Paul Buchheit:"Don't Be Evil" - gibsonf1
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gibsonf1
Hi Paul. Since you are the person at Google who came up with the "Don't Be
Evil" motto, could you please explain what that means? I am genuinely curious
and have no intention of badgering you about this. Thank you.

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Sam_Odio
I'm not sure if this is right or not, but in philosophy class, I was taught
that Google's motto was a manifestation of negative consequentialism:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialism#Negative_consequentialism>

Basically, the ethical decision is that which avoids a negative outcome. The
professor mentioned a number of interesting implications of strict negative
consequentialism. The following actions would be morally wrong:

\- For someone to stave off starvation by stealing a loaf of bread from Bill
Gates.

\- Any type of self defense that involves harming others. Ie: using pepper
spray to prevent rape.

\- Sacrificing one person's life to save the lives of a million others. Ie:
killing Hitler before he started WWII.

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BrandonM
The 3 points you describe sound more to me like deontology than negative
consequentialism. According to the entry you linked to, deontology judges
actions based on the actions themselves, while consequentialism judges actions
based on their consequences. Negative consequentialism, then, involves
avoiding actions which produce consequences that are overall negative. In each
case you described, the actions are typically considered deontologically
wrong, but the overall consequences of those actions are not negative, so they
don't seem to me to be wrong by negative consequentialist standards.

Getting back to the topic of the submission, I always presumed that the
comment basically meant, "Don't be like Microsoft." Many people call Microsoft
the "Evil Empire", so this falls in nicely with that theme. By aligning
themselves opposite Microsoft, Google is able to attract that population of
hackers which does not appreciate Microsoft's business tactics (things like
the FUD campaign that is going on right now in regards to patents). Whether
Google is actually committed to moral business practices or not is debatable,
but the motto is a nice way to appear "hacker-friendly".

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Sam_Odio
You're right - my examples (and google's motto) sound more deontological, or
similar to the golden rule. Maybe someone who knows more about this can
clarify.

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vlad
I'm pretty sure it was just about not being Microsoft (and their anti-trust
problems), using popup ads, or spamming, the things that were major problems
that were ticking people off 7 or so years ago when that motto came about. I
don't think it's very much beyond that.

Don't be evil was a competitive advantage.

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litepost
What about the whole NLP thing that NEGATIVE injunctions are ignored by the
unconscious/subconscious brain.

In other words, this directive really serves to state "Be Evil" at the deepest
level of our core consciousness?

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litepost
ie because of this phrase, Google has become associated with (the word) "Evil"
in a way few others throughout history have (ie with the possible exception of
Hitler et al)

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immad
thats hilarious

edit: and probably not correct. The phrase has been thought about so much and
repeated so often that I would think the negative would no longer be ignored,
although on the first read it may have an affect of a Be Evil command. I never
did get around to reading nlp books.

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litepost
Is there a way to measure (via Google or some other publicly accesible
technology) how close two terms are related, in the public discourse and on
the Internet? (I'm sure there's some stupid easy way to do this, but I forget
what the best way is.)

