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Ooooh god....
Wednesday will kill me yet. It's just tooooooo long.
One reason that I am NOT applying for my boss's job now that it's posted. She's responsible for personnel and scheduling, which means she gets to fill in when people are sick or otherwise absent and there's no one else to do it. I was never any good at late hours, even when I was 20 years old. I'm even less tolerant now. If there were a reference desk shift that started at 7 am, I'd be fine with that, but of course there isn't. (In fact, I used to get the 8 am slots at the college. No one else wanted them, and as far as I was concerned, there was no problem with the time and it was less busy as well.)
I see I may have to freeze the discussion on yesterday's entry (at least, over on LJ) because it's getting a bit too flame-ish and hostile. For the record, in my opinion all American corporations are equally bad about these things, so singling out Google or WalMart misses the point. They are all greedy, irresponsible, evasive, dishonest, and have absolutely no regard for either their customers or their employees. It's so bad that there's little point in nit-picking among them. Those that do well on one occasion do equally poorly on another. It is utterly impossible to live in the US without feeding these monsters in some way. You can't avoid it.
So I was surprised that Google claims to have second thoughts about aiding and abetting the Chinese government. Unless of course, the claim is really based on profits. If they aren't making enough money, or the expected level of money, of course they are going to pull out of China. And of course they will try to put a good face on it by spinning the truth and making it look as if the move was triggered by Chinese human rights violations. But they knew the Chinese have no respect for individual rights even before they moved into the Chinese market place and demonstrated their own lack of respect for individual freedoms by agreeing to the demand for censorship. Like the morally and mentally bankrupt political parties, Google has already demonstrated its lack of trustworthiness. Could they be censoring the results they deliver in the US as well? Yes. While I don't think they censor in the same way they do in China, what they really do here is sell the top slots on popular search terms to the highest bidder. I feel quite confident of that.
One reason that I am NOT applying for my boss's job now that it's posted. She's responsible for personnel and scheduling, which means she gets to fill in when people are sick or otherwise absent and there's no one else to do it. I was never any good at late hours, even when I was 20 years old. I'm even less tolerant now. If there were a reference desk shift that started at 7 am, I'd be fine with that, but of course there isn't. (In fact, I used to get the 8 am slots at the college. No one else wanted them, and as far as I was concerned, there was no problem with the time and it was less busy as well.)
I see I may have to freeze the discussion on yesterday's entry (at least, over on LJ) because it's getting a bit too flame-ish and hostile. For the record, in my opinion all American corporations are equally bad about these things, so singling out Google or WalMart misses the point. They are all greedy, irresponsible, evasive, dishonest, and have absolutely no regard for either their customers or their employees. It's so bad that there's little point in nit-picking among them. Those that do well on one occasion do equally poorly on another. It is utterly impossible to live in the US without feeding these monsters in some way. You can't avoid it.
So I was surprised that Google claims to have second thoughts about aiding and abetting the Chinese government. Unless of course, the claim is really based on profits. If they aren't making enough money, or the expected level of money, of course they are going to pull out of China. And of course they will try to put a good face on it by spinning the truth and making it look as if the move was triggered by Chinese human rights violations. But they knew the Chinese have no respect for individual rights even before they moved into the Chinese market place and demonstrated their own lack of respect for individual freedoms by agreeing to the demand for censorship. Like the morally and mentally bankrupt political parties, Google has already demonstrated its lack of trustworthiness. Could they be censoring the results they deliver in the US as well? Yes. While I don't think they censor in the same way they do in China, what they really do here is sell the top slots on popular search terms to the highest bidder. I feel quite confident of that.
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heh, and here I was chatting about coyotes. I avoid politics and such, but damned if my son wouldn't be here cheering you on. I have to hide WallyWorld bags after shopping so he won't lecture me on my 'unconsciousness.'
I understand what you're saying about work. I have to ask myself if I really want to be Head of Circ if my boss carries through her threats (ten years worth) to quit. Others want her job, but I see a down side there as well. Of course if they offered to compensate me handsomely.... ;o)
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Highly unlikely. Google has publicly expressed dismay about the top results for certain searches (for example, "Jew"); if they were in the business of manipulating results directly, they would probably do so. Moreover, selling search results "under the table" would undermine their existing business of selling ad keywords. :)
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While Google results need to be seriously evaluated, and search terms have to be carefully chosen to get good results, most users seem to be blissfully unaware and will take whatever comes up at the top or on the first page as the answer to their question. This poses quite a moral question for Google's management of results, however they choose to do it or not do it. In my opinion, if they aren't deliberately manipulating, then they are failing to provide enough caveats and advice on using their engine.
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Duh, anybody can see that, pony. :) It's right at the top in a pretty colored box labelled "Sponsored Links".
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Further and more to the point, why would they bother compromising their corporate reputation and the biggest reason most people use their service, in order to make more money doing something subtle that they could have done openly? Google's reputation and one of their biggest selling points has always been the fairness of their algorithm, and the fact that it's supposedly not gameable. They've revised it several times to make it more resistant to gaming.
Why would they risk destroying this cornerstone of their business? To make a little extra money? Sure, they might do that. But would they risk it when they could make the same or more extra money by simply adding another sponsored link or two at the top? They can do that openly, and nobody cares, because it's out in the open. It doesn't make sense to me that they'd take such a risk in order to do something by stealth when they could get the same rewards without the risk.
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While Google claims that its algorithms are not susceptible to influence, I have never believed that, and in fact have seen several claims to the contrary that seem just as reasonable as any Google itself has presented. I also find, alas, that whatever Google's algorithms may be, they don't always do a very good job. When that is added to the fact that very few people bother to dig past the first page of results, reliance on Google for information becomes a growing element of social behavior that I find extremely disquieting at best.
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Oh, I'm sure my viewpoints could liven it up even more, but anymore, I tend to leave those discussions to someone else with more energy.
Besides, trains, nature, computers and books are so much more rewarding topics of discussion. :)
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One of the problems with public debate in the media and elsewhere is that the louder the argument, often the less thought behind it.
It's good to have strong feelings about issues, but if that energy was channeled into thinking more carefully and clearly and calmly stating positions and reasons behind them, we'd all be better off.
Far too much media and general online discussion has become clones of Crossfire and the like.
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But really, they have 30% of the Chinese search market (to the main search engine's 60%), that's rather non-trivial. I'm curious to see if they say anything about net operating profits or losses from that part of their operation.
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It's not money that is the root of all evil, that's the love of money. Google is good at making money, but I just haven't seen all that many signs of greed coming from it. Greed is what leads to sleazy, unethical behavior. There is absolutely nothing wrong with making money if an individual or business isn't willing to sacrifice integrity or morals in order to get it. The sleazy ones are just the ones you hear about most often, though.
Also, you go to work and are paid, that doesn't make you morally bankrupt. Most businessmen are they same way, just doing something they have a knack for, doing it well, and being paid. The only difference between you and them is that they generally have to handle their own finances, structure their business, and find their own customers. Just because your role in an ivory tower is more passive than theirs doesn't mean the essence of their source of income is any more evil than yours. I've been in the public sector a few years now, the money all comes from the same place. Only now the money I receive is just a little more distant from its source-- the people who earn profits in business and pay taxes and expect services in return for their tax contributions.
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Reinhold Niebuhr described this behavior well in Moral Man and Immoral Society where he differentiated the behaviors of individuals when confronted with moral decisions from those of groups when confronted with the same decisions. Because groups allow the individual members to isolate themselves from the blame for group action, they do not make the right ethical and moral decisions in most cases.
Corporate execs who make 7 figure incomes or more are all tainted by greed in my opinion. The outrageous behaviors we saw during the banking/financial crisis of 2008-09 are more than adequate proof of that.
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JibJab's animation "BoxMart" shows what happens when people just buy on price.