Slashdot Mirror
Sergey Brin On Google and China
yuhong writes "The NY Times has an interview with Sergey Brin on Google and China. A few quotes from it: 'Mr. Brin lived in the Soviet Union until he was nearly 6 years old, and he said the experience of living under a totalitarian system that censored political speech influenced his thinking — and Google's policy. "It has definitely shaped my views, and some of my company's views," he said.' Yes, business is personal, especially these days."
The atmosphere of fear is probably plainly apparent even to a six-years-old. The understanding of the reasons for that comes later.
Seems like the Chinese government may be winning here. They clearly are great at enticing (forcing?) a sense of nationalism and pride in their people. Amazing how quickly some are turning on Google as if this is entirely their own fault and doing. Now we wait to see if the US Government tries to step in...oh what a show this is becoming.
I get the feeling this whole showdown is a Larry and Sergey thing. And that Eric Schmidt is against it, and probably the rest of the board is as well. They would rather be pusillanimous like John Chambers and just make as much money off China as possible, even if it means aid and abet totalitarianism and not standing for anything except quarterly share price (again: see John Chambers).
I applaud refusing to censor information on the internet, this is a line in the sand they have drawn, to perhaps 'do no evil' and in Slashdot spirit we should all be behind it....
Why did Google initially agree to censor search results in the first place if this was their philosophy? I am certain they have made money in China, they would not have gone there for altruistic purposes of giving China good search results and web based email if there was not profit in it. Sure they have the philosophy "Don't Be Evil" but they got in bed with China to do business there. Only after the Aurora Exploit did they finally say enough is enough. Taking an anti-censorship stance only AFTER the Aurora attacks makes it seem retaliatory to me. They got a bruised eye from the neighborhood bully and then after playing along fine for quite some time decided they wanted to pick up their ball and go home. I would have been more impressed if Google uncensored their search results from the beginning instead of reacting to overt actions from China to their bottom line.
There are two kinds of fool. One says, This is old, and therefore good. And one says, This is new, and therefore better.
Good on Sergey & Google. To those clods who will joke about how a six year old can be influenced let me just say I remember when the Berlin Wall was erected. I was six years old and although I don't remember the political details I vividly recall seeing a front page photo in the Detroit News that showed what Woodward Avenue (the main street in downtown Detroit) would look like if the Wall had been built right down the center. It scared the crap out of me then even without knowing why and it remains an image that has stayed with me. Of *course* Sergey was affected.
It's nice to see a company take an ethical stand and stick to it.
... and then turn their ethics around 180 degrees after getting hacked and stick with that. For a while, anyway.
For the moment the compass needle is pointing the right way, so I guess we should approve of that.
John
"Political speech" didn't directly influence him aged six, but the country, culture and attitude a lack of it created apparently did. Moreover, nothing in his comment claims he understood it was influencing him at the time... but it's perfectly reasonable that as a grown man with a clearer understanding of both politics and civil liberties, he would think back to his childhood experiences, combine that with what he now knows of the political situation at the time, and come to conclusions regarding the reasons for his childhood experiences.
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
You obviously haven't lived in a totalitarian country. My girlfriend is from a Soviet-Era-communist country. She was very young when the communist regime was repelled but she has distinctive memories of the era, how you could only get state television channel, how going abroad was almost impossible, how it was impossible to get foreign made goods, how the country was everything and criticizing the country was frowned upon. In addition, please remember that Antisemitism in Soviet Union was a de-jure policy after WW2. Also remember, that Sergey Brin's parents were academics, which made them an active target of the government. If you live not under a fear of the government but also under the fear of a government openly hostile to your community and your parents are marked people, it makes a pretty damn good impact on your childhood. In addition, do you think as a child his parents would've never talked about their life in Soviet Union ? These are the experiences that shape your thinking. Just because he was young doesn't mean he doesn't know how it was.
And what's that special "experience" of a totalitarian regime a child can get from the moment he's born up to 6 years old? Please.
A corporation's goal is to increase its profits & market shares. Trying to make it pass as some kind of moral authority is at best a marketing trick for image polishing, and at worst utter hypocrisy.
Ha!
Ha? At 6 I was already politically influenced during the Nicaraguan civil war of the 60's and 70's. Totalitarian systems, specially under Communism and Nazism knew the power of political indoctrination of kindergarten kids and first graders.
Another concrete example from my country was after the Sandinista take-over. A common tactic for politically-blessed kindergarten/first grade teachers of the time was to do the following every so often at the start of a class:
Teacher: Ok kids, do you believe in God?
Kids: Yeaahhhh!
Teacher: Do you want candy?
Kids: Yeaaaah!
Teacher: Why don't we pray God for a candy?
Kids would close eyes and pray for a candy
Teacher: Did God give you candy?
Kids: No.
Teacher: Why don't you ask me for candy?
Kids: Teacher, can we have candy????
At that point, the so-called teacher would proceed to give candy followed by an explanation that God was the creation of the oppressive classes, and how the revolution takes care of the proletariat, that they should report their parents if they were counter revolutionaries, that counter revolutionary are dogs and not people (yeah, they'd teach that to 5-6 year old kids), that the Americans were evil and that they would come to kill you if you don't help the revolution (at this point kids have their eyes open wide and you have to ask yourself what kind of animal would say such things to a little kid)... and shit like that... every fucking day of class...
Say "ha" as you please. You will neither understand the impact these things can have on 5-6 year old kids nor appreciate their ability to capture, understand and reason under such repressive regimes if you have never experienced it.
As someone who lived in Soviet Union until it's collapse in 92 (I was 25) I can tell you that fear was not a fact of everyday life. Generally you didn't feel much more under control than in US. You couldn't say certain negative things about Party and government in public, but in private conversations everything was discussed freely. It is the same as in states- try to voice politically incorrect opinions about race in your place of work, and you will see how "freedom of speech" will protect you. We have more freedom in US as compared to USSR or China, but don't overestimate it.
I was around the same age when the wall fell, and I distinctly remember the scenes on TV of people scaling it, pulling it apart and so on.
I didn't really understand why the wall existed, what it was for, or even geographically at that age, where it was in relation to me. Despite that, I still have images in my memory of those scenes when it fell, because for some reason I too knew it was an important moment. This is despite the fact I was in the UK, a country where such an event had no noticable direct effect on me at that age.
I suspect it was even more prominent for Brin, because that sudden change, from living in the USSR, to living in America where suddenly things he probably wasn't allowed to do, places he'd never seen before, foods and products he never experienced in the USSR, and probably even the types of programs shown on TV that weren't shown in the USSR suddenly became commonplace. I agree with you, a kid is bound to notice such a drastic change in their life even at an age that young, and even if the reality of what that change was about doesn't bite until they get older.
Was he at 6 years even know where or what the politics of the country was? If so wow.
Get up!
Except, of course, those things didn't happen in USSR since 50's.
By the way, "Americans don't have long lines in the grocery stores!" was a major propaganda point in late 80's when former Communist politicians tried to paint US as the model for the "new direction" of their country. A lot of people actually believed that US has no lines at the checkout -- the only kind of "line in the grocery store" one would find in Russia in 80's. Personally, when I arrived in US, I was *SHOCKED* to see that in this particular aspect US and USSR had exactly the same kind of parity one would expect in nuclear weapons.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
For a children it is about living in fear, not about politics. You do not understand this because you have always lived in a protected society, and your parents were never in fear for their lives, so they raised you accordingly. It is hard to relate unless you have lived through something similar.
I grew up under a military dictatorship when a kid, and I still remember my parents explaining what a curfew was to me when I was 3 or 4 years old, and me not been able to sleep at night because hearing shooting, bombs going out, and people yelling on the street. To this day, I am afraid of the police and to publicly express my political opinions. I even though 10 times before posting this under my name and not as AC.
Sergei's experience may not have been as bad, but a 5 year old understands fear and censorship, and believe me, once you've been there, you deal with it all your life. Good for him for standing up.
then because US imposes on me a culture different from my own, while in USSR I at very least had the luxury of having my native culture being forced on myself
What an odd (and really sad) way of looking at life. If you really feel that the US is "imposing" different culture on you, and you feel that your "native culture" was forced upon you, it might be useful to consider what it is that you feel is coming from you yourself. How can your "native culture" be truly yours if it was "forced" on you? How too can exposure to different cultures within the US be construed as "imposed" on you?
Actually, Jews were discriminated against in the USSR at that time (it was semi-official policy). So he might have felt the effects of this discrimination. Or his parents did.
I remember Martin Luther King's assassination, although granted I as *only* seven. I was walking down the street with my mom, and I read a hand lettered sign tacked to a telephone pole calling for revenge against white people. My mom explained that when something bad happens, somebody is bound to get mad and make things worse for everyone.
It made a big impression on me, and I certainly recalled that moment three decades later when I turned on my radio on the morning of September 11, 2001.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Yeah, but most of those people are probably joking because Sergey and his company have "come to Jesus" on this issue a little late to be claiming the moral high ground.
While I do applaud Google for finally realizing that promoting freedom (the real kind, not the jingoistic hoo-rah kind) is the only profitable path long-term, I must also remain cognizant of the fact that Google seems to have run down every other blind alley before finding the right one.
So now Sergey is "following his conscience" after considering childhood experiences, eh? Good. I hope that's true. It would've been better, though, had he done so from the outset.
As an aside, I've always wondered in Brin's family's case how a gifted mathematician just waltzes out of Soviet Russia in 1979, only to resurface in Maryland out of all the 50 states, and his wife with a US Government job, at that! Somehow, I doubt this is "just how it worked out". (Cue the Yakov Smirnov jokes in 3....2....1....)
So yeah, Sergey, Larry, and Dr. Strangelove could've considered not cooperating/collaborating with the Chinese a long time ago, and that would've been alright with me. Odd that it took him so many years to remember what living under an oppressive regime felt like. I didn't know money caused amnesia.
I lived a few hundred meters from the Berlin wall and even before I entered school I had heard of people who had been shot there. My dad was imprisoned for political reasons when I was four. In first grade, I was threatened into entering the Pioniere ideological youth organization.
These events not only made an impression, they are among my most dramatic, and hence vivid, memories from that age. Whoever thinks little kids don't get oppression doesn't have a fucking clue.
blow your mind already
How can your "native culture" be truly yours if it was "forced" on you? How too can exposure to different cultures within the US be construed as "imposed" on you?
I realize (in retrospect) that when I grew up I didn't really have a choice, which culture to accept, so my set of values is consistent with what was popular in USSR at the time of my childhood, so local culture and government didn't seem like they force on me anything I don't want in the first place. This is the primary reason why I did not feel oppressed there but do feel oppressed in US.
More importantly, Americans believe that they are "free" only because they live in the same country that imposes the same basic culture and ideology on everyone (usually slightly decorated with some crude ethnic/racial flavor but the same at the core). Nevertheless this is not actually freedom -- it would be freedom if they were just as comfortable if they did not share the same values, and my experience shows that a person with different background feels extremely uncomfortable and oppressed here.
Objectively, both USSR and US societies were/are very strict in values, beliefs and ideology imposed on their members -- there are "sacred" ideas that, if attacked effectively and in a public manner, would earn a person ostracism and persecution. It's less visible because it applies only to things that are public and effective, and both societies had also wildly different standards on what is "public" and what can be "effective".
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
It is the same as in states- try to voice politically incorrect opinions about race in your place of work, and you will see how "freedom of speech" will protect you.
It will protect you just fine. Everybody in your workplace (well, every reasonable person) will think you're an asshole, but you're in no danger of being "re-educated".
I like to think of online DRM as something akin to a college -- you pay for lessons until you learn something.
Putting it bluntly, tough shit. Obviously the people running YOUR country don't feel the same way, or there wouldn't BE a McDonalds and Starbucks on every corner. Where do you get off forcing YOUR views on all of YOUR other countrymen?
We do it here in the U.S. There are several small towns that just refuse to issue building permits to Walmart, McDonalds and the like. They want to preserve the "small town feel".
Hell, screw small towns. It is 2010 and Walmart is STILL trying to get permission to build a store in CHICAGO -- the 3rd largest city in the U.S.! Suburbs, yes. City, not yet.
I'm willing to bet your gov't isn't subsidizing McDonalds and American movies, etc. So the simple answer is DON'T SHOP THERE. Capitalism, in its basest form, works wonderfully. If you DON'T SHOP THERE then those stores will LOSE MONEY AND CLOSE. These mega corps close "under-performing" stores all the time.
"Imposed", ha! Help me out. Which country is it that sends in the secret police to put the gun to your head to watch American TV, American movies, buy American brands and eat at American fast-food stores? I'd like to see the tourist brochure.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Get the fuck out.
Personal Attack
Like the GP Alex Belits, I have also lived in Eastern Europe and Russia when my work required me to.
Anecdotal Evidence, Appeal to Authority
It's true that US is trying to get the culture and influence around in those countries and I do not like it. I think every country should be able to practice their own historical culture without fucking Americans affecting it.
Burden of Proof, Appeal to Spite, Questionable Cause, Confusing Cause and Effect, Appeal to Tradition
And I am from a country that has highly changed it's ways to US standards. It's bullshit, let me say that. Or is having 200kg women fed by McDonalds a good way?
Biased Sample, Hasty Generalization, Fallacy of Presupposition
You are correct, my great grandfather escaped the Jewish persecution during Stalin's time in power when it was official (not public) policy - to Scotland.
Although by the time that Brin was a lad is was not official policy any longer the effects of state persecution against any minority will take a long time to wane
Just think what the general American (and UK) populations perception of Muslims is now and how long it may take to normalise.
Want to get away from McDonalds? Try walking a little farther afield.
If you can't avoid McDonalds or Hollywood then it's your own damn laziness.
No one "imposes" McDonalds on anyone. Their success is simply a matter of
human nature and how people like cheap crap and are vulnerable to marketing.
If you want to whine that there is a McDonalds in your part of the planet
then bitch at your neighbors that have no taste.
Some people go clear across the planet to have a Big Mac. Others in the same
exact situation will have the deep fried spiders. If you are lame, you will
be lame wherever you go. There's no escaping yourself.
Clearly America doesn't have a monopoly on sheeple consumers.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
By doing so, you would be denying others the freedom to choose to enjoy that culture for themselves. It's why we call it a "free society".
You are, of course, also free to cut yourself off from that culture by ignoring its manifestations. Don't eat in McDonalds. Don't shop in Wal-mart. Don't buy Hollywood movies.
It was still USSR when I was in the kindergarten, and I do recall from my experience there that the correct answer to the question "Who is the person you should love most in the world?" is "Lenin", not "mom".
Is it oppression? You bet. Problem is, you don't know if you have nothing to compare it to.
My mother told me that she also really believed in all the crap they've fed them back in her pioner and Comsomol days. If anyone would have asked her if she'd want to leave USSR and move to US back then, she would consider the person downright insane - why would she ever want to live in a country with rampant racism and pervasive exploitation, when she can enjoy all the glorious achievements of socialism?
Under the Soviet bloc, you didn't become an academic unless you supported and abetted the government. It's likely that Brin's parents were part of that totalitarianism, that they enjoyed favoured status by reporting dissidents etc.
This is pure bullshit, sorry, as evidenced by the fact that many dissidents were academics themselves.
You didn't need to toe the party line any more active than your average citizen to get into academia.
It sounds like you need to do some more shopping around between subcultures. Maybe it's because I spent a lot of time in college towns or because I grew up in Northern California, but I'm used to seeing two things that contradict your claims.
I am in Berkeley [, you insensitive clod!] That's probably the closest -- and yet way, way outside of what actually would be acceptable.
1) People from radically different cultures who moved to the United States and feel they're more able to practice their own culture here than back in India, China, Indonesia, etc., because in their homeland they were part of an offshoot culture than was frowned upon, while in their new homes that's absolutely welcomed.
Only if their culture is fringe at home, and is still fringe here -- except only at home they are taken seriously, so people don't bother to express direct hostility toward them in US. Those people who believe that they "practice their own culture" in US are deluding themselves -- their lives only exist in context of American society that follows rules and system of values that is specific to US. They can "practice their own culture" as a hobby or (and usually only) as a religious cult that no one cares about -- this is not "culture", this is thin veneer of a culture over their entirely American lives. Yes, that includes how Russian culture "exists" in US -- forgive me, I forgot to bring my knife, thick accent, bottle of vodka and two liters of sweat. I don't want this and would be insulted to reduce my cultural background to such a freak show.
2) People from the United States who hold very different values from the prevailing national/regional/local views, who are quite happy with their freedom to be different. I've also lived places in the U.S. where that's not the case, but usually that's been my experience.
American society is actually very much homogenized. Differences are superficial and mostly based on racial diversity, and racism that keeps people of the same race together, thus forming a "subculture" with no unique values. For example, if you look at Black/African American culture (that formed entirely over the history of US) it's clear that there are plenty of superficial differences but at its core it's exactly the same as culture of, say, white Protestants, except adapted to being discriminated against, and developed in relatively closed communities. For white American, especially one who adopted racial stereotype it looks "different" or even hostile, but most goals, values and ideas are exactly the same. Many other subcultures have the same fundamental nature, even if not based on ethnicity.
What bothers me most, American geek/nerd subculture, that I am supposed to be associated with, is still very close to mainstream, however mainstream treats it with such a ferocious hostility, I can never understand such a situation. For me American society looks like this Star Trek episode -- groups that I can barely recognize as different treat each other as complete opposites of themselves, and they don't realize just how far I am from all of them.
There's a lot of room here for vegans, people who hate television, people who are only interested in Chinese music, people who want to have no friends, people who never want to be alone,
Vegans? Hate television? That's not what a culture is about.
socialists, anarchists, conservatives, libertarians,
There are no "socialists" in US. American "socialist" would be welcome in the second-from-the right party anywhere else in the world -- and it's usually only second from the right because first would be basically Nazi. In USSR Communists wouldn't recognize him as belonging to a related movement. Politics is one of the area where only a very narrow range of opinion is tolerated in serious public discourse. "Libert
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
There may have been a brief period of McCarthyism, but objectively there were no American gulags.
First and foremost, GULAG HAS NO PLURAL. It makes very easy to recognize Americans who pretend to be Russians or whose propaganda writings are translated into Russian, by this error that any Russian would notice -- as "GULAG" is an abbreviation for "Department of [Penitentiary] Camps" in Russian. It also shows that most Americans not only are only familiar with USSR labor camps through one book by Solzhenitsyn, they also limited their knowledge of that book to its title.
Second, US definitely had prison camps of various kinds, most egregiously camps for Japanese Americans during WWII, however currently operating Guantanamo Bay camp and various outsourced torture programs are also notable. Conditions in many American prisons are actually worse than most of what GULAG prisoners experienced -- if given a choice, I would rather cut trees in Siberian forest surrounded by intimidating-looking armed guards than be raped or stabbed by homemade knives. US also has long history of political prisoners, likely politically motivated assassinations, plus things that not even Stalin dared to do such as genocide (shut up, Robert Conquest readers).
USSR also did not inflict on its population a tiny fraction of death and misery that was caused by black slavery in the South, wage slavery everywhere, shitty social programs and a kind of "health insurance" that, if implemented in USSR, would get Kremlin overrun by angry crowds.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.