Google wants (us?) to live forever

"Don't be evil" was the formal corporate motto (or slogan) of Google

Wikipedia

“The famous Google mantra of ‘Don’t be evil’ is not entirely what it seems.”

“Evil is what Sergey [Brin] says is evil.”

Eric Schmidt - Executive Chairman of Google

“If you ask me today, is it possible to live to be 500? The answer is yes,” Bill Maris says one January afternoon in Mountain View, California. The president and managing partner of Google Ventures just turned 40, but he looks more like a 19-year-old college kid at midterm. He’s wearing sneakers and a gray denim shirt over a T-shirt; it looks like he hasn’t shaved in a few days. Bloomberg

When I first read about Google's plans for life eternal I thought I'd write a "think piece" about it, but then on researching the thing, I saw that many had trod the path before me. As I read though page after page I saw that Google was not alone, that Silicon Valley was filled with Forbes List billionaires putting oodles of money into research hoping to live forever.  

Reading on, it suddenly struck me that that I had seen this before... Then I remembered where... Aldous Huxley classic, "After Many a Summer Dies the Swan". 

Sergey Brin wants to become the Fifth Earl of Gonister!

Here is a quote from Wikipedia's summary of Huxley's masterpiece:

Written soon after Huxley left England and settled in California, the novel is Huxley's examination of American culture, particularly what he saw as its narcissism, superficiality, and obsession with youth.

Looked at with the eyes of Huxley, I began to think that today's Silicon Valley is nearly beyond parody and then a friend sent me this wonderful send up of the "sharing apps":

Getting serious for a moment, it seems truly "evil" that these Silicon Valley billionaires cannot see that the true health problem today is not eternal life or even a cure for cancer: it is the existence of many millions of human beings who do not have access to even the most rudimentary health care or sanitation. 

I am not asking these mega-geeks to "have a heart", I am asking them not to be stupid. In today's interconnected world which they have done so much to interconnect and which they want to interconnect infinitely, a virus that breeds in some filthy, overpopulated, third world slum, with no doctors and no toilets (near an international airport, naturally) can undergo a metamorphosis into an airborne, killer flu from one day to the next and be in San Jose in a matter of hours.

How can people who are supposed to be intelligent be so stupid? Maybe their intelligence is like "Rain Man" memorizing telephone books. DS

USA: mature or overripe?

David Seaton's News Links

Among the casualties of the Snowden stories are an embarrassed and chastened White House, an American technology sector which has seen its own government tarnish its business model of a global, open internet and the strong US relationships with allies such as Germany. Financial Times

In English we make a clear difference between "mature" and "ripe".

We also distinguish between ripe and too ripe, with the word, "overripe", which is common enough a concept to have one whole, unhyphenated word all to itself.

ma·ture
adjective \mə-ˈtu̇r, -ˈtyu̇r also -ˈchu̇r\

: having or showing the mental and emotional qualities of an adult

: having a fully grown or developed body : grown to full size

: having reached a final or desired state
Merriam Webster

over·ripe
adjective \ˌō-və(r)-ˈrīp\

: grown or aged past the point of ripeness and beginning to decay : too ripe

: not new or young

: not fresh or original
Merriam Webster

We don't have a word for "over-mature", as being mature is thought to be good and it is hard to see how you can have too much of it, but ripe, which in itself is good, past a certain point can become bad.

I would maintain that history's most advanced and developed version of capitalism, the American version, instead of being mature is overripe.

The snippet from the Financial Times that tops this post reveals "the worm in the apple", the conflict or "contradiction" in the system, simple to identify, but whose resolution or synthesis is very difficult to predict.

The most creative and innovative sector of the American economy, the sector that most represents a future prosperity for American business, is symbolized by Google, a huge organization, whose business model is based on the free flow of information and especially on obtaining the personal data of everyone on an interconnected, frontier-less planet, in order to anticipate and satisfy their every want and desire by knowing even their unconscious needs and motivations. This obviously requires enormous quantities of trust on anyone who uses Google... as users confide to Google, knowingly or unknowingly, things that they would never confide even to their dearest friend or most loved and trusted family member. Trust, friendliness, goodwill then, are the central, essential qualities of Google's business proposition.

Google's antithesis is the NSA, who also wants access to the personal data of everyone and to know (and especially anticipate) their needs and desires, conscious and unconscious in order to dominate and control them. This organization's philosophy is not to trust anyone, not even ones closest friends. And whose process of knowledge to action might be symbolized by the drone strike. Certainly trust, friendliness, goodwill then, are NOT the central, essential qualities of NSA's "business proposition".

However the two "business propositions" are deeply entwined. It is hard to imagine a "Swiss" Google or anything as all-encompassing as Google in any country that did not physically control the Internet and set and enforce the world's rules of commerce and supply the world with its reserve currency, while physically controlling the seas and air all over the world with the greatest accumulation of military power in the history of our planet. And conversely it is hard to imagine an intelligence agency as "penetrant" as the NSA without access to the resources of Google, Yahoo and Facebook.

The same as mixing Clorox with gasoline will cause an explosion and it is vital to keep the two apart, so it is vital for America's new economy to keep the idea of the NSA as far away from the idea of Google as possible... I should say "was" because Snowden has let the cat out of the bag and like putting toothpaste back in the tube, all the king's horses and all the King's men will never put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

With the wisdom of hindsight this Achilles's heel of American power was obvious, but Edward Snowden, or whoever (if anyone) runs him has fired a deadly torpedo directly under America's waterline.

All that was needed was to find the right person at the right time and get him and his information where the United States could not prevent its dissemination.

Like taking candy from a baby.

Returning to the original metaphor, the connection NSA/new economy was (over) ripe for the plucking.

Some would say that when our economic system reached it's full worldwide potential and maturity such a conflict was bound to arise, others have been hoping and praying for such an event since the 19th century... we are "fortunate" enough to be here to witness how it plays out. DS