Google threatens to cut off news after California proposes paying media outlets

>"scraping" usually refers to

Understood. I use the term "scraping" loosely and, admittedly, purposely. I think it's illustrative of the broader point I was attempting to make.

But, if you really want to be precise, what Google actually does is more commonly (and euphemistically) referred to as "crawling". And, it is more accurate to say that they are crawling for the purpose of indexing what they've crawled. Crawling is essentially the front end of an overall process which ends with indexed results.

Whatever the nomenclature you prefer, the effect is the same, and so is my point.

>websites go out of their way to encourage google

I understand that some websites "encourage" Google, and that intersects with the alternative point of view I've been suggesting. That is, that Google is monopolistic in its traffic ownership and the content owners have little choice but to offer their content to be freely monetized by Google. It's also worth pointing out that there are some businesses which are built around SEO from the ground up while others—like news outlets—pre-existed Google but now rely on them to survive. These are different.

To further close the loop, my suggestion was that the original topic of this thread might also be seen as somewhat of a remedy for that effect. And, frankly, it's strange to me that you will allow that Google should be paying sites for their scraping or crawling or whatever, but don't seem to be connecting it to my point, when it really could be viewed as an alternative remedy to the problem I'm describing.

Overall, I believe mine is a more interesting and accurate way to look at the problem than to simply accept that Google has intermediated so many content sites and their consumers as some natural and universally right state of affairs.

In any case, I don't think Google's search business model or that SEO is a thing, etc. is lost on anyone on HN. And, thought I might encounter more interesting discussion here around my view. But it seems most people here have accepted that Google just owns the traffic and everybody must play along. Further, that it's really for their own good. I suppose it's become harder to imagine a world where content producers own their content and are not coerced into giving it away for need of traffic from a single monopolistic source without whom their business might not survive.

But, it's somewhat surprising when I zoom out and think about the spirit of "hacking" and the audience that used to more predominantly frequent HN. Thinking back to staunch support of folks like Aaron Swartz and other topics. Maybe I'm the only one who sees these as somewhere along the same continuum. And that's fine.

Nonetheless, I find this discussion tedious and boring by now, as I'm sure others do my "alternative perspective". So, let's just agree to disagree, rather than have these pedantic restatements of definitions and Google's well-known search business model as if these are somehow dispositive.

Thanks for your time.

> sharing links is a double edged sword that was sort of forced on the news publishers.

What are you talking about? "sharing links" was not forced on publishers by anyone, not even sort of. Sharable links to content are not in any way damaging, so can't be a double edged sword. Sharable links are purely beneficial and you have done zero of the work to show otherwise.

> An alternative POV is that language changes over time to introduce terminology that is now relevant due to some new context, shift in social dynamics, demographic changes, etc.

Yes, the term was introduced due to the need in some circles to extend the white/black dichotomy of US politics to encompass Asians and Hispanics. But that label doesn’t serve the distinct interests of Asians and Hispanics.

> I would encourage you to consider that your family's experience as immigrants is distinctly different for many reasons that significantly impact your worldview.

Of course, but that’s exactly my point. The majority of people encompassed by the label “POC” are immigrants or descendants of relatively recent immigrants (excepting native Hawaiians and Tejanos and the like). But the term “POC” is based on the experiences of ADOS and indigenous Americans. It erases a salient distinction (the common experiences shared by immigrants), and elevates a superficial distinction (non-white skin).

> But, for some, this impulse sometimes extends to a certain "fervor" to de-identify with other groups (e.g. PoCs) and their perspectives.

Of course they do. Immigrants already have a pre-existing identity based on shared culture, language, and history. Why would they identify with other people with whom they have little in common, culturally or in terms of political interests? Why would they embrace “people of color” as an identity, which denotes no cultural or historical ties, but exists in mere juxtaposition to white people?

The term “POC” also obscures a fundamental conflict in economic interests between immigrants and ADOS/indigenous people. Immigrants are all basically at various stages of the same economic assimilation curve. Guatemalan Americans are poorer than Swedish Americans, but that’s because of timing of immigration; upward mobility is similar between the two. Immigrant POC thus have a strong interest in “not fixing what isn’t broken” (for them). By contrast, economic gaps between black/indigenous people and everyone else haven’t been closing over generations. They remain as big now as in 1960. Those groups this have strong economic incentives to demand fundamental changes.

That is not to say that individual Asians and Hispanics may not favor such changes for the same reason many individual white people do. But the starting point must be recognizing that different groups are distinct and have distinct interests.

Not sure. I don’t see ads.

>you can get rid of both affirmative action and legacy admissions.

Sure you could. But the point is about where the conversation has been directed and where the emphasis is placed, including by you.

>affirmative action is morally wrong. We shouldn’t inflict the concept of race on the next generation.

But, we should forget the impact of the legacy of race for some members of those same generations?

The problem with these kinds of arguments is that their proponents frequently recast corrective actions as "the immoral racist thing", then dismiss them as immoral and racist.

So, it begs the question of course. But, it's not exactly intellectually honest to start the clock at the place that suits one's argument.

The unfortunate truth is that race was the basis for what needs to be corrected. That wasn't a choice made by those in need of the correction.

The other elephant in the room, conspicuously missed by these kinds of arguments, is that racial discrimination continues to this day; not by law, but by biases, social networks and other artifacts from the era of overt and codified discrimination. Affirmative action also acknowledges this plain fact. The counter from those intellectually honest enough to also acknowledge it frequently runs something along the lines of "yes, but we can't fix discrimination with more discrimination". The truth is that we actually can, but it does require that people stop inciting resentment by facilely re-framing these corrections as merely more "immoral" discrimination.

And, what do we propose those on the receiving end do while society works through its ongoing issues with discrimination?

>Eliminating affirmative action tends to almost double the percentage of Asians from 20% closer to 40%

Your numbers here suspiciously align with Harvard demographics, and indeed you go on to cite that same 20% explicitly for Harvard.

And, that is stunning. You are essentially replacing every admitted student who could have taken advantage of affirmative action with Asian students.

The obvious conclusions are that:

1. Virtually every Black, Latin, indigenous and otherwise "affirmative action eligible" student at Harvard would not have been admitted, save for affirmative action.

2. Every seat taken by those students would have instead been occupied by an Asian student.

Not only is this wildly presumptuous and flat wrong, it reveals a lot about your thinking, including some "biases" (to state it euphemistically). There is a certain "they wouldn't have earned it anyway" undertone here, which also animates anti-AA arguments in the main. Poetically, these are exactly the kinds of biases I mentioned earlier, which lead to ongoing discrimination that AA seeks to address.

It also conveys a very specific POV—more accurately, narrative—that dishonestly frames affirmative action as a war between Asians and Blacks or other non-privileged groups, while de-emphasizing the effects of legacy and wealth. You have, essentially, been misdirected and enlisted as a proxy.

It's a time honored tradition to scapegoat underprivileged groups while the privileged enjoy the spoils. And, in spite of your claim that "the math doesn't work"—which you appear to have supported only with faulty assumptions—the numbers actually bear out who's really winning:

  "In 2022, Harvard’s overall acceptance rate was 3.2%. The average admit rate was approximately 42% for donor-related applicants and 34% for legacies." [0]

Black and LatinX admittance stands at around 7%. So even assuming their overfitting is all due to affirmative action, this pales in comparison to donors and legacies, in both percentages and real terms (butts in seats, displacing other butts in seats).

[0]https://www.forbes.com/sites/shaunharper/2023/07/05/legacy-a...