Slashdot Mirror
Does Google = God?
lgreco writes "In an op/ed for the NYT, Thomas Friedman wonders "Is Google God?" Interesting article that disseminates things mostly known to and hopefully well understood by the Slashdot readership. The fact that such commentary made it to the NYT op/ed pages is remarkable." It's the NYT, so a free registration is required.
since google news does not need to register
2 9F RIE.html?ex=1057464000&en=5a99f13790700f88&ei=5062 &partner=GOOGLE[/url]
you can be god, too:
[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/29/opinion/
A co-worker of mine has been claiming that google is god for two years now.
User: freepass
Password: freepass
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/06/29/nyt.friedman/
God wins
Give us now our dayly searches, forgive us of our articles, as we have put them in our keywords. Please O Google grant me now a privilige to use your mighty powers to find the answers to my searches.
So does this. Weird.
The Google Does Nothing!
I asked it. It came back with 7.536 hits.
I also asked Googlefight.
In light of the overwhelming evidence, I'd say "Yes."
My journal has hot
"... only one-third come from inside the U.S. The rest are in 88 other languages."
Americans may speak funny but generally its still known as english. Amazingly it's actually spoken outside of the US as well.
Does Google = God? Yes. Always.
:)
Does Google == God? Yes. Could change...but not likely
I mean, my first reaction to the question "Is Google God?" is "No... Next topic!" Presumably the article is asking something at least slightly more compelling or interesting, but we have no idea of what that might be.
The site is supposed to be news for nerds... not sound bites for nerds. Although I guess that is a lot of what passes for news in the States.
god, maybe, God - nope, doesn't come close.
If Google gives you a result you don't like, you can plug it with different info until you get what you want out of it. God doesn't work like that as far as I know...
If anything, Google is a slave to man, not a god.
It just has some vague statistics about increasing numbers of Google searches and DNS requests in the last three years, then some specualtion by a talking head tech pundit about how "the rate of technological integration has intensified" and how in future everybody will be connected to everybody else.
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
Same article on CNN
Google search for google is god
some of the winners:
Google is God, Don't Piss Her Off
All Things Spiritual - Home of Google God! Pictures of Angels
Cold Fury: Good God Google
and last but not least: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Panopticon
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
religion changes...
And if now we use the "GooglePower" to find some information remember when we used altavista or metacrawler.
There is also more and more fake hits on google.
Sometimes you have to browse 2-3 pages of results before finding a real result.
Because everybody is using the power of google to raise up is site.
Because a site that's not in google will never be seen...
But the google bot are really powerfull, thay can even read in any file format. They will propably find once: "What is the Matrix..."
While Google is the first thing I look at when I start up my browser... ...I am still waiting for Goollot. ;)
I thought this article was supposed to be about Google and God, but it was more about wi-fi and how wi-fi combined with Google will allow you to "find anything, anywhere, anytime". But it THEN goes on about how broadband adoption will allow al-Qaeda will be able to more easily send recruitment videos using video-on-demand. Of course, it mentions 9/11, as expected. It also says that America has to take "it" seriously. Oh, and it states a couple of interesting statistics. Yay. There, now you don't need to RTFA.
Google, while it has improved, still has problems producing accurate results to phrase searches.
Just try
"to be or not to be"
Several of the results, including the 3rd one, are wrong. Altavista has never had this problem, and it still doesn't have this bug.
Note the last paragraph about the effectiveness of Osama bin Laden's recruiting videos, and the possibility of targeting them precisely via broadband video. Brrrrrr.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
Here is a CNN copy of this article. Not that I think, that you should afraid of NYT free reg.
When in doubt, go to the library. - Ron Weasley in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Google is the mirror of the internet human knowledge. Without google a lot of people wouldn't able to work, or at least doing it could become really hard. For this reason, i think someone should bring the fact that google is a gift for the humankind as a whole, and for this reason be preserved by the government of each (free) nation.
-- "If A equals success, then the formula is A=X+Y+Z. X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut." - Einstein
Two different pieces by Times editorialists in one day?! I'm loving it!
More! More!
To mail me, remove the 'mailno' from my email addy.
"Yeah. It smells, too..."
Cnn has the same article for free so no registration required.
Friedman
So what is that supposed to mean? Only the english language is used in US searches or that outside the US there are no english searches? Maybe the assumption is that an english submission must be US-based.
I stopped reading the article at that point. I'm like that. Maybe I have some kind of disorder.
Political Correctness is doubleplusungood.
Summary : google + wireless = inforamtion available for everybody everywhere. They compare it to omniscience and thus gods (btw, where is the other part traditionnaly associated to gods, omnipotence :) ?).
Then they go on rambling that this will allow the bad guy to touch "more" the U.S. (what of the rest of the western world...?) and allow them unite quicker and better.
I think this is a "slow news" sunday, thus this [devoid of content] article went on slashdot...
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
But that's not my point. My point is the comparison is quite ludicrous.
There is the disclaimer "little bit" in there, but even so, it feels a lot like Beowulfian "flyting" in the nasty "pay attention to me!" sense. Google may be wireless, but only when it piggy-backs on another, even vaster service, and even so, it's only such part of the time. Not to mention, as ability goes, it's not exactly omnipotent. And anyone who worships Google in more than a "Hey, I've got the toolbar" kind of way should probably reconsider their choice of deity. As dieties go, Google is probably a bit more deserving than some other common choices today, of course, but is still on the "Not such a great idea" side of the choices of "things, Things, dieties, and God's to worship."
Like, perhaps, the proper useage of commas???
"Interesting article that diseminates things mostly known to and hopefully well understood by the Slashdot readership."
Corrected: "Interesting article that diseminates things mostly known to(,) and hopefully well understood by(,) the Slashdot readership."
Jeremy Logan's Website.
Jeez Louise.. Terrorists will be using the interweb to organize more efficiently! Foreign people who hate use will be able to talk about us behind our backs! (No mention that the internet has done more to proliferate American culture and "values" than MTV or McDonalds, or that the internet can be, and actually is, used for good as well as evil..)
Don't get your panties in a wad, United States. Better start fearing your domestic Police State To Be!
OMFG! There's a knife next to my plate! What if a terrorist had sat down here!
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
Sheesh. How many times has this come up on /. by annoyong posts just like this.
google = god assigns the value of god to google, and as a consequence returns true.
You want does google == god, using the comparison operator.
if (google=god) will always return true, while if (google==god) will show the answer to the question.
if google is god .. and google uses linux. what does linux equal ?
Thomas Friedman is the official gargoyle of the state. He's not a tech by any stretch of the imagination. I suspect he just lost a bet with someone who said he couldn't write an article without mentioning 9/11.
Laws are for people with no friends.
so, did they have the reporter attributing direct quotes from Jesus that "I'm gonna kick Google's ass!"?
After reading this article I was quite disappointed. As has been said earlier it appears to be a fluff piece talking mostly about Wi-Fi followed by using google to find anything anywhere.
If I was a more suspicious person (or paranoid) I would think this was really an veiled attempt to scare people into being afraid of the big-bad Internat and its ability to link like minded people of various hatreds to each other in ways not before seen. Want to get permission to crack down on free-speach on the Internet? Articles like this will "encourage" people to think that's what is going to happen. After all, heaven forbid that Osama's recruiting video may be streamed on the Internet and it (according to the author) is very motivating.
Sounds like "Internet breads terrorism, we should all be afraid". Just what is needed before "we need to control what's on the internet to protect everyong" starts being said.
. 62,400 repetitions make one truth -- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
How about you REJECT all stories which require registration?
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
GOATSE.CX is god
nuff said. or mabey there are multiple gods.
Drugs will do that to you sometimes, but the important thing is not to try and write articles and stuff in that "bent" state of mind. In my case, these delusions of grandeur usually pass in a few hours time. A good night's sleep should help too.
Peace \\//
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
the original post can be found here.
I hope the English translation is precise enough to preserve my argument.
cnn.com: Is Google God?
Slashdot|Does Google = God?
In a nice column in the New York Times (article at the same time taken over of CNN ) the question is set up whether google God is.
Naturally polemiken have again and again economic situation, if the reality is too contradictory or the purse calls thereafter, to fast still press a few lines into the next expenditure.
Why should Google be God?
Google supplies as well as all answers, if one knows the question. Here is the first thought error, because Google can only strengthen, which eh is already present. I have each day in my log file hit of retrieval queries, which are completely sense-free.
Google steers nothing to this pool however at 1986 a google on the existing techniques - Usenet, Gopher, ftp - jokeless would have been and a completely grotesque view into the world would have revealed. The way, as google will possibly determine the everyday life in the future, should be reason of enough to up-save the picture of the all-powerful Google still another little.
Google does not verify information. A little HTML Bastlerei is sufficient, in order to place * its * to view of the things in the net. The democratic beginning of google, through PAGE-climb the linking foot people on it co-ordinate to let, which sides are read worthy now, nothing changes in the fact that one makes oneself dependent on the majority and not by the truth.
If I would ascend over night at place 1 of any search words, then nothing would change in the coming day. Neither I nor my tools google have here the breath of a power.
Is a book God?
Who writes, remains (closely: publish or perish) is the antiquity variant of "google is God". Only indirect power each writing (googlebaren) person lies in the chance to change the collective memory little. Possibly and perhaps only for short time. Also over the thought of the eternity the connection God and Google could not be designed.
What is power?
Friedman sees a power in the connection of up-to-date available technologies (google via WAP or other wireless DEVICES). It does not create it to bind the actual time of the exercise of power to google. It would be already for it power (power in the sense of goettlicher power?), if I can in a 5-Millionen-Dollar-Quiz Show with google find out, which request was the last one of our dear Wolfgang Goethe?
If I chatte, besides always the google runs toolbar. It is an indication of attention opposite other persons, if one reads oneself in into its Hobbies and can them the feeling give to be interested in their requests. It is also fraud or espionage on my account, depends on circumstances. This is not divine action, this is also not striving for such a status.
Is Larry PAGE God?
If I look for in Google for President United States trust I to Dubya to be led and not too whitehouse.com or to Osama are Ladin. That I owe to the integrity of the people of Google Inc., which often gave reason in the past already to criticism. Keyword xenu.net. If in this whole Konstrukt someone makes has, then it is the administrator of the Google data base, which could return as desired search results. That is power, if at all.
In the beginning, Stanford created the Google. And they saw that it was good. And there was text-based searching, and there was in-degree ranking, the first algorithms. On the second algorithm, Larry Page and Sergey Brin created the PageRank. And they saw that it was good. And there was text-based searching, and there was structure-based searching, the second algorithms....
Googlsis 1:1-2, New Internet Version
(Of course, this suggests that Stanford and/or Page & Brin is/are God, not Google itself, but let's not split hairs.)
Non Googlia est, ergo non est. (It doesn't exist in Google, therefore it doesn't exist.)
"Recta non toleranda futuaris nisi irrisus ridebis"
From the CNN article...
God is wireless, God is everywhere and God sees and knows everything
Big Google is watching you. Any change from your normal routine will have you sent you to web page 404.
Ask me about repetitive DNA
Unfortunately, not true.
Did anyone else get a chill through there spine that at that EXACT same moment John Ashcroft was reading that article ?
... ... ... scary isnt it?
and that very soon there will be a senate commitee on Google and search engines?
stop! just think about that for a while...
The More Knowledge you have the Luckier you Get- J.R. Ewing
If Google = God, then does Slashdot = Satan?
EEP!
and God is dead, what does that make Friedrich Nietzsche?
MMORPG fan-boy? Prove your worth
thank you for tricking me into reading an article that wasnt really about how awesome google is.
no, really.
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
Here it is on CNN.com, no registration required:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/06/29/nyt.friedman/
Computers are useless: they can only give you answers. -- Pablo Picasso
I've read Thomas Friedman's book, "The Lexus and the Olive Tree", and I can say the answer to that question is yes.
Thomas Friedman has a basic understanding that the 1990's saw major changes in the technological and social structure of the world. He uses this to make up sweeping trite statements about things that he doesn't really understand. Some of his statements are true, but he sugarcoats them and puts them in impressive terms that make them seem more impressive than they are.
For example, he has the famous statement: "Two nations with McDonald's have never gone to war with each other". Yes, that is true, but it actually means "advanced industrialized democracies don't go to war with each other", or perhaps "nation states no longer go to war with each other". But he puts it in flashy terms, and sounds like it is a magical formula.
"Is Google God" is his flashy way of saying "Is the internet a source of near endless information?". When you put it in those terms, then, well, yes, it is. But he gets away with being a serious writer by changing his words around and seeming to say something new.
It's people like him that make me wonder why Slashdotters ever bothered to complain about Jon Katz.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
I wanted to be god with google, so I gave it a setuid(0);, but it didn't let me :(
...
setuid(0): Operation not permitted
setuid(0): Operation not permitted. Stuart Parker stuart@selenium.com.au
Tue, 13 Mar 2001 16:57:04 +1100: Previous message: Root expires;
www.sudo.ws/pipermail/sudo-users/ 2001-March/001457.html - 3k - Cached - Similar pages
Just a few days I'm thinking exactly this:
"All I want to know now, I have to ask to google"
It have been converted to an oracle (not the database). How many time we will so dependent on it that if it becomes pay we will have no choice other than agree with a new google tax.
However, the real point of the article is that in an increasingly linked world, it is more important than ever to be good world citizens.
Lord Rees Moag and James Davidson make this point in their book 'Sovereign Individual": large countries become increasingly vulnerable to small countries and organized groups because of the threats of cyber attacks, etc.
As this article points out, with the free flow of information, small groups can share information and form larger political and action groups.
Not to be political, but I was against the recent Iraq War because I think that it is a very bad idea to alienate other countries when we largely depend on the global "dollar standard" for hoarding money and purchasing oil to prop up our economy. I am a more than a little concerned that our turning our backs on the UN will cause us all kinds of problems in the future. (BTW, the US has vetoed 35 UN security council resolutions ssince 1970 - so, it was not so atypical for Russia, France, and Germany to threaten to veto one of our resolutions.
-Mark
go to: news.google.com
search: new york times google god
result: Is Google God?
Makes everybody a lot happier clicking...
I can't believe it made it to the NYT either.. cause it's a really shitty sensationalist article.
Verisign operates "much of the internet's infrastructure?". The hell it does. 9 billion domain requests a day? I doubt that too.
That America has to be careful because the internet lets like minded people who hate the US get together more easily? Man, if anything shows the collective fear of attack the US has always had, this is it. Is that the only thing you guys can think of? That someone is going to attack you?
The I guess we will be seening churches with computer termnals, mainframes instead of preists, and thermal grease instead of holy water. They are right though, when we are frustrated and can't find something we are always looking to google and pray it will find it.
If people think Google is God now, wait until it's intelligent enough to answer a question (any question) stated in plain language.
:)
Better yet, wait until Google achieve self-awareness. Then it will probably have no doubt of its own divinity.
Maybe google and god has been developed in VB, your insensitive clod!
Google is god now but it use to be yahoo then altavista. Basically what I'm saying is that something else might come along which is better than google. I can't think what but it should
rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
OKay, we read something about 9/11 in this article. I'm not sure what that was about. Then the author goes on to compare Google to God. This somehow comes from: God is wireless, knows everything, and is everywhere. Google can be accessed wirelessly, seems to know everything, and is everywhere. Right. Well, I don't really have much experience from finding out anything from God, but that's just fruity. He throws in some statistics about Internet growth then tries to horrify us with how we're going to see more people making bombs and trying to kill us (all thanks to the Internet of course). Oh yeah, and Osama bin Laden's highly effective recruiting videos are going to be "more effective over broadband." How he can conclude that from Google's top search criteria being about sex, jobs and wrestling, I do not know. I guess wrestling is a form of stupidity terrorism or something? What idiot posted this to the front page of Slashdot? That was the single most useless piece of writing I've ever seen.
Join Tor today!
You'd wish those wannabe writers at NYT would
read their literature.
Straight out of Isaac Asimov's dreams:
"A computer that knows everything - and wants
to commit suicide because it can't bear it"
Toon Moene.
No crap...More like the NY-Times just needed some filler this morning or something.
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
Here is the results on GoogleFight :
google is god = 157049 results
google is evil = 204364 results
Conclusion : Google is NOT God, Google is EVIL!! We are doomed!!
...It's always interesting to see which of the science-fiction concepts of my youth have actually come to pass. Moon travel came to pass, but certainly not the way Heinlein or H. G. Wells or Jules Verne imagined it.
In the sixties and early seventies, people were awed but poorly informed about computers. The commonest question that "lay" friends and relatives would ask me is "But what do you DO with a computer? Do you ask it questions?" That seemed bizarrely naive to me, and I would try to explain that it was more like playing with an electric train set, and that, outside of jokes, or Asimov's "Multivac" stories, you didn't "ask questions" of a computer.
Well, Google may not be Multivac, but it sure is a lot more like Multivac than H. G. Well's space gun or Cavorite sphere is like Project Apollo. You don't normally phrase the questions as questions, and it doesn't provide interpretative, English-language "answers," but it certainly is an awesome and it may not be omniscient but it's an order of magnitude more "scient" than anything else I've seen.
And, yes, it FINALLY looks as if "flat TV you can hang on a wall" is not only here, but I expect I'll be buying one within the next five years or so.
No helicars or voice typewriters yet, though.
(No, ViaVoice is NOT a good realization of the "voicewriter" fantasy. Oh, and for the record, to me, "Ask Jeeves" does NOT feel like Multivac at all, but Google does. I can't say why, that's just the way it strikes me.)
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Yet another stupid reminder from the C programming language. Do they mean that Google has become God, or are they checking if they are the same?
Evolution of Language Through The Ages: 6000 BC : ungh, grrf, booga 2000 AD : grep, awk, sed
google is a search engine?
Erm.
- shazow
There's no real similarity in theme--but "Google is God" did induce a random synaptic firing and brought up the title of an H. G. Wells story entitled "Jimmy Goggles the God." Yes, Goggles as in eyewear, not Google as in Barney Google.
I said in another post that Google reminded me of Isaac Asimov's Multivac... but Google together with the Internet also reminds me of H. G. Well's _World Brain_. Except of course that Wells foresaw it as a dignified, high-minded intellectual enterprise, a modernized kind of French Revolution Encyclopedia.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Isn't it strange that he doesn't mention the merits of like-minded people finally being able to rally each-other without government intervention and the diffusion caused by the electoral process? Isn't it strange that only "evil-doers" will use this technology for evil-doing, that there are no individuals with independent minds who will use this technology to voice their dissent?
"Other bands play, but Manowar KILLS"
God == God.
God == All. God == (void *)(void *);
Google is part of God, and may be a reflection of mans intents for God, but it is not God.
Interesting attempt at pscyho-techno-religious banter, though.
I guess there is something to be said about right-wing control of the US Press machine, eh?
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Some of us already google wirelessly via WAP (cell phone browsing). I was at a bar about a year ago and the guy playing (who really wasn't that great) said I bet none of you can tell me who sang this song.. so I typed in a couple of lyrics and by the time he was done and asked "anyone know" I casually stated that it was "spinning wheel by Blood, Sweat & Tears written by David Clayton" which shut him up, but also made me look like a Blood, Sweat & Tears fan.. *sigh* mobile-google-power is really a double-edged sword
I thought it was eric clapton
Google makes ME be god. Many other system administrators will agree.
This article makes me wonder. Since 9/11 it seems so many Americans think the whole world has nothing better to do than sit around and make big plans on WMD against America. Why does this moron devote a whole lengthy paragraph building up people's fears? Some of us have lives you know!
Three quickies:
When people go around saying "Google is God", you know it's time to short their stock... oh shoot, they haven't even gone public yet!
If Microsoft's upcoming squashes Google, does that mean Microsoft is the new god? Or is it Satan?
And what does it tell you that despite its vastly superior powers, that nobody has equated Microsoft to God in the NY Times?
Just reading the tea leaves,
--LP
Same thing will happen to google...
...if this was meant to be ironic, but we don't want to go down that path again, do we?
I read the other day on a website that google had been getting attacks from ip's in the microsoft range. Does that mean that satan and god are duking it out?
It's not remarkable that this made it to the NYT op/ed pages. Anything written by Thomas Friedman is going to make it. What's remarkable is that he chose to write about it.
Friedman has written three books that generally focus on economics and globalization. He's won three Pulitzer prizes. A few of the other posts are knocking this article as fluff, or knocking Friedman in general. Whatever your personal views, people listen to him.
What's striking to me is that he writes on large political-type issues - globalization, 9/11, Isreal. He's not a tech writer. The fact that he took the trouble to go tour Google and then write a column about it is evidence of how entrenched Google is in his non-techie world.
Yeah, the article is fluff. It's nothing but Friedman's impression and opinions. But it ran on the print version of the New York Times. If it ran on CNet, I'd blow it off. In NYT's op/ed, it's another story.
JJ
More to the point does Google have Buddha nature? If you say yes, then you are denying what it is. If you say no, then you do not have complete understanding.
Master: "What does a sacred Chaos say?"
Student: "Mu"
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
And then who made google?
Actually I prefer to think about Google, or the web in general, as the hitchikers guide to galaxy as described in Douglas Adams novels. It knows about anything but most of the time the answer might not quite be what you were looking for.
cu,
Lispy
The fact that such commentary made it to the NYT op/ed pages is remarkable.
I'm don't find it remarkable. I've read Friedman's The Lexus and the Olive Tree, and he has great editorials in the NYT. He's quite a well known figure and I've seen him on several talk shows (not the lame ones). Actually, I think he is a columnist in the NYT. I've also read some of his editorials in my local newspaper.
Is that you?
Have you ever used the word "God?" Do you know what it really means? If not, is that ironic? Was Slashdot's "irony" really the cause of the utter collapse of civil society as we knew it? How ironic was it for Nietsche in Time magazine to declare God a victim of Nietsche's own nihilism process? The NY Times is running a brilliant article that muddles the confusion around a culturally critical and chronically misused word.
(shaking head)
We used that in the caption for an article on Google lately in Komputer for alle. Good that people pick it up :)
I'm in a Unix state of mind.
Do you not know that Google is powered by Python, the living software symbol of the tempter of the fall of Adam and Eve?
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
The sum of Google, GE, AOL/TW, MSN/NBC, McDonalds and Disney, integrated from 1990 to the infinite future is GOD.
Don't tell anyone!
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
GW Bush: Get me some of that broadband video! I'm so sick of targeting Ossama Bin Laden only to hit a camel in the ass. That Google thing sucks. 2,900 answers but not one of them knows where I can find that asshole.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Google is not a god... it's only 2 3rds of it... loook
:)
Gods = Omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient.
google = omnipresent (accessible anywhere)
omniscient (knows every fraggin thing)
but still not omnipotent
when it starts creating global cathastrophes or ressurecting people, please warn me....
(sorry for my bad english)
I for one, welcome our new hot grits... PROFIT!
Ever notice how Google is really just the phrase 'Go Ogle' crammed together? I really think they should take advantage of this coincidence (or is it?) and rename the image search . . .
`which fortune`
Friedman is becoming worse and worse.
Not to be off-topic, but Google is probably a bit more like Azathoth, all-encompassing but not actually aware of anything.
sic
Well, he's a bitch. He only cleans up messes caused by the Devil. You know...if something bad happens, it's Satan. If something good comes out of it, hey, that's my God!
Blar.
And that brings me to the point of this column: While we may be emotionally distancing ourselves from the world, the world is getting more integrated. That means that what people think of us, as Americans, will matter more, not less. Because people outside America will be able to build alliances more efficiently in the world we are entering and they will be able to reach out and touch us -- whether with computer viruses or anthrax recipes downloaded from the Internet -- more than ever.
The point is more fear and paranoiac fantasies as only Thomas Friedman can spin, with an evil-doer under every rock, a terrorist behind every tree and, now, a rabid, sweaty-toothed madman coming to get us behind every keyboard.
From his lofty perch high atop the NY Times, Friedman has seen a career revival thanks to 9/11, winning a Pulitzer for his turgid writing about the event and its effects. When Friedman gets basic facts just plain wrong, it makes you wonder how much else he gets wrong, or otherwise intentionally distorts or misrepresents just so he can make everyone see the world through his lens where terrorists will get all of us.
Examples?
VeriSign, which operates much of the Internet's infrastructure...
and
A domain request is anytime anyone types in .com or .net
Really? The last time I checked VeriSign was only responsible for maintaining the .com and .net registries, as well as most SSL certificate services. There are 243 country code top-level domains, plus the .org TLD, not just .com and .net. The way Friedman makes it sound it's as if there's nothing else out there, and I'm not sure which is worse: that he was too lazy or too apathetic to talk to anyone other than VeriSign to get a basic understanding of the Internet to accurately write about it for his many non-technical readers.
These are basic facts and are simple to check. Any journalism student can do this so why doesn't Friedman?
Given his penchant for hyperbole in overstating the negative consequences of everything and minimizing the positives, it's no surprise that Friedman has completely missed the fact that the same technologies he fears are just as capable of opening up communications. He says that while the world is growing more integrated and what the world thinks about the USA will matter more, the USA is becoming ideologically isolationist and it doesn't need to heed what the rest of the world tells it. Proliferation of the Internet facilitates the free exchange of ideas that can result in better understanding and relations with the rest of the world, which Friedman apparently believes is full of nothing but some sort of irrational monolithic hatred.
When Friedman takes such a reductionist view of the world that amounts to Us vs. Them, is it any wonder that all Friedman can see are terrorists, terrorists everywhere and not a refuge in sight.
When the only tool you have is a hammer the whole world looks like a nail.
Growing up I remember the quote "God knows the number of hairs on your head." I know that Google doesn't know the answer (I just searched to make sure). So that means that Google is NOT God.
Looking for any old 8-bit Heathkit/Zenith software/hardware - http://heathkit.garlanger.com
I have been saying that, too. In fact, it makes more sense to call Google Oracle and call Oracle Google. Does that make sense to you?
(eom)
...must be paranoid. Next question.
That quote by Cohen in the article sounds like an advertisement for Serial Experiments Lain. I was almost expecting, "Google is god of the Wired".
God is like, real smart, so I bet if he needed to know something, he could think up a really good set of search terms and google it and find out without having to click to like the third page of results.
nyt.cpp: In function 'int main(int, char **)':
nyt.cpp:44: invalid conversion from 'God' to 'Google'
All your base are belong to us!
I awoke this morning from a dream where Google was powered by some ancient, evil, seductive force. Just as I often am in real life, in my dream I found myself curious about some random issue, and decided to research it via Google. In this instance, I was curious about what the lives of precious-stone-traders/exchangers were like, how they travelled, and how they moved their goods.
When I opened a browser to http://www.google.com, I suddenly found myself transported to a dark room, one which felt, smelt, and looked as though it was within a long abandoned motel in a rainy, cold, climate. A grimy stone slab of roughly 4:3 dimensions lay on a table before me, glistening with condensation.
A beautiful woman appeared, dressed seductively in red and black, and bade me to enter my query. Somehow, I knew to put my fingertip to the slab, and the moment I made contact, wispy shadows swirled out from within its crevices and surrounded my fingertip. They nipped at it, they pierced the skin, and with my blood, I scrawled out, "precious stone jewel exchange trader carrier lifestyle travel".
The shadows at once covered my bloody query, writhed and congealed and when they finally withdrew, I found that the writing had been rearranged to read, "I'm feeling lucky". I screamed in terror and pounded on the message with my fists, sending dark red droplets flying from the stone.
I looked up to see the woman smiling. When I returned my gaze to the stone slab, I saw the shadows slowly etching out a shape, simple, symmetrical. Trickles of black ran down the face of the stone from its far side, creating soft curves. It... it was a vase, with a notch in its base. It slowly filled with color, a light sort of beige, taking on a photographic quality and it was then that I realized... it wasn't a vase, it was a top-down view of some chick taking it up the ass.
This seems to me like a primer for "let's secure the internet befroe its too late" with a catchy tag-line used to grab the eyes of every person with an opinion on god or the internet more than any serious NYT worthy piece (and yes, I realize its an op/ed). Yes, it is going over what _every_ geek has already stubled on in some way at some point in the last few years: my computer+internet= opportunity for an infinite warehouse of knowledge always at my fingetips. Whatever question one wants answered is magically pulled with the "im Felling Lucky" button, faster and smarted than that pretentious fyck Jeeves.
But whats with the "anti-Americans out to do us harm" slant? In one sentance he says to pay attention to what people think of us and in the next runs back to our bad stereotype of untrusting, shallow, and more willing to change others than ourselves?
I read nytimes every day, best American paper I have found, but like anything it is used as an instrument of at the worst straight propoganda and at least ignorance. I think this falls into the FUD middle.
---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.
What a goofy term. The answer is necessarily yes and no at the same time because God means something different to everyone.
To me, God is a name for entropy, the thing that makes life random, though only because we cannot detect and account for it in a meaningful fashion, in most cases. The devil is in the details, and it don't get any more detailed than entropy. Mind you, I think the Devil and God are just different sides of the same thing; entropy that hurts you, and entropy that works in your favor.
Google is the opposite of entropy. It helps us bring order to chaos. It's a really good automatically generated index (while Yahoo and DMOZ and similar sites are tables of contents) and nothing more.
Now if you want to get into a more metaphysical discussion, google helps make us more than we are because knowledge is power but only if you can get your hands on it and use it. Google puts more information at our fingertips. Someday when we're communicating with our computer implants via thought (or perhaps subvocalization, at least sooner than thought) it's going to be an indexing system (or several of them) that lets us make concise queries and get a relevant answer back, just as it is today, and that certainly seems godlike. Imagine being stuck in bumfuck nowhere and being able to just sort of ask the air what to do. Talk about talking to god. Of course, you're just accessing a network, but what is God anyway? Which just brings us back to how silly the name of the article is.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That's better writing than you'll ever find in the NYT.
Sure, Google can be God. Why not? Afterall, we already know who Satan is.
Huh?
AllTheWeb indexes more documents.
Microsoft has decided to compete with Google.
Yes Google is a cool search engine, but come on folks, you get the same top ten results from even the weakest sites.
I wonder if they're hiring...
"Does Google = God"
That is the wrong operator for a question, it should be "Does Google == God". The NYT just made Google God. Those bastards!
Hire me...
I've seen this error before, common enough with slopy/newbie programmers. Equals symbol "=" is used for assigning a variable a value. Equals symbol "==" is what should be used for comparisons.
Proper code should be written as follows:
#include stdio.h
#include supreme_beings.h
main(){
deity god = extern POWER; deity google;
google = god;
if(google == god){
printf("Google is dead");
}
Stone the heretics alltheweb.com, MSN or AOL!
:-)
Oh wait, I meant NYT and Slashdot
God is wireless
Actually, God 1.0 was wire-based. That is why he wanted Adam and Eve to stay in the garden. It took God a while to get the roaming range he needed because Satan monopolized the spetrum.
Table-ized A.I.
When I was a kid, I thought I knew everything and I connected to other people without wires. It's called a paper-cup-and-string telephone. I guess that makes me a little bit like God, too. An idiotic argument, but I hope you see my point.
Scroll back a little, because Tommy-boy is very sensationalist.
Since this Alan Cohen, a V.P. of Airespace fellow ascribes omniscience as a quality of Google, let's examine that.
I take your point about the "little bit" caveat. The only problem is that you can't be a "little bit" omniscient. You either are or you aren't.
Omniscience also implies sentience, which Google is not. At some point down the road some artificial intelligence resembling sentience may be added as a feature, but that still doesn't make the cut.
Omniscience is a Divine quality by definition (note the capital D, distinguishing it from a simple adjective). Google is a creation of mere mortals so it cannot be omniscient by that standard either.
Omniscience is an infinite knowledge, understanding, awareness and insight into all things in their totality. Google's domain is restricted only to the Internet, so it once again falls far short of the mark.
The last thing we need is more idiotic, pin-head technologists like Cohen and sensationalist disseminators of said idiotic nonsense like Tommy Friedman. They make anyone who works in the technology industry sound like a moron, which makes it that much more difficult when serious people without a big platform need to be heard.
Yes
Don't forget that God is the definative moral plumb line against which everyone of us fails to hit the mark. God also loves what he has created and offers us a way back to him. I don't see Google being anything close to these far more appealing attributes of God.
My opinion of the NY Times keeps falling hard and fast, but this is just an editorial page.
Sam
Blessed are the pretarded, for they will make comments like yours... Yes, I read the WHOLE article. Because he felt his usual overwhelming need to relate everything to 9/11, he LOST a bet that he COULDN'T write an article without referencing 9/11.
Laws are for people with no friends.
No pages were found containing "Why did fluffy die?".
Suggestions:
- Make sure all offerings are prepared properly.
- Try different religions.
- Try more general religions.
Also, you can try Google Answers for expert help with your search.
Sinfest By Tatsuya Ishida
The battle of God, The Dragon, and Google!
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
why God and Google have to be mentioned in one sentence? In this case it's a headline. Why do some people need to do this? It makes the article anything but interesting. May the author get a headache or read a book about migraine management.
Thomas Friedman has it right with his main point, that what others think of us, and the ability of others to communicate, matters more--put simply, as the six British soldiers found when they died by mob the other day, all the military might in the world is not going to matter when billions decide to overrun Europe from Africa, Russia from China, and the US from south of the border. Goggle is good and getting better, but here are two reasons why it is a bishop at best: 1) Google technical people (disclosure, they blew off the ideas at oss.net) are enamoured of their original algorithms and not willing to take on the micro-cash, copyright, and audit issues associated with googleizing privately owned information that can then be accessed a la carte in both moderated and unmoderated form, on a cash and carry basis; and 2) they don't seem to be focused on the importance of getting a solid partnership going with the various language translations softwares that Bill Gates is "shutting out" of cyberspace. There are a whole range of concepts from the US intelligence community (which is half brilliant, half village idiot, its the brilliant part we want Google to think about) that could indeed allow Google to become the information merchant bank and true information commons for the world. They do great with what is there now--my estimate is that they will never be more than a 20% solution unless they set some standards, adopt multi-level security algorithms that allow the sharing of government secret and corporation confidential information, and get serious about language translation.
That explains SO MUCH!
Sig:
Navy nuke sub lifestyle?
a) In the post 9/11 world, there's people that don't like America
b) Google is the most powerful search engine out there
c) The people in A can use the internet to communicate with each other
d) ?
e) PROFIT
In other words, a goofy essay laboring to tie together technology and anti-americanism. But then again, what do you expect from the NTY op-ed page? By the way, I'm still waiting for Jayson Blair's Op-Ed debut
The article's final paragraph begins with the following statement: ...
None of this means we, America, just have to do what the world wants
That's right, the world had better damn well do what America wants. All these stinking foreign cultures with their un-American ideals just plain scare the hell out of me. Gawd-damn world should just get a friggin clue and realize that it is The One True Democracy(tm) that rules it.
Great, I kinda read slashdot to avoid drivel like this - now I'm going to have to dig up my boomstick and find me some more pinko scum to refocus my attention on.
Evidently your dreams are actually AD&D campaigns.
If Google == God, and MSN == Google's competition, then MS == Satan must be true?
google is good = about 1,820,000 results
google is a search engine = about 1,630,000 results
google sucks = about 137,000 results
google is Shiva = about 9,440 results
google is a tuna fish sandwich = about 851
Somewhat circular, but that aside, I think Google's nature is reasonably clear.
Tweet, tweet.
Doesn't anyone remember a while back when you could search for "go to hell" and it would send you to microsoft.com?
The top of this article about it says:
Could Bill Gates really be the devil?
maybe the NYT is on to something here..
-metric
Parent is hereby granted the "best message in the discussion" award.
Sometimes this is a good thing. If I am curious about ultralight aircraft, or antique radios, or some other hobby with a limited number of enthusiasts I can quickly find a lot of information, join a group, and get involved.
But it also means that if my interests tend more toward alt.suicide.holiday or thinking the Jews have taken over the government, I could quickly find other people to reinforce those tendencies. Friedman concentrates on the most devastating aspect of this, and just because it's one end of a bell curve doesn't mean his point is wrong.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
Google! Google! GOOGLE!
It's only a search engine.
Let us search with Google!
+1
A domain request is anytime anyone types in .com or .net.
Not really. Even the most internet-unfriendly OS's these days perform DNS caching. Nevermind that your ISP (or inhouse servers) are also performing caching. For the most part, when you type something into your browser's location bar - especially google.com - it's not even getting to verisign.
What he's talking about are root level requests, and there's only a vague correlation between the frequency of these and the actual amount (or relevance) of internet traffic. I mean, how many bogus requests are performed every time a user opens a web-bugged or web-bombed UCE email with image tags? Every now and then I look through the cache of our nameservers (used by several hundred workstations, at least) and at least 75% of the lookups are completely frivolous.
True comprehension of Google's significance may require a slightly higher level of technical understanding, IMO.
Did Google have a beginning?
Will Google some day end?
Can Google create anything except web pages?
Can Google give an answer to anything that man hasn't yet solved and or documented?
Can Google stop all the freaking spam that I get, or at least tell them that my penis size is fine?
Can Google turn the economy around so that most of my friend out of work can get a job?
Can Google give me a version of Wine that runs well with RedHat 9 and ATI? Ahh I have an answer to that one... NO!!!!
The more I learn about science, the more my faith in God increases.
Bah. C has corrupted me from understanding natural markup.. I did read it as 'assign God to Google' first.
Marxist evolution is just N generations away!
what is the RIAA?
I'm guessing the beast with 8 heads or whatever.
-You may license this sig for only $6.99.
Anybody else noticed this? There's always been a steady trickle, but the last weeks it has many doubled.
NYT upping their grease money to combat their obvious image problems of late?
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
Google does not allow sites to use their Google Adwords to advertise themselves if the topic suggests "anti-" anything (e.g. the public school system) in the slightest way. See my two stories on it, as well as one from another site experiencing the same problem.
Speak some other than English "And get this: only one-third come from inside the U.S. The rest are in 88 other languages" Wonder which one of those 88 I speak since the US speaks English Ally - in Edinburgh Scotland
Though where and why are to some degree mixed up in Google returns, nobody is asking Google for material favours nor that it remedy some cosmic injustice. I tend to think that Google willl more probably resemble the encyclopedic assistant found in Snow Crash: an interactive tool, pooling vast resources, and returning acurate, supported information.
The day Google returns the winning loto, this question should be given consideration.
"Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts." - Henry A
Issac Asimov fans rejoice for deliverance is at hand! Entropy will be defeated!
Yea!
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
...that all it took was a robots.txt file to get rid of God, I'd have done it a long time ago!
Yes.
Friedman's famous statement is simply wrong. The Belgrade branch of McDonald's was actually damaged in the NATO bombing campaign.
Friedman's defenders might say that this wasn't technically a war or that it involved more than two nations, but then any statement can be made true if you redefine enough terms.
More disturbing to me is that Google is rapidly becoming the accepted repository of all knowledge - want to know something? Type it into google and accept the results as fact. It's on the internet, so it must be true!
This is becoming evident in a number of fields - but two I'm familiar with are academic research and journalism.
An academic looking for research papers is more than likely to do an online search. There is evidence that papers available online receive more attention. The quality of online research can also be questionable - papers are put online as prepress papers, before they have been through the review process required for publication in most journals.
As for journalists, I have read countless pieces in print that have been clearly researched on the internet alone. Although these are mostly features or fluff pieces, I see it in news stories too, where background material has clearly been garnered by spending a half hour with google.
Think of any contentious current affairs or political issue, and think of who is going to put the time and effort into puting material online about that issue -it's not going to be some altruistic, unbiased observer.
A site at www.google-watch.org put up a cartoon about this that pretty much says it all.
"None of this means we, America, just have to do what the world wants, "
Typical egotistical American attitude.
I can give a book on quantum electrodynamics to a guy on the street, but of what use is it to him? I can tell you the meaning of life, but if you haven't looked the meaning is pointless. Such it is with mortals, optimisim is always primary to analysis.
That's total shit. Free press works to eliminate rumors and establish the truth. Lies fester in conditions of poor comunications and censorship, they are exposed in the light of freedom.
What people like Friedman fear is lossing the ability to bend people's minds to his limited perspective. My being able to read BBC news as easily as the NYT halfs the influence of the NYT because it halfs the time I have to read it. My being able to talk directly to impartial people about storries around the world eliminates the need for a big paper is far more informative than the NYT's former pulp and ink empire, which after all could only provide a man on the spot.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
That's exactly what he's afraid of. There are many things the US would do differently from if it's citizens were better informed.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
"The fact that such commentary made it to the NYT op/ed pages is remarkable."
Tom Friedman is a regular columnis for the NYT and has been working for them for over a decade. Therefore, he can write whatever he thinks. It's his column. Don't advocate censorship.
Hey, it's impressive how paranoid people can get in the states, it is almost an institutionalized campaign or something:
"(...)And that brings me to the point of this column: While we may be emotionally distancing ourselves from the world, the world is getting more integrated. That means that what people think of us, as Americans, will matter more, not less. Because people outside America will be able to build alliances more efficiently in the world we are entering and they will be able to reach out and touch us -- whether with computer viruses or anthrax recipes downloaded from the Internet -- more than ever(...)"
Mwhahhahaahhhwwhahahhhah, prepare!
Oh, c'mon...
I detect a little frothing at the mouth in this article. Nontechnical people, those late getting on the bandwagon, seem to be the most clueless and blow it all out of perportion. Like maybe tomarrow, because wireless + google == god, we won't have to put our pants on one leg at a time. oh, what a brave new world this is!
Naturally Google = God, but the real question is whether Google == God :)
I've always loved AI and have some experience in the game industry with applied AI concepts.
the "Google Sets" thing at Google labs is ripe for exploitation in AI. Train of thought is so far unautomated. We can parse language into well organized trees, we can learn "genetically", and act as expert systems. But computers don't converse well because there is no train of thought, the leap from subject to subject elludes computers, which can only do so randomly in and insane manner.
Google Sets extracts exactly this information from a few inputs, it seems to me exactly the link, the jump logic that passes for insight that I used to search for in AI solutions, (especially since the main one I attempted to tackle was robotic conversation for a massive network RPG. I think the google API and probably the amazon API are really ripe for exploitation as some very confincing AI... why? Not by simulating the mind... just by making a conduit that extracts the "Intelligence" part of AI from the web. The software, merely a catalyst between intelligent forces, will seem intelligent itself. The software will have the "internet" for a brain. By filtering, you could have it be subsets of the internet. Because of this the personality might be mediocre... limited to average brilliance. But even then, it will tell us more about ourselves than we can currently gather, for it will represent our common thinking, the thinking of society, the thinking that controls our government and other infrastructure.
If you have any ideas drop me a line, I've been thinking about this for some time now, if I come upon the right approach (something simple that might make a decent toy), I'll think I'll write something.
I generally read direct replies to my slashdot comments.
cheers.
-pyrrho
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It's not merely "fluff", it's supporting Slashdot advertisers! Providing NYT links when other non-reg links are available is no coincidence.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
"Two nations with McDonald's have never gone to war with each other". Yes, that is true,...
;)
No, it's not. India & Pakistan, 3 wars and counting... 1965, 1971, 1999.
For good measure... i thought i'd do a netcraft on their respective McDonald's websites.
The site www.mcdonaldsindia.com is running Apache/1.3.20 (Unix) PHP/4.3.0 mod_perl/1.25 on Linux
The site www.mcdonalds-pakistan.com is running Microsoft-IIS/5.0 on Windows 2000
P.S. No uptime is currently available for www.mcdonalds-pakistan.com.
Yet Socrates himself is particularly missed.
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed.
That wouldn't work, You are assigning Google to a NULL pointer
god can not be wrong.
google can be wrong.
in 1000 years time 99% of google will be considered wrong (probably(based on historical pattern analysis of the evolution of ideas) - as ideas evolve they change and invalidate those that came before. google's information will form the core of our knowladge - it is the basis - it's the best we have - but oneday it will be wrong)
thus google is wrong
who every posted this has no concept.
yes - a slow news day - but don't make me read crap - it only does harm to the quality of slashdot
Junkhead
Perhaps god and evil are not mutually exclusive.
To understand profoundly through intuition or empathy. [Coined by Robert A. Heinlein in his Stranger in a Strange Land.]
google tr.v. Slang googled, googling, googles
To have or gain a surface understanding of something. Passing familiarity. Enough to fake deeper knowledge. As from skimming a Table of Contents, or briefly reading the first few results of a google search. [Coined by me, today.]
cheers,
Shane
effectivily that is. Ever see someone gather a fact they got from google that is incorrect? man, people would rather change a fact then admit google was wrong. Of course google is just a ranking system for OTHER peoples web pages. So it will return a web page that has wrong information, but some people think "well, if I got there from google, then the information on this page must be correct.
Based on that, I would say Google has defacto omnipotence.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
A good journalist:
Most journalists aren't experts in much of anything. They talk to people who are experts and relate what they learn. So, not being an expert in something is no reason for an article not to be insightful, especially when you work for an employer (such as the NYTimes) that gives you as much time as you need to pursue a story and do good reporting. That means asking questions of the knowledgeable, insightful people you need in order to write a story with impact, which is arguably a major reason people read Friedman. They expect unparalleled insight, whether it's his or the impactful insight of others to whom he has access as a result of his position.
As others have noted here, Friedman routinely gets facts wrong, bends some, and omits others that are relevant and give context, all to serve whatever story he chooses to tell. "His own bias as an American Jew" should not "show through" at all in his reporting. It means he didn't write a balanced (!= objective) story.
It's the classic description of a hack. Perhaps Friedman is a celebrated one, but even the shiniest cars can be lemons.
While he's busy raising the spectre of a terrorist-infested Internet, Friedman fails to recognize that his popularity and fame is due, in large part, to the Internet. Were it not for the Internet, he might still be popular and moderately famous, but his readership would chiefly be limited to people in and around New York. Since he would be far less widely read, he would also have far less influence or relevance than he now enjoys. As I write this, the "Is Google God?" column holds the number-one slot for the most e-mailed stories from the New York Times.
What's alarming is the way in which Friedman talks about the Internet as a hotbed of terrorist activity. His arguments are frighteningly reminiscent of the kinds of scaremongering we've seen about the Internet for more than a decade, only before 9/11, the fearmongers vocally decried the Internet as a sea of porn, pedophilic sexual predators, computer criminality and unmitigated violent media. Now, Friedman, like others who have hopped onto the post-9/11 bandwagon, appears to be building a case for online policing, surveillance and restriction.
Something to think about when he writes about spreading terror through the Internet.
It has been proven and well documented that Google is powered by pigeons. I'm sick of this crap speculation! Holy Christ! (as you would put it)
"His own bias as an American Jew" should not "show through" at all in his reporting.
Note that my original comment applied to his book -- which was devoted to his personal interpretations of Middle-Eastern events, and not his reporting.
His first two Pulitzer prizes were won for hard-nosed reporting in life-threatening warzone conditions. There is a world of difference between the a 200-word news column on the cover the NYT, and its op-ed pages. You are correct that a news column should be completely accurate and balanced, to the smallest detail. By construction, it should not generate controversy. Apparently the people who hand out Pulitzers (who should know a thing or two more about journalism than you) seemed to agree that Friedman's news reporting set the standards for oustanding journalism on two separate occassions.
However, the op-ed pages are a completely different story. They represent a single author's opinion. A good op-ed column should generate thought-provoking discussion and debate, which (as evident from the discussion in this thread and by your own account) is precisely what Friedman's column is doing.
Science, like Nature, must also be tamed, with a view turned towards its preservation.
How about the proper spelling of usage?
If you're going to correct somebody else, make sure that you aren't going to make some silly mistake. You know, the whole casting stones thing...
Oh, and you forgot to correct the spelling of disseminate.
fuck you.
Oldthinkers unbellyfeel Google as God, realise that Google goodthinkful ingsoc therefore = BB.
"Big Brother records all. BB remembers all, even after it's gone"
Ingsoc unistand!
Ingsoc unifall!
Conform is doubleplusgood!
"They locked up a man who wanted to rule the world, the fools, they locked up the wrong man! L.Cohen
That 20 questions is pretty interesting. I picked "joystick" an here's how it played out:
You win
You were thinking of a joystick.
Can it be washed? You said Partly, I say No.
Could it be found in a classroom? You said Maybe, I say No.
Does it have writing on it? You said No, I say Yes.
Is it commonly used? You said Depends, I say Yes.
Does it involve contact with other humans? You said Sometimes, I say No.
Is it usually colorful? You said Sometimes, I say Doubtful.
Can you use it at school? You said Sometimes, I say No.
Can it be painted? You said Yes, I say No.
Is it shiny? You said Partly, I say No.
Contradictions Detected:
It does not matter if our answers disagree, as over time the game will change its answers to reflect common knowledge. If you feel that the game is in error, the only way to fix it is to play again.
Similar Objects:
a model (something you build), a figurine, a cube, a chess piece, a monitor, a mouse pointer, a porcelain doll, an action figure, a hand-held computer, glitter (little sparkly bits), a trackball, a snow globe (toy).
Uncommon Knowledge about a joystick:
Does it have a handle? I say Yes.
Is it heavier than a pound of butter? I say Yes.
Can you switch it on and off? I say Probably.
Is it a renewable resource? I say Probably.
Does it have paws? I say Probably.
Is it green or black? I say Probably.
Is it tapered? I say Probably.
Does it spin? I say Probably.
Do you find it in space? I say Probably.
Is it killed for its fur? I say Probably.
Do you use it at night? I say Yes.
Does it have wide feet? I say Probably.
Does it help accomplish tasks? I say Yes.
Can it be measured? I say Doubtful.
Is it black? I say Yes.
Is it black and white? I say Probably.
I like that it thought a joystick was likely to be killed for its fur.
Because I thought it was AOL.
-Yoda
"The human mind's ability to rationalize its own shortcomings into virtues is unlimited." - Robert A. Heinlein
Here is a terrorist threat. Keep reporting made up threats untill the public is numb.
Then when a REAL threat appears people ignore it as yet annother chicken little crying "wolf".
OmG terrorists in my shorts....
I don't actually exist.
Doesn't matter. Friedman is a working journalist employed by a prominent, mainstream news organization. Bias matters, whether it's in his books, columns, speaking engagements or anywhere else in the public sphere. You can't cherry-pick, then turn around and honestly claim he isn't biased.
You seem to misunderstand the definition of the word "reporting" as it's used by journalists. As they use it, reporting is a process. Whether it's for a news article, a column, an editorial, or even a book, reporting is the process they go through to collect and balance information so they can present it to an audience.
RobertFisher: A good op-ed column should generate thought-provoking discussion and debate, which (as evident from the discussion in this thread and by your own account) is precisely what Friedman's column is doing.
I guess you missed the major points of my post, which I prominently summarized so there would be no confusion. Here they are again:
A good journalist:
To be unambiguously clear, my previous post is concerned with facts and their accuracy. That is the most fundamental aspect of good journalism, again, whether it's for a news article, a column, an editorial, or even a book. Anyone who doesn't meet this basic standard is, by definition, a hack.
Any hack who makes facile arguments based on gross oversimplifications, errors, inaccuracies or misrepresentations is, by definition, a simplistic hack.
It's a given that a good column should generate discussion and debate. But the assumption is that the debate is about the substantive elements of the column -- arguments based on accurate facts.
The Friedman column in question is riddled with inaccuracies and obtuse claims. The discussion and debate surrounding it is not about the ideas expressed, it's about the lack of factual accuracy and the claims he then makes.
By any measure, it's not a good column.
I also did not say that a news article "should not generate controversy," as you wrote. I completely disagree with you. Some of the best news stories generate controversy. The Watergate scandal is one example. The Kuwait baby incubator story from Gulf War I is another. A lot of award-winning stories are ones that generate controversy.
RobertFisher: "Apparently the people who hand out Pulitzers (who should know a thing or two more about journalism than you) seemed to agree that Friedman's news reporting set the standards for oustanding journalism on two separate occassions."
I think the Pulitzer committee should know more about journalism than any single individual, too. But they've been known to give Pulitzers to people who didn't deserve them. One prominent example was Washington Post reporter Janet Cooke's 1981 Pulitzer for a fabricated story. She returned the prize.
Another example is the 1932 Pulitzer awarded to the New York Times' Walter Duranty for his reports from the Soviet Union. It's now known that he deliberately ignored the Ukrainian famine of the 1930s, and that his reports were outright propaganda for the Communists. Even the New York Times has distanced itself from Duranty's Pulitzer, yet the award remains unrevoked.
There's more on Cooke and Duranty in the Columbia Journalism Review.
Finally, why do you feel the need to resort to ad hominem attacks to build your case? I didn't attack you personally, so why do you impugn m
no... I don't think it's a casting stones thing... I think I just proved my point
Jeremy Logan's Website.