A fitting cartoon analogy for cartoon logic.<p>I am reminded of an Alan Moore quote:<p>“In the mid 1980's I was asked by an american legal institution known as the Christic Legal Institute to compile a comic book that would detail the murky history of the C.I.A., from the end of the second world war, to the present day. Covering such things as the heroin smuggling during the Vietnam war, the cocaine smuggling during the war in Central America, the Kennedy assasination and other highlights.<p>What I learned during the frankly horrifying research that I had to slog through in order to accomplish this, was that yes, there is a conspiracy, in fact there are a great number of conspiracies that are all tripping each other up. And all of those conspiracies are run by paranoid fantasists, and ham fisted clowns. If you are on a list targeted by the C.I.A., you really have nothing to worry about. If however you have a name similar to someone on a list targeted by the C.I.A., then you are dead?<p>The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory, is that conspiracy theorists believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is actually chaotic. The truth is that it is not The Iluminati, or The Jewish Banking Conspiracy, or the Gray Alien Theory. The truth is far more frightening.<p>Nobody is in control.<p>The world is rudderless...”
I like Google, and what Page has achieved. If they act in ways I don't agree with, I can stop using their service(s). It's not like Google take my resources by force, and then use them to do unspeakable evil.<p>Page and cohorts have demonstrably shown a knack for developing tech which the world finds useful. And for that I'm grateful.<p>Yet! I don't need to express my gratitude to him. Instead, he's rewarded with 'disagreeable' money & power.<p>What does he do with the acquired wherewithal? New projects. And in counterintuitive directions, which others only find insightful after the fact!<p>Page's et al. investment in Calico -- their pro-longevity/healthspan biotech company -- is one such example. They're investing in one of the world's most significant problems. Maybe the most! Dismissed by others, but seen as doable by someone who has been prescient time and again!<p>This 'power-hungry' character may just save or extend your life one day! Contra to what others would have done with the same power/money.
..."But by the end, Lex Luther spent his final years fighting off increasing government regulation and a growing mass of lawsuits while trying to keep his company from succumbing to bureaucratic rot and his employees innovative. The good employees kept jumping ship while the mediocre ones were proving impossible to dislodge. He eventually died in a bizarre yacht accident involving a prostitute, several chickens and some ketamine, having failed to maintain his dominance of the world. He was replaced by a guy with an MBA from Stanford who had very straight teeth and that said all the right things at the right time and who slowly ran the company into the ground by selling off divisions one after the other in order to meet annual bonus growth profit targets."
Article forgot to mention Lex's many biometrics acquisitions (e.g. Neven Vision) prior to sending his fleet of cameras down every road in the civilized world, dabbling in mass genetics (23andme), "accidental" mass capture of open wifi traffic, spyware he convinced 63% of all web sites to deploy (Analytics), or the sensor-packed mobile devices he has root on in a few million peoples' pockets.<p>It would only require something like 0.25 9/11's to turn Lex into the worlds largest and most terrifying defence contractor. Of course this sounds ridiculous, but it's probably just a few short pieces of emergency legislation from reality
It's not a question if someone with too much power will abuse that power. It always happens, always. It's not a question of if it will happen or not, it's a question of when and under what circumstances.<p>That's why we have the division of power in governments, that's why we have countries, because too much power concentrated by too few individuals will always get abused. If not by the individuals themselves, someone else or another organization, the NSA comes to mind, will find a way to abuse that power at some point in time when the conditions are right.
Wild conspiracy theory aside, I just realized that in a few years after the nest userbase grows more, they could tweak the temperature setting algorithm to secretly and gradually lower the user's "acceptable" temperature over time to acclimate users to lower temperatures, cutting energy usage in the world by a significant amount. Conspiracy for good? :)
Eh. This article emphasizes the wrong things. Larry Page isn't some super villain building robot armies to take over the world. Any significant harm he/Google might do to the world will likely be via the unintended consequences of actions motivated primarily by profit. We already see this -- the slow erosion of privacy expectations, etc.<p>As for all of the internet of things/robotics acquisitions and R&D... well, I'm not in the board room during these discussions, but I highly doubt that building robotic armies is on anyone's mind. More likely, Page et al. see this as a next major growth area and would like to stay ahead of the curve. Esp. the Boston Dynamics acquisition is probably less about military applications than general experience with complicated robots.
That's quite a bit of headpatting.<p>Because you know, B.O. - a young man has risen from humble begginings to rule over one of the most powerful countries in the world. K.J.U. - a pudgy asian young man that enjoyed pointing at things and cake now holds the keys to the awesome power of NUCLEAR WEAPONS.<p>And let's not mention that wiley rascal, V.P., an unassuming ex secret agent in a semi frozen country, that has risen to the rank of president, controlling as many 2 MILLION TROOPS.<p>Anyway, did you guys know amazon has tinfoil now. Also drones. And they now what we buy. And an army of people at their command, driving around every corner of the earth for no reason! Sure, they say that they "deliver" stuff, but you know what else is delivered? MILITARY PAYLOADS! Damn that handsome J.B.!
With truly evil billionaires out there - the
Koch brothers come to mind - and family run organizations that take horrible advantage of employees - like Walmart and the Waltons - why is it so many people want to make a case against Google and its founders?<p>Yes, it makes sense to keep a check on powers. But I'm way more worried about all of our three-letter agencies and the private billionaire donations behind the power structure in Washington than the company that may in fact give me self-driving cars, give Internet access to remote parts of the world, and so on.<p>This article feels like it's doing nothing but trying to build an evil genius narrative where none exists. When you summon images of Lex Luther in the first sentence, you've lost me.
I'm not sure I buy into the Larry Page-as-Lex-Luthor analogy, even if it's meant to be more evocative than literally descriptive. (Page has achieved, circumstantially, what Luthor single-mindedly strove to do.) People seem to want to attribute sinister motives to Page, and while I don't know the man, all available evidence suggests he's more ambitious business tycoon than Big Brother-in-training.<p>I do, however, think there's something very interesting in this piece. Namely, what does it <i>mean</i> for someone to hold such potential power over the lives of so many? In the grand sweep of history, the amount of theoretical control over the world afforded to someone in Larry Page's position has accumulated in the blink of an eye, and it's staggering.<p>Technology is changing more quickly than our ability to understand its ethical, socioeconomic, and even existential implications. That doesn't mean we have to adopt the Luddite program, to be frightened of technology, and to slow its progress. We should welcome the rapid progress, and encourage technology. At the same time, perhaps we need to get a lot more serious about developing a coherent philosophy of technology, and a forward-looking technology policy. For instance: it's still a bit crackpotish to suggest we should be working on a Three Laws of Robotics in 2014, but that notion will become less outlandish in the next few years. And maybe, as Asimov subtly suggested, <i>we're</i> the robots who need the guidelines.<p>We live in very interesting times. More accurately, we're living the prologue to some very interesting times.
I don't really agree with the premise, which is that drewdavismedia is intelligent enough to decide for other people what they are allowed to have.
<i>I’m not saying that Page is going to abuse his power. I am saying that he could.</i><p>And do what? Be specific. Read my e-mails?<p>The constant fear of corporations has been puzzling me ever since I saw RoboCop. Back then at least it was tied to the fear of rising Japan who contributed to the world war not too long before.<p>The tech companies on the other hand have to be some of the most meek and least abusive organizations in existence. They pale in comparison even to a provincial police office who will dispatch storm troopers and search your house for plants based on the flimsiest of evidence.[1]<p>Yet in some people's mind they are this imminent threat, though not really specified. How does that happen?<p>[1] <a href="http://www.fourwinds10.net/siterun_data/government/law_enforcement_and_police/news.php?q=1395942059" rel="nofollow">http://www.fourwinds10.net/siterun_data/government/law_enfor...</a>
I am pretty sure there is a much larger vision behind all these seemingly disjoint acquistions and ventures. One day when the final piece is put together, we mere mortals will realize what is happening behind the scenes right now. But it might be too late by then.
I don't disagree with the general point that power easily corrupts, but found it odd this was the only post on the website (bar an About page - the Contact page links to the About page, which contains what I read as blurb as best).<p>So, like usual, I did a WHOIS.<p>This domain was registered yesterday: July 12th.<p><pre><code> Domain Name: DREWDAVISMEDIA.COM
Registrar: LIQUIDNET LTD.
Whois Server: whois.liquidnetlimited.com
Referral URL: http://www.liquidnetlimited.com
Name Server: DNS1.FREEHOSTIA.COM
Name Server: DNS2.FREEHOSTIA.COM
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Updated Date: 12-jul-2014
Creation Date: 12-jul-2014
Expiration Date: 12-jul-2015
</code></pre>
Seems like FUD to me.
Don't forget that he's also trying to "beat death". <a href="http://time.com/574/google-vs-death/" rel="nofollow">http://time.com/574/google-vs-death/</a><p>This could expand his control beyond the world, and as far as the universe! Or perhaps even, The Multiverse!!
The whole world dominance theory is an exaggeration. The biggest markets in the world (by population) are completely closed to Google.<p>They have their own versions of Facebook, Youtube, Google and everything else we use here in the west, and that's not going to change anytime soon since the governments have protectionist policies in these sectors.<p>And even in parts of the west, namely the EU, policies are implemented which are trying to push Google out of the market, or at least weaken it severely, to allow their local industries to grow.<p>Whatever you might fear that Google will become some day, it wont happen, since they wont even get a fair chance in most markets to get dominant. And even if they do, they will be pushed out by the government, if it can afford it.
Last I checked, GOOG is a public company that answers to a board of directors and shareholders. Not a private company with a megalomaniac potentate heading it up.
I like a good story that appeals to emotions but unfortunately emergent self organization appears to dispel conspiracy:
<a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/james_b_glattfelder_who_controls_the_world" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/james_b_glattfelder_who_controls_th...</a><p>Unfortunately, because I think modulation is easier with less moving parts.
What was the point of this awfully written collection of words? Also, could someone contact the author and let him know of the existence of Microsoft Word? His contact link is broken and he has way too many typos to be in the front page of Hacker News.
This, and some of the comments sounds like something out of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged". Damn those that make profit and dont share it with those with less ability...
Let's say Larry Page knew who I was, and didn't like me. Does he really actually have the ability to go in and read my email? I would guess not...
I assume that this comment will just be buried so that others can't even read it, since it will go against most people's belief systems.<p>I saw several people in here say something about "conspiracy theories" as if to refute a "conspiracy theory" that was stated in the thread. But I didn't see any such thing said. Maybe I missed it.<p>I will go ahead and start on the "conspiracy theories" by linking to the following story from Al Jazeera:<p>Exclusive: Emails reveal close Google relationship with NSA<p><a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/5/6/nsa-chief-google.html" rel="nofollow">http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/5/6/nsa-chief-goo...</a><p>Why would anyone think that everyone (the world) would just let Larry Page and Google do whatever they want? At a certain point, either people with power attached themselves to this enterprise, or they just decided to give up their power and let Page and Google take it.<p>I think its a fantasy to believe that there aren't governments involved or that they really just have everyone's best interests in mind.