, in other words.
But everything is ok because they had the posters.
11:32 “Google is a trusted source of information for people around the world.”
No you aren’t. I know Google is reading this. We do not trust Google, for many reasons.
25:10 “How can Google reduce the impact of the “echo chamber” and access to diverse viewpoints across the population”?
Maybe the could reduce the impact of the “echo chamber” by stepping out of their echo chamber.
I believe Google has already decided to silence and/or fire anyone who doesn’t support their view.
If they do, that will just be par for the course for Silicon Valley.
Google’s solution: Stamp out diverse viewpoints (that don’t agree with Google’s viewpoint) so only their “echo chamber” can be heard.
It may be because I am a Nuclear Engineer and have always worked in that area of engineering, but the thing that I have observed again and again was that the majority of the personnel working in the areas of engineering associated with Nuclear Power, Power Generation, and design of power plants were conservative in nature. Had no idea if Dem or Rep, and never asked. My take on this difference was that these engineering fields required the more difficult courses in advanced math, physics, chemistry, thermodynamics and other engineering related courses. I could easily determine if someone I met and associated with in computer science classes and other non engineering courses were in an engineering program (most of the time.) It was as if they had a different thought process. Often in study groups or when trying to help one of these classmates it seemed as if they had a mental block preventing them from understanding what seemed like an obvious concept or theory to me. My tour of duty in the Navy as an Instructor helped me immensely in knowing the different ways to get through to people with this mindset.
If Google is truly trying to achieve diversity in their work place with the thought in mind to make and deliver a better product, they are excluding a large section of the population from their NON-Diverse “echo chamber. “
Could also be that lefty/greens hate (and fear) nuclear with a passion so are not too likely to take a job working in said industry even if they somehow got a degree in something other than intersectional feminism.
“Often in study groups or when trying to help one of these classmates it seemed as if they had a mental block preventing them from understanding what seemed like an obvious concept or theory to me.”
Do you work for Google?
Google does give access to stuff. But I’ve seen how sometimes the relevant keywords lead to politically chosen sites, leading to suspicion that goohle is trying to debunk far-right myths, but lets green and far-left myths go unpunished. So I use it, but never think I would trust my worldview on its hits.
I assumed “governance” had to do with their own business operations, not guvmint.
In context it clearly refers to government.
What is a good substitute for gmail? I already use duckduckgo instead of google for most of my searches.
Seen on another WUWT post about Google I forget where):
https://impossiblehq.com/complete-guide-leaving-google/
“The Best Alternatives To Gmail:
Hush Mail – Hushmail is free email service with privacy and no ads. I haven’t used this personally but it’s a good option for the privacy-conscious.
Fastmail – Fastmail.FM is a paid alternative that’s super fast, with a very clean interface. I’m moving all my hosted email here.
Proton Mail – Secure email based in Switzerland.”
What is the point if your friends use gmail? Google will still read your mail.
Indeed. But your friends have nothing to hide, so it’s OK? /sarc
And if you have something to hide, don’t send you gmail using friends an email about it. 😉
I have heard good things about Proton Mail. I’m considering switching to it.
fastmail.com
Dave
So to these people it is not OK to exclude other people because of race, sexual orientation, or gender, but it is OK to exclude them because of political orientation. And somehow they feel they are progressive and morally superior. What they are is hugely hypocritical.
Not exactly in their defense, but as a useful point of understanding, much of the psychological process involved in hypocrisy and projecting the Shadow on others is unconscious. Only some form of Jungian analysis can uncover the Evil within. In severe cases, classical Freudian psychoanalysis is useful. If the therapist is not a Democrat, I suspect the odds of success are enhanced somewhat.
Come on, keep it simple stupid and respond to real stuff. People have done it for thousands of years, no need to resort to the mumbo-jumbo.
WXcycles , put some bandages on your knuckles, they must be sore.
michael
Whomever posted some time back here the link and discussion about Herbert Marcuse and “Repressive Tolerance” – thank you.
It really makes it clear how many in the left feel fully justified in viewing the world through their own lens and how they can utterly refuse to see any point of view but their own. I found it inconceivable that people could hold these thoughts, that they could close their eyes so tightly and reject things so fiercely .. I presumed any rational person would appreciate knowledge and welcome the opportunity to replace myths with facts .. but reading Marcuse’s piece makes it clear i was completely wrong.
I guess Google do the same, begin with the idea that as self-identified intelligent people they cannot be wrong and their infallibility is beyond question. With this freedom established anything they presume correct must be correct therefore everyone else is wrong. Any presumption they make being correct, it’s a tiny step for them to conclude the ends justifies the means to achieving their goals – if they must lie, cheat, steal or kill to bring their truth forward that’s OK because it is entirely righteous.
frightening stuff.
Unfortunately being naturally attracted to big truths, they’re also attracted to big authority and will support authoritarian behavior and leadership and the only thing that can possibly alter their perspective is a savage beating.. Being thoroughly trounced seems the only way they will reflect and reconsider their stance.
Sadly this is a rinse and repeat process as they’ll eventually fall back to the default position that they are right and the revisionism will take place. When their supported heroes are shown to be monsters the revelation will lead them to conclude they weren’t *really* “their guys” and thus must have been “the other guys”. Supported Na Zi socialists become ‘right wing’ guys, the rejoicing crowds who cheered at Pol Pots ascension were ‘tricked’ by a totalitarian.. There’s a disconnect between what they see and know and the reality and the possibility that their judgement could be flawed or their choices misguided is unthinkable, after all, they are intelligent people – they know this.
This is also why they find it so easy to belittle and mistrust others – “I think this and I am intelligent, therefore these who think otherwise are clearly stupid, deluded, wrong or intentionally evil” .. (mental cogs whir) ..”therefore We can do anything we like to Them’..
and it begins again.
Marcuse of the CCF (Council for Cultural Freedom) and the Frankfurt School whose Adorno penned “The Authoritarian Personality” is the key to the Google theater (quote ) :
“It seems obvious, that the modification of the potentially fascist structure cannot be achieved by psychological means alone. The task is comparable to that of eliminating neurosis, or delinquency, or nationalism [emphasis added] from the world. These are products of the total organization of society and are to be changed only as that society is changed. It is not for the psychologist to say how such changes are to be brought about. The problem is one which requires the efforts of all social scientists. All that we would insist upon is that in the councils or round tables where the problem is considered and action planned the psychologist should have a voice. We believe that the scientific understanding of society must include an understanding of what it does to people, and that it is possible to have social reforms, even broad and sweeping ones, which though desirable in their own right would not necessarily change the structure of the prejudiced personality. For the fascist potential to change, or even to be held in check, there must be an increase in people’s capacity to see themselves and to be themselves. This cannot be achieved by the manipulation of people, however well grounded in modern psychology the devices of manipulation might be…. It is here that psychology may play its most important role. Techniques for overcoming resistance, developed mainly in the field of individual psychotherapy, can be improved and adapted for use with groups and even for use on a mass scale.”
The authors conclude with this most revealing proposition: “We need not suppose that appeal to emotion belongs to those who strive in the direction of fascism, while democratic propaganda must limit itself to reason and restraint. If fear and destructiveness are the major emotional sources of fascism, Eros belongs mainly to democracy.”
Witness applied group therapy and eros on that stage, weeping hugging, consensus.
mojeek ???? HOSTED BY THE UK’s GREENEST DATA ???
Maybe the won’t skew climate news, but it’s a question that needs asking.
Search works pretty good, though.
If it’s energy-efficient hosting and economical–fine.
If its an ideological statement with warp ‘n spin–not fine.
I set it as default, we’ll see if they’re ‘evil’ (I despise that word, its almost as bad as ‘good’).
I saw that too and thought it rather funny. There is no such thing as “green data.” Data is all 1’s and 0’s. (or more technically on’s and off’s)
It’s an advert. Affiliate link to be precise. I have no problem with either. Big G are the bad guys and have been for some time.
Google, Facebook, and Twitter are acting as if they wish to provoke a regulatory scheme, with the hope they will be ensconced in their monopoly positions, much like the “regulation” of Ma Bell or the broadcast media.
The rather stealthy attempt to do regulation was the purported “net neutrality” game by Obama’s FCC. Americans old enough (I’m 62) should remember just how the regulation of Ma Bell and broadcast media worked out in practice, with bad expensive service with Ma Bell and the “vast wasteland” with broadcast media.
The Democrats have been the party of government since the 1930’s, and would almost certainly dominate the civil service staff under any regulatory scheme. And there are certainly a few politicians who remember how Lyndon Johnson made (or laundered) his money.
I would rather use ant-trust on the social media companies. Making Google (Alphabet) sell off YouTube and Android as an example.
Particularly Android, since we all now know that Android is like having the Stasi, KGB and NSA in your pocket. I’m not so thrilled with Apple or Microsoft as my personal blackmailer and government informant either.
Block Google-analytics script!
Hurt Google the better way —
Block Google-analytics scripts from running using script blocking software.
Without Google-analitics the Alphabet’s advertising machine falls down.
Block Google-analytics!
How?
In Chrome or Chromium you can’t as they are Google products. However Google’s own site seems to say it can be done https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/script-blocker-for-chrome/aakchmnmjneadkakfihibdbepehaflop
On Firefox based browsers there are few like NoScript and Ghostery.
What add-ons there are for IE I don’t know as I keep well away from M$ products but this site say it can be done https://www.lifewire.com/disable-active-scripting-in-ie-446357.
Apple’s Safari browser has https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/42143/js-blocker and a few others.
Phone and tablet browsers are an unknown to me and I presume anything based on Alphabet’s Android OS will not block google’s scripts. Hopefully one day Sailfish OS (https://blog.jolla.com/nurmonjoki/) will get their act together and offer a real alternative.
As I used Linux and have rarely use the other OSs I can not vouch for their effectiveness. What I can say is that many site get upset by script blockers but I feel that such places do not deserve my attention as they have made more than enough money from attempting to reselling my personal data to third parties anyway. (so wattsupwiththat stop protesting at me — the answer is no until the ads are much less intrusive!)
on Windows I add any site I dislike to my HOSTS file, to make it convenient I’ve a shortcut on my desktop
c:/windows/system32/drivers/etc/
just add entries by poppipng in new lines like this:
127.0.0.1 alpha.collectivads.com
from then on Windows tries to load alpha.collectivads.com by looking at 127.0.0.1 .. but there ain’t nothing there! Poor collectiveads.
I use the hosts file from below. Also add several of my own entries to the end of it. Works in Linux too:
http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts2.htm
sailboarder
I was pointed to this https://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php
Evidently a browser based on Chromium (I’m not sure if that’s a developers version of Chrome) with all the privacy issues stripped out.
I have tried it and it seems OK but I use Opera, no idea how private it is but it’s a nice browser to use.
+100 for Opera 🙂
Karlos51
I think it’s just you and me using it. Never known anyone else that does. 🙂
I use both Opera and Firefox as my browsers (mainly the later) at home. stuck with M$ and Chrome at work.
“Video unavailable.”
OOPS! Nevermind…
So, what can you do?
Dump Google. Dump Gmail and searching via Google
But google get so much better results…
Are they better if they are filtering out information the company doesn’t want you to see?
If I am looking up a place to eat, or some technical thing, google is useful. For anything that can be negatively effected by their Marxist ideology? Most certainly not – unless, of course, I want that worldview. Unfortunately, due to the asymmetrical nature of this cultural warfare, the internet is getting less useful by the day. Everything is now corrupted for the sake of generating clicks or affirming one’s feelings.
Depends on what you are looking for. For most ordinary things, Google does just fine. It’s only subjects that they have an ideological oar in the water that Google’s results get skewed. But it’s best to avoid using Google’s products altogether on principle until they change their evil ways (should such a miracle ever happen).
The problem is that in the world view of the left, everything is political.
It may be just a restaurant to you, but if the owner or manager contributes to a Republican, or makes a post critical of the global warming myth …
I found it interesting on my phone Google Now suggests news stories based on my interests. About a year ago, all the sites, including this one, disappeared from the recommended articles. Fox news stayed but all my other conservative and liberal pages were replaced with Huffpo, the Root, the Verge, the Atlantic. For climate, I got Ars Technica, and a few other super leftist sites.
About a week ago Trump complained about the Google search bias – Google summarily said it wasn’t happening – and shockingly next day – Townhall, wattsupwiththat, pjmedia, Brietbart are all on my recommended list again, and the others disappeared! Must of been an algorithm glitch that was mysteriously coincidently fixed the day after Trump complained.
If you believe in Google “glitches,” you may believe in fairies, as well.
Remember that programs are written to automate what the author wants to do, so algorithms work as a really stupid version of the programmers, but faster.
If I had to choose between the two, i’d sooner believe in fairies than Google “glitches”.
This level of bias is usually driven by subjectively curated tables and the algorithm is just searching the tables with massively parallel map reductions.
They probably found and corrected table entries some evil person added because certain sites didn’t fit their political view. While even table updates are subject to code review, whoever reviewed the update probably shared the same politics and/or wasn’t paying close enough attention.
If you believe in Google glitches I have a bridge going cheap…..
Resist the BORG.
like this. 🙂
I’m sure it does much better with self driving cars, when the three cars ahead of you are bouncing off each other, and a fully loaded semi is closing from behind.
So how would the borg handle 10s if thousands of looping gibberish?
once upon a time …
when the net was young…
when bill gates assured us that netscape was pursuing an ephemeral fantasy…
there were lots of free web hosts and free emails and the competition to get clients was fierce.
always looking for attractive new features, the freemails began to offer auto-forwarding.
so you set up 3 accounts on 3 of these autoforwarding servers.
you tell # 1 to forward to #2, # 3 and the list of lawyers and media corporations messing with napster.
you tell # 2 to forward to # 1, #3 and the list…
you tell #3 to forward to #1, #2 and the list…
and you compose an email that says something like ‘howbow dah, you cyberphobic relix!’
and you give your g/f the thrrrrrill of clicking send.
the email fission bomber.
https://web.archive.org/web/20050302235403/http://www.hackology.com:80/programs/mbhttpbf/riaa.shtml
ingenuity trumps autoritay any day.
It is interesting to observe that actual infinite looping of the Alexa and
and Google home.
It can be seen and considered as due to the ability and capability
of the AIs to respond to a feedback loop.
Kinda of a possible path for further learning and expanding,
which if achievable, at some point, may assist these AIs to a gain a
“BORG” status. 🙂
We have got to fight back before it is too late. Facebook and Google are always shadow and outright banning the posts of Climate Realists. My site is routinely blocked in these sites.
The Disrupters get Disrupted; The Hypocrisy of Google Caught on Tape
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2018/09/12/the-disrupters-get-disrupted-the-hypocrisy-of-google-caught-on-tape/
Anti-Trust; Force Opensource Search Algorithms
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2018/09/13/anti-trust-force-opensource-search-algorithms/
The video can be seen here:
The Disrupters get Disrupted; The Hypocrisy of Google Caught on Tape
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2018/09/12/the-disrupters-get-disrupted-the-hypocrisy-of-google-caught-on-tape/
Already dumped Google for DuckDuckGo, but I take your point above and will try Mojeek.
Are there any viable alternatives to YouTube?
Cheers
Roger
Yes, but I can’t remember the name. EM Smith did a bit on them at his web site. Go to “The Chiefio” in the links.
Vimeo, but they’re rather high-end a
Someone recommended a peer-to-peer video sharing site, but it was a cesspool.
There are alternatives to youtube, but that doesn’t put the material that is on youtube on the alternatives. All that would have to be reposted to the alternatives. Problem then becomes at what point does the alternative then get acquired but the owners of youtube? Money talks, morals and ethics always rides in the trunk when the opportunity to “get rich quick” comes along.
I finally checked for myself. It’s called “Peer Tube”. See info on it and other alternatives here:
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2018/07/30/p2p-video-sharing-youtube-alternatives/
I listened to it and found it not as bad as some had portrayed it. Just a company made up of people who firmly believe in globalization and progressivism as the way to go. In fact I discovered more than a couple attempts to be inclusive of other world views or at least some lip service was played, unusual for an internal meeting.
This is a better example, I think: https://www.infowars.com/silent-donation-corporate-emails-reveal-google-executives-efforts-to-turn-out-latino-voters-who-they-thought-would-vote-for-clinton/.
“These people may have certain valuable technical skills, but they aren’t very bright and are unusually lacking in self-awareness.”
If that were true, they would be conservatives. They are not.
well no, it’s the liberals that are for everyone’s rights…but then want to support and send money to countries that kill and torture people for trying to exercise those same rights…
..it’s the liberals that want to save the world from climate change…while giving a free pass to countries that emit much more CO2..and propping them up with even more money
It’s the liberals that condemn conservatives for being violent…and at the same time promote violence against conservatives…they claim it’s the “far” left…no, it’s mainstream democrats and the party platform “resist”…unless Maxine Waters, Pelosi, Clinton, etc are all far left
It’s the liberals that are progressive…and then censor free speach…try to shout people down.and threaten, attack people they don’t agree with
on and on and on……..
There’s no better example of agenda driven selective self-awareness…..
“but they aren’t very bright and are unusually lacking in self-awareness”
I guess you don’t really falsify that statement…but good try.
flattery doesn’t work on me…..
“There’s no better example of agenda driven selective self-awareness…..” than liberals
“agenda driven selective self-awareness” is obviously self-awareness.
for the severely reading challenged….operative word….selective
Speaking of not very bright and lacking in self awareness, RyanS pops up.
RS, our dependable ignorant bigot, stumbles in to prove his consistency.
After reading the original article I coined a new term: “Infantile Intellectualism”. It is related to the familiar saying “….if you’re not a liberal when you’re 20 you have no heart…etc.”
The problem is that these infants are all in one big crib and refuse to talk with anyone except among themselves. And since they all quickly got rich they assume all of their opinions are correct.
The phenomenon I find it hard to fathom, is how do people who achieved sudden wealth via bald capitalism decide that socialist collectivism is a great ideology.
“And since they all quickly got rich they assume all of their opinions are correct.”
I would love to have their opinions, at least if…
So, ReallyCloseMinded, are you really RyanS? Don’t be shy — we already know trolls often post under several monikers to confuse. It’s SOP for card-carrying commies — deception and obfuscation, just like your Gaoggle-gods.
George Daddis
They figure that, come the revolution, their money will grant them a free pass into the socialist/communist financial and political elite where they can do whatever they want whilst accumulating even more wealth from the working class.
There’s no such thing as a poor Party Member in China, N. Korea or even Venezuela. They just pass laws to facilitate their wealth accumulation. In any civilised society it would be called theft, which is why the likes of Google support socialism, they can just pass a law to make themselves even wealthier.
“Lacking in self-awareness”
Here we have a discussion where one of the main points against Google is they insult people they disagree with.
Then ReallySkeptical posts in defence of Google… by insulting people RS disagrees with.
For those not playing at home this is why Lefties are so easy to mock. You accuse them of something and they leap up to defence themselves by doing that exact same something.
Maybe. But known fact: Conservatives tend to not to have self awareness and tend not to challenge accepted ideas. They don’t do well in academia, esp. in science, and apparently Google too. Maybe there are similarities between academia and Google?
[???? .mod]
If conservatives challenge accepted ideas in academia…they get fired
Oh My Gawd, That’s Funny.
“known fact: Conservatives tend to not to have self awareness”
Says your typical jealous and self-serving left-wing moonbat prof?
“and tend not to challenge accepted ideas”
I guess you did not notice that a main feature of WUWT *is* to challenge one “the science is settled” hugely accepted idea.
It must have missed your attention somehow. Total lack of *any*awareness.
Conservatives are the independent free thinkers. It is the leftys who herd up like cattle and sheep and follow the leader.
“They don’t do well in academia, esp. in science”
*speechless*
Wait as second. OK, I can speak again.
Many of our most knowledgeable commenters here have advanced science degrees and evince center-right to right politics. people *you* would call “Right Wing Extremists”.
I suppose you think a hard left progressive so wrapped up in rigid ideology as to be borderline delusional will do well in the physical sciences of Chemistry and Physics. *NOT*
Final Shot:
Your whole slur against conservatives is just the tired old theme of conservatives as ignorant, knuckle-dragging neanderthals. This particular slur has been around since it was launched by leftist college profs during the “counter-culture” movement of the 1960s.
But I guess you are too young to know that.
ROTFLMFAO TonyL” “Conservatives are the independent free thinkers”
..
Do you have a citation for that bit of bovine excrement?
[This was posted by an impostor, not the real Dave Burton -Mod.]
Conservatives are in love with the POTUS who can’t even think let alone talk with a vocabulary more advanced than that of a fifth grader.
[This was posted by an impostor, not the real Dave Burton -Mod.]
Conservatives blindly follow Hanity, Limbaugh, Fox, Inforwars and Breitbart……without question. They all live in the right wing echo chamber.
..
Qanon much?
[This was posted by an impostor, not the real Dave Burton -Mod.]
You cannot “blindly follow Hanity, Limbaugh, Fox, Inforwars and Breitbart……without question”. Fox is mostly mainstream, lamestream, old and tired. Breitbart often contradicts Fox.
It’s not like Dave has ever bothered to actually watch any of the groups or people in his list. He’s just repeating what everyone he knows, knows.
Fascinating. Agrees with equals blindly following.
Once again the leftist demonstrates that projection is the only emotional skill it has ever mastered.
Yes, conservatives love Trump. He’s doing all the right conservative things. What conservative wouldn’t love that? Your opinion of his intelligence doesn’t matter to conservatives.
Dave Burton
“Conservatives are in love with the POTUS who can’t even think let alone talk with a vocabulary more advanced than that of a fifth grader.”
An extremely wealthy man who runs numerous businesses simultaneously, negotiates deals with foreign governments to develop his businesses, and of course you are similarly skilled and wealthy?
Oh wait, your not POTUS are you?
Trump disagrees with you, therefore he’s stupid.
Once again the leftists demonstrates it’s inability to actually think for itself.
“POTUS who can’t even think ”
..as opposed to Obama who couldn’t talk or think without a teleprompter and someone else to write it for him
UH UH UH UH UH UH UH UH UH ……………
or Hillary getting some seizure when she gets tripped up….
Dave Burton? Another false moniker of RyanS/ReallyCloseMinded?
“Do you have a citation for that”
What is the trouble, Dave Burton?
Do you need to see if an academic herd leader has approved the idea before you will accept it?
Hmmmm………
Who said I was looking for an “academic” citation? Got any citation?
..
Please note, pulling something out of your posterior orifice is not considered a “citation.”
[This was posted by an impostor, not the real Dave Burton -Mod.]
As opposed to Dave Burton, who pull everything out of his posterior orifice.
Unlike liberals, conservatives can think for themselves, and do not need a “citation” from any “pee reviewed official literature” and the NYTimes and ABCNNBCBS to determine Truth. Many, in fact, believe that their absolute authority and values come from a Higher Source than “academia”.
RACook – if conservatives can think for themselves and are so smart, why don’t they start successful companies? A high percentage of successful companies of the last 30-40 years have progressive founders – Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Costco. Wait, I forgot Enron – that’s an example of a conservative-founded company. Hahahaha.
Not familiar with reality, are you.
ReallySkeptical Re-read what you wrote, ( Conservatives tend to not to have self awareness and tend not to challenge accepted ideas.) think about it a bit, actually keep thinking about it until you can say oops I was wrong.
You screwed up.
michael
Which are more anti-vaccination? Liberals
Which have a harder time understanding the opposing side’s viewpoint? Liberals
And as you can see this has been scientifically proven. Why do you hate science?
Where is the evidence that any vaccines recommended in any first world country is proven (efficient), safe, or has any use in practical terms?
just go get polio, ok?
Or perhaps you would prefer smallpox. You must be relatively young. Many of us here lived through the polio epidemic, and had friends who did not or were crippled. Anti-vaxers have negative IQs in my book.
There are thousands of studies pointing to the effectiveness of vaccines.
OK, please tell me where there IS polio. Who is exposed to polio.
No, of course you can’t. You are just repeating the propaganda used to brainwashed the uneducated masses.
“simple-touriste September 14, 2018 at 11:29 pm
OK, please tell me where there IS polio. Who is exposed to polio.
No, of course you can’t. You are just repeating the propaganda used to brainwashed the uneducated masses.”
vaccination wiped it out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_poliomyelitis
now, if the vaccine for stupid could get distributed it could be eradicated in our time!
2003
Political and religious leaders of Kano, Zamfara, and Kaduna states in Nigeria bring the immunization campaign to a halt by calling on parents not to allow their children to be immunized. Polio immunization is suspended, thus leading to poliomyelitis outbreak and reinfecting at least other six countries (Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, and Sudan)
simple touriste, are you so hot to see people die for your idiocy?
Vaxxers, proving they are stupid, one at the time.
What the hell is polio and how do you determine whether someone has polio?
(BTW, polio vaccination is known to be a cause of polio and polio outbreak.)
“simple-touriste September 15, 2018 at 9:04 pm
Vaxxers, proving they are stupid, one at the time.
What the hell is polio and how do you determine whether someone has polio?
(BTW, polio vaccination is known to be a cause of polio and polio outbreak.)”
catastrophic logic fail:
it’s the fallacy of the stolen concept.
you accept the premise in order to reject it.
you question the existence polio and simultaneously assert that vaccines cause it
so do you want to wear a dunce cap? because this is how you get sat in the corner wearing a dunce cap.
Polio isn’t well defined. It can be anything according to the needs of the vaxxers. You can’t define polio in a way consistent with your religious mantras.
There are cases of contagious polio caused by vaccines.
https://i.imgur.com/uZC5fF9.mp4
simple-touriste September 16, 2018 at 5:54 am
I suppose that you’re referring to the Cutter lab incident.
Medical researcher Jonas Salk was the first person to create a vaccine against the polio virus. His vaccine was injectionable, trial tested on 1.8 million children. On April 12, 1955 his vaccine was publicly deemed a success.
Unfortunately, Cutter, one of the producing laboratories, accidentally made vaccines which contained traces of a live vaccine instead of dead. As a result of the Cutter vaccine, five children died, 56 developed paralytic polio, hundreds were exposed to the virus and people began to distrust Salk’s vaccine.
My Marine aviator dad contracted polio in Puerto Rico after the war. I was spared the disease by Sabin’s oral vaccine in the ’50s. A wonderful female friend of mine was one of the last polio victims before the Salk and Sabine vaccines ended the scourge in the US.
Kindly compare polio rates before and after vaccination campaigns. Thanks.
Sorry. I meant live virus.
Rather, the liberals at Google and in academia are not smart enough, and are too prejudiced to understand that they ARE themselves more biased and with their own prejudices and lack of awareness, to understand that THEY are the ones segregating THEMSELVES from quality workers and a quality product BY their own segregation from other ideas. They treasure the appearance of race, sex, (the proper approved religions) and clothes and gender, but HATE actual measurements of quality products. They CANNOT TOLERATE a difference of ideas and values. ONLY the values are permitted – the rest? Prohibited! Thus, both treasure the mental restrictions of liberalism and the limitations of bureaucracy and totalitarianism and despots and fear of the government’s guns and police so they REFUSE to go beyond academia and government and Google-like trashy products that require monopolies and subsidies.
ReallySkeptical
“Conservatives tend to not to have self awareness and tend not to challenge accepted ideas.”
That’ll be why most wealthy people are right wing then will it? They support free trade and freedom of speech, both concepts well beyond the intellectual grasp of the left who find it necessary to tell people what they must do rather than having the courage to let them do what they want.
Everything the western world enjoys is the product of free trade, free thinking and freedom of speech, right wing values.
Indeed right wing values are so good that the Communist USSR adopted them. As a functional principle, Communist China has also adopted right wing economic values and now encourages it’s population to engage in free trade with the west (not entirely, but sufficient for this discussion) and enjoy the benefits of individual wealth.
Regression to socialism brings us basket cases such as Venezuela and Zimbabwe. And these are the conditions socialists like you aspire to.
Like most of RS’s known facts, it’s really only opinion. But since all the liberals he knows share that opinion, he actually believes it’s a fact.
It’s a well known fact that if you are known to be a conservative you will never get tenure.
But keep telling yourself that you are the smart ones. It’s so much fun to watch your face when you find out how stupid you really are.
RS brings “I know you are, but what am I” to the debate, and thinks he scored! What a maroon.
The fundamental tenet of political conservatism is that you should not replace an old idea with a new idea until you A) understand what the old idea is actually there for, B) understand what the consequences of removing it are, and C) can demonstrate that the new idea bears a reasonable chance of being better than the old idea.
The fact that the political left has never learned this nor can they describe it accurately suggests there is, in fact, and imbalance here, just not the one you think there is.
P.S. Skepticism denotes a desire to understand how something works before believing it, what you do here bears a much greater resemblance to what they used to call being a “reactionary.”
Conservatism promotes individual freedoms. Democrats/Liberals/Socialists promote the curtailing of the freedoms of individuals.
Conservatives don’t want to run your life, they think you can run your life pretty good all by yourself.
Leftists *do* want to run your life. They think people need to be put under control. For their own good, of course.
Oh my gosh.
Can you say public education?
A few moonbats got it in their head that “Homework doesn’t work” and that is now the mantra for not having homework. I can guarantee one thing; it is true, if the kids don’t do their homework, it does not work.
Apparently, someone forgot to tell the universities (whose professors wrote said studies) that homework doesn’t work because they still seem to expect it.
ReallySkeptical
Defending the indefensible.
But your track record on climate change is the same so should any of us be surprised?
No.
heh- the red flag is in the name.
in the same way the democratic peoples’ republics are democratic, peoples’ and republics.
in the same way don lemon is a straight news reporter…
in the same way the Venzuelan Ministry of Happiness is there to administer happiness…
Its all coming out. Thank God for the Internet, which Google does NOT rule. Proven here.
Not now, but an attempt was made with the FCC proposing the “net neutrality” game, which would have regulated the net as a utility. I recall you are old enough to remember how the FCC did with Ma Bell.
It is interesting that the internet big boys were all in favor of net neutrality.
Must be a government program from Atlas Shrugged.
All programs were given a name that was the opposite of what they would accomplish.
Why? Treating all data packets to/from the same group of clients sent in the same channel with the same tags as having equal priority (whether they represent lolcats or remote medicine) seems fair and logical.
The problem is all data packets aren’t equal. Some are time sensitive, and others have a higher requirement that they be received.
Those who send or receive more data packets put more of a load on the system than do those who send or receive less.
Net neutrality is a belief that you don’t have to pay more just because you are using 10 times the resources that someone else does.
Complete conservative BS – as usual from you.
Net neutrality is exactly what I wrote. What you wrote is random gibberish.
Please describe packets that aren’t time sensitive, that can be delayed without impact. All packets are useless after a delay. All packets “desire” to arrive on time.
The opponents of net neutrality, after being unable to make a cogent argument, now want a regulation of big Web actors. The irony. Conservatives have no ideology.
Yes but the mean well.
“Brin suggests that Trump voters were acting out of “boredom”, which he says has in the past have (sic) been one of the factors giving rise to fascism and communism.”
Anyone so shallow that he thinks boredom was a factor behind either fascism or communism should keep his mouth firmly shut. He’s projecting his own ennui on the likes of Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini. A couple of hours outside the bubble on DuckDuckGo would have alleviated his ignorance of post-WWI Germany, for starters, as long as he didn’t consult the bubblicious Wankerpedia.
My very accomplished son interned at Google between first and second years at HBS. He got an offer to join, and declined, for exactly these reasons. The personal experience stories he told about Google were horrific—just from a summer ‘schmooze’ internship. And worse than these reports. ‘Do no evil’ is an inverse projection of what they do. If they could make a buck selling your soil to the Devil, they would. And you would never know until later.
The devil is NOT getting MY soil!
Another former insider, James Damore, is partially vindicated by this video.
No jocks or prom queens here. They’re all still pissed that they were treated like geeks in school. Natural born leftists.
Yes, and weepy geeks at that. A hug and a cry is what they want. And mommy.
What browser is iPhone using and is there an alternative if necessary?
Apple uses Safari and can’t be replaced as the default.
iPhone is made by Apple, so it uses Apple’s Safari. One alternative browser I use on my Android phone is Firefox Focus, which is available on iOS devices like the iPhone.
At one time, all liberals supported a law suit that objected to Microsoft even including a browser with it’s operating system. A browser that could easily be removed or replaced as the default browser with a simple system setting.
“A browser that could easily be removed”
M$ told it couldn’t (not without major side effects). lol
Anyway the IE story was a complete distraction from the extreme monopoly abuses of M$.
In addition to not using google to search with, we can also modify our hosts file in our computers to stop google analytics and other goggly sites from getting our info and profiting from it.
Good idea.
One could also use a proxy server which would keep Google from identifying you, or you could use StartPage com, which uses Google to do the search, but prevents Google from seeing who is initiating the search. This way, Google doesn’t get any personal information from such searches, and getting personal information is the way they make money.
Be aware that Google Search is embedded in many ‘smart’ TVs as well.
When buying a new TV, I’d suggest one with ROKU or similar over any with embedded Google.
Hmmn what is it they say about the banality of evil.
Google seems to be a model study in groupthink
-Ruth Porat from Google @13:40
“That was the first moment I really felt like we were going to lose”
========================
HotScot
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/07/21/google-big-brother-knows-best/
(#comment-2410231)
I’m pretty certain it’s shareholders are Capitalists, through and through. Capitalist investors are inherently wary of getting involved with political movements, they inevitably fail. To suggest Google is somehow a nest of socialist conspiracy theorists is becoming less credible to me with each article Kip posts.
=======================
HotScot
(#comment-2410261)
Investors in Google are not interested in political imperatives, it restricts their route to profit. Advertisers are not interested in political bias, they sell to anyone. If Google sided with socialism as is frequently maintained, they would likely alienate the vast majority of their devoutly Capitalist investors.
Is there a clandestine management group at the top of Google with a socialist imperative? Hardly likely as Google is well invested in Capitalism and knows what side it’s bread is buttered on. Drive a socialist agenda and Google risks being nationalised, or banned altogether as a subversive influence were socialism to swamp us.
=======================
HotScot
(#comment-2410705)
Roger Knights
Google and the rest are conforming to the laws of the countries they operate in. That’s not political.
=======================
Quod Erat Demonstrandum
“For 20 years, everyone at Google has been able to freely express their opinions at these meetings””
Riiiight. When 99% of the people at the company, including leadership, is vocally on one side of a question, I’m sure that encourages people to voice dissenting opinions. Watch their social credit take a nosedive as they become persona-non-grata. Watch as people wonder if their views are being used against them when deciding which person is preferred for promotion.
The monoculture is designed to drive out dissenters of their own “free will.”
And that is different from the Catholic Church?
What does the Catholic Church have to do with any of this?
ReallySkeptical
you really really need to turn on Brain before operating mouth and typing.
Okay I will give you that one. So are you saying that, ah google has a pedophilia problem?
o mój Boże !
michael
The Church is upfront about what it believes. When you join it you agree to its beliefs. Google isn’t a religion, but from leaks from the company, they are acting like one. You even slightly question ‘doctrine’ and you are out. And they aren’t upfront about what they will or will not tolerate.
And watch RS demonstrate that he has no idea what he’s talking about.
Ah. The Catholic Church – another common enemy of progressives – and one they are currently attempting to take over.
How many that really did that over the 20 years are still there?
“I’m pretty certain it’s shareholders are Capitalists, through and through. Capitalist investors are inherently wary of getting involved with political movements, they inevitably fail. ”
Wow, two very weak assumptions, and from that you conclude that the author must be wrong.
“Advertisers are not interested in political bias”
Easy rebutal.
Nike and Kapearnick.
@Khwarizmi
Uhm, no.
There are only 3 shareholders that matter. The Big Three: Eric, Larry, and Sergei. They have enough voting rights between them to control the company.
Alphabet is a multiple share class company.
The Big Three own Class B shares with 10 votes each. Class A shares (GOOGL) get 1 vote each and Class C shares (GOOG) get no votes. The Class C shares were introduced to keep the Class B shares from getting too many votes via stock splits and acquisitions. According to Investopedia, Class A shares have about 61% of the votes leaving 39% of votes for the Class B shares.
If the Big Three want to sell their Class B shares, they have to convert them to Class A shares first.
If the Big Three are rabid Hillary supporters, Alphabet gets nudged towards supporting Hillary. The Big Three are rich enough that $100 million is a rounding error on their net worth, so they are likely not worried about a little politics knocking a little off of their net worth. If it does, they likely view it as a charitable contribution to the greater good (as taught by their ideology/religion).
One issue with Alphabet and Facebook is that they are not sufficiently profit-driven, even though they are insanely profitable. Instead, they are driven by a destructive ideology. Though of course, they see themselves as being on the side of the angels, but I know better 🙂
Umm, I was quoting the debunked talking points regurgitated by HotScot.
e.g.: “Investors in Google are not interested in political imperatives” – HotScot
Sergey Brin is an immigrant and refugee from Russia
Brin is a legal immigrant.
We like legal immigrants.
We deport illegal immigrants.
SO, that makes it legal to swing the election in the direction HE (or Russia) desires? Like Google did with the latinos – which backfired on them.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/09/memo-google-tried-to-help-hillary-win-by-driving-latino-vote.php
Indeed. This is literally a case of a Russian attempting to change the result of the US election.
For Clinton.
When does the investigation start?
when hell freezes over… Russians investigated only to impeach Trump
Google wonders out loud what they can do to assure better quality of governance and decision making — the answer is to assure that there is NO interference or sorting, of any kind, on any information sought or presented to the ‘internet’ and that free speech is protected by allowing and encouraging ALL views presented to be accessible to anyone searching.
You are wasting your breath, NW. The Google people are true socialist believers. It shows in everything they say.
Their focus now is to try to undo the Trump effect which they consider an aberration.
Knowing the tech game from several directions how do we really know that search engines such as DuckDuckGo or Mojeek do not have leadership and employees that are just as far left. Like teachers and those in climate science the techies come out of the same environments, educated by the same schools, socialized with the same people.
I managed a large agencies tech bureau. I knew of very few conservatives, though we did have some. However they would never, ever let it out among their fellow techies that they were.
Tell that to James Damore.
Leftists make exceptions in their free speech policies for hate speech.
The problem is that they define anything they disagree with as hate speech.
This unexpected event may give Microsoft’s Bing search engine a sufficient user base to become profitable and stay the course vs. Google. Previously they were a half-billion dollare money loser.
Gmail isn’t necessary if one is inside the Apple ecosystem and uses its Mail product.
I have a computer that is practically an antique. Yes, I need to replace it, but so far, nothing I have tried to find on Google, which is preferable to MSN’s absolutely gag-me-with-a-spoon trash, has been blocked for me, nor have I been prevented from finding anything I’m looking for as long as I am very specific about what I want to find.
Hasn’t blocked me from finding WUWT, period. I do know that if you have your own server, they can’t stop you, period.
Don’t use g-mail, despise Microsoft’s desperate greed that puts ads on my non-premium Outlook, and wonder just how much arrogance these bozos will spout before they are sued into the ground for invasion of privacy.
I don’t care what they think of Trump. They can think anything they like. He won. The Dragon Queen didn’t. They can weep and wail all they want to in the outer darkness, but they do NOT own anything but a company that provides a service to people who want to use it – or not.
And for what it’s worth, if they think we’re heading for a Communist government, it’s because they support crap like Antifa and #metoo crap, and all the other social moron platforms that are nothing but a clowder of spoiled brats throwing tantrums. They’ve never lived under Communism. I know people who escaped it to come here and make lives for themselves.
What a bunch of nitwits they are.
If you have an ad blocker you won’t see any ads on Microsoft hotmail.
It’s worse than we thought. Google “EU internet” and see how they are trying to destroy the internet. For example,
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/13/tech-giants-eu-internet-searches-copyright-law
Meanwhile back in the land of Oz, dear old Aunty (ABC) thinks it is more important to tell you what you can and can’t pick up from someone else’s rubbish pile on the side of the road!!
Google Left Bias video … never heard of it!
Over the past decade Google has already completely manipulated the search results. Climate searches absolutely, now news too.
The EU also just voted in the most censorious regulations, in the faux cause of Copyright on top of GDPR, and the fake grass roots case that gave us “The right to be forgotten” that those in power use to have google not return their skulduggery in Google searches inside the EU.
“Populist” is nothing but a new word for Neo fascist.
I want the EU dismantled. I’m a centrist who leans left and right depending on the issues, anti war, pro good fiscal management, for socialist programs, for capitalist wealth generation. Pro conservation/environment, pro resource development and exploitation.
The biggest threat to this wealthy powerful progressive socialist bubble, are not far right types, it is the middle cross section who have reasonable arguments, ideas and commonsense. It’s not the ideas of the far right that expose the lunacy and authoritarianism and dare I say it, the very patriarchal mind set of the progressive left (irony) it is the ideas and logic of the cross section of the political sphere, the moderate right and the center and liberal center left
I’m definitely liberal, and as we seen with Google and Damore, being reasonable and honest, basing your stance on the best facts we have, this will get you called sexist, and even racist.
Google has become a cancer on the internet, along with the other tech giants in silicon valley.
We seen with the living Meme Alex Jones, that the leadership of these companies all work together, and I bet it is not recorded. It’s the same thing we see in Davos, but with tech companies deciding the future of the internet through their own political lens.
There needs to be political and legislative action, a few million people deleting their gmail won’t help, nor will a few million people not using google search.. because those that will make that change, are the very people Google now doesn’t want on their platform anyway.
It is dark times indeed.
Guess who comes up on top when you search for “climate change” on mojeek? WUWT!!!
People vote their wallets.
It’s not rocket science.
The coasts are mad because the flyover states will benefit from a Trump presidency more than they do. There are exceptions to the above rule. When everybody is doing well, they don’t think it will make a difference to their wallets, then they vote their hearts. That’s why the upcoming midterms could go Democrat, though the same pollsters claiming that said Trump would lose in 2016.
Google’d effort’s also include deranking to cause defunding some of our favorite sites as noted here [Thanks Kip!] “Google’s de-ranking efforts, since early June 2018, have resulted in a greater than 30% drop in search engine referrals — about 12,000 views/visitors lost per week. These particular lost referrals mean that new readers don’t arrive at the home page and don’t subsequently click through to one or more posts. Loss of “first-time” readers means a loss of the portion of those that would become regular readers. Lost page views (and some of them lost new visitors) equates to lost ad revenue for WUWT — as revenue erodes, the ability of Anthony Watts to keep WUWT on the web decreases.” https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/07/29/google-and-the-adjustment-of-inconvenient-viewpoints-especially-climate/
I just read / heard somewhere that eight Google employees have just quit over the company’s playing footsie with China.
Google dumped their “don’t be evil” facade a long time ago, probably when they got into bed with Al Gore. Recently they gave up having to constantly justify their questionable actions while prominently displaying their “don’t be evil” facade against what they are actually doing by dumping their “don’t be evil” facade instead.
There are many alternatives to Google. I use Bing and DDG but when I need something they cannot provide I usually find it on StartPage https://www.startpage.com/eng/?#hmb As a rule of thumb, if I cannot find it on StartPage I give up searching because it probably does not exist. As far as I can tell, StartPage is completely unbiased, will return links long-buried by Google, and their returns pages have a much better layout than Google, which has become extremely annoying lately.
startpage is biased. I just did a search on “climate change blog” and no results in the first four pages, with realclimate getting a first page slot.
If they tried to pull this shit in most corporations the ring leaders would be out on their ass . They appear to assume everyone voted for the Clinton . Why would they do that ? What was it a wake where they assume all employees are Democrats or is it a condition of employment ?
Sure looks like anyone that doesn’t play political ball better keep their mouth shut .
Really disappointed .
Freedom afforded by the internet should never be hijacked to preach political preferences to employees .
Sure people are upset when their horse doesn’t come in but that’s why we have elections .
The USA has a growing anti democracy problem . Superpacs and billionaires having way too much sway .
thanks for the tip about Mojeek, never heard of it before. My first question is , if they do not tracking and don’t profile users, how do they fund their business ?
It required some serious investment to build up that kind of hardware infrastructure and pay for the massive bandwidth needed to provide fast response for a global search engine.
Who is funding this service, and why ?
Mojeek is affiliated to eBuyer and other sellers and gets paid when you buy something using their link.
Note to self: Call in sick if/when chartered to move googlers. That much of Bravo-Sierra would exceed any known to mankind Maximum Takeoff Weight…
The theater piece is straight from CCF Frankfurt School – Kulturkampf, replacement of the so called Authoritarian Personality (nuclear family, renaissance view of man) with Eros.
All that group therapy touchy-feely stuff is exactly that. Google is a front for the Council for Cultural Freedom CCF, originally pulled into the new CIA. Just see Adorno’s book.
IFrom the book :”It is here that psychology may play its most important role. Techniques for overcoming resistance, developed mainly in the field of individual psychotherapy, can be improved and adapted for use with groups and even for use on a mass scale.”
…”We need not suppose that appeal to emotion belongs to those who strive in the direction of fas-c-ism, while democratic propaganda must limit itself to reason and restraint. If fear and destructiveness are the major emotional sources of fas-c-ism, Eros belongs mainly to democracy.“
Something else we can do: Press the powers that be to back efforts to break the company up.
“break the company up.”
Just because they hate half of their users? How many big corps now have liberal higher ups who recruit same minded people who hate at least half of the customers? (Or almost of them, as seen in Gamergate.)
While clearly unethical on the part of Google, I file this in the No Big Deal box. Yeah. While I wish that they’d be more fair in their thinking, this is what I expect for certain elements of humanity when the Republican side has won an election. There are a lot of unethical, but expected behaviors when the Democrats win, too.
“There are a lot of unethical, but expected behaviors when the Democrats win, too.”
Please provide examples.
‘Google’. ‘Goebbels’.
I get it now. It’s just the Americanized form of the name – sorta like how ‘Schneider’ became ‘Snider’.
Now it makes sense.
The real danger is people like Brin. They think that if you don’t agree with their world-view, then you are stupid or evil. You are not allowed to have a contrary opinion. And to them, the only solution is to put them in charge of everything, because they are obviously much smarter than the rest of us.
And now Google wants to get rid of URL, the basis of hyperlinks on the Web!!!!
Who do they think they are?
All URL’s point to Google, all roads lead to Rome. Nothing new under the Sun.
What would happen if someone stood up in their meetings and told the arrogant big hats they voted Republican ? Career altering ?
The administrations charged with protection of workers’ health would require Google to fire the persons who suggested that a Republican isn’t evil. The academics would write essays justifying the need to fire any persons who challenge the views of liberals.
Maybe even sue them for “reckless something something” and “causing damages that could be predictable” in term of disturbance, fear (whatever the DSM can concoct as “diagnosis”) because:
“freedom to X isn’t freedom from consequences” (which is codename for your freedoms stop when law academics and “defenders of civil rights” don’t like you)
simple-touriste-
How does your scenario jibe with the fact that the speakers specifically addressed this issue, urging respect for other (conservative/Republican/Trumpist) people and their points of view? Employees had come to managers expressing their discomfort as political minorities, and that was the response.
Many of the speakers talked about listening to the Other and building bridges across partisan lines. They explicitly acknowledged that it was a concern that conservatives felt disenfranchised and marginalized, and something needed to be done about it.
Apparently you didn’t watch the video.
Apparently you believe the worst of liberals. How is that any different from liberals believing the worst of conservatives? You are simply stooping to the same level.
well, kristi, let me name that game.
when a person says ‘i’m not saying you’re an a-hole, but…’ it is the way they say ‘you are an a-hole!’ but leave a way to deny they did it.
i’m sure you understand that thin veil is not really covering up anything.
in fact, it’s a prime example of the ‘mascara moustache’ principle.
it doesn’t make them look fair and impartial.
it only exposes their desire to pretend they are what they are not.
sort of like elizabeth warren does… or maybe rachel donegal – you know, posture children of the progressive ‘wishing makes it so’ sesame street graduates.
gnomish,
“it doesn’t make them look fair and impartial.”
Well, neither does your comment, so why should anyone pretend you are a good judge?
“it only exposes their desire to pretend they are what they are not.”
I don’t know what you think they are pretending.
They are not hiding the fact that they are liberals. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are unfair. To counteract bias, one must first be aware of it and its effects on the way one sees things. You are biased. Do you make any effort to understand liberals or their values – I mean really understand them, not just assume you know what they are? Do you talk to liberals and their values in a respectful conversation, with curiosity and openness? People don’t have to agree with each other to understand each other.
I have learned a lot about conservative values in the last several years, and that has led me to respect them more, even when I don’t agree with them. I’m tired of the animosity and assumptions on both sides. It’s not healthy for the country.
yes, kristi.
i hail from socal, mostly marin co.
so yeah, i know liberals inside out.
i’ve eaten, drunk and slept with them.
but they didn’t try to lie to my face because somehow they know they can’t.
you can’t either but if it’s a habit, you won’t be able to do otherwise.
when you can define the standard of values – then you can begin to make moral evaluations correctly.
as long as you see values as some arbitrary tribal determination, you will miss the boat.
it’s like asking for rights- if you think you have to ask for them, you don’t get the idea.
first define the standard of values for humans.
that will require that you first define human.
can you do that?
because until you are able to do that we really are not on a level playing field and i’m constrained to taunting you for wearing your mom’s high heels
gnomish,
“when you can define the standard of values – then you can begin to make moral evaluations correctly.”
I don’t know what you mean by “standard of values.” Values are different from morals.
” your tribal bonds don’t allow you the presence of mind or self possession to think objectively”
No one thinks objectively.
Your comments about values, morals and tribes are intriguing, but since you are going to get your amusement from mocking me, there’s no point in discussing anything with you.
What are these liberal values?
simple-touriste,
“What are these liberal values?”
Good question. According to Moral Foundation Theory as described by Jonathan Haidt and colleagues, there are 5 main types of “virtues”:
“1. Harm/care: basic concerns for the suffering of others,
including virtues of caring and compassion.
2. Fairness/reciprocity: concerns about unfair treatment,
inequality, and more abstract notions of justice.
3. Ingroup/loyalty: concerns related to obligations of
group membership, such as loyalty, self-sacrifice
and vigilance against betrayal.
4. Authority/respect: concerns related to social order
and the obligations of hierarchical relationships,
such as obedience, respect, and proper role fulfillment.
5. Purity/sanctity: concerns about physical and spiritual
contagion, including virtues of chastity, wholesomeness
and control of desires.”
Based on 100s of 1000s of respondents worldwide, liberals value the first two more highly than conservative and the last three less. Conservatives tend to value them all more or less equally. Furthermore, conservative see “fairness” differently: they value equal opportunity, while liberals value equality of outcome more (thus the “socialist” tendency of many liberals today – especially millenials – though I personally think that term is used pretty loosely.)
In general, it seems to me that liberals are more open to diversity – ethnic, religious, gender identity, etc. They care about minorities and fight for the underdog. I’ve seen research suggesting they are more open to novelty and change, while conservatives are more traditional (no surprise!). Then, of course, there’s big vs. small government and reliance on the free market to achieve social goals. In my experience, it seems that conservatives are more likely to blame social inequality on individual and group characteristics rather than systemic problems – which is one reason equality of opportunity is favored over outcome. (In my opinion, equality of opportunity would be fine if it were realistic, but it’s not. It’s based on an ideal that can’t possibly be met in a capitalist society where wealth is passed from generation to generation, especially one that is prejudiced and highly financially and ethnically segregated.)
From my impression of the video (which is pretty much all I know about the company), the values of Google, though, are not simply liberal. They value providing access to information and ideas, and take pride in the fact that the internet has help alleviate poverty around the world. I never got the impression that they favored *access* to liberal ideas. (This wasn’t discussed, but their experiment with a fact-checking app was ended in response to complaints from conservatives, for example – they recognized it was faulty.) Again and again they talked about the need for liberals and conservatives to converse and better understand each other, and how bad for the country is the partisan divide (one reason so many liberals dislike Trump). One of the main problems is that so many people felt they weren’t being heard. “It’s important to reach out and talk to each other.” They talked about the need to “do better” in this respect. They talked about people being afraid of their visa status under Trump, and even wondered about the possibility of being transferred to Canada.
My impression is that their political work (contributions to candidates, for example) was a separate issue from their product.
I want to add that their comments about boredom were based on research, not opinion.
Well, that’s a start. I want to add that I think liberals have a lot to learn from conservative values. It helps no one but politicians to continue to vilify each other. And it doesn’t help to demonize academia, since that affects what children in conservative families will do. We desperately need more conservatives to attend college and become professors themselves. The intelligentsia are among the first victims under totalitarian regimes; we can’t continue to have the same imbalance, fear and animosity repeated in America.
I love my country. I’m proud of it. We need a new direction built on understanding, cooperation and compromise. Neither socialism nor unregulated free market capitalism are good long-term solutions, in my opinion.
Kristi Silber
To the contrary. NO liberal has EVER criticized, much less fought AGAINST the socialistic governments of Russia-Soviet Union, China, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Czech, Slovenia, Armenia, Mongolia, North Korea, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia who have murdered more than 120 millions of their own citizens the past century. Who have supported without shame the 62 million US taxpayers killed for convenience since 1973, who have fought the terrors of Africa tribal warfare.
No. to the contrary, liberals “claim” to celebrate diversity, but tolerate NO THOUGHTS, NO FEELINGS, no religion, no “reality” other than the ones they approve of; while persecuting without shame anyone who does not think like they demand. Liberals look no further than skin color, than claimed sex, than claimed “acceptable” religions – but claim to celebrate only one direction of “deworsity”. Sorry. I despise them for their hypocrisy.
“urging respect for other (conservative/Republican/Trumpist) people and their points of view”
Not sure what they mean by “respect”.
“Apparently you didn’t watch the video.”
I did not. Why would I? Does it prove that Google tolerates diversity of opinion?
If Google did, they would treat leftist “fact checkers” as the mudslingers they are.
Sergey Brin at 25:58 or so: “Groupthink can be a huge risk.” Yes it can. I watched the whole video, and there you have it.
“boredom”, which he says has in the past have been one of the factors giving rise” to Mai 68, when bored French leftist philosophy and sociology students tried (and utterly failed) to make a united front with the working class against the elites and the backward thinking establishment of that time.
What I hear repeatedly in this video is a desire to listen, learn, and build bridges between people who don’t agree. I hear pride in the way the internet supplies information, thereby helping millions out of poverty. I hear that it was a fair election, and though there is disappointment at the results, there is a recognition that democracy is valuable, and it was working (with the notable exception of Russian influence on the elections). I hear recognition that there are a lot of people (i.e., populist conservatives) who were disenfranchised and felt that they had not been heard, and that this is a problem. I hear about having respect for others, even those who don’t share’s one’s opinions. I hear recognition of the potential for groupthink and confirmation bias to become problems within Google. I hear “We are committed to a free and open internet.”
Ideas like the need for respect, understanding and bridge-building I have heard repeatedly from liberals (individuals and groups), and NEVER from conservatives. Why is this? Why is even liberal virtue disdained as “virtue signaling”? Why is it so impossible to believe that liberals can genuinely desire to do good and be good people? The answer doesn’t depend on what one’s idea of “good” is – that’s a different question. I don’t agree with some conservative values, but I can still recognize that there is reason behind them, and that they reflect a desire for good – there is an ethical and moral basis to them. I believe that it is a fundamental lack of understanding of the basis of other people’s values that is fueling the hatred that is tearing our country apart. It is the denial that the Other could even have values that makes discussion so difficult. The media are partly to blame. So are the leaders of our country who vilify the Other in order to appease supporters and get elected. Hatred is a very powerful force. It is not just a means to an end, though – it has become an end in itself. That is not good for democracy; it can lead to authoritarianism if one side gains too much power.
Certainly, there is bias at Google. Corporation-level bias is hardly surprising these days, especially in Silicon Valley. But bemoaning partisan bias on a site like this one is pretty ironic. For Breitbart to complain about bias in the provision of information is outright laughable. It’s not as if one can’t find conservative views on Google.
Using AI to search for misinformation concerning political candidates is not a cut-and-dried question of freedom of speech when we know that foreign powers are intentionally trying to influence elections. In theory AI is unbiased, but since every site that is found by AI is then vetted by humans, there is the potential for corporate bias in companies like Google and Facebook to be a significant problem. They seem to be aware of this, and to want to focus on real problems for national security.
I have no idea what “conspiracy” there is here. I think people are reading a lot into it that isn’t there. Even the implication that “misinformation” is synonymous with “conservative views” is revealing. Do you all think that lies are solely a conservative strategy? Or is it that you think Russian meddling in the elections was OK? I don’t understand.
I think it’s simply that people see a lot of liberals talking about their values, and the hatred of liberals is so strong that people want to find evil intent there. The title of the post steers you in that direction. I bet a lot of people who commented haven’t even watched the whole video.
Until not that long ago I regarded myself as an almost permanent Democrat supporter so, gritting my teeth, I was able to watch almost all of it. Except for the tearful group hugs, and the bit when that moron at the end stood up to ask a question prefaced with him directly addressing white men and their privilege. I started cringing.
Overall, I would say that the most senior employees at the front did have one or two sensible things to say about things such as their own group-think in a bubble, even going to far as to acknowledge that there were Republican-voting employees who were not “comfortable” admitting it. (I don’t know if this was before James Damore was summarily fired for expressing some scientific opinions that have been uncontested in their fields for many decades, but I would imagine that that resulted in Republican-voting employees feeling a lot worse than just uncomfortable.)
The root problem is that many of the employees (and Hillary voters in general) actually believed too many of the exaggerations, misrepresentations, fake news, and outright lies that have been told about Trump, to the point that they are letting their neuroses frighten them, and their more senior colleagues are having to play agony-aunt and brain care specialist. Ironically, as an information-providing company, Google has contributed to making this problem worse. Never believe your own propaganda is still good advice.
Finally, the people who really should be frightened are the company’s stockholders and investors. I observed a hall full of people who have all forgotten that they officially work for a company, not a charity, church, or political party. At the moment Google has reached that happy position where they can do almost nothing and the money still keeps rolling in, but that is not going to last forever.
They have sown the seeds of their own destruction because every single person in that room does not regard Google as a company that needs to sell products for a profit. They regard Google as a tool to help them achieve their own personal political goals and fantasies. As such they appear to be like a large bunch of wealthy trust-fund students deciding how they are going to fix the world’s problems by sitting around talking about their “values” and giving themselves group hugs. In the Anglo-Saxon vernacular I believe the term is “circle jerk”.
Michael,
“They have sown the seeds of their own destruction because every single person in that room does not regard Google as a company that needs to sell products for a profit. ”
This is your assumption and generalization. In my opinion it’s highly dubious.
” They regard Google as a tool to help them achieve their own personal political goals and fantasies. ”
This isn’t the impression I got at all. I think it’s a good thing when a corporation has values like decreasing poverty and providing materials (laptops) to help educate, rather than just filling the pockets of their shareholders.
As far as political goals, it’s a little ridiculous to single out Google when so many companies contribute to election campaigns.
“The root problem is that many of the employees (and Hillary voters in general) actually believed too many of the exaggerations, misrepresentations, fake news, and outright lies that have been told about Trump” I’m not sure what you’re referring to here, but one could argue that Trump’s words and actions speak for themselves.
“Trump’s words and actions speak for themselves”
You don’t like Trump’s words or Trump’s actions?
Virtue signal is when you defend a cause that is zero cost and accomplishes nothing.
When you “defend” LGBTQI in Calif, when at the same time you do NOT take a position on Islamic teachings and Islamic countries.
When you are against rape and patriarchy and so called rape culture in the universities but dismiss the rape explosion in Sweden as the effect of redefinition of rape, or the attacks in Germany by comparing these to what happened during and after WWII (which one French “feminist” and allegedly a rape victim actually did).
When you are a medical doctor and take a stand against homeopathy but say nothing against vaccines, that’s virtual signaling.
At least say the right thing. Get banned from pretty much every non climate skeptic and non conservative forum on the Internet. Again and again. [Yes, I reserve the absolute right to use a different ID to re-register myself on any forum on a website that is run by a state controlled, tax payer financed entity; that includes any of the (extremely subsidized) French newspapers. I don’t allow these taxpayers financed propagandist the right to ban me for life out of their comment sections, which would be another attack on my free speech rights which do not stop on a “private” corporation that’s subsidized bigly.]
Unfortunately, there are TWO problems and both are real. There were about 1000 employees are the Internet Research Agency in Leningrad preparing Russian propaganda to be spread over the Internet. I’ve personally encountered some of it researching a story about a police raid on the Clinton’s house in Chappaqua disclosed by Trey Gowdy with the exact story title at more than 50 websites, four videos (allegedly 100,000 views) narrated by a computer voice (presumably to hide their Russian accent), and hits from citations by commenters at many of the big conservative website. And I’m sure many remember Podesta’s infamous child sex ring at the Cosmic Pong-Pong Pizzeria. And that Russians organized rallies for Trump and against Hillary that were attended by many and paid for many thousands of Facebook and Twitter ads. Russia Today (RT) posts far more English language videos than any US-based new organization. Russian propaganda reached far more US voters than the two stories (Yahoo News and Mother Jones) based on the Steele Dossier published before the 2016 election. This is all real.
The second problem is that all of the Internet platforms are already censoring in response. They are using the major Internet fact-checker (PolitFact, etc) and Wikipedia to determine what the “truth” is and make it less likely that you will receive “false information”. However, all of the Internet fact checking sites are run by representatives from the liberal press and journalism schools. Europe has passed laws requiring the Internet platforms to censor dubious material. And we certainly know the political biases of the liberal fruits and nut who run Silicon Valley.
Frank,
Why would it matter whether fact-checkers were run by liberals? You seem to be implying that conservatives are more likely to post false information.
I don’t understand how the censoring would rely on fact-checking sites and Wikipedia. The mechanism is primarily through algorithms and AI; presumably they look for particular words and strings of words. Humans then check the results, but I imagine the vast majority of them are pretty straightforward, not requiring a fact-checker.
Truth is not liberal or conservative, so why are you worried?
uh… because they can’t manage to decide which bathroom to use?
cuz they want to tell people what to think, do or say?
cuz you are here to present yourself as the holotype of that subspecies?
gnomish,
“uh… because they can’t manage to decide which bathroom to use?” What’s the relevance here?
“cuz they want to tell people what to think, do or say?”
“Google Video Leak Proves They are Evil” – This whole post is about telling people what to think about this hour-long video.
“cuz you are here to present yourself as the holotype of that subspecies?”
No, I’m not, but that’s not relevant, anyway.
disingenuous, thy name be kristi
because those who reject reality are unfit for survival much less directing the lives of others.
and you know it
but your tribal bonds don’t allow you the presence of mind or self possession to think objectively.
and that’s your pathology, which is, of course, your personal choice and not my problem.
i just like to mock you over it for my own amusement- i have no hopes or expectations beyond that. i really don’t think you can change.
i’ve seen what is required for a liberal apostasy.
perhaps you should watch the Dan Pearl beheading and learn what i know about this.
Kristi asks: “Why would it matter whether fact-checkers were run by liberals? You seem to be implying that conservatives are more likely to post false information.”
There are several reasons to be concerned. The English language can be ambiguous. There are often two or multiple sides to any controversy. When your fact checker is a liberal, that person will instinctively accept the liberal side of the story. All humans are subject to confirmation bias, and it is easy to select a subset of information that supports our preconceived beliefs.
Take statements about climate change, for example. Every liberal recognizes the IPCC’s summaries for policymakers as a definitive scientific source of information. They don’t know that the IPCC was founded by a group of alarmist scientists and that those founders picked their own like-minded successors. So the key scientists who will draft the SPMs for AR6 are at the end product of a self-perpetuating viewpoint stretching back to AR1. They won’t know that these scientists are not writing a “scientific” summary for policymakers with all of the needed caveats that accompany real science – particularly the weaknesses and tune-ability of their AOGCMs. They won’t know that these scientists have chosen to present an artificial consensus that will encourage policymakers to implement reductions on CO2 emissions. These fact-checkers won’t know or bother to learn that every word in the SPM needs to be unanimously agreed upon by a diplomatic representative from every government (behind closed doors, so the press can’t report on the process). meaning that NO controversial subject will ever appear in an SPM.
The psychologist Johnathan Haidt asserts (correctly IMO) that it is almost impossible for us to learn things contradictory to what we already deeply believe. Reading someone else’s arguments isn’t good enough – only a full and open debate is likely to force one to recognize a truth which contradicts a deeply-held belief. To correctly fact-check controversial subject, you need to hear from both sides. The end result of fact-checking almost certainly will represent the liberal biases of the fact-checkers themselves.
(The traditional scientific method begins with a hypothesis or theory that many scientists devise experiments intended to DISPROVE that idea. In theory, this tradition means that science, in theory, has a greater chance of uncovering the truth. Climate “science” on the other hand doesn’t encourage debate between skeptics and supporters of the consensus. With control of the IPCC, the consensus controls what the bulk of the media perceives as truth.)
Then those liberal biases will be used to rank the hits from a Google search about the controversy. Websites that liberal fact-checkers find more reliable on the average will show up in the first 20 hits and websites that liberal fact-checkers find less reliable will show up 10 screens later.
Worst of all, even if the fact checkers get things right far more often than the get things wrong, glaring politically motivated mistakes – which won’t be corrected – are going to be widely publicized by conservatives and conspiracy theorists. The process of fact-checking needs to be as bipartisan as possible to be accepted. I think that it is likely that we will see within five years a search engine for conservatives funded by the Koch Brothers and an alternative to Youtube for posting videos, just like we have Fox News to bring TV News to conservatives.
Frank,
“Every liberal recognizes the IPCC’s summaries for policymakers as a definitive scientific source of information. ”
This is a generalization that is patently untrue. I’m a liberal, and I don’t hold the IPCC as the definitive scientific source of information.
The whole partisan divide over this issue is significant. Liberals trust the general scientific community, conservatives believe most climate scientists have ulterior motives and don’t pursue the truth, even though there is little evidence to support such an assumption (believe me, I’m familiar with the arguments otherwise!).
“They don’t know that the IPCC was founded by a group of alarmist scientists ”
Well, that’s true, speaking only for myself. What group of “alarmist scientists” do you mean?
You make an awful lot of assumptions and generalizations here that simply reflect your own bias.
” To correctly fact-check controversial subject, you need to hear from both sides. ”
But this isn’t about controversial subjects, it’s about misinformation. Lies. Like the lie that the Holocaust didn’t happen, and HRC was running a pedophile ring.
“The traditional scientific method begins with a hypothesis or theory that many scientists devise experiments intended to DISPROVE that idea. In theory, this tradition means that science, in theory, has a greater chance of uncovering the truth. Climate “science” on the other hand doesn’t encourage debate between skeptics and supporters of the consensus. ”
Experiments are not the only way of conducting science. That’s a common fallacy, and my guess is that you aren’t a scientist yourself.
Scientific debate happens all the time, but it happens in the accepted scientific realm of peer-reviewed publications. These allow the debaters opportunity to plumb the literature for arguments (for and against) and offer new evidence. Public debate is usually just theater put on for the public in order to gain political support, since the public can’t be expected to understand the complex arguments that are involved in real scientific debate. They are often interpreted by the public in whatever way is most comfortable to them. The Happer/Karoly debate and Andy May’s interpretation is a case in point.
“To correctly fact-check controversial subject, you need to hear from both sides. The end result of fact-checking almost certainly will represent the liberal biases of the fact-checkers themselves.”
This is your assumption. As Jonathan Haidt knows, the first step to counteracting bias is to be aware of it. You assume that fact-checkers are necessarily going to let their biases decide an argument. I don’t agree. There is ample evidence of fact-checkers deciding liberal statements are wrong – just look up “Obama” on Politifact – over a quarter of the statements there are false, mostly false, or pants-on-fire. I don’t know how it’s determined that Politifact is a liberal organization, or that there is bias in its determinations – do you?
One can have deeply-held beliefs and still be able to do research into what is fact, and what isn’t.
“Then those liberal biases will be used to rank the hits from a Google search about the controversy. Websites that liberal fact-checkers find more reliable on the average will show up in the first 20 hits and websites that liberal fact-checkers find less reliable will show up 10 screens later.”
This isn’t true if the parameters used to determine the reliability of a site are independent of their bias, such as the number of reporters employed (which would favor CNN over Breitbart), or whether a site is a blog (e.g. Real Climate) versus a news organization (Fox News).
Personally, I don’t see any evidence of this, but maybe that’s because I look at both liberal and conservative sites.
“The process of fact-checking needs to be as bipartisan as possible to be accepted.”
I agree completely!
“I think that it is likely that we will see within five years a search engine for conservatives funded by the Koch Brothers and an alternative to Youtube for posting videos, just like we have Fox News to bring TV News to conservatives.”
I hope not! This would just result in further political division, decreased understanding, and a less informed public. Far better would be search engines and news media owned and operated through collaborations between right and left. Something arising from the Heterodox Academy, for instance. The bias in news media is absolutely terrible for our country. I’m appalled by CNN, those very rare times I watch it. I hate TV.
I see no evidence that YouTube is partisan, judging by what shows up on my screen. It takes what I’ve looked at recently into account, and often conservative videos are among them.
Kristi: Thanks for the reply and forcing me to express my thoughts more carefully. Here is the first link without Trump’s name that I randomly chose when searching “fact checking climate change”:
“The most recent survey of climate scientists said about 57 percent don’t agree with the idea that 95 percent of the change in the climate is caused by CO2,” [Santorum] said.
“Santorum’s numbers are not made up, but his claim commits “two orders of mischaracterization,” an expert said. He uses a blog’s flawed analysis of a survey (and misquotes what it’s allegedly disapproving). The survey actually supports the idea of scientific consensus on climate change, its lead author told us.”
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2015/sep/03/fact-checking-claims-climate-change/
Notice that the journalist doesn’t bother to personally look up and cite the survey itself to see if the blog (and Santorum) quoted the survey correctly. He/she instinctively trusts the lead author’s general statement about “a” scientific consensus and uses it to falsify a different specific claim.
In truth, of course, the 95% statement is totally incorrect. Few, if any, real climate scientists should believe that 95% of climate change is caused by CO2. The minor GHGs contribute about 1/3 of the WMGHG forcing and negative aerosol forcing cancels from 1/4 to 3/4 of the positive forcing from WMGHGs. If 43% of those surveyed think CO2 is responsible for 95% of warming, this wasn’t a survey of knowledgeable climate scientists.
This fact checker didn’t bother to fact check. He/She found one authoritative source who didn’t directly address the controversy. Everyone “knows” that Republican politicians and skeptical blogs lie about climate change. One piece of contradictory evidence – no matter how poor or misleading – is enough to confirm what one already believes. This is classic confirmation bias. As Haidt points out, the only way to combat confirmation bias is to HEAR to the best arguments from both sides.
The second claim allegedly fact checked involves a claim that “that 97 percent of scientists believe climate change is man-made”. There is a huge difference between saying an unspecified fraction of climate change is caused by man, the IPCC’s claim that least 50% is caused by man (when 50% will keep warming below 2 degC) and essentially all climate change is caused by man. The fact checker obviously never bothered to contact Professor Tol, the lead author of a chapter on calculating a social cost for carbon, and did not bothered to read his paper criticizing Cook et al’s claim of a 97% consensus.
If fact checkers do not permits mistakes like this to be challenged and settled by listening to arguments from both sides, it isn’t absurd to think their will be a rival Google and YouTube in a few years. There is no doubt that censorship will take place. Many European countries have much weaker protection for freedom of speech than the US and Internet providers are already being held legally liable for false information (on Nazis, for example) spread via their platforms. The first drafts of software tools for censorship already exist. And the uber-liberals in Silicon Valley have already permitted their technology to be used for evil: Russian propaganda, conservative Fake News, and arguably the election of Trump. Public opinion surveys show that the last generation of college students believe that “Do No Evil” is more important than “Freedom of Speech”.
Almost all “fact checking” about serious stuff ends up being “we asked that scientist [insert activist name] and he told us that conservatives are wrong”.
There is simply no checking and no added value. It’s the exact same garbage we already get in the fakestream news.
(Although sometimes the source is not cited and we get un-sourced garbage.)
Kristie: Thanks for the reply and forcing me to improve my rational. I ran a google search for fact check climate change and selected a random entry without Trump’s name:
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/sep/01/rick-santorum/santorum-cites-flawed-climate-change-figure-and-mi/?_ga=1.142037493.65749262.1441221651
A typical fact-checking mess: Santorum says: “”There was a survey done of 1,800 scientists, and 57 percent said they don’t buy off on the idea that CO2 is the knob that’s turning the climate.”
Since Santorum cited the same number of scientists surveyed as in the PBL survey, they have identified the correct survey.
When only 4% of the respondents fail to answer a qualitative question about the principal cause of climate change and 22% fail to answer a quantitative question about about the principle cause of climate change, the missing 18% certainly – or at least arguably – belong in the group who are uncertain how to quantify the contribution to climate change. The fact checker consulted to parties from one side of the issue, no one from the other, and failed to understand the skeptical argument.
Second, the fact checkers and those they consulted substituted the IPCC’s claims about GHGs for Santorum’s claim about CO2. Since only about 2/3 of the forcing from rising GHGs is due to CO2, CO2 is less likely to be the dominant driving force for climate change that all anthropogenic GHGs. This makes Santorum’s claim much more likely to be right AS ACTUALLY STATED than as the fact checker ALLOWED IT TO BE RESTATED by Santorum’s political opponents.
More misdirection: “Second, Kummer only counts scientists who were 95 percent or more confident that greenhouse gases drive climate change, when the actual IPCC statement reports a 90 percent certainty”
What can’t Kummer talk about scientists who are 95% or more confident while AR4 was talking about a 90% confidence intervals AND AR5 was talking about a 95% confidence intervals for MODEL OUTPUT. The IPCCs quantitative statements about the dominant driver of climate changes were derived from the output of AOGCMs. AR4 acknowledged that the IPCC’s models were an “ensemble of opportunity” that didn’t systematically sample all of the parameter space that could have been used to tune AOGCMs. It was improper of the IPCC to abstract confidence intervals from such data in the first place without strong caveats about sampling. About half of scientists – arguably – DO appear to have less confidence than the IPCC’s authors, which does mean that they disagree.
AR5 says that the best estimate for the human component to observed warming is 100%. Given estimates of cooling by aerosols, the GHG contribution should be much greater than 100%; 133% if aerosols only negate 25% of GHG forcing. That could range up to 400% higher if aerosols negate 75% of GHG forcing. On the PBL survey, only about 50% of the respondents said GHGs were responsible for more than 100% of warming OR 75-100% of warming. Looked at from this perspective – maybe this is the wrong perspective – a lot of scientists appear to disagree with the IPCC. However, with ambiguity and poorly worded questions, it is difficult to know the truth.
The fact checker provided a link to the survey itself – hurrah. They provided a link to the blog of a consensus supporter, but not to the blog of a skeptic, which she probably never visited. Instead, she reported after having heard only one side of the story.
If someone is not disturbed by the images related to that Comet ping pong story, I’m disturbed by that person. And if someone thinks that the emails relating to Comet ping pong are not coded language…
If someone think the alleged Buk photo published by Paris Match is legit, he or she or zhe should get his eyes checked.
There are blatant absurdities in many official stories; that is no ideation, that’s fact.
Any true journalist would question officials over those on every single occasion.
This leads to the discussion of press freedom.
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1. Every newspaper may and should represent an opinion – that is freedom of the press. However, this opinion should also be made openly clear.
2. Any other newspaper may and should uphold its own principles – the ideal case of building enlightened free public opinion.
3. Any attempt to manipulate the reader must be rejected, in some cases even sanctioned.
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In MY opinion.
The difference between freedom of expression and sedition:
– I can express my opinion publicly at any time.
– The limit is exceeded when this statement is combined with a call to action: YOU SHOULD, YOU MUST. ..
sedation aka “Volksverhetzung”.
by the way:
very impressive the community spirit of the US in times of need and danger.
You will handle “Florence” too.