Slashdot Mirror
Former Scientologist: CoS Told Brin It Wanted Only "Good" Search Results
An anonymous reader writes "Former Scientologist at the highest level Geir Isene reveals that he was brought in to educate top Scientology officials about the Internet, and learned that they had met personally with Google's Sergey Brin (YouTube video), asking him if it were possible for the search giant to filter results so that only positive information about the church would be returned on the word 'Scientology.' You can imagine how that went over. Isene also says that he begged the church's officials to give him a full day to explain the Internet to them before they met with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which had regularly criticized the church for its stands against Internet freedom. Apparently, the church is missing Isene's counsel, because just a few days ago, the EFF put the Church of Scientology into its 'Takedown Hall of Shame.' Last month Geir published his journey 'From Independent Scientologist to Just Me' under the GPL v3 license, recognising how being an open source advocate helped with that."
ad words
Clearly, the CoS understands at this point how much control places like Google have over people's web traffic, and they're quite aware that Google can gerrymander the results. Brin seems to mistake understanding the internet as a technology to understanding the technology as a means of control.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Is that given recent exploits by Snowden who is making a name for himself by exposing governmental spying, people that leave the Church of Scientology are treated exactly the same way.
You leave your "religion" because it's a sham, and then you're harassed and attacked anywhere. Amazing.
Thankfully I gave up on religion at 13, I can't imagine being lured into a cult like this. That said, Scientologists are stupider than I thought.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
OK, I try to keep an open mind and really don't care what people believe so long as A) they don't get into people's faces about it and B) the message is peaceful.
I don't even mind their big back-story about aliens and what-not. Ignoring the fact that a sci-fi writer wrote it, who's to say that's any more laughable than other stuff. And you could say that maybe he was just inspired by the spoken word or universal secrets to write his other stuff, which isn't that much more implausible than where many of the stories for the Bible came from.
But... in practice Scientology is making it quite hard to like or respect them. Between the lawsuits, making people's lives hell for leaving or speaking out against them, the pay-to-learn thing they have going on, etc it's hard for me to say "fine whatever"
And now this... sigh. It's just making it hard to respect you. I mean, lots of people HATE the Catholic church but you don't see them trying to stifle people's thoughts and comments about it.
Well, to be fair, while their magic isn't anything to fear, they have better lawyers than the WBC. If I wasn't already on their shitlist I'd probably want to post as AC as well.
Dismissing their magic is very different than dismissing their potential for dirty tricks. That madman staggering toward you with a knife babbling about the New World Order and lizard people? He's still got a knife.
You dismiss their *magic*, yet you fear using a pseudo on /. ?
Do you have *any* clue what they've done to people who have crossed them in the past, asshole? And I mean the recent past too. I would be less afraid to fuck with the CIA (seriously).
I do not think L Ron meant to start a religion.
I think it started as a joke.
As more and more people started to believe, he made the religion crazier and crazier, but they just believed more.
So he charged the stupid money and got rich.
L Ron is my hero.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
On the subject of tax exemption, it's a wonder to me that *any* religion qualifies for exemption unless it is transparently not-for-profit, i.e. all money going in is accounted for in its operations with limits on the salaries, expenses and other overheads of that organisation. If it cannot do that to the satisfaction of the revenue services, it should lose exemption. Religion or not.
Go fuck yourself, clambot.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
If a Christian family is debasing a gay person they are not devout and especially not Christian.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
*sigh* Wacky beliefs without any foundation in observations, is not what makes Scientology special. Mainstream religions make assertions that are no less crazy that the above.
What makes it special, is its specific behavior and techniques, not its paranormal beliefs. A "church" becomes a "cult" much like how a murderer becomes a "terrorist," by working within some narrow definitions that people decided are unusually bad, rather than mundanely bad.
Body Thetans don't exist and people who say they do are full of shit, but it's not any different sort of bullshit, than the son of a virgin feeling better a few days after his crucifixion, talking snakes, lake-of-fire-afterlife vs a different afterlife, and so on. If you happen to not enjoy the myths within Scientology that's cool, but that's not the right reason to hate 'em. Hate them because they're evil people.
Don't tell them "you're crazy if you believe that nonsense," tell them "fuck you, asshole." I know plenty of Christians who by definition (it's what makes them Christians) believe stuff that is just as wacked. But unlike Scientologists, these people mean well so they deserve a shitload of slack. Not everyone who is delusional, is a sociopath.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
I would also say Scientologists aren't like Christians as I could go and walk into any Christian church and talk to the priest there and find out all about their belief system and the hows and whys things are done and believed unlike Scientology where you have to pay. Most of them will be more than willing to give you a copy of their holy book for free (some it is almost impossible to walk away without one) again unlike Scientology where you have to pay. I have found this to be true with a number of proper religions, like Islam, the various flavors of Christianity, Hebrew, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Hinduism but not Scientology (yes I did try and until you start breaking out the cash you get almost nothing).
Time to offend someone
Read your own news story.
They may have started the riots, but the first man to die was a monk slain by Muslims.
Retaliation is perfectly acceptable.
Pursing the specific killer\killers of the first monk might be acceptable.
Starting a riot and murdering dozens of people just because they happen to be Muslim is not acceptable. At least not to me.
I know plenty of Christians who by definition (it's what makes them Christians) believe stuff that is just as wacked. But unlike Scientologists, these people mean well so they deserve a shitload of slack.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
A specific Catholic might mean well, but they are still supporters of an organization which actively engages in predatory behavior. Their policies are designed toward the specific goal of increasing human suffering in order to increase the demand for their services. Anti-choice to increase the number of poor and unwanted. Lying about condoms to help spread AIDS so that they can use their victims as poster children. Raping children and then blaming the victims while protecting the rapists because if they didn't cover it up people would think they weren't good. Spreading hatred of gay people because they're not going to produce more victims, and hence aren't really people in their book.
They're the most successful business in the history of the world based on their business model of increasing human suffering and using a small part of their income to ameliorate a small portion of it.
A specific fundie nutjob might mean well...who am I kidding, they have nothing but hate.
Not everyone who is delusional, is a sociopath.
No, but almost all religious organizations *are* sociopathic. One's intentions don't matter at all if their results are consistently the opposite of their intentions and they fail to adjust their actions based upon the outcome for the benefit of a sociopathic organization.
Maybe you're talking about some specific Christians who attend some specific churches, but that has little bearing on the big picture.
Unless their church actively supports birth control, reproductive choice and is openly accepting of people who don't harm others, then they are supporters of sociopathic organizations. Actively working to increase human suffering when your stated purpose is to decrease it is a business tactic to increase demand for your services.
They can spend all day whining about their intentions, but what matters are results.
All the major religions have much more in common with Scientology than you admit.
Individual Scientologists might be decent people in their own right, they're just brainwashed and deluded like the rest of religious people. The organizations are hard to tell apart if you look past the specific details and look to the general case.
It's just a different business model.