What Is 'Evil' to Google?

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You know Google is kicking itself in the ass for deciding to use "don't be evil" as the company motto. ;)

As happens every time the search giant does something unseemly, Google's plan to turn its users into unwitting endorsers has inspired a new round of jabs at Google's famous slogan "Don't be evil." While Google has deemphasized the motto over time, it remains prominent in the company's corporate code of conduct, and, as a cornerstone of its 2004 Founder's IPO Letter, the motto has become an inescapable component of the company's legacy.
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I think it's just a law of nature that the bigger a company is, the more evil it is. They grow because they're greedy, and greed breeds evil. It's unavoidable.
 
Schmidt admits that he thought it was "the stupidest rule ever" upon his arrival at the company, "because there's no book about evil except maybe, you know, the Bible or something."
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Yea, Schmidt, there are no books on philosphy or anything you poorly educated twat.
 
Not as much as the Google fanboys are for going with that motto in contrast to companies like Microsoft.

The tech community likes to think of itself as "enlightened". In truth, most just belong to one cult-like tribe or another, be it Google, Apple, Facebook, or anything else.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
Yea, Schmidt, there are no books on philosphy or anything you poorly educated twat.
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Since when did a PHd in software engineering become poorly educated? I guess my Masters is really bad then. It's one thing to knock someone for poor choices, but another to knock someone with a great deal of education.
 
WozniakMac said:
Since when did a PHd in software engineering become poorly educated? I guess my Masters is really bad then. It's one thing to knock someone for poor choices, but another to knock someone with a great deal of education.
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Knowledge is what matters, not ego. If you say things that are obviously stupid, expect to get called out.
 
Evil is subjective. There is nothing that is objectively evil because evil is a human construct. What is evil to one person is just the status quo for another. It would have been better for Google if they had defined what evil is within their corporate culture rather than just throw out a vague and subjective statement like "Don't be evil" on it's own. Now everyone gets to bag them for being evil over every decision they make.
 
WozniakMac said:
Since when did a PHd in software engineering become poorly educated? I guess my Masters is really bad then. It's one thing to knock someone for poor choices, but another to knock someone with a great deal of education.
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Clearly, degrees have nothing to do with education, if he's making boneheaded statements like that.

I remember when I was a kid, wondering why "intelligence" and "wisdom" were two different stats in Dungeons and Dragons.

It didn't take long before I saw just how accurate the concept was.
 
It is a catchy phrase and the Google users need to get over it ... Google is a lot less "Evil" than some companies and probably more "Evil" than others ... who cares ... as long as they deliver reasonable services and don't drink the blood of babies or something they are good in my book :cool:
 
kbrickley said:
It is a catchy phrase and the Google users need to get over it ... Google is a lot less "Evil" than some companies and probably more "Evil" than others ... who cares ... as long as they deliver reasonable services and don't drink the blood of babies or something they are good in my book :cool:
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Scanning emails and saying there is absolutely nothing wrong with that is wrong. Selling contact lists to the NSA is wrong, tracking all search history is wrong. Google is turning into a very questionable cooperation. In fact in a lot of ways microsoft is more keen on keeping peoples privacy even though they take so much heat for it. Google has just done so under the radar while other companies take the criticism
 
VladDracule said:
Scanning emails and saying there is absolutely nothing wrong with that is wrong. Selling contact lists to the NSA is wrong, tracking all search history is wrong. Google is turning into a very questionable cooperation. In fact in a lot of ways microsoft is more keen on keeping peoples privacy even though they take so much heat for it. Google has just done so under the radar while other companies take the criticism
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Google also provides most of their services for free ... I have always assumed because of that I was the fee being paid (my personal information and such) ... you can't get something for nothing ... if you don't like Google don't use them ... are the things that Google is doing or alleged to have done immoral (maybe), they are certainly not depraved (and those are the two definitions of evil) ... Google is a business and their goal is to provide a reasonable service and make money (they seem to do both of those things in my book) ... of course YMMV ;)
 
LeninGHOLA said:
Yea, Schmidt, there are no books on philosphy or anything you poorly educated twat.
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No doubt those other books define right and wrong but do they define wrong as 'evil' other than using it as a synonym for 'wrongdoing'. Basically does Evil have a spiritual aspect to it. A layer above 'doing wrong'. Something than really only exists in a religious context?
 
jpm100 said:
No doubt those other books define right and wrong but do they define wrong as 'evil' other than using it as a synonym for 'wrongdoing'. Basically does Evil have a spiritual aspect to it. A layer above 'doing wrong'. Something than really only exists in a religious context?
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Evil is not a concept confined to religious philosophy.
 
VladDracule said:
Scanning emails and saying there is absolutely nothing wrong with that is wrong. Selling contact lists to the NSA is wrong, tracking all search history is wrong. Google is turning into a very questionable cooperation. In fact in a lot of ways microsoft is more keen on keeping peoples privacy even though they take so much heat for it. Google has just done so under the radar while other companies take the criticism
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Microsoft is 'note keen on keeping peoples privacy?'. Theres the first laugh of the day. They run outlook.com out of the kindness of their hearts and gave NSA the master key before the service even ,launched because 'they value your privacy'. Get a grip.
 
'Don't be unethical' would be more accurate. Not that it'd make a difference.
 
VladDracule said:
Scanning emails and saying there is absolutely nothing wrong with that is wrong. Selling contact lists to the NSA is wrong, tracking all search history is wrong. Google is turning into a very questionable cooperation. In fact in a lot of ways microsoft is more keen on keeping peoples privacy even though they take so much heat for it. Google has just done so under the radar while other companies take the criticism
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There is nothing wrong with that, they don't deny it its all there in there privacy policy. It's their products they have the right to do whatever they want if you don't like it use others, plenty of browsers and email hosting sites.

Also Google might not even have a choice in the matter just look at what happened to lavabit when the owner refused to give out emails to the government, they had to shut down the whole site with no warnings.

Think carefully before you post ignorant statements.
 
WozniakMac said:
Since when did a PHd in software engineering become poorly educated? I guess my Masters is really bad then. It's one thing to knock someone for poor choices, but another to knock someone with a great deal of education.
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Your Masters degree hasnt helped your common sense :p
I could have a Masters in Art and not know how to construct a sentence properly.
Its the type of education that matters, he is lacking knowledge that books exist for the topic at hand.
His Doctorate hasnt furnished him with this, that much is certain.
Either that or he has a very short memory or he likes to make blanket statements without foundation.
 
Super-D said:
I think it's just a law of nature that the bigger a company is, the more evil it is. They grow because they're greedy, and greed breeds evil. It's unavoidable.
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Hmm, perhaps a corollary to "power tends to corrupt ... absolute power corrupts absolutely"? I disagree with your statement, though. It's best to look at the business world like an ecology: survival of the fittest by whatever means necessary is its basic state. In that sense, that quote is true, as the ultimate goal is to become supreme, and thus all-powerful, and eventually corrupt. Yet this condition is prevented through willful regulation, which then of course led to cartels and price-fixing ("trusts"). This in turn brought more regulation until you started having Enron and banking corruption, which will lead to another round of regulation, and so forth. The bottom-line is that the system, as an ecology, is always developing ways around the system, and the system is always reacting.

Google is but one organism within this system and its statement implies that it is willing to use "whatever means necessary" (as I stated above) that are not "evil." That is unique in the sense that one company is attempting to succeed over others in a non-traditional format, that is to say being not-evil may provide a competitive advantage in the modern day, aware market. One could of course assume they only state that to gain that advantage momentarily (certainly possible), but I'm leaning more towards an evolved system on the horizon where companies will have to adapt to survive, and part of that adaptation will mean succumbing to the morality of the populace (although that makes me nervous with the current US administration).
 
LeninGHOLA said:
Yea, Schmidt, there are no books on philosphy or anything you poorly educated twat.
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Philosophy books don't define what "evil" is you poorly educated twat.

No, but seriously, there is no universal definition of "evil", and Google gets called "evil" at the drop of a hat over the most trivial of things. In that sense "don't be evil" has been successful - people keep a *MUCH* tighter leash on Google than pretty much any other company out there.

VladDracule said:
Scanning emails and saying there is absolutely nothing wrong with that is wrong. Selling contact lists to the NSA is wrong, tracking all search history is wrong. Google is turning into a very questionable cooperation. In fact in a lot of ways microsoft is more keen on keeping peoples privacy even though they take so much heat for it. Google has just done so under the radar while other companies take the criticism
Click to expand...

There isn't anything wrong with scanning emails, and if you think there is go run your own email server and leave the rest of us that prefer not to see spam or viruses alone.

Also I don't think you understood the whole NSA thing, as nobody sold them squat.

Oh, and Microsoft doesn't give a damn about privacy - they do all the same things they accuse Google of doing. They scan emails, they use it to target ads, they track search history, etc... Go read their privacy policy, it's all there.

Super-D said:
I think it's just a law of nature that the bigger a company is, the more evil it is. They grow because they're greedy, and greed breeds evil. It's unavoidable.
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I would disagree with this. Certainly the larger a company gets, the bigger the impact of any evil decision it makes are. But small businesses sometimes are just as evil if not even more so. Also not all big companies are equally evil so to speak. If Google including your publicly posted review on the ads for the product you reviewed is "evil", then I lack the word to describe the stunts that some of the major banks have pulled. I would also argue that Google does at least do good things for the world as well - Fiber brings much needed competition to ISPs, Loon brings cheap internet for the masses, Android has resulted in the first mass market adoption of an open source OS and prevented mobile from falling victim to a walled garden, data liberation front has led the way bar none at giving you ownership of your data, etc... There's still a *lot* of good that Google does. Especially compared to other big companies - like, say, Oracle. Which seem to be built out of pure evil.
 
kllrnohj said:
Philosophy books don't define what "evil" is you poorly educated twat.
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They absolutely do. Definitions obviously vary, but the discussion and need to define both good and evil is one of the core topics in both religious and ethical philosophy. I'm honestly a bit surprised you would say something like that. You're about as wrong as you can be.

Anyway, this has little to do with what Schmidt said. He said there weren't books about evil. He opened his mouth when he had no knowledge on a subject.
 
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