Just a few days ago, a paranoid radio talk show guy complained about Google's new idea to filter search queries by "truth" criteria. I really think he was getting all worked up over nothing.
I'm sure that my posting this will guarantee I'll be at the bottom of their truth index, but these comments, as offensive as they are to Google's profit margin, are actually in favor of the company.
1.
I never ever search Google for "the truth." I search for song lyrics, TV shows, occasionally bible verses that contain truth, regardless of where they are on the Google Truth List.
2.
Google searches have always been just that. Searches. Very rarely do I find what I want at the very top, unless I'm looking for Chuck Norris Facts. Most the time, I have to wade down a few pages to find what I'm looking for. Therefore, even if they made a "Truth Top Ten List", I would skim down to the truth that actually satisfies my need for truth, even if I have go go down a billion pages to get to it.
I generally don't believe most of what I see on Google anyway. I don't trust half the businesses I see near the top, especially the software companies. Even if they don't infect my computer with Trojan malware disguised as antivirus software, they could still do some damage with my credit card information. I often skip over these companies in favor of programs recommended by word of mouth. At least then I know who's full of it and who isn't because I can physically see them.
The same goes for any truth. I don't go online to find out the truth about anything, I talk to other people. Other people can tell you if a thing is bullshit or not, whereas a website cannot be trusted.
3.
Computers, especially Google computers, operate on logic, and the field of logic defines truth differently than the average layman. The ones and zeroes that make up this website, for example, are "true" in the sense that they represent the number 1 in the computer, while the absence of this website from your screen is represented by 0.
Logicians say things are "valid" based on the arrangement of words in an argument. The "truth" of a statement can be diagrammed in a "truth table", and not all of it is genuine "truth" as we understand it. Only "contingent truth" is based on rock solid fact, such as "Lincoln was assassinated." Other "truth" in this branch of study mostly depends on form and structure, rather than one hundred percent fact. All this stuff goes into computer science. Into reality and morality, not so much. I mean, when's the last time someone said something suspicious to you and you immediately sat down and diagrammed it in a little box? But that is logical "truth", more or less. In a certain sense, Google has already been filtering things according to this type of "truth".
4.
Google may be in bed with Communist government, but it's irrelevant to the argument. To jump to an erroneous conclusion about search filtering on this basis alone is definitely ad hominem, or maybe circumstantial ad hominem (see point 3). Even if we assume that the radio talk show host was referring to the suppression of certain anti Communist Chinese websites from the internet, he didn't specifically state such, and he was alarmed at websites being buried at the bottom of lists, not suppressed from the internet all together.
INPUT PROMPT
Now, say for example, Google decides to put this little program into their server:
A: Either God exists (1) or He does not exist (0).
Let A=0
Then I would refer you to paragraph 1 at the beginning of this essay.
Furthermore, I would refer you to paragraph 2.
In conclusion, I have always imagined the Google people to be hippie liberals who encourage people to think and draw their own conclusions everything, regardless of whether they are right or wrong.
It's a business, it's a search engine, and that's about it. If you ascribe too much power to it, you begin to sound ridiculous. Even if they were trying to put a strangle hold on the truth, I'm reminded of that line from Star Wars. I paraphrase, "The tighter you clench your fist, the more slip through your fingers." In other words, the more they try to repackage lies and shove them up front and hide the good stuff in the back vault, the more people will go elsewhere, maybe come up with a new search engine with more integrity.
That is, to say, if this guy on the radio actually knows what he's talking about.
