
Former Facebook security chief Alex Stamos calls Sundar Pichai a liar over China - masonic
https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/11/09/google-ceo-pichai-called-a-liar-by-former-facebook-exec-for-defending-move-into-china/
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fipple
Watching these guys argue is like watching mud-covered pigs argue about which
one is dirtier.

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jiveturkey
these guys (stamos and millen) are either being intentionally daft or are
embarrassingly naive.

nobody needs a primer to decode pichai’s statement. it’s political
positioning.

to think that these guys are shining a light is laughable. stamos is obviously
using this to help wash his own hands of his complicity at fb. millen i don’t
know.

~~~
jiveturkey
BTW the real horror here is not that google is lying to the public — that’s
expected. It’s that they are lying to their employees. Just awful.

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jiveturkey
[https://outline.com/LgB7Bs](https://outline.com/LgB7Bs)

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vthallam
Sensationalist much? And that too coming from a guy who worked for a company
who is bending over backwards(Zuck on board for Tsinghua Univ, asking Chinese
president to name his baby etc).

If not for China, there's no room for growth in traditional markets anymore.
Yeah, there's Africa, South East Asia, but Google and FB already are putting
on big efforts there. So whether you like it or not, if you want a billion
users right away, you have to make a compromise. Apple did it, why not Google?

~~~
Judgmentality
So...don't grow? I understand the pressures of Wall Street and being a
publicly traded company, but Google (or Alphabet) is in an _incredibly_ unique
situation that the founders can do whatever they want and not be ousted by
shareholders. I don't know what it's like to be worth tens of billions of
dollars, but maybe that should be enough?

~~~
int_19h
I'm more and more becoming convinced that we should just put a hard cap on
company size. It's radical, yes, but all attempts to regulate those large
corporate behemoths either turn out to be toothless in practice, or so heavy-
handed that they cause too much trouble to everybody else.

~~~
votepaunchy
Just as radical, yes, but likely more effective would be to limit the size of
political parties.

~~~
Judgmentality
A much simpler and more effective method would be to create a minimum of 3
official political parties. That way it would not be entirely us-vs-them and
so many other benefits, including a rank voting system which is _so_ much
better.

I believe, with no hard evidence, that a 3 party system could solve most of
the political problems facing the United States today. Because it would remove
the incentives to be impossible to work with (although I feel this applies to
one party more than the other, it definitely goes both ways).

~~~
int_19h
If you create an electoral system that has ranked voting and, ideally, party-
proportional representation (e.g. straight up party lists, or MMP), then
you'll get more political parties pretty much automatically.

As it is, we already have more than 3 parties (not sure what "official" means
in this context, since you don't really have to register a party in US for it
to meaningfully exist). The problem is Duverger's Law, which confines
mainstream politics to the top two, and presents a near-insurmountable barrier
for everybody else.

~~~
Judgmentality
You might find this interesting

[http://freakonomics.com/podcast/politics-
industry/](http://freakonomics.com/podcast/politics-industry/)

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yumraj
Kettle - Pot

~~~
davemp
The kettle sat upon the stove absorbing heat in order to control the state of
the water contained within. Nearby a pot was perched over a burner, boiling
away. The kettle thought to itself, "What a glorious tool am I. That I can
heat water with such efficiency. When my contents have been coerced into the
desired state, I force the water though my finely crafted spout to release a
useful scream. My custom fit handle makes it an ease for my user to pour the
liquid into the desired consumption vehicle. My construction is an economy of
function--truly beautiful design. My creator must be proud. The ugly, black
pot to my left is such a brutish tool in comparison. Boiling water with such a
utensil would be utterly daft. I am the path to the future of water enhancing
tools!"

After some time had passed, both the kettle and the pot rested above their
heating elements, rigid in their stillness--charred, empty. No human had
monitored the job these tools were designed to solve. The water was gradually
vaporized until none could be found in its native form.

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adamnemecek
> compared censorship there to the “right to be forgotten” law in the European
> Union, which can force Google to delete data it holds on people who don’t
> want the information showing up in search results.

You see? Forcing us (google) to delete data is literally the same as
surveillance capitalism that sends dissent to gulags. I literally can’t tell
the difference between the two.

/s

~~~
lern_too_spel
You're stretching his claim. He compared censored search to censored search.
Nothing about reporting searches to private parties who requested to be
forgotten (not happening) or to governments who requested some results be
removed (speculated to be what Google would do). His comparison is still wrong
for the reasons stated in the article but not as wrong as your comparison.

