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

#41

Forum-Related / Re: «The World Brain: Google's...

Last post by justjeff - February 05, 2026, 01:29:24 AM

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.

#42

Forum-Related / Re: Is there a way to adjust t...

Last post by Geremia - February 05, 2026, 12:28:03 AM

I updated the default forum time zone to be UTC, but you can change it to your local timezone.

#43

Forum-Related / Thank you.

Last post by justjeff - February 04, 2026, 11:27:27 PM

Thank you.

That did in fact fix it.

#44

General Discussion / Re: AI poised to be the indust...

Last post by Geremia - February 04, 2026, 11:25:29 PM

far fewer would be needed

Intelligent, moral humans would be needed.

In his book, Economics in One Lesson, Henry Hazlett has some excellent counterpoints to the arguments that have historically come up regarding industrialization taking away human jobs. The dire predictions about the drastic reduction in jobs never turned out to be correct in the grand scheme of things. They certainly might cause job losses in some places, but would result in job gains and a greater standard of living for more people.

His book contained many examples of that counterintuitive fact. My father-in-law's situation was a striking example of that phenomenon. He was a carpenter as a very young lad after WWII. The carpenters union fought against the use of power tools on the job. Using electric saws and drills would reduce the number of carpenter hours needed to build a home, quite obviously. But they lost that battle, and it turned out that far more carpenters had jobs after those time saving tools boosted their productivity. The relative cost of homes dropped, allowing more people to purchase new homes, or to have older ones renovated or expanded.

Interesting example.
Yes, technology is morally neutral, but its use isn't.

#45

Forum-Related / Re: «The World Brain: Google's...

Last post by Geremia - February 04, 2026, 11:13:43 PM

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.

#46

Dogma & Doctrine / Re: Is Pope Leo XIV a true pop...

Last post by Geremia - February 04, 2026, 11:06:17 PM

We have had bad popes before, but even Pope Honorius was not a heretic "in intention". He was "just" negligent in defending the faith as was his duty.

Correct. See what St. Robert Bellarmine says on Pope Honorius in Papal Error?: A Defense of Popes said to have Erred in Fatih ch. 4.

#47

Forum-Related / Re: Is there a way to adjust t...

Last post by Geremia - February 04, 2026, 09:52:52 PM

It should be here: https://isidore.co/forum/index.php?action=profile;area=theme;u=261

#48

General Discussion / Re: AI poised to be the indust...

Last post by justjeff - February 04, 2026, 05:51:35 AM

humans are no longer needed for labour

Humans will always be needed.

Sure, but his thesis, despite that snippet, wasn't that no humans would be needed in the future because of AI advances, but that far fewer would be needed. That seems almost self-evident to me.

The question, really boils down to whether that will be a boon to society and to the world, or whether it will lead to a more dystopian society.

From my perspective, it is a tool, and like all tools it can be used for good or evil.

I would bet that he is right in saying that we are coming to a big decision point and things could go extremely well, extremely badly or anywhere in between... in a relatively short time.

John Senior lamented the destruction the industrial revolution inflicted upon Catholic Culture. He felt that although that revolution brought about great increases in productivity and upon material wealth in general, it turned society on its head at the time, creating much misery in some quarters... poverty in some, and a great concentration of wealth in others. Over time, that material wealth and the benefits of that productivity "trickled down" if you will to the masses, resulting in a standard of living unprecedented in world history. But Mr. Senior would probably posit that the tradeoff was not really worth it. That the moral fabric of society and of families was stronger before that particular economic revolution and that people are not really in fact better off now than when they didn't have the material wealth now available to virtually everyone. They were happier then, didn't have the suicide rates nor the mental derangements or moral depravity that is all too common now.

I can see and understand his point of view, though I'm not convinced that Satan's attacks on the Church and upon humanity would not have had similar deleterious effects even without the industrial revolution. But he may be right.

In his book, Economics in One Lesson, Henry Hazlett has some excellent counterpoints to the arguments that have historically come up regarding industrialization taking away human jobs. The dire predictions about the drastic reduction in jobs never turned out to be correct in the grand scheme of things. They certainly might cause job losses in some places, but would result in job gains and a greater standard of living for more people.

His book contained many examples of that counterintuitive fact. My father-in-law's situation was a striking example of that phenomenon. He was a carpenter as a very young lad after WWII. The carpenters union fought against the use of power tools on the job. Using electric saws and drills would reduce the number of carpenter hours needed to build a home, quite obviously. But they lost that battle, and it turned out that far more carpenters had jobs after those time saving tools boosted their productivity. The relative cost of homes dropped, allowing more people to purchase new homes, or to have older ones renovated or expanded.

Despite that fact, there is still uncertainty as to whether that same phenomenon will play out in the future. I love using the nascent AI tools at my disposal. They save me time in digging through a lot of web pages or books to find an answer. They have the promise of making everyone more efficient, and improving our lives in countless ways.

But it is also true that we see powerful people in powerful groups who have been calling for world depopulation on a grand scale. Some have called for cutting world population by some 90%. Evil organizations such as Planned Parenthood have no shortage of wealthy sponsors. Powerful eugenicists funded Margaret Sanger from the beginning, and have promoted people like Peter Singer. The idea of breeding a race of thoroughbreds or of an elite class that really doesn't need so many of the "useless eaters" has not died away. The idea that humans are a scourge on the earth has grown in popularity, if anything.

#49

Forum-Related / Re: «The World Brain: Google's...

Last post by justjeff - February 04, 2026, 05:04:28 AM

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.

#50

Forum-Related / Is there a way to adjust the t...

Last post by justjeff - February 04, 2026, 04:53:04 AM

Sorry if I'm missing some basic setting on here.