Mind-Manual

Google is My Dear and Glorious Leader

Google, Inc. knows more about me than I do. Even the people I am closest to in my life don’t know as much as Google does. I use Google Search, Google Adsense, Gmail, Google Reader, Google Calendar, YouTube and occasionally Google Notebook and Google Bookmarks. What all this means is that Google knows where I live, where I am most of the time (calendar), my SIN card number, my banking information, my real name, my friends, my interests, my hobbies, and how many times I’ve done a vanity search on my real and not-real name. All in all, Google knows a terrifying amount about me and I’m wary of any organization knowing that much about me. In dystopian science fiction, the government is often protrayed as knowing everything about their citizens and we usually go “HOLY CRAP”, but here I’ve given all this information up to an entity who’s sole purpose is to make money and has made some vague claim to not being evil. I want to discuss three possible products that we might see coming up: Google OmniAds, Google BlackMail, and Google PreCrime.

Google OmniAds

Google doesn’t have to try hard to find out what sort of products or services I’m interested in based on what I search for, what ads I click on, what I write about on my blog, what I write emails about, etc. It could also quickly generate a profile of what my “hot buttons” are (I’m highly averse to loss of control, for example) and create ads that are 95% effective. Instead of having ads based on the context of the page, have ads based on the psychographic buying profile of the person doing the web surfing. Enter Google OmniAds. Google knows everything about me and will have 95% influence on my buying decisions. The scary thing is, I might actually like that.

Google BlackMail

There’s a lot of “sensitive” emails I’ve stored in my GMail inbox, as well as “sensitive” google searches. My love for ninja-pirate lovin’ knows no bounds. Any number of those emails–if they got out–could seriously hurt my reputation as a fine upstanding gentleman among my nearest and dearest as well as potential employers. So, what’s a giant corporation geared towards profit to do? Start blackmailing people with their knowledge of your affairs, that person you killed and how much you liked Barbie’s Unicorn Adventure. Google would do it classily, too, no clandestine letters cut out from newspapers and magazines. You’d get your own BlackMail representative who will work with you to work out a good amount of money in exchange for keeping their mouth shut. I’m willing to bet that this could easily become the most lucrative division of Google, Inc.

Google PreCrime

Google exclusively hires very, very smart people. All it needs to do is throw in a few good psychologists, write some programs that comb their data for specific personality markers as well as any emails saying, “tomorrow we bomb the white house” and you’ve got yourself the ability to predict crime. It doesn’t have to be big-time crime, either; theft of stationary from office spaces probably makes up at least a billion dollars of losses a year, and I’m sure someone out there is bragging about stealing that water cooler before they got canned. I wonder how long it’ll be before the government orders Google to start running these search patterns on their data and identifying potential threats. Oh wait…

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Why is someone loving you because they “have to” inferior?

There’s an episode of Futurama where the main character, Fry, falls in love with a robot programmed to be like Lucy Liu and to love Fry. Fry’s excited when she says stuff and dotes on him like a real lover might and everyone else says stuff like, “she’s programmed to do that”. They’re implying that this is somehow inferior to “real” or “authentic” love that loves you for who you are rather than because they’re “forced” to.

However, isn’t it pretty much the same thing whether a woman or man loves you “for real” than if they have to. You end up in a romantic or physical relationship both ways. Imagine for a moment that you have this love potion that can cause anyone you’re interested in fall in love with you. Why would that affection be “inferior” than if a series of random events caused a high enough probability to allow a relationship to develop?

The only thing I can think about is validation. That is, wanting to believe, “I am deserving of love and a worthy person”. What are your thoughts?

Also, in the same episode of Futurama, they show a propaganda video that shows people just making out with robots all the time and society collapses, which is not good for anyone. This reminded me of how, for the sake of society or other larger unit, we are convinced to do things that are not always in our best interests. For example, people believe jobs are necessary and the consumerist culture that has grown up to attempt to constantly grow the economy, but jobs are not necessary and things can’t make you happy, but enough people have to be convinced that they are for the system to function. Or, how, according to Dan Gilbert who wrote in Stumbling on Happiness that people with no kids are happier in their day to day lives than people with kids. However, enough people have to be convinced that having kids is a good thing so that humanity doesn’t just die.

Anyhoo, to recap: why is someone’s care or love because they “have to” inferior to “authentic” or “true” affection.

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