Three missed points
Via MindMatters as usual, THREE pointmisses at once. A minor pointmiss by the author, then two MAJOR pointmisses by Brendan Eich. Not really surprising, just frustrating. Eich is trying to head in the right direction but doesn't have a good compass. Or else he's just a false flag. I can't tell and I don't really give a fuck.

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First pointmiss:

“The control our search engines have over us is very sneaky,” says Nathan Jacobson, web developer and designer at the Discovery Institute. “It’s not obvious. When you go to The New York Times, you know the editors have chosen a certain set of subjects to cover, articles to share, they’ve selected certain writers to employ, so it’s kind of understood that you’re getting an intentional experience. The information that’s being fed to you is not all the information. It’s a carefully selected subset of information.”

In other words, the common assumption is that Google is a neutral library of information when in reality, it’s just as much a curator of information as The New York Times.

No. Libraries are NOT neutral. Librarians have the same mindset as Google and NYTimes. This is FEROCIOUSLY OBVIOUS on the reading end, and I've seen it on the writing end as well. In 1998 I was a regular customer at the downtown library. They knew me. After publishing my first courseware, I proudly donated a copy of the college textbook to the library. The librarian treated it like a dead mouse. She snooted her head upward, gave me the standard aristocratic veiled eyes and imperceptible headshake, picked up the textbook at extreme arm's length, and said "This will go into our annual book sale." Didn't even bother to pretend that it was suitable for the shelves.

Google is actually MORE neutral than libraries. It does include content from unfashionable sources, whether it prioritizes them or not. You're reading the proof. I've been writing this blog for 16 years on a Google-based platform. I'm unfashionable on all topics. Google has never censored what I write.

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Second pointmiss:

Enter new search engine competitor, Brave Search. Unlike the other search engine alternatives that pull from the same English language indexes created by Google and Bing, Brave Search runs off of its own index, the third in existence in the English-speaking world.

Google remains dominant for now. Brave Search is hardly as well-known as Google and will need to do some work in the public awareness arena. Additionally, Google remains the better engine to use when it comes to niche searches. Nevertheless, Brave Search is already a strong alternative and expected to grow stronger.

Eich is totally missing the Booker T rule. When you're the small low-status competitor, you have to FIND A NICHE AND STICK TO IT. You're NOT going to beat Google at its own game. You're NOT going to be the first choice for people who want the latest celebrity crap and partisan political crap. Eich is making the Abernethy error, losing the ACHIEVABLE niches to aim for the IMPOSSIBLE mainstream.

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Third pointmiss:

Eich's Brave browser advertises privacy, allegedly protecting your account from data robbery or whatever. This is a fake concern in the first fucking place. Privacy is impossible. One browser is allegedly protecting your data while everything else is not protecting you. Closing one window doesn't help when all the other windows and doors are stuck open.

So how will the Brave search engine protect your privacy?

Jacobson explains that, building on its acquisition of Tailcat, Brave Search is “anonymously leveraging users’ computers to crawl the web and contribute to its index.” Maintaining an index of the web is a “massive undertaking” considering how much new content is posted online every twenty-four hours.

Jesus! Brave will protect your privacy by invading your computer and turning it into a bot. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I thought the purpose of AV was to PREVENT malware from turning your computer into a bot. (Incidentally, this fits into the War On X theme. The War On Hackers makes more hacking, not less hacking.)

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Emersonian footnote: After linking the Library Association website to reference their obvious mindset, I skimmed the website. They're focusing heavily on e-learning now, because e-learning enables them to keep ALL ORANGE WITCH-BREATH DEPLORABLES out of their lives. Too bad, nasty vile arrogant haughty bigoted bitch. You tossed out one of the FIRST examples of user-friendly courseware. The 1998 dead mouse turned out to be your Lord and Savior in 2020, because it was rebranded by your fellow demons.

Caste is everything. Content is nothing.

Labels: AI point-missing, Emersonian justice

  ¶ 6:17 AM