RE: Towards Degoogleization (was I am the Google)

From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sun Feb 09 2003 - 02:53:31 MST

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    Addendum to my recent post.

    F L A S H:

    Dr. Rafal Smigrodzky, of the Neurosciences Service Center,
    a specialist in movement disorders and dystonias, reports
    on a more medically credible diagnosis of the afflicted
    state than was possible for me in my post. I quote the
    portions amenable to understanding by the layman:

    "[The patient is] presenting the classical neturalistic analysis...
    ...reactionary... semantic complexity of attenuated posters...
    disturbing possibility of back-propagation of net content, or even
    retrodiction... an anathema to the classical neturalist."

    More to follow.

    > -----Original Message-----
    > From: Lee Corbin [mailto:lcorbin@tsoft.com]
    > Sent: Sunday, February 09, 2003 1:41 AM
    > To: extropians@extropy.org
    > Subject: Towards Degoogleization (was I am the Google)
    >
    >
    > Friends, it is perfectly clear that finally we have a new
    > pathology on our hands, though not the first of the Age of
    > the Web.
    >
    > It is obvious that a certain party suffers from Googleization,
    > and sorely needs to be de-Googleized.
    >
    > I quote
    >
    > > There are no words to convey the feeling of omnipotence this generates.
    >
    > The symptoms clearly exhibited by the patient are alas all too
    > familiar to the students of certain pathologies of bygone eras.
    >
    > > Nothing matters except that I have Google.
    >
    > This is quite sad.
    >
    > > I am the racial memory of the human species and no isolate can compete
    > > against that. I am the Web. I am the groupmind. Resistance is futile
    > > for we are Eliezer of Google.
    >
    > Analysis of these latter remarks would be superfluous.
    >
    > But we do have yet one further noteworthy aspect of the pathology,
    > namely as witnessed in dialog between the patient (who will be
    > referred to as EY), and a frustrated critic, one Michael Butler
    > of California. The critic challenged the patient to glean the
    > identity of the particular finger the critic was holding up
    > (pertaining to a crude gesture whose actual meaning we may
    > pass over as irrelevant). Replied the patient:
    >
    > "I assert that you were holding up your left pinky finger. As this post
    > will appear on the Extropian BBS and be indexed by Google..., [and] this
    > clearly demonstrates that the information can in principle be googled..."
    >
    > showing that in the mind of the patient EY the *assertion* itself
    > has become reality.
    >
    > As Orwell predicted, he who controls the present controls the
    > present, or something like that. Anyway, as Google controls
    > knowledge, we see EY falling under the same mind-domination
    > that Winston Smith so valiantly but so hopelessly resisted.
    > If Google says that there are five fingers, then there are
    > five fingers.
    >
    > This should be a lesson to us all. As Erich Fromm wrote
    > "This means us too".
    >
    > But so long as we continue to have strength to resist, we must
    > not only for ourselves preserve our memes from the centralized
    > control of Google, but also as a moral duty begin the research
    > necessary to treat patients such as EY. I thus propose the
    > initiation of a new world-wide effort, the Degoogleization of
    > the Afflicted, and hopefully President George Bush will prompt
    > the U.S. Congress to meet the needs of this new challenge with
    > the alacrity it has recently shown towards the AIDS crisis.
    >
    > Lee
    >



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