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Inappropriate Uses of Google Trends

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Re: Inappropriate Uses of Google Trends

#91
post #11

Googling something does not mean you don't know what it is. Very often I google things that I know quite a bit about. Sometimes to see if there is any news about it, or just to get to the wikipedia page, and brush up on a few facts.

Google is indeed rightfully called "the Address Bar of the Internet" in the article. Few of the searches I did today[0]: - russian letters - because I needed to copy-paste a glyph - ramen - because I wanted to double-check this word for one of my today's HN comments - polyvalent - because "wtf does that word in today's HN link mean?" - sabaton prague - to get the name of a song I wanted to listen to - list polecający…

> it's now mixed with sites visited with Chrome

For me it shows major headings of each search I have done, and smaller subheadings of the search results I clicked on. Most of those from firefox, and none of my chrome history is mixed in.

Re: Inappropriate Uses of Google Trends

#92
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you don't have to vote for the other side. But you're definitely voting for someone who is obviously going to be a poor leader. And he's demonstrated poor judgement over and over again. All the signs are out there but you choose to ignore them because you hate the other side so much. I cannot understand how a Hispanic can vote for someone who is so anti-Hispanic among other things. Are you HOPING that it's all an…

>anti-Hispanic Citation needed. He's talked a lot about limiting Mexico's free access to free movement of people. This disproportionately affects Mexico and Mexicans, and their media reflects it! Having gone through immigration ordeals, it's a slap in the face to embrace illegal immigration. I put up with the law, and it hurts me[1]. Others just say fuck it, run across, and that's supposed to be OK? Or more ridiculou…

I believe you can be anti-illegal-immigration and not racist. It's also not a stance that Trump or the GOP owns.

> People need to stop being hysterical Well, have you heard what's coming out of Trump's mouth? He's exploiting people's fear of Mexicans. That carelessness counts as being anti-Hispanic and also, have you heard what he said about that judge...

When Trump talks about building a wall (charging Mexico for it!) and deporting all illegal immigrants you can't ignore that pipe-dream. Somehow this guy is going to solve illegal immigration? That's why you're supporting him? Because why write this huge defence of him?

Re: Inappropriate Uses of Google Trends

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forget students even, I'm an adult with a compulsive information-seeking habit, as I suspect a lot of other HN readers are. I know who Harriet Tubman is, but I don't know all there is to know about her, so on the date that her $20 bill debut was announced I Googled her and read parts of her Wikipedia article, the same way I am constantly doing for all sorts of current event topics. How can wanting to learn more possi…

The only really valid part of the linked article is the point about how you can't make sweeping generalizations based on a very small sample size and a (relatively) small trend. Concluding that people probably know what the EU is while searching very specifically using the phrase "What is the EU" is no more accurate or truthful than concluding that they don't know what the EU is. The author says at one point, "perhap…

Agreed. That's how to do sensible searching.

I didn't know how exit would happen via "Article 50", so I couldn't search for that term.

This election cycle has demonstrated that Google is acting politically, not a neutral repository with great search tools.

Re: Inappropriate Uses of Google Trends

#94
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>anti-Hispanic Citation needed. He's talked a lot about limiting Mexico's free access to free movement of people. This disproportionately affects Mexico and Mexicans, and their media reflects it! Having gone through immigration ordeals, it's a slap in the face to embrace illegal immigration. I put up with the law, and it hurts me[1]. Others just say fuck it, run across, and that's supposed to be OK? Or more ridiculou…

I believe you can be anti-illegal-immigration and not racist. It's also not a stance that Trump or the GOP owns. > People need to stop being hysterical Well, have you heard what's coming out of Trump's mouth? He's exploiting people's fear of Mexicans. That carelessness counts as being anti-Hispanic and also, have you heard what he said about that judge... When Trump talks about building a wall (charging Mexico for it…

Again: What has trump said that's actually anti-Hispanic (not even just Mexican) or outright racist? I have looked up a lot of what Trump _exactly_ says. He's very careful with his words; people just project meaning into them to get the result they want.

All people have biases, even judges. The judge in question belongs to "La Raza Lawyers" ("The Race"). La Raza in general is very pro-immigration and doesn't like Trump's policies. Trump didn't say it was because he was Mexican heritage, he said it was because the judge kept ruling against him. But it's not crazy to think there may be some bias there, possibly.

I don't know why you think it's a pipe dream. Charging Mexico is trivial: Threaten the remittances. Tax them or just ban them (add more AML/KYC rules). Since there's 1-2M households depending on this income, even a 2 month interruption would devastate Mexico - they can't play around with it. As far as deporting people, the US deported 1M in a the 50s[1]. With social media and modern tech, it should be easy to surpass that number.

I'm not even supporting him here. I'm just annoyed that people that could take down Trump don't, and instead resort to baseless insults. We just saw this happen with Brexit. The Remain side, outside of debates, was a lot of "don't be racist" screaming. People are ignoring this kind of yelling, and it desensitizes people to actual racism.

This isn't really a good topic for HN, but please email me (see profile) so we can discuss more.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wetback

Re: Inappropriate Uses of Google Trends

#95
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you don't have to vote for the other side. But you're definitely voting for someone who is obviously going to be a poor leader. And he's demonstrated poor judgement over and over again. All the signs are out there but you choose to ignore them because you hate the other side so much. I cannot understand how a Hispanic can vote for someone who is so anti-Hispanic among other things. Are you HOPING that it's all an…

We don't always get easy choices but I refuse to abdicate my responsibility to make the best choice for my country, even if it means swallowing some of my reservations. The other side has nominated an unprincipled criminal who has shown utter contempt for accountability in the course of her public service. Not to mention that I share about 0-5% of her policy views. Aside from the whole judge debacle, which I concede…

> The other side has nominated an unprincipled criminal who has shown utter contempt for accountability in the course of her public service. This is really naive. Both sides are hardly saints. This sounds like a talking point from the GOP or Fox News.

So, after the Leavers won the #Brexit vote, we hear of these racist attacks on Polish immigrants by idiots emboldened by the vote result. I would not be surprised to see the same thing happen in the US.

Re: Inappropriate Uses of Google Trends

#96
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't always get easy choices but I refuse to abdicate my responsibility to make the best choice for my country, even if it means swallowing some of my reservations. The other side has nominated an unprincipled criminal who has shown utter contempt for accountability in the course of her public service. Not to mention that I share about 0-5% of her policy views. Aside from the whole judge debacle, which I concede…

> The other side has nominated an unprincipled criminal who has shown utter contempt for accountability in the course of her public service. This is really naive. Both sides are hardly saints. This sounds like a talking point from the GOP or Fox News. So, after the Leavers won the #Brexit vote, we hear of these racist attacks on Polish immigrants by idiots emboldened by the vote result. I would not be surprised to se…

A talking point from Fox News? This has been all over the media for months, even if some left-wing outfits have been trying to downplay it. If a normal government employee did what she did, they'd be out of a job, barred from ever having a security clearance again, and potentially facing criminal charges for the reckless handling of classified data. They'd almost certainly be facing criminal charges for destruction of evidence.

Also, have you not seen the large number of violent anti-Trump protesters attacking Trump supporters and police?

You need to add an extra newline to go to a new line btw.

Re: Inappropriate Uses of Google Trends

#97

Let's face it, the only reason publications turned to Google Trends to show people Googling "What is the EU?" is because it fit the narrative they had out of the gate. I see the good and bad of Brexit (I'd say "remain" has a stronger case if the EU would reform;) yet the more I read from the media, the more I've leaned pro-Brexit, just out of spite. Every article I've read treats those who were pro-Brexit as if they…

About this: "Every article I've read treats those who were pro-Brexit as if they were complete idiots, as if their concerns aren't legitimate." You are using very strong language there, but it is important to remember that the pro-Brexit people were badly misinformed, and the concerns that drove them were completely illegitimate in a modern Western country. So it is entirely appropriate that the articles give that ki…

Congratulations on so powerfully proving his point: that the root cause of stupidity is a closed mind.

Re: Inappropriate Uses of Google Trends

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We just want to preserve our culture" is the loudest racial dog-whistle I know. It's been around since Jim Crow and it looks like it's not going away any time soon.

This implies there is no such thing as a culture worth saving, and that the only reason someone might find value in it is because of racism. Not coincidentally, this is the globalist message. All people are the same, the only thing that matters is economic growth, and nation-states will soon be a thing of the past. Turns out, normal people have something to say about that.

I think the nationalism vs globalism framing is correct, but somehow misleading. I love the cultures of countries, but am a globalist.

I don't like that capital is far more global and well-treated than labour is, but at least the EU made some strides in the direction of more movement for people.

However, while in principle the EU is great (my only problem is that it isn't globalist enough), the practicalities seem to have been co-opted by international capital.

For instance, law-making powers are still reserved to the Commissioners. Politicians who never have to run for elections again are not the right people to put in such a role, and yet, that's what happens.

The Council of Ministers are even worse. All the national governments get together, fight, make a decision that the EU then implements, then each national government goes home and blames the EU for it.

Meanwhile, things that would actually make life better for the people of the EU (roaming charges are a good example) are held up for years because they damage sets of national interests.

Don't even get me started on the Euro.

On the other hand, the EU means that western europe and some of the rest has been in relative peace for over sixty years now, and there is definitely more of a sense of common identity across the countries, which is brilliant. We've changed from young men dying in the muck to old men arguing over idiocies, and while that's not a perfect change, its still better than the alternatives.

But the forces of maximising profit by shifting work to lower-cost countries are the real causes of the hollowing-out of much of the UK outside London. This, along with perceived loss of identity, causes those people to lose faith in all of the internationalist movements which are backed by capital, and vote Leave.

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