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Wired Writer Imagines Google Island
theodp writes "The last thing Wired's Mat Honan remembered before awaking on the self-driving boat that dropped him on the island was sitting through a four-hour Google I/O keynote in Moscone Center and hearing Google CEO Larry Page promote a vision of a utopia where society could be free to innovate and experiment, unencumbered by government regulations or social norms. 'Welcome to Google Island,' a naked-save-for-a-pair-of-eyeglasses Larry Page tells Honan. 'As soon as you hit Google's territorial waters, you came under our jurisdiction, our terms of service. Our laws — or lack thereof — apply here. By boarding our self-driving boat you granted us the right to all feedback you provide during your journey. This includes the chemical composition of your sweat. Remember when I said at I/O that maybe we should set aside some small part of the world where people could experiment freely and examine the effects? I wasn't speaking theoretically. This place exists. We built it.'"
iLand
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
blah...blah
Hervé Villechaize used to say ze Plane ze Plane. Maybe its ze Pain ze Pain of losing any rights to privacy. So is this Fantasy Island or not?
"unencumbered by government regulations or social norms"
So he means rich guys would not be wealthy anymore because no value for real life money?
It was supposed to be a three hour tour, but it's been part of our lives ever since.
...and I'm here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No!' says the man in Washington, 'It belongs to the poor.' 'No!' says the man in the Vatican, 'It belongs to God.' 'No!' says the man in Moscow, 'It belongs to everyone.' I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Rapture, a city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, Where the great would not be constrained by the small!
And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well...
Except if you're writing a YouTube app.
OK, /. Hivemind, mod me into oblivion now.
Congratulations (?) to Wired's Mat Honan for inventing a subgenre that nobody wants.
All was well until the place was discovered by a colony of penguins...
shit.
Who the hell cares?
"As soon as you hit Google's territorial waters, you came under our jurisdiction, our terms of service. Our laws — or lack thereof — apply here." HOLY OXYMORONS BATMAN!
This appears to be a story depicting a sort-of utopian future (of limited extent - an island) where there are no rules.
I'm not sure from the context whether the author is in favor or against the concept. It somehow feels like he is knitting together several uncomfortable consequences of "no rules" in an attempt to paint that future as dystopian.
The thing people always miss, the important overlooked point, is that no one wants a state where there are no rules. What people invariably want is a state which has rules enforcing human rights, and little else.
The most basic human right is to have sovereignty over ones own body. Mat Honan's article shows us that with no rules, outsiders would be able to do anything they wanted to us - even against our consent. It would be the strong doing whatever they wanted to the weak. Typical, obvious, and predictable - we have many examples of lawless societies where the strong do just that.
Many of our rules are violations of that first most basic right, pretty much anything that someone else thinks that you should do or not-do for your own good: rules about drugs, prostitution, abortion, doctor-assisted suicide, and yes, wearing clothes. We could do away with large swaths of the legal landscape and eliminate large parts of government, both local and federal, if we could just say "do anything you want, so long as you don't infringe on the rights of others".
If you would like to read about a rule-less society which enforces basic human rights and is a little less dystopian, try "Manna" by Marshall Brain. It's an easy read and an interesting story.
Another good example is "Voyage From Yesteryear" by James Hogan. A little longer and with more drama, but essentially a rule-less society which enforces basic human rights.
Follow signs 'GGL"
Shaddup And Take My Money Already!
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
Google Utopia who the fuck are you trying to kid? it smacks of a dystopia run by a megacorp rather than a mega government.
This is only the natural progression of things, a group of people (company) seeks freedom from what they view as restrictive intervention in their lives and dreams of striking out to find a new land of freedom where they can create their 'utopian' society. The only difference now is that it's the merchant class seeking to break away from the state, instead of a new state seeking to break away from a monarchy and so on and so forth. Ultimately any independent group of people will start to run into the same problems over and over and over again because circumstances are always changing leaving group A feeling cheated by group B or vice versa, until another splinter groups seeks to break away from the old establishment to begin the cycle anew.
Yeah yeah, and next there's this dude calling himself Atlas having you do things over the radio and you're shooting fireballs out of your hands and "would you kindly?"
.... when I say "shaddup and take my money already!" (where do I sign up for this magical island experience)
People are happy to "go explore and the consequences can go fuck themselves". In fact, some people are HAPPIEST in such circumstances.
Long before there was ever proposed a ONE WAY Mars Mission I was saying that the NASA/US insistence on human safety during exploration missions was THE WRONG ATTITUDE.
I said that should such a mission be proposed, with a well explained and clearly stated intention to NEVER even ATTEMPT to return these pioneers to earth (yes folks, you're gonna die out there - one way or another) they'd STILL have squilliions more applicants than they could ever accept.
And I was proven right.
The Same Goes for this (as yet hypothetical) 'Google Island', there's be literally thousands of people who would rationally consider all the possible negative outcomes and despite everything still choose to explore-the-possibilities.
To deny such a thing is true is to completely misunderstand something fundamental about what it is to be human.
For some opportunities the reward is so great that it is worth any risk.
And before anyone tries to belittle such an atitude, remember folks that without such a pioneering risk-accepting attitude The US of A would never have been discovered (by anyone). In fact without such attitudes your great-to-the-umpteenth primate ancestors would never have left the trees (ditto THEIR great-to-the-umpteenth fishlike ancestors and water).
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
Google's more of an intensive care bed. Where they stick a probe into your every orifice.
Until google acquires it.
First off, way to be homophobic! And bravo to everyone who voted the AC up for it! Second: there are a large number of star trek fanfics that have homosexual themes. They're coming from somewhere, folks.
Please help metamoderate.
Same with Talk vs. FaceTime/iMessage. Google wants you to use their tools so they can target ads, Apple wants to sell you hardware and time you to their ecosystem. It would be cool for Google to give people the option of paying for the nice open tools with no tracking or information gathering. You can opt out of most of it already though.
A Thousand Google Employees on the island Google-Glassed for a thousand hours and managed to reproduce "Lord of the Flies".
New idea: Drop it underwater. Imagine all the possibilities in genetic research!
Quoting Bill Gates, "that's the stupidest fucking thing I ever heard".
What people invariably want is a state which has rules enforcing human rights, and little else.
Sort of. What people invariably want is a state where the rules benefit them, or at least not stopping them from doing what they want to do.
It would be the strong doing whatever they wanted to the weak.
Given Brin and company are arguably the most powerful people in the world, it's not terribly surprising he wants a land where there are no rules, is it? See above.
Please help metamoderate.
We have just announced on the Official Google Blog that we will soon retire Google Island (the actual date is August 18, 2013). We know Island has a devoted following who will be very sad to see it go. We're sad too.
There are two simple reasons for this: usage of Google Island has declined, and as a company we're pouring all of our energy into fewer products. We think that kind of focus will make for a better user experience.
To ensure a smooth transition, we're providing a three-month sunset period so you have sufficient time to find an alternative island. If you want to retain your Island data, you can do so through Google Takeout.
Thank you again for using Google Island.
Oh yeah, most of history. Seems to cause exploitation, abuse, and suffering. Some people get rich.
After reading the summary, I couldn't help but think of the storyline to the first Bioshock.
Just scroll right down and you'll read a tale,
A tale of a fateful trip,
That started at Google IO,
and it involves a ship.
Some fool was a dreamer of sailing men,
All naked -- That's for sure!
"They'd 'innovate'; No, it won't be gay",
Said the blogger du jour -- A blogger "du jour"!
The commenters started getting rough,
The idyllic ship was tossed,
It wrought imagery of a lawless few:
Your privacy would be lost -- Yar! "privacy wood" be "lost!"
The ship made port at a private pier:
A Google-owned desert isle,
With Googliaaaaans!
The Blogger too...
Some billionaires,
(but no wives),
Home "movie" stars,
Terms of Service-er, and
Hairy Mans!
Here on Googlian's Isle!
I dimly remember that patri friedman worked for google for awhile. My guess is he built the island. Actually projects like this are doable and practical within google's budget. Several energy plays are easy to do on an island. Solar, wind, tidal, using the temperature difference between the surface and the deep. The place could be a vacation spot for google staff, and a place for refugees whenever political instability somewhere threatens populations of good coders willing to work cheap.
... I was just imagining whore island.
Welcome to Glassature
How do we get off this island?
The Professor and MaryAnn aren't helping things by panicking, btw.
Sounds like something I'd have written when I was in grade 5, aside from the fact that google didn't exist then...
Either way some pretty pedestrian writing, not really worth any consideration...
There is no cake.......
Prehistory: "Error -58: Illegal Syntax"
Microsoft: "Where do you want to go today?"
Google: "This is where you want to go today."
Than "Google Island".
"I hope my nudity doesn’t bother you." Welcome to the new Google Sodom and Gomorrah! Instead of God having to destroy this new "utopia" without "social norms" with raining brimstone, all he will have to do is sink it with a hurricane or freak storm.
Libertarians as they are allways demanding 'Give me liberty or Give me death' * the facist government should give them what they ask for and execute them.
*funny they never specify whose death they want , bet it's not their own. Bah death to all fanatics.
So it's like living in Wal-Mart, but without any actual products?
That is a great Utopian vision but im damn sure it only applies to the first wolrd..what about the people who are dying to facilitate this sick vision of reality.
Would you kindly put your pants back on?
See the Twilight Zone episode "A Nice Place To Visit" on that theme. It may surprise you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Nice_Place_to_Visit ... [Spoilers follow...]"
"Henry "Rocky" Valentine is robbing a pawnshop after shooting a night watchman, but before he can get away he is shot by the police. He wakes up to find himself seemingly unharmed by the encounter and in the company of a pleasant individual named "Pip" who tells Rocky that he is his guide and has been instructed to grant him whatever he desires.
Still, I guess it could be what you make of it in terms of self-improvement, Contrast with the movie "Groundhog Day".
Although James. T. Kirk decide to leave the "Nexus" because nothing is real or matters.
And then there is what happened in "The Metamorphasis of Prime Intellect" (where an AI enforces rules that people choose for themselves as they get bored...).
http://localroger.com/prime-intellect/
For an example, the human body needs a certain amount of exercise to be healthy. But we are naturally lazy because in the past those who wasted energy did not do as well. But in today's society, you can get food without much physical effort. So we get sick because our lymph system becomes sluggish and also our blood does not circulate enough to get enough oxygen to our tissues. Similarly, the human body is adapted to expect a lot of nutrients from vegetables with fairly low calories per unit fiber. Now we can eat lots of calories from refined sugar and refined starch which appeals to laziness, but without the nutrients and fiber our bodies get sick in various ways like cancer and diabetes. Search also also on the book "The Pleasure Trap" which covers this in detail.
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx
Or the book "Supernormal Stimulus: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose" which talks about other implications (including in the media).
Granted, you said "not suffer any negative consequences". And obviously cancer, diabetes, boredom, ennui, a loss of sense op purpose or a loss of sense of relationship and belonging, and so on, are indeed negative consequences of solipsistic abundance. So, it's perhaps a deep philosophical issue. Humans are tuned (or adapted) for a certain environment with certain levels of scarcities as well as certain types of social interactions. When you change the environment to one of universal abundance and no social constraints, our natural tuning becomes suboptimal or nonsensical relative to the environment, and that can lead to all sorts of unhealthy problems (another one is mentioned in my sig).
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.