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Cory Doctorow's Fiction About An Evil Google
ahem writes "I saw a link on Valleywag to a story written by Cory Doctorow about what would happen if Google got in bed with the Dept. of Homeland Security. Chilling, well written, but the ending was a bit anti-climactic for my tastes."
Could it really have ended any other way?
John
How do we even know Google isn't already in bed with the government? Under the PATRIOT act, they wouldn't be able to disclose it under certain circumstances.
Imagine if AT&T got in bed with the NSA
Or if Exxon Mobile influenced energy policy
Or if Pfizer wrote Medicaid Drug Rules
Or if draft dodgers led the US Military
Or if a Horse Commissioner was in charge of FEMA
Oh look OJ Simpson is robbing Brittney Spears Stomach Fat I got to go
I consume a number of Google services, and bare no grudge against them. However, tend to assume that all big companies with access to a lot of user data is in bed with the US government. Frankly, I don't know why one would assume otherwise. Simply act accordingly when using the services of such companies.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Electronic surveillance, the topic at hand, is every bit as much "news for nerds, news that matters." That field, like any other has to change dramatically because of the same technological developments you seem to want the site to focus on. Coverage of science fiction written about the same topic is doubly on-topic.
It doesn't hurt to take a break from /. every now and again. It does "News for Nerds" quite well but I am not sure it does "News that matters" any more than Digg. It is not a news site as such, it is just a bunch of stories that appeal to a slightly skewed demographic. You don't get a unbiased political picture here any more than you would on the Jon Stewart show. If there are any political voices on here then they are the ones at the extremes shouting the loudest.
I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.
It's not as simple as, "Fact is, most people do not care about their privacy." The same people who spew "you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide" all over the place, would sue your arse into oblivion if you were a peeping tom under their window. Or would ostracize you very quickly if you gossipped to their enemies every word they said.
Some time ago I was reading some anthropology books, to figure out how people work. (Since I'm naturally blind to body language or such, so not much chance to figure it out on my own.) One thing that stuck into my head was that there's a _massive_ disconnect between what people say about themselves -- even on a completely anonymous poll -- and what they actually do. What they say is an ideal self image, the self that they'd like to be, not the self that they actually are. And that ideal self has more to do with social acceptability than with anything else.
E.g.,
- a community had this shiny-happy self-image that they help each other all the time, work their fields together, help each other build a house or a barn, etc. And they all answered just that on a poll. Turns out that in practice the last time anyone actually did that was half a century ago.
- a tribal community had this self-image of being brave warriors and hunters, etc. And almost everyone defined themselves as a hunter on a poll. Turns out that in the meantime they were mainly agriculture-based, and most didn't even have a weapon to hunt or fight with. But they still thought of themselves as hunters and warriors.
- on one occasion where meat prices rose, a western community was asked if they eat more or less meat. Almost everyone said some (more polite) version of "fuck that, I'm not paying that much. I'll buy less meat until the prices come down to something sane." Well, funny thing is, they then asked the local supermarkets and actually went through the thrash to see what people throw away. Turns out the meat consumption was actually higher. (I guess some kind of weblen effect.)
Etc.
Plus, even on anonymous polls you have to deal with effects like:
- people trying to pick the answer they think would be more socially acceptable or would please the person polling them. E.g., if one choice has even vague negative conotations, or is phrased to sound that way, people will try to avoid it.
- more people will answer "yes" than "no", presumably because we've all been educated that it's not nice to refuse too much. So professional polls actually switch the question around on half the forms, to average that effect out. E.g., if the question is "should we pull out of Iraq?" half the forms will actually ask the opposite, "should we continue the war in Iraq?" Otherwise you'll have the results skewed.
Now this may sound like a case of "who the heck said anything about polls?" but bear with me. The same effects will be visible in day-to-day conversations, posts, etc. In fact, to a higher extent.
Briefly, just because some people chest-thump that they have nothing to hide, doesn't mean that they actually don't. It just means that their ideal self image is like that, plus it makes them look better to their peers. It doesn't mean that they match their own ideal, though.
And finally, note that this isn't necessarily "lying". Most people actually genuinely see themselves as better than they really are. It's really just a combination of selective confirmation (you'll remember the times you acted according to your principles, but forget those times when you did the opposite) and cognitive dissonance (rationalizing something so it fits the rest of your mental model. E.g., honest people don't lie, I'm a honest person, omg I just lied to someone for a petty personal advantage... therefore it wasn't really a lie, now that I think about it.)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
How about a story about Google getting in bed with the Communist Chinese government in order to help them limit information to the people of China? Oh, wait, *that actually happened*. Remember what happened if you searched for "Tiananmen Square" from Google.cn? Hope so, because Google turned off our ability to check that, with a quickness. How about a story in which Google could monitor and report terrorist communications but chooses not to? Oh, wait... Well, there's more money to be made in trashing America to its ungrateful and spoiled citizens-by-default. And it's the only one which actually qualifies as fiction.
Flamebait Disclaimer--
So I guess that we will just claim (in fiction, of course, I have my rights) that the agency (however bungling and infuriating) charged with keeping you little pop-culture sasquatch-hugging "I Believe" teen-agers (of whatever age) safe in a real shooting war--is somehow the evil to be fought, and that Google would align itself with the U.S. government at any rate.
Karma to burn. At least I won't actually be beheaded for expressing my views in this country.
Don't trust anyone under thirty.
So if Google cooperates with the Chinese government to suppress 'dangerous' speech and (probably) to identify dissidents, that's perfectly ok.
But if they cooperate with the US Department of Homeland Security -- oh no! Look out freedom! Google is now evil!
One of these countries imprisons, tortures, and kills political dissidents. One has annexed a foreign country and has been promising to annex another for fifty years. One destroys "illegal" churches and forces abortions.
But thank goodness that Google is cooperating with the "Good" one.
It seems to have plenty of goatse - does that count? :o)