Google: the dumbed-down machine

Google may be the nro. 1 search engine in the WWW world, but that doesn't mean it's getting any smarter.
(N.B. Speed and an ever increasing number of "conveniences" do NOT equal smart).

After having noticed, a while ago, that it keeps pushing all sorts of "alternate" spellings, treating you as a potentially dumb creature who cannot spell (and, honestly, who could blame them...?) and thereby forcing you to use quotation marks around single words, I now discovered it doesn't obey the - (= exclude) command anymore.
For example: tonight, I tried to find pages containing a number of specific words (relating to magic), but knowing the words in question were likely to appear on pages discussing games and/or Harry Potter, I took care to exclude any pages that contain references to games and/or Harry Potter. I did it the usual google-way I had used countless times in the past ten years or so: I put the - (minus) command before the undesired terms. Like this: -game, -games, -potter.

Guess what? It didn't work. In fact, the terms game, games, Harry, Potter were displayed in BOLD within the search results.

I know what you're probably thinking: that I somehow made a mistake and did not include the proper command. I don't blame you. Even though I have used such commands countless times before, I thought so too. So I checked, rechecked, (re)checked again, rewrote the search terms... nope. I am being served games and Harry Potter (in bold!) whether I want it or not. In order to exclude the unwanted terms, I had to use the special "advanced search" page. (There it worked.)

If you ask me, the secret of Google's success is that it keeps closely in touch with the ever-changing "times".

Does that mean, for example, that it keeps track of the needs of those who search for information in "minor" (please, don't be a google - note the quotation marks! :) languages, trying to adjust itself to their specific lingustic requirements, thereby improving their search experience and thus promoting the democratic ideal of knowledge accessibility for all?

No. It means that it is adjusting itself solely and exclusively to the "special needs" of those who can't spell. Worse than that: my latest experience - having my express commands flatly disregarded - makes me think that Google is striving to establish itself as an electronic to-go-pundit among those who also can't think for themselves. Now that's a mighty stride to take... alas, the direction is all wrong.

And yes, there seem to be myriads of illiterate, unthinking citizens around who might really need a hand or two to put 2 and 2 together.

It's blatantly neglecting the others -those who can spell AND think for themselves, and in more than one (even more than five or six) language at that - what I find objectionable and, to a certain degree, even morally corrupt. It smacks of fascist anti-intellectualism and/or disregarding all but the more muscular thugs of the international socio-political arena.
(If it weren't so, don't you think their customer service would actually be a service - not some anonymous and unresponsive machine?)

If you understand French, you may be interested in this 50-minute documentary called Google: the Thinking Machine.

It's a catchy title for a piece of journalistic work, I suppose (I should know, I have spewed quite a few pieces myself)... even if it does make you suspect that their next motto might be something along the lines of "let us do your thinking for you" or "we think, so you don't have to"...

But beyond the smart facade, there is little to substantiate the lofty claim.

Then again... the same goes for most of the current educational systems (both formal and informal), it seems. Poor use of language and even functional illiteracy have become so prevalent that they are fast affirming themselves as a sort of norm, even.

Learn to read, people. I mean, proper books. It's the only way to learn how to write properly.
And keep reading. And reading and reading.
Fahrenheit 451 may be coming to a neighbourhood near you.


P.S.

Ha! I just noticed: I used "google" as a noun.
Now, that must be a first... ;)



EDIT (10. II. 2010)

See also Google's Goggles ogling at you.
You might also like: Going, Goeing... gone.

"You said I could knock"

I am very, very sad today.
I am not even sure why. I woke up feeling like this, and I cannot shake an odd feeling of dread - very uncharacteristic of me.

But whatever it is, I know the following "letter to God" did influence my state of mind, at least to some degree.
So did- perhaps even more - some of the replies to it.

A good friend brought to my attention the text, which was written by a friend of his.
It was posted on a public "Christian forum"; but since it is thereby a public text, I don't think reproducing it here will do any harm to anyone.

If it does, it won't be for any infringement of copyrights or any such nonsense.

Yesterday, after I had received the text and had not yet read it, a friend read it while I was working.

"So... how is it?" I asked her over my shoulder as I typed.
Silence.
"Haven't you read it?" I asked.
No reply.

I turned around and looked at her.
She was sitting there in perfect silence, staring at the screen, with a hand over her mouth; and huge tears were streaming down her cheeks.

I had never seen her react like that, so I was shocked, alarmed.

It turned out the text had touched a nerve.
So did some of the replies to it.

I don't know how you will react to it, but I do think it's worth reading.
So here it is, copied and pasted.
(Only the user name is omitted, for reasons of simple and possibly absurd piety - but you have the URL, so it's not a "secret".)

YOU SAID I COULD KNOCK

(This is a "letter" to God - not a provocation of any sort, so please, don't feel offended.
And please, do NOT read this if you are at all prone to doubt or sadness.
Also, I don't think I'll be back, so there is no need to reply - unless you're God, of course. :)


I have been knocking for seven months now, even after you took from me, one by one, every single source of my modest happiness on Earth.
Without notice you took out the sole light of my life, my reason for doing and being.
You were deaf to my prayers, even though I prayed as you told us to.
In a single sweeping gesture, you also took from me the basic sustenance for me to grieve in peace. Instead, you thought it would be profitable for me to add a new burden on my already broken back.

And yet, the more you oppressed me, the more I kept praying and counting on your help – BLINDLY counting on your providence.

But you just kept taking away from me and destroying everything that I had built over many years. Every single work I ever started was dedicated to you – surely you must have known that? I said so, quite openly. I always asked for your assistance and guidance. Every single thought I had was a prayer. When I walked down the street, when I shopped for groceries, when I stood admiring the majestic beauty of nature, when I hummed to music, when I worked... You were always WITH me.
Weren't you?

Ever since you allowed the world to start hitting me, ever since you turned your back on me, things have been going from bad to worse. And, most extraordinarily, you chose to take away from me – from us – even the one thing I was sure could never be taken away by anyone: our family's togetherness and pure love. No thief could ever take that from us, I thought.

And I was right. No thief could do that – but you chose to destroy even THAT.

I was shocked; and I could not understand what was happening. After all, it's not like you were punishing a petulant child who isn't grateful for what she's got: surely you heard all the beats of my grateful heart over the years? Every joy I had I dedicated to you; I only turned to you when I was happy and grateful; on the few occasions that I asked for your help when I was in great trouble you didn't seem to have heard me at all.

And yet, I kept praying and singing your praises. And I kept smiling, even though my life was crumbling inside and out. I never complained to anyone; I didn't want to spread misery or fear. I didn't want anyone's confidence in you wane because of my Job-like calvary.

But after taking out the life of my life, the only earthly joy of my heart, you took away even the possibility of comfort, of grieving in peace; you took away my meagre fortune, my sustenance, and my reputation, which I had so painstakingly built over the years, by which you effectively took away my future. There is very little left – only debts and heartache – and the prospect of living destitute in a joyless world, in effective slavery.

Most of all, by your relentless deafness to my pleas you not only broke my own strength, but also my ability to pray to you.

So, was I no good to you while I was successful and striving for happiness and singing your praises?
Would I be of more use to you as a pauper? As a homeless, hungry wretch, cleaning toilets for a pittance? As the laughing stock of everyone who has the time and the inclination to kick somebody who is down?

If that is so, I am sure YOU know the reasons. But I don't. And forgive me for not embracing your mysteriously devised »plan«. You should know that it won't make me a better person; I already was that »better person«. And apparently that wasn't good enough for you.

Yes, I have been weak.
Is there no place for the weak on your Earth?

And I have been far from perfect.
But so are other people. At least I was always aware of my mistakes and regretted them.

But I was also many other things: joyful, humble, grateful, hopeful. Compassionate. And generous - that too. (Do you remember my giving, God? Have you, mighty accountant, figured out why all those to whom I had lent money, when I had very little of it myself, ignored my reminder that, after more than a year, I'd like my money back – because I needed to pay my bills? Don't you, the All-knowing, know that I have nobody to turn to?)

All my life I walked in grateful confidence.

Did that displease you?
Was that not the prayer that you wanted to hear?

Is »please, don't hit me« the prayer that you would prefer?

If such were the case, then you wouldn't be much better – or much more - than a medieval potentate who has to be curried for favours and whose moods are to be feared.
Or like those Chinese deities that are supposedly jealous of man's happiness, so humans have to hide it from them.

If such were the case, you would be no God at all.

Once upon a time, I was afraid that I might die in my sleep because of the pain that would cause to my loved ones.
Today, that seems to be my only escape.

So, here's your chance, dear God. Tonight is the night. Do that thing you promised to do: open the door. Listen to my dying heart and grant me THE miracle – or else go pour some more fragrant oil into the vials of the »wicked« ones, the ones that don't want to know your face, who may even spit on your name - who never think of you at all, but live happy and fulfilled in heir ignorance of you; who sleep peacefully in their comfortable beds, anticipating nothing but another fruitful day and then a weekend with their loved ones – while I fear going to sleep because there is a good probability that I might wake up. Wake up... to yet another pile of bills that cannot be paid, to yet another 20 hours of hunger and heartache, of wondering: what did I do? WHAT, in God's name, did I ever do to anyone, except bring them joy and comfort and, yes, very palpable help? As for my many ill deeds, I have repented for them so often and so bitterly in the past – if you were listening, surely you should know that.

Do that miracle – or go add some more bliss to those who never think about you – or about other people – because they have no use for your paradise: they have their own paradise, right here and now.

Is this an ultimatum?

You tell me, Almighty.
You may live outside Time, but I don't, because you yourself placed me within Time.
You allow the bill collectors and the bank – and my empty stomach, which is such a wonderful complement to a heart broken by long months of grief and deceived hopes – to persecute me pitilessly, without any regard for my sadness and loneliness and, yes, poverty; now I can actually speak of poverty. I don't have the money to buy even a lottery ticket.

You didn't care to preserve and protect a happy, grateful heart who considered herself RICH because she walked bathed in your Light and Grace – or so she thought.
Finish me off, then.
But, considering my recent past experience with your favours, even that might be too much to ask from you. Perhaps all the good pious people, sitting pretty in their comfy chairs, who IN YOUR NAME promise nothing but brimstone to those who take their own life, are right, after all. Perhaps you would like me to do that, so that you can have yet more fun with me, from here to eternity.

Or perhaps there is no YOU.
Not here, not in eternity.

I am not going to even comment on it, as I believe it's been formulated well enough for anyone - anyone with a heart and a mind and a minimal experience of the world - to understand.
In fact, it's one of the best formulated outcries to God that I've ever read. It is angry, yes, and not a little childlike, and extremely sad, but even in its anger it's not stupid "God-bashing", it is not shallow sulking; and even deep in the abyss of her pain, the author remains sensitive to other people, the readers.

What dumbfounded me were some of the replies - but please, note that I only read the first page.
And here's why I couldn't, didn't want to, go on reading the replies: with the exception of a sentence or two (which I thought were really good and, I hope, helpful to "Job" - especially the one of being "in construction", that was really good), they sound as if people simply did not read past the first three or four sentences.

They did not read it - or else, how could they reply like that?
Why reply at all, then?
She explicitly said she did not need any replies - and yet, some people apparently could not resist the temptation to offer their... oh, what was it - "well-rounded knowledge"...?

I am speechless.
And depressed.

I knew people in general had difficulty listening to other people.
Reading doesn't seem to come much easier to them.

And yet... if people who consider themselves to be followers of Christ cannot be bothered to really lend their ear to their "neighbour's" pleas ... who will listen?

If you are going to read it, then please read it: do not extrapolate, do not compare, do not scoff, do not judge. Take it seriously on both the emotional AND the intellectual level.

The "Jobs" of this world deserve nothing less.

And pray to God you never become one yourself.

Is Wikipedia corrupt?

I am seriously starting to think that it is.
But first, let's define corrupt.

For some reason - OK, for good reasons - many people seem to equate the notion of corruption with greed, with money.

I am using the word here in a more general (but no less pernicious), core sense: as a state of contamination, i.e. removed from a pristine condition.
Perception of such a state often results in indignation on the part of those who haven't (yet) succumbed to the latest fashion in the prevalent mores.

It was precisely this "old fashioned" sentiment what drove a respected friend of mine to report to me that the venerable Wikipedia has been publishing photos and other images that he - my friend - deemed far too graphic to find a place on such an easily accessible site as Wikipedia, with no protective mechanisms to safeguard the visitors from visual contents that might be offensive to them.
In fact, he sent me a link - which I am NOT going to share with you - so he could prove his point.

Did he ever...!
I still regret clicking on it.
You think the offensive images were sex-related?
Think again.

Deep down, in its mediocrity-worshiping bourgeois heart, Wikipedia is far too conservative to allow such uncontentiously contentious subject matter as sex to occupy its very exposed pages, unless the encyclopedic entry in question absolutely demanded it.

No, it was obscenity of a different kind - perhaps the most terrible, most damaging kind: two (two!) photographs - BIG, impossible-to-miss photographs - of the carnage allegedly inflicted by "Jack the Ripper" on one of his alleged victims.

At this point, let me add that the scene captured on said photographs is known to have been extremely traumatic even for the policemen of the time.

Let me tell you, those policemen weren't pampered pansies. They saw A LOT during their years of service in the belly of London.
But none of them - or so they said - had witnessed anything nearly as horrific as that. It is said to have haunted them for the rest of their life, just as they thought it would.

And this is the kind of image that some Wikipedia "editor" deemed appropriate to post within the main article about the victim in question!
They are totally unnecessary, they contribute nothing to the scope or quality of the information; as a matter of fact, they defeat the purpose of the article, as they scare off genuine researchers who come looking for information, not an unexpected horror show.

And the fact that there are not one but TWO of them, betrays the probable true - deeply banal - intention of the "editor": to shock.

This suspicion may be corroborated by the incredible fact that the pictures appear to have been deleted a number of times - isn't that (along with the verbal complaints in the "discussion" section) a very clear message by the users regarding the usefulness of the images? - and yet, the "editor" keeps restoring them!

Now I want you to imagine that Wikipedia had posted the autopsy photo of Marilyn Monroe.

Having had the misfortune of stumbling upon said photo (that was before I upped my Google Image Search settings to "moderate"), I can tell you I found it extremely unpleasant.
I can also tell you that there is no visible blood on it (or maybe a few specks, I am not sure), there is absolutely no gore, nothing that could disturb the eye or the mind - except for the obvious fact that it is... well, an autopsy photo.

But what do you think would happen if Wikipedia posted that photo in its article about Marilyn Monroe?
I dare not imagine it. But I can actually hear the clamour in my mind - before the swift disappearance of the photo, of course (which would probably be a matter of minutes rather than hours, let alone days).

"Outrageous!"
"Why don't they let her rest in peace?!"
"Have they no respect for the poor woman's DIGNITY?!"

I can hear them because I know people - and because something very similar happened when a newspaper tried to publish a photo of Diana Princess of Wales taken while she was lying injured on the back seat of the car, after the fatal crash in Paris.
She wasn't dead, not yet.
And I am told she wasn't disfigured at all.
(The French doctor, Frederic Maillez, said she actually looked "very beautiful".)

But the idea - the perceived insult to the "dignity" of a dying woman - was enough to provoke outrage and, ultimately, prevent the publication of the photo.

And they were right - they are right, all of them.
What I want to know is, how come that poor wretch who lived a dismal life and died a horrific death in the slums of London does not seem to have any "dignity" to speak of?

How come HER right to "rest in peace" (however illusory it may be) is nobody's business?

Do human rights, including the right to "dignity", have an expiration date?

And what about MY dignity as a viewer - as an unsuspecting, well-meaning user who comes in search of information? What about my right to seek information without being assaulted - ambushed - by shocking images that I never sought out? (And once an image is burnt into my retina - and into my mind - it stays there. I may not dwell on it, but it is there, ready to ambush me at any time.)

Maybe the "editor" who originally posted those images did not realise just how offending they were, on all levels.
Fair enough.
(After all, it's not like Wikipedia is a real encyclopedia, with appropriately competent and sensitive editors.)

But what is their excuse for reposting them after the images had been removed, thus clearly rejected by users?
What is the core motive driving them to publish such images?

Because it can't be quality of information.

***

There is an interesting - flawed, but memorable - film called Time After Time(1979). 

One of the main characters is precisely Jack the Ripper.
Having escaped to the future, by means of H.G. Wells' time machine, Jack finds himself in 1979: safe, sound - and every bit the beast he was back in 1889.
So he resumes his activities.
Anticipating the thrill of publicity (some things never change), he buys a newspaper to read about his own exploits...

At this point, let us just say that he is bitterly disappointed.
And this is the conclusion he draws after having read the newspapers of 1979:

"One hundred years ago I was a monster.
Today, I am an amateur."

EDIT (2. I. 2010):
Here's a link to a post by a "disgruntled" Wikipedia ex-editor.

See Jane go mad. See Dick chop head.

Being somewhat familiar with human psychology - and with the inner works of the media - I always found it profoundly irritating when I heard self-important "pundits"and "media experts" (even some "psychology experts") deny any lasting impact of behaviours - particularly recurring patterns* of violence and/or graphic gratuitous sex - depicted on TV and in cinema (and now the internet) on the viewers, especially those in the formative stages of their development.

I found them either disingenuous - which would inevitably lead to rather sinister conclusions regarding their intentions - or... well, stupid. There is no other word for it.

In either case, such "experts" had no business lecturing the public - even overtly mocking those who were concerned.

But, interestingly enough, I have noticed such opinions becoming more and more muted, less and less prominent in the past few years - in the first years of this not-so-brave new millenium. (BTW, do you know anyone who loves the new millenium so far?)

What made them pause?

Was it the many school shootings, in the USA and other places of the globe?

Or would those "experts" still insist and perhaps attribute the swift spread of this cultural phenomenon (yes, we are at a point when we actually have to call school shootings a "cultural phenomenon") to some sort of virus?
A contagious insanity? 
What spreads it? Rats? Pigeons? What?
And I wonder how would those same people respond to the same question today.

Because this is today's news:

Skinheads plan killing 88 people and beheading 14 African-Americans


Beheading?
My, it's becoming quite a fashion, isn't it?

I haven't been really counting, but it strikes me there has been a remarkable increase in the popularity of this practice, which was once upon a time, not so long ago, considered (and often misinterpreted) in modern Western societies as an especially gruesome, culturally alien - "barbaric" in the true meaning of the word - way of terminating someone's life.

I am not going to count them even now, but I can think of at least three or four cases of people parading someone else's detached head - in public - in the past few months alone.

But, interestingly, no such cases occurred prior to the early 2000's, which brought to our TV screens the infamous, gut-rending sight of kidnapped individuals in orange jumpers, with their abductors wielding sables in the proximity of their necks - and more than that, FAR more than that, on internet sites that feed on morbid curiosity.

(Not that it matters - not one bit - but yours truly has never watched such a video, nor do I intend to.)


This is not the place to discuss the reasons for and against airing such videos. Some other time, perhaps.
But I would like one - just one! - of those anything-goes apologists of yore to come and tell us that the media does nothing to desensitise the viewing public, that people do not imitate what they see on their screens; that the media does not influence people's view of what is acceptable - and what is shocking.

Would they still have the dubious guts of looking people in the eye and claiming that there is no such influence?

I am not sure they would. And, frankly, I don't care.

The damage has been done. Thresholds of tolerance have been breached - long ago - and there is no going back.

"Shock value" is more than a term. In a society that craves notoriety at all price, even "shock value" really is a - value. We see that every day, in seedy pictures everywhere. Only, starlets publicly displaying their very private parts and other such cultural "icons" is just the tip of an iceberg. And tastelessness is the least dangerous of the shocking "values" currently in use.

Now, confronted with an increasingly global culture of violence, we have to find a way of radically healing the minds, of young people especially (and I don't know how this could be done) - or else, the world as we once knew it will sink in its own violence.

Who needs "terrorists" to bring down the "Western civilisation"?

This civilisation will behead itself.With its own sword, by its own hand.

***

For a somewhat more sedate - and coherent - expose on the same subject, go here:

The media doesn't influence us... except when it does

(and related articles)


NOTE (*)
When there are no recurring, systematically observed - i.e. memorable and thus easily mimicked - patterns, when gratuitous violence (and other excessive behaviours) is dispersed in a variety of "random" manifestations, any excesses are much more likely to remain outside the frame of the common cultural code of expression (In every group or society there are thresholds, progressively transgressed, of behaviour - i.e. of what "we DO" and what "we do NOT do". Even destructive, "negative" behaviour has its code of general acceptability.)

They are still potentially damaging, but at least they don't spread as easily - and they are far less alluring to would-be "copycats".

RELATED CONTENT:
The Right to Violence and Cynicism