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Google vs. Evil
wideangle writes "'The world's biggest, best-loved search engine owes its success to supreme technology and a simple rule: Don't be evil. Now the geek icon is finding that moral compromise is just the cost of doing big business. Take Brin's decision to refuse all alcohol and tobacco advertising. The fact that Google accepts advertising for adult content sites is an intriguing commentary on Brin's morality: Cigarettes and booze are evil; porn is not. It's a policy that would become progressively harder to defend were Google to go public.'"
Alcohol and cigarettes kill people.
Pornography does not.
To be even stranger, the advertisements are usually not even about guns - just the company may happen to also sell parts.
One case comes to mind of an outdoorsman shop wanted to advertise its dehydrated food wares. In addition to hundreds of other outdoors materials, they sold replacement pistol barrels (they did NOT however, sell actual guns)
Google refused the ads on food on the premise of this.
-
Sexual activity is something which life itself comes about because of. Cigarettes and alcohol are (or contain, I should say) chemicals which disintegrate the body's components - with side effects from neurotic addiction to behavioral shifts. I'd say his stance on this is primarily a sound one; although differing opinions will surely arise.
We wave the flag of freedom as we conquer and invade.
Cigarettes and booze are evil; porn is not.
It is pretty hard fact that cigarettes and booze are evil as far as health is concerned. However, porn is evil only as much as ideology / morality flags it as evil.
Personally, I would legalise all kinds of drugs, however the advertising should remain limited.
And yes, call me funny, but I just love to pull my stick and can't possibly see how porn could be evil.
Speaking of Google, Froogle is soon to be released, watch out eBay...
porn is not. We all look at porn, no matter how much you guys deny it. I found my first porn on yahoo when I was 11 years old and I havn't stopped. I don't think I'm too screwed up, or any more so than if I'd never found the porn. How many kids get through there childhood without one of their friends showing them a dirty magazine or something? not too many, its a just a part of life. Porn isn't evil, just like masturbation isn't evil, I think these are outdated views that need to be revised.
What's porn ever done to you personally? If you don't like it, don't look for it. You have every right not to see it, and also not see it. If it was "forced" upon you by some company and their advertising scheme, go ahead and flip out, call a lawyer, whatever.
And if anyone tries to use the "Porn is morally degrading our society... blah blah blah" argument, the same can be said of all general media. I don't think Pokemon and Friends are improving society in any way.
Pornography, i.e. sex, is just part of a normal human biological function. One that the human race depends upon for procreation. Artificial moral rules have made sexual expression in many forms a taboo thing, sadly. We're far too prudish sometimes. Okay, most of the time.
Tobacco and alcohol are drugs. They are physically harmful and can damage your body, or even kill. Simply looking at porn can do no such thing. Any argument equating drugs and pornography is simply rhetorical and nothing more.
..do your own front end to google and filter for all your hearts content. http://www.google.com/apis/
it's fun and geeky to play around too..
the free key allows up to 1000 searches/person per day using googleapi..
i experimented with it to filter out some linkfarm-sht-sites while looking for *cough*roms. happily the same authors linkfarm sites shared quite a bit of content(and linked to eachother of course)..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Not everyone sees porn as "Evil".. that's largely a puritanical American ideal.
"Evil," says Google CEO Eric Schmidt, "is what Sergey says is evil."
With all due respect to Google, Eric Schmidt, and Sergay Brin, that statement almost sounds evil in and of itself.
I don't mean to flame folks here, but what if another company decided that their entire philosophy revolved around what their own CEO thought about things? What if this CEO was raised poorly, and without religion, and generally was a mean, racially prejucided man?
Google is an industry leader in the realm of Web search. They are moving into new technology areas as well, such as image searches, Usenet searches, product searches, directory searches, Web page caching, etc. What happens if Brin one day is the victim of a hate crime by a white person? Will he start blocking Google from indexing predominantly white Web sites such as J. Crew, Kuro5hin, or the New York Islanders home page?
It sounds good at first, but upon deeper exploration you'll see that it's:
a.) Childish
b.) Poorly thought-out
c.) Discriminatory
d.) A disservice to Internet users
I, for one, will no longer visit Google because I simply can't trust them anymore. I urge others to as well. AllTheWeb is nearly catching up to Google anyway, and is at least as good if not better.
1. People who created, run and privately own Google think guns are bad.
2. Google won't advertise guns.
3. Outdoor shops who do a little gun-related bid'ness are enticed to get rid of it.
4. There is one less place to buy parts for things used to kill other people.
5. Google still makes profit, society gets a little more like creators, maintainers and private owners of Google want it to be.
Kudos to them, then, for standing behind their beliefs.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
If it is something you wouldn't do in front of your parents/kids.
Or if it is something that you wouldn't want your children to do.
It's immoral.
The owners can set whatever policies they see fit. It is, of course in their interest to set policies that do not alienate their userbase, and do not drive away advertisers. Given google's past success, it's reasonable to assume these sorts of considerations play into all their business decisions.
Specifically, on the issue of accepting ads for adult content, this is reasonable in the specific case of a search engine and especially in the case of google's AdWords mechanism, because the users who will see the ads for adult content, will only be those who are specifically searching for adult content. Google has been quite successful with their targeted advertising program, which makes it all the more valuable to it's niche advertisers such as adult content providers. So long as the ads are effectively targeted to users who are currently viewing search results containing sited having such content, ads for similar content shouldn't be an issue.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
Who in the heck uses Google to find porn?
Newsgroups and P2P are the geeks porn engines >:)
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
I am still amazed by the north american values that sex and nudity are BAD, and should be kept away from children at any cost, whereas violence is not...
Interesting article nonetheless, and fairly balanced. Seems Brin is using something that's in short supply nowadays - common sense. And there is (surprise surprise) a reference to Slashdot as well. To all those who generally just read the article summary and start posting, do read the article this time - it's fairly long, but it's worth it.
ClutterMe.com - easiest site creation on the Net. Just click and type.
Do I really care? As a private company, it is their choice. It's free to me, so no skin off of my back.
I predict that going public would be the demise of Google as the top search engine anyway, what does it really matter to geeks?
Maybe i'm jsu jaded, but I always thought that evil would always triumph because good is dumb.
"Moderate drinking can help prevent amputated limbs" -- Abigail Zuger, NYTimes, 12/31/02
The fact that the default SafeSearch setting prevents these ads from showing up seems reasonable.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
Over use of tobacco and alcoholic products kill people. General pornography of the mainstream such as playboy does not. However, taken to extreme, organizations as NAMBLA is something of another stinch. While funny portrayed by pieces of paper and whacky voiceovers on Southpark, the organization raises several moral issues regarding its primary goals:
NAMBLA's goal is to end the extreme oppression of men and boys in mutually consensual relationship...
You can search for it on Google and surely enough, it's right there on the top. So what does this say about Sergey Brin? Things that make you go hmmm....
Last time I checked(it's been a few months), Excite would not have advertisements on their site having to do with alcohol and tobacco but gladly had porn adverts on search results(those search results had something to do with porn). So how is what Google doing any different than Excite? Or TV for that matter. You rarely see alcohol ads and never tobacco ads anymore. But go on late night TV and you'll see ads for all sorts of Adult Phone Services and for different Adult Videos. Personally, I think Google is just following the mainstream.
When ever Im looking for health information, im bonbarded with porn ads on google, I think google should have an option to disable porn ads. I remember when google didnt have ads, and it was very clean!
Google isn't successful because it's Google. It's successful because lots and lots of people like what it's doing now, the way it's doing it now. If you change too much of that in the search for profits you'll change the reason people prefer to use it, and they'll go somewhere else that does do what they prefer. And there goes the very source of your success and revenue: the users you attract.
If you want to invest in a successful company but think it needs to be changed significantly, ask yourself why you aren't investing in a successful company that already works the way you think it should. If that's because all the companies that work the way you think they should aren't successful, maybe it's what you think that should change, not what the successful company is.
I don't really care what advertising they choose to accept, because ads on Google are clearly identified as such. If they choose to lose income by not accepting advertising for certain products, that's their business. I'm much more concerned about the search results started being tainted by either paid placements or Scientology-style censorship.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Every /needs to stop watching Spongbob with the kids....
Villian
Is
Lemons?
If your going to say porn should be censored because it makes you feel funny, then I'm going to say you need to be censored because you make me feel funny.
Oh wait, it doesn't work that way? Oh perhaps we shouldn't censor pornography then.
After all pornography is just pictures of people having sex. It's not like they are killing themselves or getting wasted.
I live in a giant bucket.
There are two groups of people in this world when it comes to morals.
One group "gets" their morality from "God". They say all morals are determined by a supreme omnipotent being, and without him, there is no morality. In other words, you cannot be a moral person without God.
A second group of people (the group that the Google guys likely belong to) believe that morals are simply unwritten rules that govern interactions between people. If there was only one person on the planet, there would be no need for morality. Their morality is usually determined by reason and logic. For instance, it's wrong to kill people (most of the time) because a society with rampant murder has less ability to advance than a society with no murder.
Many morals overlap with laws, but that does not mean that all morals should be made into laws. Murder is both usually immoral and illegal, but cutting in a line is immoral and not illegal.
The reason not all morals should be laws is simple. Those people who belong to group #1 have morals that have no basis in logic or reason, and their sole support is a being for which they have no evidence exists, and have no support that the "moral" indeed came from this being. In other words, the 1st Amendment protects us from this... Thanks Founding Fathers!
If you belong to group #2, it's hard to come up with a reason that porn is immoral. For porn to be immoral there must be something immoral with sex... I suppose one could argue that rampant sex could spread disease and hurt a society in the long run... but I don't really see how that applies to porn.
The Reagan administration told the NSF to do a study on how porn hurts kids. After 4 years of research, the panel told the administration that it is not porn that hurts children, it is our societies illogical, irrational, and puritanical views on sex that hurts kids. Just as there is little alcoholism in countries where wine is served to children and it becomes a normal part of life, there would be no harm to children if sex was not so taboo. Oh, by the way, Reagan threw the study out and commissioned a PRIEST to redo it. Not surprisingly, the Priest said porn hurts kids... and his "study" took less than a month.
In summary, it is quite easy to defend group #2's "scientific morality"... while it is certainly not as absolute as group #1's, as it needs to change as new evidence appears, it is far more likely to be the right thing to do.
That's a ridiculous account of morality-- don't you think there is a distinction between private and public behaviour? I wouldn't have sex in front of my parents/kids, and I certainly would not want my children to have sex either. Does that mean all sex is immoral?
Only a religious fanatic of the worst type would believe that. The point is, what happens between consensual adults may not be proper for children, but that is *no yardstick for morality*.
Thats crazy how strict google is about gun ads. The local computer store here in Utah gives you a $100 discount for having a concealed weapons permit, hahah. www.totallyawesome.com Super Dell is a gun nutter.
My wife is a pornography addict, (...) I plan on writing a letter to Sergey Brin at Google and encouraging him to stop linking to demeaning, relationship-ruining pornography.
Are you real?
My wife is a pornography addict, always buying a new DVD when we travel and she sees a new shop of adult toys. We don't really make love anymore, it's just sex.
Can I have her email address?
Isn't it time for us to come down our moral high horse and take refreshed look at what/who we are demonizing in our 'modern' culture? Things are so topsy-turfy especially in the U.S. media landscape one can't help but be bewildered sometimes. Violence is mostly okay - how many times there are guns being fired at people during PG-13 rated TV shows? Some blood may flow, but if some bimbo reveals one of her private parts, then we file it under 'dirty' and it'll get cut. What's the big deal about exposing the human body in its original form? Obviously sex is a daily routine on our planet which has allowed us to grow our population to over 6 billion (despite countless wars and numerous forms of genocite). Little kids grow up among many negative influences including but not limited to: beatings, lying cheating, verbal abuse, agression, road rage, Duke Nukem, Super Mario Bros. etc.. Why in the world is sex and nudity labelled as 'dirty'? It's time to relinquish those antiquated religious artifacts and enter the 21st century.
True but like drugs porn can be addictive and does have psychological effects that ruin personal interaction skills. The issue with porn is not that it is wrong per se but like alchol which I also do not see as wrong or marajuna(sp) people who over use do have a serious issue, but thankfully these are not physical addictions which is why they are not as bad as smoking or guns which actually do harm people. I think what they are doing is commendable
My g/f and I look at pr0n all the time, and it's improved our sex life.
;)
Maybe the reason you're having so many problems is that you're just bad in the sack?
The Free desktop that Just Works
It's not hard to figure out his reasoning here. Cigs and Booze are choices that people make at the ages of 18 and 21 respectively. Both can hurt you immensely (cancer anyone?).
Now, porn on the other hand, isn't a choice made at a certain age. Sex is a part of life. And while it can hurt you (STDs, Early Age Pregnancy, Child Support, etc.), it's not likely going to kill you. Sex is part of human instinct. Every species on the planet is born with the intuition to further itself through breeding. The only reason sex is considered "evil" in the mainstream is because of Religious Zealots who want you to think it's a sin.
It looks like it's just a case of choosing the lesser of two evils. If Google were to go public, I'd buy, porn or no porn. It'd just be a sound investment. I'm a big user of Google, as many other people are, I'm sure (well, those who change their default search from MSN to Google, anyway).
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
Ha ha ha
No, that's not pornography's fault; that just means your wife thinks you're ugly, and is trying to get away from you as soon as possible.
She probably doesn't love you either.
I have depended quite a bit on google for a while. They have succeeded so far in not being evil for the most part.
But a good search engine is such a fundamental part of the infrastructure of the internet- is it really wise to continue to depend on a company that makes no promises that tomorrow they won't start charging $100/month subscription to their service and patent-attack any competitors who get too successful?
Clearly my example, although possible, is far fetched. But I feel good using Gnu-Linux because RMS, Linus and others have promised, via the GPL, not to take it away. Can/should google or one of its competitors make a similar promise?
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Actually, masturbation can be used to learn to prevent premature ejaculation. The theory is that you can learn when the "Point of No Return" is by experimentation on yourself, so that when you are about to reach it with a partner, you can pull back (or out, for that matter) and wait it out.
There was a study done on this (no link, STFW), and of course, *cough* my own experimentation *cough*.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Yours is one of the most open, revealing, and personal comments I've ever seen on Slashdot. I wish you the best of luck with your relationship.
Sounds like you and your wife should see a therapist to discuss your feelings.
Of course a great proportion of guns will never kill anyone! But they were made to kill people!
Unlike cars...
They refuse to help selling things that were MADE TO KILL PEOPLE! It's a philosophical thing, see?
I don't care what Google will or will not advertise; it's Google's site, it's Google's decision.
(Myself, I wouldn't advertise sugary children's cereals, although I enjoy Sugar-Bombs, booze, smokes, and tasteful images of goats getting it on.)
I would care if Google were censoring or slanting search results.
(Yes, I'm aware they've removed certain links after being compelled by law suit; as i understand, Google's results also make it clear when that's happened.)
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
There was a tendency, fueled by Wall Street and those idiots on "Squawk Box", to claim that growth without profits was an end in itself. After the dot-com debacle, and the collapses of Enron and WorldCom, that's over. Investors now want to see profits.
Remember, it's tired old Wired that published the article. They were cheerleaders of the dot-com boom and all its stupidities. And they're the people whose IPO failed. Twice. Wired isn't even a magazine with real content any more; it's more like a Sharper Image catalog, full of huge "articles" advertising consumer products.
You're calling for a Google boycott with the only base of your own wild extrapolation. Google is only refusing some advertising, not turning into some kind of censorware. To this day Google has not given the slightest indication that they will do something so grave as deliberately omitting sites from their index because of their ideology. Your reaction is ridiculous and exaggerated.
The example of your wife is irrelevant because, as you admit, she has a mental disease (addiction).
People can get addicted to TV or the Internet as well, with very negative consequences, but that doesn't mean they are evil does it?
...Now I feel old. My first porn required the use of a 2400bps modem, a local BBS, and a pilfered (or fraudulent) login and password.
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
Funny, they are a big company who has done well in a country with a constitution. I would say is a violation of civil rights and a spit in the eye of uncle sam to deny gun merchants the rights they afford to pornographers.
You can say, Google is racist and violates civil rights if they dont hire say black people. But if they did the same to Gun owners, it wouldnt be a problem.
Notice the last US election? Any poltical candidate who didnt get endorsed by the NRA has no chance of winning. Check the stats.
You cant have amendments 1,4 and 5 and then say, oh, 2, thats a crock of shit.
And in different countries laws are different I live in the uk, and gun laws are much tighter, yet the legal ages for sex , cigeretes and alcohol are lower than the usa. Since google is international it has to keep to the lowest common denomonator, and that means some restrictions on advertisments.
YHBT. SteweyGriffin == ekrout == e r i c, and a bunch of other accounts as well. Manipulative bastard deluxe.
Cigarettes and alcohol are bad (not stoppable though, so quit trying), but porn isn't harmless. The attitude of previous posts reminds of people who honestly believe pot is harmless.
1) Do you really think the women in porn want to be there (if you do, you're trapped in the fantasy you live while looking at porn)? They either came from abusive/neglect families, or have been pushed into it. NOT GOOD.
2) Looking at a lot of porn *can* change a person's view of women and sexuality. This is one of the worste aspects of porn, please don't pretend it doesn't happen or that you are above that.
There is this (Milton Friedman I believe) argument that public companies must only do the most profitable thing for their investors.
More and more as companies grow from small to large, they must sacrifice the moral visions of their founders and early years to always take on the next most profitable venture.
Paraphrased, "It is better for investors to give their money to the charity of their choice than for a company to do that for them."
Screw long term environmental projects and the better return and new (and better?) opportunities for the company. Go for the short term payoff. Screw long term employee productivity and how that can add to the bottom line. Go for hard working, miserable, short term employees. Go for CEO to avg wage ratios of over 400.
When Sergey Brin says no to meta-tags in 1999, that is controversial but visionary. When Sergey Brin says no to cigarette ads, that is controversial and offensive to the free market.
And we wonder how the CEO/CFO/board became so disconnected and downright corrupt?
It's Milton Friedman and this chain of logic, that begins by saying that public companies should have no morals other than make the most money in the quickest time.
Scr*w you Milt and your Nob Hill apartment.
Thank you Sergey Brin, and even, thank you Bill Gates (tenuous reach?): for creating companies that have definite personalities, and definite moral stances (though you and I may not agree with all of them.)
Actually I do. Its great for looking up erotic fiction. Just do a search in the main engine with "site:asstr.org" as part of the query and have a ball. Then you can goto groups and look it up by doing "group:" and the group you want to search in.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
My statement excludes Japanese porn, of course. I don't mind watching an attractive and nimble Asian lady take it from behind while partially wearing a Catholic school girl's uniform, I just hate the part when the octopus demon slithers on screen and takes a dump on her forehead. There is something very wrong with that.
Even though your post is an obvious troll, I will reply anyways because it is a Sunday morning and I've got nothing better to do. ;)
At any rate, pornography is the -middleman- here. It, like any inanimate object, is not inherently responsible for how people decide to use/misuse it. This is essentially the same as saying that the Internet is bad because P2P has wrecked the music business.
Like the music business, you need to learn how to adapt to these changes, rather than coming online to gripe about them in hopes that you'll find symathizers for your poor, wretched life. Ever watched porn with your spouse? I bet not. I bet you'd find the idea embarassing and repulsive. And I bet that's the exact sentiment and emotional circumstance that would drive your wife to look at porn.
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
Google, as a privately owned company has as much right to hold an opinion as I do. While I might not agree with every decision (and I don't) they've ever made, I applaud that they have the courage to do so. If more companies had the courage of their convictions, the corporate landscape would have a lot less festering swamps, in my opinion, and maybe we'd have had a couple less Enrons.
It's also worth pointing out that they understand that their decisions implicate a world stage. Google isn't a mom and pop store on mainstreet, small town USA. They have a large chunk of the world looking at them, and understand that with that power, comes responsibility. I don't see any evidence that they have used that power irresponsably yet.
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
Here, repeat after me:
1. You have the right to keep and bear arms.
2. Nobody has to help you do so, Google included.
Porn takes away all the pleasure of making love, so I think Google probably should censor pornography as well. It has just as bad an effect on one's life as tobacco and firearms do.
My wife is a pornography addict, always buying a new DVD when we travel and she sees a new shop of adult toys. We don't really make love anymore, it's just sex. There's no tenderness and everything is over so fast that I feel used.
Are you being sarcastic?
The world can be wrong today for once.
Searched the web for evil.
Results 1 - 10 of about 10,400,000.
Search took 0.10 seconds.
A message from the system administrator: 'I've upped my priority. Now up yours.'
It can't be stopped. Moderators are truely idiots. You have posted almost non-stop for three days karma whoring, google trolling (whoever came up with that term should be commended) and baiting like crazy and continue to be modded up, no matter what. You've probably been capped by now. I don't know if you've bribed an editor or what, but man...
So, this is my last time (other ACs feel free) - hey everyone, SteweyGriffin is none other than ekrout, a known troll who often contradicts his own statements in the same thread, whores fans to have a large pool of moderators who see him at a +? score, trolls and will undoubtedly sweep the trollback for the weekend (links under his other posts can be found, including his post that proudly shows his reply and moderation amounts - look here you fools (wow - never noticed that the sid for trolltalk was 31337... that's funny). Stop modding him up. Or don't, I don't care anymore. Color me impressed, I surrender.
"Man, I don't even know anymore..."
The Free desktop that Just Works
Seems this is the first serious reply to your post so far.. So hope it is taken with more seriousness than the previous ones.
While i aggree in part with your post, there are things that just seem wrong from the way you projected your opinions.
Porn can be bad if it is used as a teacher.
Porn itself is not bad.
For example, porn as a teacher is bad for, among other reasons:
* It teaches that women arnt beautiful unless they have D +breast and/or implants, and that they need to shave their public hair to be attractive.
Both of those are quailitys i personally hate, and feel a woman should do to her body what SHE wants, not what she feels everyone else wants.
* It teaches that sex is over once the man has an oragasm, and that female oragams isnt importaint at all.
* It teaches that foreplay is only used as preperation for intercourse, not as a source of pleasure or as a equal part of love making.
* It teaches that you must be limited in the sexual acts you can do, namley only the things done in porn, and nothing else is OK.
So if a person learns about sex from porn, and nothing else, of _course_ they will be a horible lover.
Being a good lover requires learning about your partner, what they like, what they dont like, and responding to their needs while at the same time they are doing the same to you.
My question to you is, did you try to teach your wife yourself how to be a good lover as well?
If not, then its no wonder she is how she is, and you have no room to complain about it. TEACH HER!
If so, then I would question your teaching methods, your communication with her, or possibly her love (Read: concern) about you.
I have met women who were horible lovers, but I did my best to teach them otherwise, and in most cases did so very well.
But dont blame porn for teaching poor love making anymore than you should blame the internet or TV for being a poor babysitter.
That isnt what they are for at all. But that doesnt mean they dont have good uses and still have a place in the world.
But keep in mind that your wife is a tiny, tiny minority. People also get addicted to shopping, video games, you name it. You can't just start censoring everything that a few people get unhealthily addicted to. Just because your wife has a problem (or maybe you just don't do it for her?), doesn't mean that millions of sexually healthy people should also be deprived of porn. Most sex therapists say that porn in completely healthy and normal for most relationships.
And if you read the article, it's not about just ads. It's about dealing with other issues that pop up while running most popular search site.
Like complying with DMCA:
"When Google gets a request to remove a link under the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA Section 512, it substitutes a link to a form on the Chilling Effects' site. The form contains the Web address of the page in question, and anyone still interested in the site can direct their browser to the address."
You don't want google to start running popups to pay for all law suits that people will file based on DMCA, do you?
There are other examples in this article...
"Evil," says Google CEO Eric Schmidt, "is what Sergey says is evil."
/. poster ONOIML8, is censorship. Be it by government, religious cult group, or privately held company in the "information technology" business.
Evil, says
Yes, you may quote me on that.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
Sex in front of my parents?
....
Not as bad as my parents having sex in front of me
-kgj
Pokemon and friends promote a better social framework than the one generally prevalent in American society.
The slide into corporate prostitution was inevitable, but I think you have to give Google props for at least trying to hold out this long. Think about it. Most businesses their size don't give a fig about morality, and have no problem with saying so. At least Google seems to be trying.
My site: Free Nature Pictures
Good and Evil were just a construct of human consciousness. Silly me.
They're a product of search engine ad revenues. Well, now I get it.
Does Google have a book out? It seems level headed and fairly moral. I wouldn't mind reading its other philisophical treaties.
Keep your packets off my GNU/Girlfriend!
He regards optimizers the way a mother grizzly might regard a hunter jabbing at her cub with a stick.
He sounds like he means it!
My site: Free Nature Pictures
Just look at what you can achieve with power, and look at what you can achieve without it.
Um, maybe if you TALKED to your wife about your sex life things might get bettter. If she is SO addicted to porn, that means she at least is very open sexually and you could have a very honest talk (if you're willing to open up to) about your lovemaking. Voice your thoughts to her. Feeling "used is ridiculous. She's your wife for goodness sakes! You're not like some sorority girl who got banged and dropped after a frat party.
Caffeine Good
"Cigarettes and booze are evil; porn is not"
Cigarettes and booze kill, porn is just the depiction of the beautiful human body engaged in sex. This is a hard concept for most Americans to grasp, being a puritanical society itself.
If you don't like it, and think it's morally questionable, well then use another search engine. Going public and having 100,000 puritanical American stockholders imposing their victorian views might not be the best thing you know.
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
... that porn is not addictive? (that's what we call a rhetorical question. it's nature of not requiring an answer, handily, shall save my humor from replies by non-addicted pr0n-viewers) I say it's right up there with nicotine and alcohol, for an alcoholic.
And what about the false representation of lifestyle? Just like cig. ads would like you to think it's all good when your life is a smoking life, pr0n doesn't show it's viewers the gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia and herpes infections (or at least I've managed to stay away from the fetish work that does) one would be likely to get if they actually went around f&sck'ing like the monthly std-checked pr0n stars do.
Seems like Google's going down the slippery, KY-lubricated slope of morality.
Drinking and smoking and watching porn -- at the same time -- whoa! Sin city!
-kgj
Ok, just to clarify, google is talking about ad space. they still list everything. So..big deal you don't have joe camel trying to cram 100 cigs in your mouth. You also don't have a bunch of advertisements for that new assault rifle that all high school kids must have. And budweiser isn't further destroying our population with ads for its shitty beer. Maybe the porn sites advertised have been checked for quality ? :) hehe
Some people insist on making isssues out of everything. It's real simple: Google is a privately held company, they can do whatever the hell they want. If Google wants to link only to websites about left-handed redheaded stepchildren who like square dancing, it's Google's perogative and there isn't a whole lot that everyone else can do except bitch and bawl (which it sounds like we have that in spades) or use a different search engine. The sense of entitlement of some people really astounds me.
Case closed.
Yes, and most religions do glorify it. I myself (with three weeks of experience) have to say it is one of the most enjoyable things ever, and it is so stupid of those certain religions to turn it into a taboo in the first place. I don't want to wait until I die to be happy. Ergo, I enjoy life now. Right now I am happy, happier than ever before. I urge others to abolish religious taboos and just be happy. If religion does make you happy, then stay with that.
I just hate the part when the octopus demon slithers on screen and takes a dump on her forehead. There is something very wrong with that.
It wouldn't sell if someone doesn't buy it. And therefore it would not be produced. Some people just like that stuff and would gladly pay to see it. I don't, you don't, many others don't, but isn't the freedom of speech manifested in allowing others to see/hear both what you like, and what you don't like.
Gods are fragile things; they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense.
-- Chapman Cohen
As anyone who has read "His Dark Materials" by Phillip Pullman knows very well.
I've been thinking about this for a while myself. I have a hard time using Google because it is based on keeping non-free software. Its functionality is derived from the fact that it has roughly 100 top secret algorithms that make it hard for people to boost themselves unduly in page ratings. Its profit model is based on the fact that nobody else has access to this technology.
Personally, that pisses me off. Security through obscurity doesn't work, so I don't have any high hopes here. And I can't agree with forcing the rest of the world to reinvent the wheel if they wanna make a search engine. Non-free software blows.
For a community moderated search engine (really a directory, check it out for more info), visit www.dmoz.org
About the comments that porn doesn't kill, I might note that guns don't kill either -- if you are on the trigger end. Porn is made by exploiting women and kids. Any activity you can't engage in without hurting or degrading another human being is evil. Period.
Porn does not cause direct harm to the watcher's body; you can't kill yourself from an overdose of porn; porn depicts a natural human behavior that has healthful side effects; porn can save troubled relationships and bring friends closer.
Now, compare this to the list of pros and cons for cigarettes. Or alcohol.
Clearly, porn is not evil. You may find it distasteful, but there is a huge difference between distasteful and evil.
I guess that means you are against Autos too, they are involved in accidents kill far more people then guns each year.
..
Oh, and bricks too.. they also are used to kill people.
And just to clarify incase you are too dense, an object doesn't kill anyone. Never has and never will..
I've never seen a gun jump out of a box, load itself, then kill someone, or a brick fly off a pile and mash someone in the head several times.. it was the HUMAN that was the offending party in the activity.. NOT the gun/car/brick/etc. and the activity is already illegal as a side note..
And personally I'm sick and tired of people who continue to push such a ludicrous concept that an imamate object of any kind is bad, just to restrict the rights of responsible people. It's the irresponsible people that need to be regulated and punished, not the rock.
Now of course, you have a right to be an idiot.. That's your right, and ill never stop you from being one, but ill be dammed if I will allow your misconceptions and agendas to effect me and my responsible life..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This really is a good article to view the problems that ethics cause in business. It summarizes a lot on the subject in a brief way.
It's really hard to do good business without pissing somebody off, and they seem to have done remarkably well for the most part. Good for them!
It's also a shame that they're being blasted for being a kind of search engine monopoly. The reason google is so great is almost completely algorithmic, and people are still upset about it. As far as I can tell, they aren't using any monopolistic practices, which separates them drastically from entities like Microsoft.
For instance, Aristotle based a logically consistant ethics on the idea of, basically, doing what an ideal "good person" would do. Has some problems defining the ideal, but is nonetheless based on logic.
My personal favorite is Kant, who says,
Act on that maxim which you can consistently will become universal law.
Now, Kant is nothing if not logical, one of the most rigorous philosophers ever. However, note the similarity of the above statement to Jesus' golden rule, "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Kant just extends and refines this idea, but doesn't change its essence. So maybe logical and religious morality are not so radically opposed as you make out. Now, if you believe in God (or the Entity Formerly Known as God, as I recently heard someone call Him, I love that, it's perfect), this makes perfect sense, because of course God's logic would have to be perfect, so his morality would have to be perfectly logical.
And yes, I know that religion is notoriously illogical, but that's people being illogical, not God.
My site: Free Nature Pictures
Why can I now read the stories posted on /. weeks earlier in paper form? Isn't the point of digital news, that is should be faster than print? I read this story early last week in my magazine subscription, delivered by snail mail.
Well...atleast I will be able to read it again next week when it is duped.
Sigh,
Scott
I think Brin should stick to his guns, figuratively speaking. Not only is there a moral problem in compromising what you believe to be important moral principles, it's easy to see what's happening to Google as a product as a result.
Don't become a regular here, you will become retarded. -- Yoda the Retard
whose is the occupying army in the US then?
IMHO, most people do not base their decision on morals, but rather derive their morals to justify past decisions. You do what you feel is right at the time and then, if your actions are challeneged, either by others or your own consciousness, you try to justify them.
I don't quite understand why people are upset over how google acted in the cases of scientology and China. I must admit I like that the link goes to a page which arguably not only provides the site, but wakes up people to how slimey those people are. That's an elegant solution. As for China, they altered their hardware, not googles. Google didn't do anything. It is not google's job to fight China on internet freedom. That is not their purpose. China has to resolve that issue itself - not wanting links visible is just a symptom of the larger problem.
People, companies are not set up to fight ideological wars, no matter how justified. They are supposed to produce good products and market them fairly. They should adhere to standards about what type of characters they deal with and how their workers are treated to avoid being guilty of crimes themselves, but it is not their job to reform foreign governments or support political revolutions. They control their conduct, not others conduct. If China wants to block google that is China's business. If people don't want China to do that then raise the issue directly and fight, but don't try to use google as a way to sneak things in under the radar. They aren't a weapon in this battle, they are just a company doing their job, and it is not in their interest to invite conflict over ideological issues. So far the result has been quite impressive technically, and while I believe they should have made Europe do the filtering on their servers it's understandable that they don't want to antagonize their customers. Don't make google out to be something it's not. If you want to fight oppression than form or join a group for that purpose - that's not what business is for. They should not support the practice, but it is not their job to be activists.
Geez sounds like a dream come true. Tie her up and break out the whips and chains!!!!!!!!! Then order her not to see porn anymore!!!!
It's just Linux. If you want to get pedantic and start including parts into the name you can't just stop at GNU. There's what, 15 or so major pieces with different licenses or identities not GNU? It'll be like one of those ridiculously long Mexican or Italian names.
Well, maybe not depending on how long ago "back then" was. But in today's climate, "protect the children" is nothing but an excuse for sex hysteria. In a world where children are arrested for consentual sex play with other children (man, the things they could have arrested me for in 5th grade...), teenagers are arrested for making kiddy porn after videotaping consentual (and legal!) sex they have with their girlfriends (sorry, couldn't find a link), and parents are being arrested for making kiddy porn after photographing their kids in the bath, you would definitely have been fscked if anyone had caught you with preteen porn.
Last time I checked, porn didn't cause serious health problems (not counting unhealthy dependence, but then slashdot would be just as dangerous to many!) :)
It's also unlikely that anyone would use porn to kill someone (or go hunting).
While one may or may not agree with the ethical scale that google uses, I cannot do anything but admire someone who has values and lives by then instead of throwing them out the window for the Green God at the first opportunity.
And, for the record, I smoke, I drink occasionaly, I hunt, and I don't patronize porn sites.
-- MG
Most of the posts I have read so far seem to believe that porn is not evil, basically because it does not harm or kill.
I think that view is based on taking into consideration only the "viewer" side of porn.
I tend to think that porn is evil/wrong/harmful basically if looked at from the point of view of people who are forced (sometimes with brute physical force, but often with force and power of money) in "performing" it.
How many of us would like a couple of dildos/dicks stuffed into all of our holes, and cum showering our faces? On top of that these so-called actors are supposed show that they like and enjoy it.
The degradation meted out not only on children but also adults in pornography (which is different from eroticism) is worse than being killed, because it kills one again and again for the rest of ones life.
That some people enjoy seeing all that and are not killed watching pornography is perhaps a less relevant point.
The comment about the pressures of big business changing your moral landscape are only half correct. As a business gets larger, it also has the proportionately larger opportunity to use the morals of it's leaders to influence society.
Take Walmart and the conservative executives of that company. We have all read about how Walmart now sells 25% of the software in this country, and how the ability to grant or deny access to that market is impacting game makers. Special "Walmart" versions of games with reduced blood and gore are the standard there.
Big companies are learning to leverage the power of their markets for social purposes, and that concerns me more than the selection of porn over guns.
By the by, anyone have any numbers on whether the porn business is bigger than the gun industry?
It's about how morals are not scalable, and how running a company based on the case by case analysis of right vs. wrong becomes very difficult when you are bound by variuos legislative and political bodies that may not have very moral laws, lobby groups that most certainly are not moral, and users that don't want to be f'd with.
So: With all due respect - READ THE FUCKING ARTILE
even tho it's quite long!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
When seen in terms of one thing -- through the filter of a decision about corporate versus non-corporate culture -- the decision is more consistant.
Granted, Google is a corporation but nowhere near the scope of those which run the alcohol and tobacco industries. Those -- plus the top ten media/entertainment corporations -- have immense sway on our political and cultural existence. Tobacco executives dictate to U.S. Congressmen, alcohol boards ("The Moderation Council") set legislation.
Porn, on the other hand, is a bunch of possibly exploitative, greedy and/or sleazy folk (but some decent, nice and fair people, too) -- however, none can be reasonably characterized as influential corporations.
Of course, I'm not guessing at Brin's motivations. But this is one way of looking at the decision that makes it rather justifiable.
You should be aware that porn is produced for various audiences. For example, much of your complaint seems to be against the male-targeted porn. Exagerated female sex characteristics and a focus on male sexual response is clearly targeting the male audience. This male-targeted porn does dominate the market.
However, there is a steadily growing library of porn produced (often by women) for the women's perspective and also porn produced for a couples audience. So while your criticism rings true for the overwhelming majority of porn produced, it is (thankfully) no longer true of all porn.
There is a certain sect of investors and big business types that do not care what the user thinks. If the bottom line can be improved to the point of extreme profits for a while while gutting the company values, so be it. Those investors can always jump ship when appropriate and glom onto another startup company that looks good.
This is why I generally detest big business, they do not look out for the users, even though they say they do. It's a two-faced lie.
-FlynnMP3
I disagree with their decision, but it's their decision to make -- not mine.
Google is a private company. They can make whatever assinite decisions they want to make. If they wanted to, they should be able to only hire white people over 6 feet ball with goatees. Their decision.
Is it absurd? Yes. Is it something Google should be prevented from doing? No.
They don't like guns, alcohol, and tobacco. Fine. It's their right not to have those kinds of ads on their site, or allow ads from companies which also make guns or gun parts. They like porn, so they put up ads for that.
I disagree, however, with someone elses characterization that geeks like porn. Geeks like free porn. I don't think most geeks -- especially the paranoid kind -- like porn you have to pay for with credit card, or porn that says its "free" but wants your credit-card number just to "make sure you're 21". I agree with that. I'm not going to pay for porn. I can find it for free using google images or news-groups; if I look hard enough, I can even find a few free porn websites. I also don't like porno-advertising pop-ups or banners, so I block them with my hosts. It'll be a cold day in hell before I pay $20/month to get something online that I could look at in real life for free.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Fast-food restaurants take away all the pleasure of a fine meal, so I think Google probably should censor junk food establishments as well. They have just as bad an effect on one's life as tobacco and firearms do.
My wife is a fast-food addict, always buying hamburgers and tacos when we travel and she sees a new fast-food restaurant. We really don't eat dinner any more, it's just food. There's no presentation or subtlety and everything is so high in fat that I just feel bloated and disgusted.
Fast food makes "quick meals" even worse by focusing on certain ingredients. People who've been on a steady diet of junk food often want to get right to the fat, starch, and salt they crave most, which leaves me wondering "What the fuck happened to the home-cooked meal?"
While there can be other physical or psychological causes of eating junk food, the drive-through window is a major cause of "learned" junk food eating. Junk food is designed to stimulate the appetite. Because fast food is usually a hurry-up job, eaten in just 5-10 minutes, people learn to get their meals over with very quickly. This is another reason why fast food is bad.
Shortened mealtime? Excessive fat and salt? Are these the tools of a great chef?
I plan on writing a letter to Sergey Brin at Google and encouraging him to stop linking to demeaning, nutrition-ruining junk food.
How many ads for cigarettes and booze do you typically see online? Not that many compared to the amount you see for porn. You can't transmit alcohol and smokes over data connections, and most people are too impatient to wait for their liquor to be FedExed. Probably google would lose a lot more revenue by ditching porn ads than they have for cigs/alcohol.
My havn't you gotten soft in a couple of days, because you were not very fond of "addicts" in this reply.
From what I can understand of the way Google has been acting lately, it seems that they are acting on a maxim like this: "if you don't like someone's content or the content of the sites they link to, you should do everything you can to reduce their online presence."
Does Google want to be held to this maxim? Hell no!
The article talks about how Google was hit with a "PR0 penalty" by China because China disagreed with the content of the sites Google links to. Google didn't like this one bit, and moved quickly to correct the situation. So I think that, at least by the standards of Jesus and Kant, Google isn't doing that great of a job of being moral. They are employing a double standard, one they themselves don't want to be held to.
So how about this for a maxim instead: "you should act in such a way as to help the user find what they are looking for, regardless of whether you happen to disagree with it." I think Google could live with that standard being applied to them, and I think the internet would be a better place if all search engines were held to it, so I think it stands up to Kant's test.
My site: Free Nature Pictures
Because masturbation is usually a hurry-up job, a woman learns to bring herself to ejaculation very quickly.
Now if only porn could teach me to bring a woman to ejaculation very quickly, I'd be some sort geek superhero. Until then though, I'll have to stick to having my face in the forest for 15-30 minutes.
One misguided poster wrote about how his wife was addicted and how he was a bit physically premature. Things go faster but it isn't physical speed. In fact, I'd say that self-exploration is healthy and can increase physical stamina and let you try things out in the relative safety of your mind before asking a woman (to the women and fags on /., get over the semantics and don't tell me about your "special" man, someone or animal.)
The speed--and the damaging of interpersonal skills-- manifests itself in the form moving too quickly. I don't think it changes your personality or even your appeal. It is the emotional speed that basically makes a woman reconsider someone who was otherwise really cool if you waited a bit longer.
Like most geeks here, I've done my share of porn watching and used my skills to get the highest quality stuff out there but there is a real point where it moves from healthy to problematic. I'm happy and chilling without it anywhere near me. When I viewed it, there would be a mild undercurrent of neurotic jumpiness--a definite impatience with how fast things got done or moved in any sort of way. The social effects are very subtle... the kind of ambiguous "something's different" feeling. Not unlike cocaine's effects.
I don't like things that get me wired up and I'm definitely not down with destroying my ability to be mellow or romantic. Leaving porn isn't easy and probably won't be to most people here but it's kind of critical for society to *choose* not to view the stuff. My rationale is based solely on my interpretation of its side effects--not religion, politics or a politically correct agenda.
Porn has real damaging consequences. Luckily, as pointed out earlier, it has no physical consequences and can be eliminated with a bit of philosophical conviction on how a life should proceed.
Laws are for people with no friends.
I've been waiting for this topic for a long time!
Things which are weak
Silly String
Little Girls
Good
Things which are strong
Steel
The forces binding nuclei together
Evil
I don't see how I can make it clearer than that.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
* It teaches that sex is over once the man has an oragasm, and that female oragams isnt importaint at all.
Uh... the former part of this statement is just a fact I'm afraid - very few men are fit for anything afterwards. It's an unfortunate biological fact, not a choice.
And I'd say that female orgasms are just disappointingly rare in porn. Which is a pity really.
Accepting ads for Scientology seems like helping Evil.
...and pain and unhappiness.
And a morality based on reducing harm and pain (and encouraging its opposites) is neither based on arbitrary precepts like religious morality nor on the cold scientific rationalization of the "scientific" morality.
Of course, it can get complicated as there can be different views on measuring harm, where to draw the line when some are harmed but many benefit, etc, etc, but no one said life was simple. (Er, other than many religious people.)
And the seems that system simply makes the most sense, and it's the system most people use, where they realize it or not.
And by that standard, there are many possible reasons to condemn porn as immoral; two that come to mind are (a) kids who grow up watching porn becoming sexually disfunctional in some way, and (b) workers in the porn industry (particularly the young) being abused and having their lives fucked up by doing it. Now, I don't know if there's evidence to support either of those (I kind of doubt it), but those would be acceptable reasons, I would think, if they were proven true.
And they have nothing to do with religion - or with some sort of obscure 'best for society' rule - it's just freakin' common sense and common decency (and *not* in the politician's sense of the word). If something's going to make people hurt or sad without a significant enough upside in countering hurt and sadness in other people, it should be considered wrong.
Of course, as I said, life is complicated, and people could argue for hours exactly how many people need to be harmed by the porn industry before it counters whatever benefits it provides (and outweighs the negative effects of enforcing some sort of ban).
Every now and then the usual anti-/pro- gun discussion pops up on Slashdot.
:-)
Each time, over and over again, people try to convince eachother.
I'm starting to believe this is utterly useless, the two camps just don't seem to switch their believes over the arguments posted here.
I myself posted quite a bit of anti-gun entries in here. Each time, over and over again, the arguments stay the same.
It's starting to feel useless.
But than again, I guess it's good to keep on talking about it, cause maybe... someday... people will see what I think I see.
It's all about thinking people, just start thinking and don't quit thinking for quite a while and try to think about the other side, aspecially even try to defend the other side (by yerself). If you quit early, you're stuck at a conclusion that could be too simple... just think about it.
Try to forget what everyone else told you about the subject, this is very important cause we all have a tendency of following public opinion (notice the vicious circle).
The big picture, that's what I'm referring to.
*sigh*
Advertising always shows the positive sides of the product not the negative. How many car ads show graphic automobile accidents? How many show people changing tires in the rain?
My girlfriend quit smoking and drinking the day she found out she was pregnant. If she didn't, I'd be getting spammed with "She's evil, make her stop" and stuff. Now, if I had nude pics of my pregnant girlfriend, I'd be spammed with "Where's the pics at??"
Excellent observation. Too bad the army of day traders couldn't care less about how the company does, only how many days they have to hold it to turn a profit.
As for the "real" investors, I wonder how many of them even bother to see past the numbers on the SEC filing or their broker's reports, or if they just say "Hm, most popular search engine. Thats cool" and toss their money at it without actually looking to see where those numbers came from. Have you looked at yahoo's stock pages? I bet not a single article there is on the morality of any company, or even how they make money. They're all about "new product, buy stock!" or "might declare bankruptcy, sell!"
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
It doesn't matter what you think. It doesn't matter if they deny ads for guns, for booze, for lesbians, for other search engines, for the Scientologist. They're a private business, and they charge you no money. There is no consideration involved between a transaction between you and them. They can do what they want. If they want to replace all their search results with a page that says "fuck you!", that's perfectly fine.
Nobody's ever gotten all "porned" up and gotten behind the wheel of a car and killed someone else.
As long as you are a law abiding responsible adult ( the requirments i set forth in the eariler post ) i dont see why not.
If you are neither, then no, you should not even be allowed to drive...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
When I was a kid (10 years old) I put a hell of a lot of effort into finding "kiddie porn" of other 10 year olds, I've kind of always liked girls my own age I guess. I used to think that 18 year olds were disgusting. I never really thought of it as being wrong. Most of the stuff I found was 10+ year old girls naked, although some of it was them having sex with older guys, I guess that was wrong. As I got older, it became less of an issue, I'm 20 now and I'm fine with legal porn.
I didn't say that any of these addictions were any more ridiculous than the other. The video game thing is still ridiculous. I just said that it's not up to that guy to decide what's bad and not bad for people. That's like saying "A lot of people die in cars. They shouldn't be advertised". That's just stupid.
Read my previous post again if you like.. responsible adults, that abide by the law, should not be restricted access to anything beacuse of POTENTIAL wrong uses.. peroid.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Are you a gort? Do you believe that nothing that is so, is so? Of course everything is backwards where cigarettes are shown in all films, marketed towards children, and generally accepted in society. Whereas pronography is taboo, never shown to children, and socially shunned. Remember folks, nothing that is so is so. For a good lesson in this, go surf over to GortBusters.org for the daily news and forums on this subject.
I'm a chemist, not an investment banker, so sorry if this is naive...
Why does Google HAVE to IPO? Why can't they stay privately held forever? Sure, they would get tons of money, but tons of money doesn't seem to be their prime motivtion here. It's not like they are hurting for cash now, right? So why is an eventual IPO a forgone conclusion?
You know, you might have a point here, especially regarding porn changing a person's view of women and sexuality. I didn't look at any hard-core porn before I came to college, but it was easily available here (LAN), and so I started to. And I do find that my attitudes did start to change a little - which is why I stopped watching it. I try to think of myself as a good man, you see, and I don't want to be like my roomate, who yells with rage when his porn sites are altered and whose first thought on meeting a woman tends to be "I wonder what she'd look like in her panties?" or "I bet her [expletive] is really nice". He watches a lot of porn, a huge amount, and I don't know whether this is what did that, or the drugs, or whether he's just a f--ked-up individual - but I try to hold myself to a higher standard. I'm not saying porn should be outlawed or regulated, or that it's anywhere near as harmful as booze or tobacco - but it is *not* entirely benign, and I'm glad someone mentioned that.
I'm the stranger...posting to
Five years is a lifetime on the net. In that amount of time I would certainly expect P2P to have matured to the point that distributed search would have almost completely displaced Google and the rest of the central SE's. In fact, I'd bet a bundle on it (i.e. good or evil, I'd still short Google if went public (after the initial pump of course)).
Like it or not, decentralized communication will continue to advance and empower the individual, despite corporate and government agendas to keep their centralized economic/power structures in place and the wool over our eyes...
--
Power to the Peaceful
..but the bastards that incensantly keep sending me the latest 'fisting' daily pic and other such shit definately are...
You American's should try sex more often !
then you would see it not that bad
There was a curious point in the article, with respect to a lawsuit versus Google. The idea presented was simple: as Google (currently, right now) provides an effective monopoly on a fundamental service of the net, it could be considered a public utility. I can begin to see how this argument could be persuasive, depending on the outcome of the next five years.
Without better understanding of the long-term implications of search engines and the legaly responsibilities such bodies have to their users and corresponding linked pages, it remains unclear whether any one service will ever truly take over for an extended period of time these services. Still, the hardware, software, and more general technical knowhow and intuition required to make Google what it is today is hard to duplicate. Furthermore, the combination of extensive searching, effective sorting, and caching means that Google is rapidly becoming the generalized equivlant of the preprint server xxx.lanl.gov, something the physics community now takes for granted and indeed, treats like a public utility.
When we come to rely upon Google to back up slashdotted servers and find any particular thing on the web, and have no effective alternatives for all of these, then it behoves us to treat it as a utility. There are certain egalitarian principles behind public utilities that are supportive of the general idea of "doing good", e.g. the gas company is required to provide heating service in certain neighborhoods during the winter, even to non-paying clients.
I think we would do well to consider the ways in which the public good can be served through such a company, allowing the effective merger of both the companies money-making prerequistes and the necessity of that company's service. Maybe that could provide an alternative solution to the "either we make money and sell our morals, or vice versa" problem Google seems to be facing.
I think the reasoning behind google's decision is actually quite logical. Porn is legal and makes up a massive share of the web economy. Ciggarrettes and Alcohol while legal, have many restrictions placed on them as to where they can be sold and who can sell them. Because each state taxes ciggarrettes differently (that is why a pack in VA costs about 2 bucks and a pack in NY costs 6 bucks.) Alcohol is the same way. Many states have laws that make it a crime to ship alcohol into the state without a special license. The same can go for ciggarretes which in many states it is illegal to bring more than 2 cartons or so into the state. Bringing more is considered a form of tax evasion or smuggling. Since websites offer to sell booze and smokes at the cheapest prices available, chances are that ordering from these sites is possibly illegal for a large portion of US customers. In addition there are significant and ever changing advertising restrictions on booze and smokes that google would have to comply with or face stiff fines. Its a problem they are better off avoiding.
1 - God knows what it good.
2 - Whatever god says by definition is good.
3 - "God is Good". God and "Good" are not necessarily external enitities. "Good" is an adjective used by many Christians to describe "God" and, in that context, also can mean "righteous" and "holy".
I.e. if god commanded you to kill rape torture and steal, as he did in the Old testament then that would be moral and good.
Okay, this is going a bit over the top, don't you think? Have you actually read the The Old Testament? I have read it twice in toto and have read numerous passages throughout the course of my life. God did command the Israelites at various times to make war against their neighbors and to take their lands but I do not remember him EVER commanding them to either rape or torture. In fact, this would seem to contradict with much of Jewish law (The Law of Moses) which Jews took very seriously since strict obedience to the Law, fulfillment of prescribed sacrifices for the redemption of their sins, etc. were the path laid before them for salvation.
In most cases, from what I remember (and it has been awhile since I studied the Old Testament) the Israelites were generally forbidden from marrying outside of themselves so that they would not become "tainted" by other beliefs or begin worshipping their Gods. The books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy (I think) lay out the Law of Moses wherein I think sex outside of marriage is sinful (could be wrong on that one but I'm pretty sure I'm not). This would put the blame back on the Israelites and not God...if he was not supposed to marry outside of the Israelites and he was not supposed to have sex with someone who was not his wife any rape would clearly be sinful (unless God commanded him to do it; which I think you'll be hard to prove -- you sound like you are extrapolating e.g. if the Israelites made war on their neighbors AND the Israelites took their lands AND the Israelites said God commanded them do it THEN any rapes that were committed were commanded by God.)
On the issue of the Israelites warring (killing) with their neighbors and taking (stealing) their lands, I think that an argument can be made (if you believe in God -- which you apparently don't but bear with me anyways) that the Israelites were used by God as a tool against wickedness. If God sent the Israelites in to possess the lands of their neighbors, it is quite possible that those neighbors were guilty of great immorality and were then being punished by God. Is this a bit hard to swallow...yeah, I admit that it might be if you do not believe or trust in God...but if you do believe in God, it can also be viewed as giving good things to those who are good (for the most part -- after all, we all make mistakes) and taking good things (i.e. punishing) those who are not. From another point of view, part of God's description is "righteousness" which, in part, means that he follows through on his word. If he calls something a Sin and you commit that Sin, the penalty for that Sin must be paid. In The Old Testament, Sins were atoned for in blood -- blood sacrifices usually but death of the sinner in some cases (murder and rape being two that I can think of -- and keep in mind that "killing" in the context of war is not necessarily "murder" nor is killing to fulfill the penalty of law -- obviously, opinions on this topic will vary).
This brings us to a need to reconcile the seeming contradiction between The Law of Moses and The New Testament of Christ. In Christ's Sermon on the Mount he told the Jewish Pharisees that he had come to fulfill The Law not to abolish it ("Not one jot nor one tittle..."). To fulfill the law he had to pay the penalty for breaking the law (i.e. the point of a law is not fulfilled until the penalty prescribed by that law has been paid). The only way to fulfill the law, therefore, was for him to die upon the Cross -- to shed his blood. His death enabled us to live under God's Grace where any of us could be redeemed from our Sins by trusting in God because CHRIST ALREADY PAID THE PRICE and not by sacrificing doves and lambs on an alter or being strictly obedient to The Law of Moses (though, obviously, it should be our intention to follow prescribed laws).
If you've got Biblical references to where God commands the Israelites to rape and torture, I really would be interested in seeing them. If you don't...
Your 10 commandments also contains such silly rules as "Do not have other Gods before me". This violates freedom of religion. Something I for one think is a good thing.
Yeah, except that both "Freedom of/from Religion" and religion itself are Man-made things and we are talking about God and morality here. It is an unfortunate reality that Man has done a lot of harm in the name of both religion and God...but don't ever forget that the two are not synonymous. Just because Man makes up a new ritual or commits some atrocity in the name of religion does not mean that God either condoned it or was part of it -- Men have free wills; just because they make bad decisions with how they choose to exercise that will does not mean that God had anything to do with it. To bring it way back on topic: its an issue of personal responsibility -- when Man works evil in the name of God, he hurts not only himself but he also hurts the name of God. His actions have ramifications on others. Consider also: if I kill someone and say you told me to do it -- even if I believe it is true -- does it mean that you did? No, of course it doesn't. Same situation. Just because someone claims to come in the name of God does not mean it is so -- heck, The Bible even warns us about this very occurrence saying that many will come in the name of God but that God is not with them (New Testament -- I'd have to look up the specific verses for you if you are interested). The only way to know the difference is to be familiar with The Bible -- if the person is acting in a manner contrary to The Word of God, it is not likely that God is with him .
There is nothing preventing you from choosing to follow whatever god you want to or practicing whatever religion you choose to...The Ten Commandments are for Jews and Christians. If you are neither, they really have no meaning for you and I can understand your point. They are not, however, silly.
codemonkey
I don't want stock. I want a search engine. Anything that preserves that is a Good Thing. As soon as you have shareholders to answer to, you're ideas are owned.
yer so k3wl, trolling on /. . can i be you? i'm getting a medical degree by mail so the lobotomy will be easy.
for morons modding him up, you can disable adult content in your prefs. god, when with the gov't start protecting adults and the internet FROM kids?!?!?!
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
Abusing anything is bad for you, but drinking for example a glass of wine a day is actually good for you. The vast majority of us(over 25) drink responsibly and WON'T have health problems from alcohol. So I don't know where your getting this stance from, but its wrong from a health point of view. Also its certainly wrong from a philosophical point of view to call an inanimate object like alcohol evil.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Take Brin's decision to refuse all alcohol and tobacco advertising. The fact that Google accepts advertising for adult content sites is an intriguing commentary on Brin's morality: Cigarettes and booze are evil; porn is not. It's a policy that would become progressively harder to defend were Google to go public.
Cigarettes and alcohol harm and often kill people (more so the innocent bystanders than the abusers). Porn does neither. Do you want me to draw you a picture?
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
And why not say that what is commonly referred to as porn is actually, in a Biblical sense, the (ultimate?) celebration of the body we were given?
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
While this isn't exactly eBay, this may give PriceWatch and Cnet a run for their money.
What's cool is that it snags stuff whenever it crawls. But I wonder if only updates every 28 days; if so, that may be a bit too infrequent for finding real gems. Of course sites can still explicitly submit new price information.
I like the name too. "Froogle" == frugal. Ha!
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Sex is a natural part of life.
Needing foreign chemicals from plants in order to have a good time and/or feel good is not only unnatural, it is fucking pathetic.
I do not care much what happens to Google as a web search engine, but I am worried about what will happen to the USENET archives. I wish there was a public domain archive/repository.
Larry
But quite honestly, OSS people don't spend on... well... anything. Definitely not porn. They're what we call in the industry "leeches".
I think you mean we don't pay for anything we can otherwise get by without with or for free. Just because we aren't foaming at the mouth to drop $400 for the next release of Photoshop so we can color balance our digital photos doesn't mean we don't pay for other stuff.
Subscriptions to industry journals, CrossOver Office, video games, etc. You just need to give us a good reason.
There are some porn sites that OSS geeks would pay for because they have something unique to offer, which is often a community base atmosphere that is otherwise lacking in your typical site leech repro-run on the alt.binaries newsgroups.
But you're typical pay me $20 a month for my dinky collection of a few thousand images and movies that I didn't even produce myself deal doesn't fly.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
The reason these two commission disagreed was largly to do with what they were studying. Pornography changed drastically between 1970 and 1986. In 1970 full frontal nudity was a rarity while in 1986 close-ups of anatomy were common and visible penetration could be found in hard-core magazines at adult stores. The 1970 commission was also railed on for failing to research violent pornography. By 1996 this research hole was filled and the findings were that it led to agression against women (in laboratory test conditions) and the acceptance of the rape myth that women secretly want it.
Later in 1986, a Surgeon General's Workshop on Pornography and Public Health met and found that "pronography does stimulate attitudes and behavior that lead to gravely negative consequences for individuals and society."
Since 1986 numerous meta-studies has supported the Surgeon General findings too. A 1994 meta-study titled "A Systematic Review of the Effects of Aggressive and Nonagressive Pornography" included 81 original studies, a 1995 meta-study "A Meta-ananysis Summerizing the Effects of Pornography" included 33 original studies, another 1995 study "Exposure to Pornography and Acceptance of Rape Myths" included 24 orignial studies all support that violent and non-violent pornography increase the likelihood of rape, sexual callousness, violence, and violent attitudes towards women. Even stepping outside the US, a study in 1989 by the Canadian government comes to the same conclusion, saying that after viewing pornography men were twice as likely to rape women after viewing pornography.
In 1989 "Pornography: Research Advances and Policy Considerations," by Zillerman and Bryant, found that over a period of time viewing pornography are "at a greater risk of becoming callous" towards women.
In "Pornography's Effects on Adults and Children" Dr. Victor Cline of the University of Utah delineates four phases of pornography addiction: addiction, escalation, desensitization, and acting out.
Since mainstream pornography has become more hard-core the preponderence of evidence is that it does adversely effect our behavior.
[This has been taken from excepts from an article that I am currently writing for Kuro5hin.org, but it will not be done for a few months, until I have some more time to spend at the library.]
Good point. Also, according to Deuteronomy, swearing at your parents must be punished by stoning to death. I call on all good christians to stand up and kill Eminem, and pretty much all teenagers. On second thoughts, nah don't.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Here's a bunch of wine for your wedding party, but don't drink it, for that would be immoral! Doesn't make much sense.
Not to mention the Last Supper (although according to some, what he gave to them to drink was no longer wine...)
And then there are those of us that have mozilla equiped with bannerblind and didn't even know google had advertisements.
Smokes and booze give me naughty thoughts. Porn doesn't. Go figure o.0
Defender of Microsoft and Communism!!!
Why stop there? And what's so wrong with it anyway? It's not like they actually tortured her and killed her though that would be nice too.
The more you see, the more you'll want to see. In time you will be able to see anything. So like a good boy, run along and go become a man.
but cutting in a line is immoral and not illegal.
Except in Singapore and themeparks operated by Disney.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Google after taking a pre-emptive DMCA safe harbour:
The cached pages are not as extensive
The amount of fruft listed in google is going up
It's acuracy stinks
As compared to when it was not as infamous:
95% acuracy, excelent cache system
Sources listed were reputible
On religous systems re:porn
Pornography is a morrale at best questionable
Remember when these statements in the bible were writen when pubs and bars were nitorious for having certain rules NO ONE broke not even the Kings, Religoun has NEVER killed anyone, not a single person. People have done things in the name of: Muhamud of Isreal, Christ and Jesus of Elazerith, Buhda of Tibet and Kiyototo, but that was not the religoun killing people that was people doing things in the name of their beliefs that did
In fact religoun has united people more often then not, ever see a live TV enanglist show? Read history books on the Knights of King arthor? Paladins?
In terms of google: It's in decay, it's quality is going down it's acuracy stinks on extreme subjects: Kid friendly and some tainted subjects are not acurate at all, this is the first sign of decay
As far as Tabaco killing people: Good high quality tabaco does not, how ever can and does reduce your immunal eficancy, now mind you the OTHERitems in cigerats WILL kill you and will definatly lead directly to emphasima a VD and other fun deseases
Wine in moderation will not kill yo, a small does of wine is safe
That's right a small swig of redwine is perfectly safe
The amount of wine taken in modern times is about 4x that of what was consumed when alcohal was at a peek.
There was recently an ad for a job with google
on the East Coast for a software engineer to
interact with a big "corporate" customer.
One of the requirements was high security
clearance. You can guess who the customer was and
make your own judgement.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
You're nuts. There's a damned good reason they didn't IPO.
Their earnings/search aren't even close to their competitors.
Private companies are the only ones allowed to have their own moralities today.
All others have the morality of the marketplace. The fact that the ownership of public companies is traded around so frequently shouldn't make this shocking. Large institutions such as mutal funds, pention funds and banks own the majority of all public companies. Any company is one out of a portfolio of maybe hundreds of others and is dropped at the first hint of trouble. They're chits, peices of paper and the purpose is to build a strong portfolio. The only question anyone would be asking is "What's Yahoo doing?" or "What is MSN doing?" Protecting themselves from liability is the closet thing to morality in most times. They are quite willing to accept the law as their moral code. Why you decided to make money for your clients and stay in buisiness is a lot easier to explain to the boss than the ethical problems of buying a profitable company that advertises legal products. Google's owners might be better off keeping it private. However, since the company isn't hugely profitable (except for an internet company), they might be giving up the only real change to grow it. You exchange a share of your personal morality along with everything else when you sell the company. They could sell stock with limited voting rights though. Would people buy it? Probably for far less. The assesment is usually that the best thing to do take the mavericks who started the company out of a lot of decisions that 'professional' management could do better.
and Google was a guy, I'd sooo marry him.
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
What goes into a man's mouth does not make him 'unclean,' but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him 'unclean.'
Amazing how some people can justify a genocidal maniac. Check out the Old Testamant. As a sample, here's a little snippet:
Deuteronomy 20:11-16:
11 And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee.
12 And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it:
13 And when the LORD thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword:
14 But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the LORD thy God hath given thee.
15 Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations.
16 But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:
I was a devout Christian once, with strong burning for the Lord, so to speak. But the more I read the bible, the more things seemed askew. It became irreconcilable how can a loving God do those kinds of things! In order to be honest to myself (I am useless to anyone otherwise!), I had to take leave from Jesus & Co. And now when I read those same verses again, they make my blood boil. Slavery, murder, paranoia, blind self-righteousness, horrible self-justification.
Can anyone who is honest and unbiased imagine any society/leader that holds those attitudes (and does those things) today without being deemed evil if not outright inhuman?
The quote is out of context? What context should it be interpreted under? Safety? ...do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee...? I suppose they had to, after their God-commanded actions, I am sure a few neighbors are pissed off. The best that can be said about God and His people is that they are no better than anyone else.
Yeah, but God is now loving? What? He saw the error of His former ways? Those people are too far gone? Even babies? For goodnesssake, even cattles must be eradicated? ...thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth... My God....
Cheers,
e.
Porn in real life is WAY more expensive.
Get what you pay for I guess
Slashdot them with feedback! I did.
DRM 'manages access' in the same way that a prison 'manages freedom'
I don't smoke and don't drink alcohol 'cause they are the way of devil inside you...
:-)
p0rN on the other way is good, since I run a huge p0rN site, collect p0rN movies and use my holy stick to beat the evil from bad girls
That's ridiculous. You'll be much better off if you post to slashdot asking for advice.
The article cited in the story is actually quite thought-provoking in regard to the future of the internet and challenges posed by unchecked and unethical capitalism and greed.
On the other hand, is it really a "good thing" to have the owner of the company apply his moral judgment to the service he provides; When it is such a "fixture" of the internet at the moment.
there are over 700 replies to the story and most of them are caught in on the porn vs.drugs/alchohol issue. This is really so offtopic it's not funny. And I have to admit, I am really disappointed at /. (The community and the site) for this.
In regard to the actual topic at hand, I think that since it's a private company, then the owners can do whatever they please. There are consequences to their actions, and if their decisions start to effect the popularity of the site or the sites advertising value, they are the only ones that suffer because of it. There will always be another competitor that will want to provide the same level of convenience but better and win market share and $$. Competition is good.
Now if Google was about to start aggressively defending business practices and filing frivolous patents for defensive reasons, like, it seems, every major corp. out there is doing that would certainly taint their corporate image. They would loose trust/following/users right away; all someone would have to do is provide a comparable service and rake in the money.
Personally, I think that there are way to go public but keep control, mainly by not being greedy and not divesting the share base completely... For example (and I'm not a money person, so I could be wrong...) selling 45% of the company out to the open market, but keeping the rest. You would be being part of someone else's company, you know who will be running the company... and the risk associated with someone being "moral" in their business conduct (heaven help us).
I would argue, in the minority undoubtably, that porn is more than a "moral" or "religious" issue. Despite being it's oft flamed status here on Slash, the old testement of the Bible has more than it's share of real world wisdom, one such kernal being don't covet your neighbors wife.
Have you actually thought WHY this was even mentioned in the Bible? Why the heck would an omnisentient God care about our sexual habits? "No sex for you today because I said so!" God ordered Moses as he strolled down the mountain. Nooooo. Think about it. Normally there is a why to most rules in the Bible and that why normally isn't so you can't enjoy yourself "just because".
Sex is one of the most basic instincts in imbedded within a human. In and of itself, sex is great, but then you involve people. People tend to screw things up. When you involve more than one partner you begin to introduce a whole new set of emotions. You can try to convince me otherwise, but most of us would find it a rude and unpleasant surprise to fine our girlfriend/wife sleeping with somebody behind your back. "But we're OK like that." Fine. I suspect you're in the minority. My point is you can't tamper with such a basic human emotion and not have consequences. Dogs can get away with it. People can't. Even if you're a Don Juan, you're going to be screwing with somebodies emotions in your quest to bed the most women.
How does that relate to porn? It messes with the same mental process. Go on. Tell your gf or wife about your 50gb p0rn collection. Convince me she'll be okay with it. Nine times out of ten I'll bet your in deep shit. So you're single. p0rn's okay, right? if you say so. Not getting any unrealistic expectations are you? Can you stop overnight? Go a month without it. You can do it, right? You haven't trained yourself like Pavlov's dog, now have you? Face it, the orgasm is a pretty powerful drug. You're programming yourself whether you can admit it or not.
I'm sure their are those who will argue that it doesn't happen to them. I can't be right. But then, not every smoker dies at 50 on the spot nor does every person get drunk after 3.5 glasses of alcohol. No, porn isn't as outright deadily as cigrettes or alcohol, but far more insiduous.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Google was created as a reasearch project by one of the most reputable universities in the world.
Though tobacco users won't admit it, great academic minds will rarely agree with the concept of smoking.
However, find me a student who sees something wrong with porn...
That would just make more of them !
Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur (anything said in Latin sounds important)
We need a google icon. This is like the third google-related story in a week.
-----
Score 3? For what? Being wrong, at length? - smirkleton
Some minor corrections...
The real story isn't exactly "family values", but that's the point. It's about how David screwed up big time.
The actual story's in II Samuel 11-12:
God does forgive David when David sincerely repents, but He still makes David deal with the (pretty nasty) consequences of this whole episode for the rest of his life (and explicitly forbids David from building a temple).
The point being that even someone in a position of authority isn't magically allowed to do what he wants with people.
DNA just wants to be free...
s/Joab dies/Uriah dies/ ... but you probably got the idea
DNA just wants to be free...
Ok, you've given a couple of examples of bad censorship.
Now suppose I have a formula for making Ebola Virus from corn-flakes and coca-cola. I express my intention to publish this on slashdot, and Cowboy neal hurriedly blocks my access, thus censoring me.
Personally, I think that sort of censorship is A GOOD THING.
Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur (anything said in Latin sounds important)
We can hunt animals with guns and while that may be controversial it's still a legitimate reason that does not involve killing people.
Hmmm... Pie...
Great post. At the very least, it's a nice balance to the statistics posted by the parent.
Sig goes here
Because, my overly idealistic young friend, they have bills to pay. Nothing good in life comes free.
Google: Results 1 - 10 of about 10,500,000. Search took 0.09 seconds.
Yahoo: 1 - 20 of 10,600,000
Altavista: AltaVista found 5,202,695 results
Lycos: WEB RESULTS: Showing Results 1 thru 10 of 18,228,107
Webcrawler: Meta-Search results for "evil" (1 - 20 of 97) [20 listings per page]
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
Society is made of basic social units. And, the one that an individual encounters first is, generally, the family. In whatever form it takes in today's world. Now, as a child, I'd want a family with loving parents, and a supportive background.
Porn, however, does not encourage this. It encourages cheap sex, that humans are objects, and screw any consequences of having sex. Get an abortion, it's cheaper, right? So many people I talk to these days have no father for two reasons, either they were drunks, or thoughts that porn placed in their heads lead them to abandon their wives, girlfriends, secretaries, whichever. Or, it's a very shallow relationship.
I think it is for this reason, the stability of families, that religion (and I have no respect for any "religion" which does not support families) would be against pornography. Thank you.
*sigh*
I know I am going to get killed for saying this... but here we go...
Who decides what is effectively the moral authority. In my personal opinion the only reason the bible exists and other "moral authorities" exist is because people don't want to take it upon themselves to make the hard decisions as to what is right and what is wrong. If a person can blame his decisions on a book, person, church, etc. that's even better, because he never has to take it upon himself to accept when what he did is actually wrong.
Well, here's the reality check people... Let's remove everything that you need to have "faith" in to believe, and reduce it to what the real world is. There is no more afterlife, there is no more God, nothing, let's say all of that is wrong (not saying I believe that.) What do we have... well, we have the world as you experience it right now. Your decisions are judged almost solely by you, if you feel bad after doing something, that is because you feel it is wrong, not because some book tells you so. If you don't feel bad, then you don't feel it's wrong... Wow, simple, eh?
Now, how's this for a reality check. You do something, then you evaluate the "morality" of it, based on what you feel is right or wrong. Now, if you feel guilty, than to you it is morally wrong (even though to someone else it may not be.)
Okay, so now we have a theory of morals that works with an individual, lets work with a group.
Now, let's say for example that a person feels killing is not morally wrong, yet overall the group disagrees. What happens, well the group will in someway punish the person who is harming the good of the group. Thus, the person will feel wrong about what he did because he knows he'll be punished. (this is for those people who need rewards and punishments to do things.)
So, what do we create. We create a "Moral Structure" in which the person need not be immediately punished to fear doing something that overall the group considers wrong... What is this... this sounds like religion... hey.. That's odd..
Something to ponder. (and by no means is this a complete thesis of my ideas... I'll probably write about it in my journal sometime.)
~ kjrose
A mirror. .
And when you start throwing filters on the front-end, not accepting the dark parts which exist within the mind, denying them. . . Well.
Only until one accepts and fully learns to understand the nature of one's own shadows will one gain control over their darker aspects. Until then, a person will be driven in ways he or she does not understand, caught in the turmoil created by their shadow's desire. Such people hide behind faulty rationalizations and lies in order to keep their inner selves from hurting. -This kind of hurt being an indicator of just how grown up one is. When the ego no longer stings and cringes, then perhaps you are finally mature.
Alan Moore's billionaire genius character, Adrian Veidt from Watchmen, would stand in front of a wall of television monitors playing feeds from stations all over the world. He would stand there and surf across the wavefront of all that information and in this way could see the psyche of humankind.
As with all Alan Moore works, this is a brilliant, yet naive idea. Left out of his Watchmen universe were those people who understand that the Wall of Televisions principal works in both directions. --That if one applies pressure to certain aspects of the message being delivered by that Wall of Noise, then the receiving populace can be 'guided' in how they think. -Or as I tend to think, virtually controled outright.
The need for some parties to control the thoughts of others so that their own self-deceiving world-views are not threatened, is child-like in the extreme; keeping the shadows under lock and key. (And presumably, those which are the shadows to man, are lights to the beast, and vice versa. There are plenty of agencies and individuals which fear truth today! So what is being kept under lock and key becomes a question indeed!) But then plumbing the mind is often difficult. "Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight."
There are other search engines out there. All Theweb is pretty good alternative search service. Pages missing from Google can still be found with this engine. (They've removed a helluva lot more than just drug and hate messages from Google, and not just in Europe and Asia!)
-Fantastic Lad
The article stated that the company made an estimated 70 million last year, I'm sorry but that is a whole hell of a lot of money, and I'm quite certain at least the decision makers over at google are all easily millionaires, they have very little need for more money.
For the directors of a public company to institute any policy that does not maximise profit is actually illegal. It is not a matter of may be you shareholders won't like your anti-guns pro-porn stance, a shareholder can actually sue you for instituting a policy which does not maximise profits. This suit would be hard to prove but using the same argument on Google's advertising policy would probably be a slam dunk.
Sure you can make a convoluted argument about long term customer loyalty but why risk it. Of course the answer to this is that an IPO is likely to make Google's owners and management rich in a buy-yourself-into-orbit kind of way. But an IPO would essentially be cashing out your principles, and it seems likely that the googleguys can now afford principles (though may be not space tourism).
...there is a free, open-source project currently being developed at UC Berkeley that will be infinitely more scalable and more powerful than Google. Once it's ready for mass consumption, everyone will flock to it, and that includes companies like Yahoo, for instance, who'd rather not waste the tens of millions of $$$ they give away to Google each year. Moreover, the censorship will not be the result of the moral compass of a couple of punks like those Google cofounders. What do they know about morals, or philosophy in general, anyway? Sure it's their company, and they can do what they want with it, but then users should stop acting like sheep and stop worshipping Google. Even if they're trying hard to get better and wiser, they're still a bunch of young, narrow-minded geeks. Can you believe this company has almost 1,200 employees now? Can you believe that what matters to them in the hiring process is whether you have a PhD from some brand name university, and not whether you're intelligent, or experienced (they think the former means the latter)? They may well go to a successful IPO but their stock is gonna go down the toilet not too long after that (a year?). And their competition, Fast (alltheweb.com) has a much more scalable engine and more content, although I will agree that the results are not comparable yet. So Google, is that how your PhDs solve the scalability problem? Brute force? Pathetic...
I strongly disagree. Fantasy worlds, like hope and alternative thinking is not "Systematic untruth", is human genius at it best. Calling the pursuit of utopic worlds "ethically deviant" is not only stupid, is dangerous. Yous post is the most concret piece of fascist thinking Ive seen in years.
AFAIK those laws (including the ten commandments) are for the Israelites. Many of the laws help emphasize Israel's status as separate and set apart from the rest of the nations, in addition to other functions.
Christians have a different covenant. Which is why we can wear clothing with mixed fabric, some even sport tattoos, piercings etc. That said, a wise person can learn much from those laws. And it's recommended reading for Christians - to show us how far we fall short, and how much grace we are given. And what God's nature is like, what he likes, etc. And before you say we are serving a different God from the Israelites, see the many examples of God's grace despite the many failings of people like Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, Solomon. Even though David's lineage had Moabite blood via Ruth, he could enter the assembly of God (Deut 23:3), he even became king. And he even managed to get away with taking the consecrated bread (1 Sam 21:4).
Before trying to make fun of something it is better to understand it first. Otherwise you might accidentally get mistaken for a bigot instead of a humourist.
Furthermore if you understand something well, you are better positioned to come up with very very funny jokes.
And if you can't see it, you've been sucked into it too.
Ahh, the ever popular, "If you don't agree with me, then you're obviously brainwashed/stupid/blind/etc", defense. Sorry, but that doesn't fly. Some people are taught to do as they're told without question, others are not. Otherwise there would be no people in power. There would be no leaders. Obviously there are leaders and powerful people, so what you say cannot be true. Some people believe only what they can perceive or demonstrate. Some people don't take what they're told for granted. I think it's far more likely that you're the one that is blind to this if you believe that you can't think for yourself and that nobody else can either.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
The fact that Google accepts advertising for adult content sites is an intriguing commentary on Brin's morality
/. accepting adverts from Microsoft?
Is this a bit like
but what is pornography?
pornography is in the groin of the beholder.
flowerbear adrift on a sea of confusion since 1958 flowerbear@phreaker.net FORTRAN programers don't eat quiche!!
There once was an anthropologist who was studying a remote tribe in Africa somewhere. One day, some guy was sitting on the ground in the shade of a grain silo, a building bulit up on stilts to hold grain. The building collapsed, fell on him, and killed him.
The people called in the local witch doctor to figure out why this happened, and the anthropologist came along to see what would ensue. The witch doctor examined the scene and immediately declared that the man had been cursed by a witch, and this was the cause of his terrible misfortune.
The anthropologist looked at the stilts of the building and saw that they clearly had been eaten away by termites. He said to the witch doctor, "That's nonsense. The building collapsed because of termites, a witch had nothing to do with it."
The witch doctor replied, "Ah, yes, that explains why the building collapsed all right. But what it doesn't explain is, why did it collapse on him?"
Coincidence is the myth of the scientific age.
My site: Free Nature Pictures
I like it a lot, because of the reasons you stated and also because God is a terrible word, has all sorts of silly connotations. It's masculine for one thing. Its a name, for another, and any name is a definition, and the Entity is beyond definition, even Entity doesn't work, nor does Tao or any other word. "The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao." -- Lao Tzu
As an AC in a thread above pointed out, It called Itself "I am" (Jehovah) when asked for a name, and I think that's a great name, especially since it points out the whole problem with asking It for a name in the first place.
My site: Free Nature Pictures
So, you are discussing that an ethical calculus may be possible.
I personally have thought over this many times, and I believe it is possible, but a new form of logical (not the currently formal logic) would be needed for ethical calculus to work. Deontic Logic took a shot at it, but IMHO failed miserably. (If one this should be then all things should be.)
What we need to initially do is establish a Moral "algebra" or a discrete system in which we can test and evaluate the logic we use to come to moral decisions. If overall it seems to work, then a moral calculus which deals with these probabilities and shades of grey can be created.
The reason we can start with a discrete system first is the same reason that you cannot tell the difference between a discrete and a continuous system in the real world. A discrete system could just be a continuous system taken in step intervals, and a continuous system could just be a discrete system with incredibly small intervals (that we cannot observe). So, if we can develop one that works discretely and then move it towards a more continuum based calculus, then I believe we can create an ethical calulus.
Unfortunately though, the sheer amount of data and randomness required... well.. It would take more than a lifetime of pure work to create a system that actually worked. (and ironically, the system would have to let you know no what is right and what is wrong, but more what the majority of the population will be believe is right and what would be most helpful to the majority of the population.)
Overall, where we are now is still in the stone age of moral thought. We are about 2 levels above cavemen because we developed religion (which forces people to be moral or go to hell), and laws (which forces those who don't belive religion to at least make life somewhat easier for the rest of us.) As well, people are beginning to realize that morals are personal decisions arbitrated by the social group. So maybe we are getting closer and closer to a breakthrough in morals...
Or if you look at the southern states, maybe we're going to get forced back a level to where relgion is the only authority.
~ kjrose
Following the rest of the computation results in 1816 - the year Werner von Siemens was born.
The Siemens corporation advertises on Google!
Google is really a front for the Siemens corporation. QED.
okay, so porn itself is not evil.
How do we all feel about hacking pay porn sites? Or blocking banners.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
The article's very interesting, but the author comes across like the jealous/sour-grapes ex when he says that Google won't be able to hold on to its moral backbone when it goes public.
Which raises another question - why go public at all?
Thank you.
I agree with you. Death to anyone who takes people's guns away.
Cancer will be levied upon the peopel at google who made this rule up.
In fact, knowing they have the rule makes me want to kill them with a zip gun.
It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what
...
they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed
that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so
much -- the wheel, New York, wars and so on -- whilst all the dolphins
had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But
conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more
intelligent than man -- for precisely the same reasons.
Curiously enough, the dolphins had long known of the impending
destruction of the of the planet Earth and had made many attempts to
alert mankind to the danger; but most of their communications were
misinterpreted
-- Douglas Admas "The Hitchhikers' Guide To The Galaxy"
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