Google Frustrate

I read this today:

I'm becoming increasingly frustrated with Google, constantly moving the goalposts simply to wheedle more data from us which they can then sell on …..

Comment:

It's a variation on an old paradigm. Instead of being predated upon by a
cartel-monopoly stranglehold, one is groomed and collected for others who
then feed on you or gain power over you. (And instead of doing evil, they
can adopt a philosophy of pseudo neutrality such that they don't hesitate to
provide easy access to the 'evils' that gather ad revenues and information
of users and usage patterns.

And of course predation being sanctified as the reality beneath any illusion
of civilisation in the 'modern' thinking.

While the markets are distorted, one may have to use services from purveyors
whose methods and motives may be alloyed at best and completely without
principle at worst. But one doesn't have to put all eggs in one basket and
can 'spread one's risk' and remain attentive and flexible.

The breakdown of civilisation (which of course has never been without
faults) is via the implanting and granting of freedoms, powers and a sense
of self-specialness. In the old days it was called the deceiver.
When we want to believe lies about ourselves we easily don't see what is
actually going on. And the ingenuity that comes from supporting an
investment in untruth is by nature unfathomably complex and opaque - such as
our current world in economic, social and political expression.

"At least do no evil" is a good reminder. But the most likely agency of evil
being done  on each other, the world and our self, is the blind presumption
of being right in who we think we are instead of actually in connection with
a willingness to work (or play) with what is right, in others, the world and
ourself. These three go together. Those two commandments J recommended point
to a prior unity that we have prodigally forgotten.
Noses in the trough was a phrase used to account for why (virtually) no one
blew a whistle on the insane behaviour leading to the Big Crash (which is
still running in managed slow motion).
But it is simply perceived self-interest. Greed is only fear unrecognized.
Perception may be used to hide and deny as much as to behold or receive.
What to do if the mind has been hacked and compromised?
Don't use it until a genuine movement of communication is felt. What one
resists, persists. And what one does not use atrophies by neglect.
When J said 'Resist ye not evil' he was pointing the snare by which we
forget and neglect to extend a true presence, in exchange for the
manufacture of a presentation that depends on opposition to seem to exist.

There must be emerging opportunity for businesses to identify themselves
responsible as part of a whole, rather than a part that feeds off the whole,
but it is hard to share and keep a light in a world that chooses to remain
in darkness. Tokenism soon muddies the water. Anything that can take form
can be mimicked to sell false associations that then corrupt the original
movement. Discernment is a deeper quality of our consciousness. I always say
'it takes one to know one' - so being less able to trust our surface
mentality obliges us to listen and discern more deeply that just running on
a default sense of false security.

Icons are like idols - images with which we invest personal meanings and
which if shared in the same way - work as a shorthand for real connection.
I feel the mind - in its surface sense as is most used as a shorthand
meaning - is already a virtual reality layer, and the fact that we are
currently building yet another level of 'exploration' (defence?) over our
current relational actuality.

With any new 'territory' there is the re-enactment of a pattern of
breakthrough or escape into an innocence that soon becomes a sort of wild
west where fear grows unabated, and the ways that then work to tame and
bring order soon become owned and corrupted by the powers that preside over
their territory or gateway service. Technology can serve, but it can also be
used as a means of control, including to restructure society (consciousness)
so as to be ever more 'free' of checks and balances to its 'freedom' to
assert itself coercively upon its slavs.

We live in interesting times

all the best
Brian

Google's persistent failure to delete a supposedly accidental 'evil'.

Comment to the ongoing failure to get Google to delete the illegally gathered wifi data during street view. (Someone else had already linked it to the recent NSA world surveillance program)


- - -

Yes that is the point I was going to make. In the light of recent revelations, it is hard not to believe that Google was acting either accidentally or for its own data collection advantages. The opportunity to suck up such data by the NSA, was too good to pass up.
The delays in deletion - for the call to delete has been active for a long time now - are perhaps to allow its relocation in secret classified opacity.
MS is shown to have actively initiated deep cooperation with NSA and until events indicate otherwise I expect all of the major US tech companies are likewise involved.
The mindset of "what is good for us = what is good for America" becomes a distortion of the self-interest of power. It is not so much that they are evil as they are locked into seeing evil in terms of their personal loss - or of creating it to ensure continued advantage. Be sure that the USA is only a host for the processes at work and that power will sacrifice anything that no longer serves purpose - such as democratic accountability or constitutional integrity. It has no allegiance to anything but itself.
But before we start throwing stones - who among us is truly free of this mentality?
We like to think we are perhaps - but look at what is held secret in our own mind in order to present a façade - ok a working façade - but we are all part of a larger Mind or perspective from which we tend to hide - and hide the fact that we hide.
Perhaps the NSA will help to 'out' our own deeply embedded control mentality?
Feels true.

Ownership and control of Information (Google's search overhaul)

 (I feel the issues around search technology go far deeper than is generally discussed or acknowledged and so I comment at that level)



Communication is generally blocked or distorted by application of  bias towards manipulating that process for private gain.

This inevitably leads to a war of competition and of armouring or workaround against such tactics, and escalates such that sharing information of integrity is lost.

When rules are made, they never lead to the expected or intended result because  the mind that makes its own rules looks for ways to exploit them for its own end.

Integrity of information and intent is increasingly scarce amidst a flood of information  designed to simply catch clicks in order to garner adword revenue.

That there is a reciprocal arrangement in which everyone wins ought to be the nature of transaction. Google succeeded by offering minimal distraction to searchers and also of generally offering a fast service that quickly led to finding what was sought.

In becoming by far the most used search service, they also command a vast advertising revenue as the place to advertize via - as well as an almost monopolistic power within which those who desire to be found by those who would benefit from finding them, have to work.

The movement is to personalizing our profile, such that our mind will be read via our history of usage and catered for. If such a path is being taken, I feel we should have transparency - and the capacity to  edit or delete our usage profile. Divide and rule is the nature of the breakdown of trust and therefore communication.

"Do no evil" is not about fitting into the filters of what anyone thinks is good or bad - but of aligning only with that which honours an integrity of wholeness. Deception, coercion and manipulation are normal aspects of politics, business and social transaction, but only insofar as we choose to act our such intent.

Tolkien may have been prophetic in the story of the 'one ring to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them' - because technology is seeming to offer such an opportunity to the (fearful) mind that wants such control.

Perhaps the direct evidence of such attempt to enslave, is triggering an awakening. First to that which was no longer trustworthy or meaningful to engage in or with - and secondly to the basis from which a true sanity of being can arise and know its own.

Free will is not a divine right to use all things for selfish ends - but is the capacity to realize the suffering or dysfunction we experience is a reflection of choices we are making and can therefore desist from validating.

Worldly power can seem to impose itself, but it does not have to be validated in our hearts and minds. Insofar as we are tempted to wield it, we need to tune in to a deeper sense of aliveness than reactive self interest, if we want to grow the Peace in place of feeding war.