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Google Critic Ousted from Think Tank Funded by the Tech Giant

nytimes.com

51–60 of 481 posts

Re: Google Critic Ousted from Think Tank Funded by the Tech Giant

#51
post #7

And we are shown again that Google is now large enough and has enough enough influence that it's only serious opponent is the EU. A continent. Do no evil indeed.

[pedantic] the EU is not a continent: it's a trade bloc.

To be more pedantic, it's more than just a trade block, it's also a political union.

Re: Google Critic Ousted from Think Tank Funded by the Tech Giant

#52
I have read so many baseless hostility toward Google, especially in France at a time where governments were fighting Google over taxes and newspapers realized they had lost income from advertisements for good, that I now distrust any newspaper article painting the firm in a bad light.

Re: Google Critic Ousted from Think Tank Funded by the Tech Giant

#53
post #42
post #39

I just spent the better part of a week getting myself off of GMail. I'm still using Chrome at work for development, but have Brave browser for personal use now. I'm using DuckDuckGo for searches. I have an iPhone, but honestly, I don't trust Apple to not act like total dumbasses and so I am now lamenting the consolidation in the smart phone space. Google and these other companies are blowing themselves up over idioti…

What email service did you switch to? I'm thinking of doing the same.

You may want to take a look at the list here https://www.privacytools.io/#email for alternative email providers with higher privacy standards.

Re: Google Critic Ousted from Think Tank Funded by the Tech Giant

#54

The thing is that Google has absolutely gone down questionable path from their early days. It is a little unfair to think this problem exists only within Google. Time and time again we are reminded why corporations will evolve to become as greedy and as protective of their turf expansive of their power and monopolistic as they can get, even if good people are running them. It is the system itself that does this, corp…

Can anyone who needs to say 'don't be evil' really be trusted?

It betrays a certain disingeniousness, an implicit assumption of unaccountable power and a conscious decision to adopt a strategy of placating the public with platitudes up front and maybe doing something altogether different behind the scenes. Power always concentrates itself and does strange things to people.

Google, Facebook and a lot of the SV culture is beginning to look sinister, they don't seem grounded to human values and present a future vision that is cold, alienated, soulless and totalitarian in an techno-elitist way.

You can't wish away people, and unemployed people create instability and an unviable system. Whether it is robotics or AI and keeping aside whether these are possible in any realistic way, for the people who accept this the only way to keep the system stable will involve evil.

Re: Google Critic Ousted from Think Tank Funded by the Tech Giant

#55

90 points in less than an hour. This guy's fight for his right to be wrong is surprisingly energising to this community. I'm even sympathetic to the criticism of Google. But for the life of me I can't figure out why this particular employment dispute gets this sort of billing... Arguably the US government (an entity endowed with something literally called "the monopoly on violence") just pardoned someone who build an…

Maybe because here's a technical community. I'm much more interested in news about leading tech companies than some local crime lord in a foreign country.

Re: Google Critic Ousted from Think Tank Funded by the Tech Giant

#58
post #45
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What email service did you switch to? I'm thinking of doing the same.

I personally switched to ProtonMail, but I lament there's no IMAP access. If you don't mind paying you can use FastMail

Big fan of FastMail. Roughly $50 a year to control my email destiny? No brainer.

Re: Google Critic Ousted from Think Tank Funded by the Tech Giant

#59
post #40

The thing is that Google has absolutely gone down questionable path from their early days. It is a little unfair to think this problem exists only within Google. Time and time again we are reminded why corporations will evolve to become as greedy and as protective of their turf expansive of their power and monopolistic as they can get, even if good people are running them. It is the system itself that does this, corp…

The thing is, these sort of situations (creating dependence) are very hard to pick apart and point out who is at fault. Say an organization 'A' funds another organization 'B' (maybe non-profit, maybe not), and over time 'B' becomes very dependent on the donations they are getting from 'A'. Then say they start to have a conflict of interest, and 'A' drops funding(which probably kills 'B'). Who's the bad guy here? How…

It's a simple issue, bar entities that should not have conflicts of interest from accepting gifts/investment/etc that could create a conflict of interest.

It is appalling how US senators are allowed to receive gifts or be compensated in creative ways by companies.

Re: Google Critic Ousted from Think Tank Funded by the Tech Giant

#60
post #55

90 points in less than an hour. This guy's fight for his right to be wrong is surprisingly energising to this community. I'm even sympathetic to the criticism of Google. But for the life of me I can't figure out why this particular employment dispute gets this sort of billing... Arguably the US government (an entity endowed with something literally called "the monopoly on violence") just pardoned someone who build an…

Maybe because here's a technical community. I'm much more interested in news about leading tech companies than some local crime lord in a foreign country.

I suppose Maricopa County could in some ways be considered foreign territory, but bastard Joe was an American county sheriff in an American state...
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