Too Much Power For One Man

http://www.drewdavismedia.com/details.php?pid=1

by loupereira • 12 years ago

112 84 12 years ago

nmrm9• 12 years ago

Eh. This article emphasizes the wrong things. Larry Page isn't some super villain building robot armies to take over the world. Any significant harm he/Google might do to the world will likely be via the unintended consequences of actions motivated primarily by profit. We already see this -- the slow erosion of privacy expectations, etc.

As for all of the internet of things/robotics acquisitions and R&D... well, I'm not in the board room during these discussions, but I highly doubt that building robotic armies is on anyone's mind. More likely, Page et al. see this as a next major growth area and would like to stay ahead of the curve. Esp. the Boston Dynamics acquisition is probably less about military applications than general experience with complicated robots.

maddev• 12 years ago

the slow erosion of privacy expectations, etc.
slow

SLOW?????? More like super-sonic.

nmrm9• 12 years ago

Maybe gradual would've been a more appropriate word. The point is it happened piecemeal over 15 or so years, rather than all at once.

unclebucknasty3• 12 years ago

This article emphasizes the wrong things. Larry Page isn't some super villain building robot armies to take over the world.

The article doesn't say that. The author just lays out the facts, then concludes by stating that he is not saying that Page will abuse his power, but simply that he could.

I highly doubt that building robotic armies is on anyone's mind.

On what basis do you doubt this? Because it's unpleasant to imagine? Hard to believe?

Regardless, the point of the article (and indeed, the very title) is that we have placed a lot of power into one man's hands. Perhaps we should consider the potential consequences (intended or not), and whether simply "doubting" that this power will be abused is sufficient.

nmrm9• 12 years ago

The author just lays out the facts, then concludes by stating that he is not saying that Page will abuse his power, but simply that he could.

Right, and I think emphasizing nutty conspiracy theories distracts from the more important systemic and gradual, but perhaps less exciting, impact that Google actually has (e.g. on privacy.)

You don't need to resort to conspiracy in order to isolate real ways in which Google has having large -- arguably negative -- impacts on our everyday lives.

On what basis do you doubt this?

Mostly motive. Google doesn't particularly stand to benefit from building a private army. But also, I used all my tin foil heating up potatoes.

gress2• 12 years ago

Being motivated 'purely by profit' means that you are deliberately acting without morals. That isn't an unintended consequence. It is an intended consequence of pretending you aren't responsible for your actions.

hsod• 12 years ago

Was the parent post edited? Right now it says "motivated primarily by profit," not "purely"

paul_f• 12 years ago

Last I checked, GOOG is a public company that answers to a board of directors and shareholders. Not a private company with a megalomaniac potentate heading it up.

blibble• 12 years ago

Larry and Sergey control 55% of the voting rights:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2014/04/02/google-sto...

if the rest of the shareholders don't agree with them they can... do absolutely nothing about it

x1798DE• 12 years ago

They likely can't vote to make specific decisions, but Google is accountable to its shareholders nonetheless and could be held legally liable if they were to do something detrimental to shareholder interests.

Not sure how much of a remedy that really is, but it's at least there.

Scoundreller2• 12 years ago

I actually don't worry too much about them.

It's if/when these massive tech companies go bankrupt and monopolistic control crudely goes to the highest bidder (likely some leveraged buyout organization) that I worry about.

themartorana• 12 years ago

With truly evil billionaires out there - the Koch brothers come to mind - and family run organizations that take horrible advantage of employees - like Walmart and the Waltons - why is it so many people want to make a case against Google and its founders?

Yes, it makes sense to keep a check on powers. But I'm way more worried about all of our three-letter agencies and the private billionaire donations behind the power structure in Washington than the company that may in fact give me self-driving cars, give Internet access to remote parts of the world, and so on.

This article feels like it's doing nothing but trying to build an evil genius narrative where none exists. When you summon images of Lex Luther in the first sentence, you've lost me.

pistle2• 12 years ago

Did you sense any irony when you read "Run to Walmart to buy our tinfoil hats." ?

I'd posit that the OP has a focus of concern. If they read your comment, you've likely just sent them over the edge into cape-wearing-radioactive-spider-please-bite-me territory.

wwwwwwwwww• 12 years ago

With truly evil billionaires out there - the Koch brothers come to mind

what the fuck do you think gives you the right to claim someone is evil? I literally cannot imagine how much of a goddamn bubble you must live in to think you have any right to call someone evil because their political opinions differ from yours.

k__2• 12 years ago

Isn't evil as undefined as good?

pistle2• 12 years ago

Let's see... he's a human with his opinions, knowledge, and internet access. He can claim whatever he wants.

It's the same thing that gives you the right to ride quixotically in to win the internet for billionaires everywhere this fine day.

cookiecaper• 12 years ago

A little harsh, but I agree in general. The Koch Brothers spend their money promoting mainstream political causes in a legal, and as far as I know, fairly standard, manner. There are financiers on the left that do the same things, and just as it was silly when the right was foaming at the mouth about Carl Icahn, it's silly when the left foams about the Kochs. It seems that people hate whichever one their chosen media network decides to demonize, but really both are playing according to the rules (as far as I know; neither have been convicted of a crime related to this yet, at least).

Some people are just bitter, and specifically, the hacker community has a long-standing issue with tolerance.

mfisher87• 12 years ago

Come on.

The article specifically ends with this after setting up the scenario:

I’m not saying that Page is going to abuse his power. I am saying that he could. And that, should make us uneasy. If the old saying is true, that power corrupts, then perhaps Larry Page has too much power for one man.

The point is obviously that Google has far too much power in our society, in excess of just about any other organization, even some governments, and that the Google motto shouldn't make us trust them with it. No one should be trusted with the power Google has. The people at the helm are only human.

unclebucknasty3• 12 years ago

Indeed. I just posted a similar response to another comment elsewhere on this thread.

It's ironic too that the company's motto was (is?) "Don't be Evil". Kind of a self-acknowledgment of the power they were amassing from even he earliest days. There is also a choice implicit in formulating and publicizing such a motto. That is, "we have the power and the option to be evil, but we are asking you to trust us."

Beyond that, it's a motto straight from the comic super-villain motif: A mega-company seeking powerful futuristic technology, with a grandiose and ironic PR slogan that completely contradicts its true activities.

Not saying that's Google and none of this is to say we should all be building bomb-shelters; only that the article is spot-on in tone and content.

gadders2• 12 years ago

Yeah, the Koch Brothers are evil. That George Soros, though, he's totally a force for good. The reality is that left and right all have their rich supporters, and only the truly blinkered would say one side is "evil" and the other is "good".

The Koch brothers donated hundreds of millions of dollars for cancer research. Have you given as much?

gpcz• 12 years ago

Themartorana never said that the left was good and the right was evil, and never said anything about George Soros. Even worse, you are engaging in a tu quoque fallacy to defend this perceived partisanship.

The Koch brothers spent $31 million in 2012 to lobby for their coal power interests [1], which is linked to higher rates of lung cancer for miners, people who live near mines [2], and people who live near coal power plants [3]. I consider their cancer research donations restitution.

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/07/oil-lobby-coal-...

[2] http://www.scopemed.org/?mno=20068

[3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19187950

orcdork• 12 years ago

That's quite a bit of headpatting.

Because you know, B.O. - a young man has risen from humble begginings to rule over one of the most powerful countries in the world. K.J.U. - a pudgy asian young man that enjoyed pointing at things and cake now holds the keys to the awesome power of NUCLEAR WEAPONS.

And let's not mention that wiley rascal, V.P., an unassuming ex secret agent in a semi frozen country, that has risen to the rank of president, controlling as many 2 MILLION TROOPS.

Anyway, did you guys know amazon has tinfoil now. Also drones. And they now what we buy. And an army of people at their command, driving around every corner of the earth for no reason! Sure, they say that they "deliver" stuff, but you know what else is delivered? MILITARY PAYLOADS! Damn that handsome J.B.!

hosay1233• 12 years ago

Article forgot to mention Lex's many biometrics acquisitions (e.g. Neven Vision) prior to sending his fleet of cameras down every road in the civilized world, dabbling in mass genetics (23andme), "accidental" mass capture of open wifi traffic, spyware he convinced 63% of all web sites to deploy (Analytics), or the sensor-packed mobile devices he has root on in a few million peoples' pockets.

It would only require something like 0.25 9/11's to turn Lex into the worlds largest and most terrifying defence contractor. Of course this sounds ridiculous, but it's probably just a few short pieces of emergency legislation from reality

mden• 12 years ago

Isn't it nice how you can make most things sound evil if you just use the right wording. What you wrote reminds me of cases where law enforcement takes terms like "subversion" used by an engineer and extrapolates evil plots out of them.

hosay1233• 12 years ago

Which wording do you speak of? About the only loading used here is "Lex", which was borrowed from the article. The remainder is a fairly plain depiction of reality

jp555• 12 years ago

A fitting cartoon analogy for cartoon logic.

I am reminded of an Alan Moore quote:

“In the mid 1980's I was asked by an american legal institution known as the Christic Legal Institute to compile a comic book that would detail the murky history of the C.I.A., from the end of the second world war, to the present day. Covering such things as the heroin smuggling during the Vietnam war, the cocaine smuggling during the war in Central America, the Kennedy assasination and other highlights.

What I learned during the frankly horrifying research that I had to slog through in order to accomplish this, was that yes, there is a conspiracy, in fact there are a great number of conspiracies that are all tripping each other up. And all of those conspiracies are run by paranoid fantasists, and ham fisted clowns. If you are on a list targeted by the C.I.A., you really have nothing to worry about. If however you have a name similar to someone on a list targeted by the C.I.A., then you are dead?

The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory, is that conspiracy theorists believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is actually chaotic. The truth is that it is not The Iluminati, or The Jewish Banking Conspiracy, or the Gray Alien Theory. The truth is far more frightening.

Nobody is in control.

The world is rudderless...”

clamprecht• 12 years ago

Source?

tsuraan• 12 years ago

Searching on "alan moore christic legal institute" brings up quite a few hits centered around a pair of graphic novels called "Brought to Light". Maybe that's it? There's a full quote on goodreads.com, but it also isn't sourced. I, too, wouldn't mind having a good source for that quote. Sounds like an interesting read.

mvleming2• 12 years ago

According to these two blog posts, [1] and [2], the source is the film The Mindscape of Alan Moore. [3] I love the quote too, I just learned of it.

[1] http://dailyhumanist.wordpress.com/2011/05/24/the-world-is-r...

[2] http://pvewood.blogspot.fr/2012/04/some-alan-moore-quotation...

[3] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0410321/

hellbanner• 12 years ago

I'm reminded of the cross-referenced index of conspiracy theories, one per page for several hundred pages:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_Is_Under_Control

http://www.rawilson.com/undercontrol.html (Sample)

pron3• 12 years ago

The concerns expressed in the post have nothing to do with conspiracy, and everything to do with power. Democracies are usually built in such a way as to prevent concentration of power -- not to fight a real or imagined conspiracy. Concentration of power in itself is bad enough even without malevolent intent behind it.

melloclello• 12 years ago

The commenter is arguing the opposite - without concentration of power, you get chaos, which is a bad thing

Aqueous• 12 years ago

I think the point is that even when individuals accrue large amounts of power, like Page/Brin, Zuckerberg, the Kochs, the Bushes, or the Clintons, that it is never really all that concentrated, because there are still thousands and millions of competing interests to consider.

Power flows from many different places. At least for the past couple of centuries, it is never so concentrated that a single individual can orchestrate the world without repercussions.

anon4• 12 years ago

Can't believe nobody's linked this yet http://xkcd.com/1274/

dwd2• 12 years ago

Too distracted watching the football...

dwd2• 12 years ago

It's helpful to also consider conspiracies using Julian Assange's framework which may have been influenced by Moore.

http://estaticos.elmundo.es/documentos/2010/12/01/conspiraci...

Without secrecy there is no conspiracy.

domiono• 12 years ago

It's not a question if someone with too much power will abuse that power. It always happens, always. It's not a question of if it will happen or not, it's a question of when and under what circumstances.

That's why we have the division of power in governments, that's why we have countries, because too much power concentrated by too few individuals will always get abused. If not by the individuals themselves, someone else or another organization, the NSA comes to mind, will find a way to abuse that power at some point in time when the conditions are right.

azakai2• 12 years ago

Yes. The problem is that while we have division of power in governments, there is little stopping private enterprise from accumulating worrying amounts of power. There is antitrust law, which in theory should be the solution, but in practice is hardly applied in modern times.

spindritf• 12 years ago

I’m not saying that Page is going to abuse his power. I am saying that he could.

And do what? Be specific. Read my e-mails?

The constant fear of corporations has been puzzling me ever since I saw RoboCop. Back then at least it was tied to the fear of rising Japan who contributed to the world war not too long before.

The tech companies on the other hand have to be some of the most meek and least abusive organizations in existence. They pale in comparison even to a provincial police office who will dispatch storm troopers and search your house for plants based on the flimsiest of evidence.[1]

Yet in some people's mind they are this imminent threat, though not really specified. How does that happen?

[1] http://www.fourwinds10.net/siterun_data/government/law_enfor...

JoeAltmaier• 12 years ago

Corporations may not be deliberately evil, but they are gorillas in the room with money and influence. Every time they turn around, someone gets hurt somewhere. So folks fear them, and rightly so.

nmrm9• 12 years ago

1. Society has lots of problems. Probably mass incarceration is a much larger problem than over-armed local police departments. That doesn't mean we shouldn't address the problem of over-armed local police departments. It also doesn't mean the problems are unrelated.

Similarly, militarization of police and decreased personal privacy expectations are probably not completely unrelated. And we don't have to focus on one to the exclusion of the other.

2. Actually, yes, Google is reading your emails. Even if you don't use gmail, they probably know who you are and who you talk with and what you talk about.

Eroding privacy is a real social problem. I'm not sure why you are so quick to trivialize.

3. Tech corporations may have great PR, but they are certainly aware of the fact that they externalize costs in the forms of e-waste dumping and horrible labor conditions. Just because you don't have to see this stuff doesn't mean it does not exist.

pron3• 12 years ago

The constant fear of corporations has been puzzling me ever since I saw RoboCop.

The fear of corporations has to do with the fact that for many years the US population was under the thumb of a few capitalists who exploited and enslaved in all but name big portions of the populace (they even had their own private paramilitary police). It took many years and some brave men[1] and women[2] to expose the system and eventually give the federal government enough regulation power to curtail the power of corporations. Therefore, Americans in particular have very valid reasons to fear corporations, because they suffered their abuse and know what they're capable of.

The scary thing is that I'm not sure any of the robber barons ever had as much power at their disposal as Google does.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_roosevelt#Domestic_pol...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_tarbell

zhte415• 12 years ago

I don't disagree with the general point that power easily corrupts, but found it odd this was the only post on the website (bar an About page - the Contact page links to the About page, which contains what I read as blurb as best).

So, like usual, I did a WHOIS.

This domain was registered yesterday: July 12th.

   Domain Name: DREWDAVISMEDIA.COM
   Registrar: LIQUIDNET LTD.
   Whois Server: whois.liquidnetlimited.com
   Referral URL: http://www.liquidnetlimited.com
   Name Server: DNS1.FREEHOSTIA.COM
   Name Server: DNS2.FREEHOSTIA.COM
   Status: clientTransferProhibited
   Updated Date: 12-jul-2014
   Creation Date: 12-jul-2014
   Expiration Date: 12-jul-2015

Seems like FUD to me.

cybdestroyer• 12 years ago

What was the point of this awfully written collection of words? Also, could someone contact the author and let him know of the existence of Microsoft Word? His contact link is broken and he has way too many typos to be in the front page of Hacker News.

izolate• 12 years ago

I've always got the impression that Sergey Brin is the true visionary of the two.

g123g• 12 years ago

I am pretty sure there is a much larger vision behind all these seemingly disjoint acquistions and ventures. One day when the final piece is put together, we mere mortals will realize what is happening behind the scenes right now. But it might be too late by then.

jqm2• 12 years ago

..."But by the end, Lex Luther spent his final years fighting off increasing government regulation and a growing mass of lawsuits while trying to keep his company from succumbing to bureaucratic rot and his employees innovative. The good employees kept jumping ship while the mediocre ones were proving impossible to dislodge. He eventually died in a bizarre yacht accident involving a prostitute, several chickens and some ketamine, having failed to maintain his dominance of the world. He was replaced by a guy with an MBA from Stanford who had very straight teeth and that said all the right things at the right time and who slowly ran the company into the ground by selling off divisions one after the other in order to meet annual bonus growth profit targets."

zoba• 12 years ago

Don't forget that he's also trying to "beat death". http://time.com/574/google-vs-death/

This could expand his control beyond the world, and as far as the universe! Or perhaps even, The Multiverse!!

jonnathanson• 12 years ago

I'm not sure I buy into the Larry Page-as-Lex-Luthor analogy, even if it's meant to be more evocative than literally descriptive. (Page has achieved, circumstantially, what Luthor single-mindedly strove to do.) People seem to want to attribute sinister motives to Page, and while I don't know the man, all available evidence suggests he's more ambitious business tycoon than Big Brother-in-training.

I do, however, think there's something very interesting in this piece. Namely, what does it mean for someone to hold such potential power over the lives of so many? In the grand sweep of history, the amount of theoretical control over the world afforded to someone in Larry Page's position has accumulated in the blink of an eye, and it's staggering.

Technology is changing more quickly than our ability to understand its ethical, socioeconomic, and even existential implications. That doesn't mean we have to adopt the Luddite program, to be frightened of technology, and to slow its progress. We should welcome the rapid progress, and encourage technology. At the same time, perhaps we need to get a lot more serious about developing a coherent philosophy of technology, and a forward-looking technology policy. For instance: it's still a bit crackpotish to suggest we should be working on a Three Laws of Robotics in 2014, but that notion will become less outlandish in the next few years. And maybe, as Asimov subtly suggested, we're the robots who need the guidelines.

We live in very interesting times. More accurately, we're living the prologue to some very interesting times.

peteretep• 12 years ago

Let's say Larry Page knew who I was, and didn't like me. Does he really actually have the ability to go in and read my email? I would guess not...

DominikR• 12 years ago

The whole world dominance theory is an exaggeration. The biggest markets in the world (by population) are completely closed to Google.

They have their own versions of Facebook, Youtube, Google and everything else we use here in the west, and that's not going to change anytime soon since the governments have protectionist policies in these sectors.

And even in parts of the west, namely the EU, policies are implemented which are trying to push Google out of the market, or at least weaken it severely, to allow their local industries to grow.

Whatever you might fear that Google will become some day, it wont happen, since they wont even get a fair chance in most markets to get dominant. And even if they do, they will be pushed out by the government, if it can afford it.

azakai2• 12 years ago

True, but that doesn't change things for people living in North America. Also, even in Europe Google is doing extremely well (look at market share in search, for example), despite legislators being somewhat adversary.

scalene• 12 years ago

What about the Presidency of the United States? Anyone that gets elected to this position has quite a bit more power than Larry Page.

jqm2• 12 years ago

I don't think modern presidents actually have as much power as people commonly assume. The massive bureaucracies under them take awhile to learn to navigate... and by that time your 4-8 years is up.

Not to mention checks and balances.

dm2• 12 years ago

The POTUS is unquestionably the most powerful person on the planet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powers_of_the_President_of_the_...

The ability to engage in wars of almost any scale by itself is enough to command the respect of anyone. They're suppose to have congressional approval but they regularly bypass that.

The President of the US also is tasked with appointing over 6000 of the top federal officials and federal judges. The POTUS can change the CIA director (which is arguably the 2nd most powerful organization in the world, only seconded by the US Navy), and the NSA, FBI, NASA, and many others.

Foreign and domestic policy is greatly influenced by the President, they can very easily change the direction of humanity, (Iraq and Afghanistan wars, millions killed, so much money spent, unknown what the world would be like today if they hadn't happened).

If the president really wanted to, he could declassify almost anything and even give the order to launch a nuclear missile (might require Emergency Powers, which he has the right to use).

Forbes says Putin is more powerful, it's debatable I suppose. http://www.forbes.com/powerful-people/list/

makmanalp• 12 years ago

Wild conspiracy theory aside, I just realized that in a few years after the nest userbase grows more, they could tweak the temperature setting algorithm to secretly and gradually lower the user's "acceptable" temperature over time to acclimate users to lower temperatures, cutting energy usage in the world by a significant amount. Conspiracy for good? :)

aragot• 12 years ago

Good mind! Come to France ;) We're not keen on AC, our office temperatures are rather 23-27 in summer, we sometimes stink and we know it's good for ecology. BTW, I'm not sure Nest has any potential in France. Maybe in international hotels only?

kabouseng3• 12 years ago

This, and some of the comments sounds like something out of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged". Damn those that make profit and dont share it with those with less ability...

nmrm9• 12 years ago

What the hell are you talking about?

The article is about power, not money. Also, there's no suggested course of action. In fact, a legitimate course of action could be "stop using Google's services so that if shit hits the fan, they don't have your data".

How could enlightened self-interest of consumers ever possibly be construed as an assault on liberty (or whatever-the-hell)?

It's really best never to think of those you disagree with in terms of flat caricatures.

kabouseng3• 12 years ago

Have you read Atlas shrugged?

dang• 12 years ago

What the hell are you talking about?

Please don't—even when the other person is being provocative.

rasengan0• 12 years ago

I like a good story that appeals to emotions but unfortunately emergent self organization appears to dispel conspiracy: http://www.ted.com/talks/james_b_glattfelder_who_controls_th...

Unfortunately, because I think modulation is easier with less moving parts.

Multics• 12 years ago

I like Google, and what Page has achieved. If they act in ways I don't agree with, I can stop using their service(s). It's not like Google take my resources by force, and then use them to do unspeakable evil.

Page and cohorts have demonstrably shown a knack for developing tech which the world finds useful. And for that I'm grateful.

Yet! I don't need to express my gratitude to him. Instead, he's rewarded with 'disagreeable' money & power.

What does he do with the acquired wherewithal? New projects. And in counterintuitive directions, which others only find insightful after the fact!

Page's et al. investment in Calico -- their pro-longevity/healthspan biotech company -- is one such example. They're investing in one of the world's most significant problems. Maybe the most! Dismissed by others, but seen as doable by someone who has been prescient time and again!

This 'power-hungry' character may just save or extend your life one day! Contra to what others would have done with the same power/money.

restless• 12 years ago

"Of course this is not a fictional story. The company in question is not Lexcorp, it is Google." Another mission for Captain Obvious

oldmanjay• 12 years ago

I don't really agree with the premise, which is that drewdavismedia is intelligent enough to decide for other people what they are allowed to have.

ilaksh• 12 years ago

I assume that this comment will just be buried so that others can't even read it, since it will go against most people's belief systems.

I saw several people in here say something about "conspiracy theories" as if to refute a "conspiracy theory" that was stated in the thread. But I didn't see any such thing said. Maybe I missed it.

I will go ahead and start on the "conspiracy theories" by linking to the following story from Al Jazeera:

Exclusive: Emails reveal close Google relationship with NSA

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/5/6/nsa-chief-goo...

Why would anyone think that everyone (the world) would just let Larry Page and Google do whatever they want? At a certain point, either people with power attached themselves to this enterprise, or they just decided to give up their power and let Page and Google take it.

I think its a fantasy to believe that there aren't governments involved or that they really just have everyone's best interests in mind.

Too Much Power For One Man

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