«The World Brain: Google's plan to control the Past and Future» (2013)

[Geremia]

Larry Page (Google founder) had always wanted to digitize books. In 1996, the student project that eventually became Google—a crawler that would ingest documents and rank them for relevance against a user's query—was actually conceived as part of an effort to develop a universal digital library. The idea was that, once all books were digitized, you'd be able to map the citations among them, see which books got cited the most, and use that data to give better search results to library patrons.

[justjeff]

Google has some great tools, but seems rather dangerous.

The CIA funded them in a big way, and Google was certainly a tool of the state in locking down discussions during the covid lockdowns and so on. The Obama/Biden admin seemed to become quite draconian and the CIA funded organizations were all quite compliant in helping them quash discussions and information dissemination that they didn't want.

Of course, when Google changed their former, rather unusual motto, "Don't be evil", it raised some eyebrows.

Their hoovering up of so much info, such as these millions of books, apparently through deception in some/many cases, and their obvious disregard for the law, and their deceptive tactics in locking down their hold on all of that information is concerning. It seems to follow on their tactic of scanning all of the roads, which which led to a great tool in Google Earth and street view, but also using that opportunity to also hoover up info from private networks.

Red flags should be popping up all over. It is giving them power and the opportunity to use it for good or evil. I don't want to bet the world that they in fact will not use it for evil.

[Geremia]

Google changed their former, rather unusual motto, "Don't be evil"

That's only half of the first principle of natural law (Wuellner, S.J., Summary of Scholastic Principles p. 382):

A. Good is to be done and evil is to be avoided (as far as possible).
B. Do the necessary good; avoid evil, confer 336 [="The primary and unifying principle of the law is: Do the necessary good; avoid evil." (p. 335)]

Alphabet's new motto "Do the right thing" is better.

[justjeff]

Google changed their former, rather unusual motto, "Don't be evil"

That's only half of the first principle of natural law (Wuellner, S.J., Summary of Scholastic Principles p. 382):

A. Good is to be done and evil is to be avoided (as far as possible).
B. Do the necessary good; avoid evil, confer 336 [="The primary and unifying principle of the law is: Do the necessary good; avoid evil." (p. 335)]

Alphabet's new motto "Do the right thing" is better.

That is a fair point, but I think the red flag warnings for Google are still warranted.

A couple of links:

Google's Earth: how the tech giant is helping the state spy on us
We knew that being connected had a price – our data. But we didn't care. Then it turned out that Google's main clients included the military and intelligence agencies. By Yasha Levine

How the CIA made Google
Inside the secret network behind mass surveillance, endless war, and Skynet—

The CIA's In-Q-Tel is Investing in Startups That Can Predict the Future

Of course Google & the various other tech companies funded by the CIA & Pentagon and so on have had a lot of positive impact on the US & on the world, but consolidating so much power in the hands of so few is obviously a very risky proposition. GMail, Google Earth & even the internet itself all owe their existence largely to government funding. But should we trust the government with all of our personal and financial information?

The Chain of Issuance: The People and Patents That Built The Financial Surveillance Network
The patent hoarding developers and investors associated with PayPal and Google who built the first iteration of e-commerce and digital advertising have turned to the blockchain to fulfill their vision of total financial surveillance and the circumnavigation of government-issued money.

This guy is happy for the funding:
The spy who invested in my start up: technology and national security

On the other hand, how easy would it be for a government that goes off the rails to control its population with tools like the Ortho Orb, if it or similar biometric tools are required for internet access & financial transactions?

Worldcoin: Sam Altman's Crypto Tool for Technocracy?

Universal proof of human, finance and connection for every human.

Yes, all tools can be used for good or evil but putting such tools in the hands of politicians and their elitist collaborators gives them something akin to absolute power over everyone else, and that isn't usually conducive to molding moral leaders. The saying that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, undoubtedly has some underlying truth that it expresses. Or so it seems to me.