Check this out. Apparently Google is now the monster of innovative science, with a hand in all kinds of development. It's cool and unsettling at the same time. Watch the video so we can start some discussion. Google house, Robocop, it's all in there. It certainly gives presents something to dig into if you don't exactly keep up with the latest research and science.
Trust me, Andrae, I've been unsettled by Google for some time now. Fanpeople on both sides of the Windows v. Mac battle spit and hiss their inanities at one another while Google enjoys this distraction and is quietly taking over the universe like some silent Akira monster.
I'm with Wreybies. It's all rather unsettling. Microsoft used to be the big thing, then Apple took over at an even larger scale, and now Google has stepped to the fore, in an even larger way than Apple. Google is everywhere now. As funny as it sounds to say, it reminds me of Skynet, the major company in the Terminator franchise. But it isn't actually funny. It's scary. You see these contact lenses that will have stuff showing in front of your eyes, and other such gadgets, and you just think, "Really? I thought that was all just science-fiction." I'm all for advancing - in fact, I wish aliens and intergalactic travel were real at times - but there comes a time that it just becomes too much, especially when it all seems to be stemming from one huge company. I can easily see that sometime in the future, it's hard to say when, the world will become a grim place, like the Terminator universe, having created machines that are intelligent enough to turn against us, or having a government that controls our every action, just like Nineteen Eighty Four. The latter idea is unbelievably close to actually happening, especially with things like the NSA happening. It sounds completely irrational and stupid unless you're in my head, but I do sometimes fear for the future of the earth and the human race; more and more our world is becoming the world of Minority Report, minus the foretelling of crimes. Is that really what we want?
Progress is always scary. So are large faceless corporations. With every new technology comes new potentials, and at the same time, equally powerful ways it can be misused to cause harm. On the balance, the benefits nearly always outweigh the new threats.
To be honest, the science that's coming out of this seems waaaay cool. But I can't help but think that with so much of it coming out of one super industry, there is a control factor. It's like throwing all our eggs in the Google basket and hoping they won't use it against us some day. @Thomas Kitchen or the last couple of weeks now, I've been thinking, "America: Oceania or The Capitol" (referencing Nineteen Eighty-Four and The Hunger Games). Right now I see Te Capitol, We live so large and leave so little for the rest of the world (yes I pulled that straight from TDKR) and yet we don't realize it. Everyday I see wasted food (whole plates trashed), wasted water (half-finished bottles on the side walk), wasted clothes (new shoes abandoned on streets or telephone wires), and I think, "Wow, we have so much we've forgotten how to appreciate it." As @Wreybies said in The Not Happy Thread, there is a sort of class divide being perpetuated, and only America's impoverished recognize it. But with so much technological advancement coming from one huge corporation, I can't help but think we may soon be seeing telescreens, Robocops, irobots and all that sci-fi jazz. The difference between us and Oceania may just be that we won't recognize ourselves being bought and sold. I have always been a little suspicious whenever I heard "powered by Google." Can you imagine what it would be like if your house, car, phones, internet, television, radio, medical treatment, soldiers and police, school programs, Trains, and bank software were all "powered by Google?" I know that's more much on the paranoid thinking side than I had planned on going (and it's not even all related despite my efforts to string them together). I do think the science and innovation is way cool! I guess Google is the only entity with the resources to be so wide-reaching.
