Weekend Open Forum: Imagining Google's own country

Jos

Posts: 3,073   +97

open forum imagining google

Google CEO Larry Page made a surprise appearance at the end of the company’s I/O opening keynote on Wednesday. Among other things, he gave an emotional speech on how technology improves our lives, calling on people to focus on "creating things that don't exist" instead of being dragged down by negativity.

At one point he even entertained the idea of “setting aside a part of the world” for unregulated experimentation. We all know how that would end up. Didn’t he play Bioshock?

I’m all dried out of Weekend Open Forum ideas so I thought why don’t I take this chance to help out a bigger cause and use your collective intelligence to figure out a few things. Where should this place be? What should it be called? Who would rule it? What sort of experiments should be run? Should people be required to give out all their personal information? Would you live there? Let your imagination run wild in the comments.

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The way I see it is it would be like the opposite of the movie 'The Village'. It could be an smaller, advanced civilization, which could bring wonderful advances in many technologies.Pretty sure there'd be plenty of volunteers for such an area, but probably not a diverse herd which would be ideal.
It does seem a bit over the top as 'unregulated', but I believe a good point was to have an area to test some high tech utilities in a community dynamic enough to accept change and test it thoroughly.
 
Lol unregulated experimentation.
We have that already, with a country too.
It's called the US. Here we have the likes of the
CIA, NSA and "the military" among many others.
There's plenty of unregulated experimentation and it
doesn't usually benefit the general populace... Well, unless of
course you're the one in charge of public relations, then you'll make
it sound like it does.

Tryout the NSA's spycenter in Utah for size.

If intruding on peoples virtual private property doesn't take your immediate
fancy, you can also opt for supporting any number of legislative attempts to
wholly deny peoples right to privacy in the first place, by making it legal, through things like SOPA,
CISPA and future savvy acronyms.

And hey, if you're ever charged of something, you can praise your lucky stars
if they'll let you in on what you're charged for at all. Because they don't always do that
sadly.


All those are examples of unregulated experimenting with peoples various freedoms.
Do we need an already privacy-hostile company doing more of the same? No thanks.
 
Where should this place be?
If you're looking at a completely unregulated experiment, then I'd suggest a place where the people would be no worse off than they are at present if it comes down to a worst case scenario. Obvious choices: North Korea, Eritrea, and Arkansas
What should it be called?
:eek: or :p
Who would rule it?
If its unregulated, who's going to enforce leadership? If there can be a leader, either:
1. The ruler should be instated the same way leaders everywhere else come to power ( witty Twitter feed, ability to look composed even when totally confused and the ability to look less sketchy than your opposition, strength of media infatuation), or
2. Leader to be decided on who gains the highest score on those totally legit online IQ tests.
What sort of experiments should be run?
Basically an alternative approach to anything that is presently broken. Maybe it could be based on the ludicrous idea of meritocracy and a ground up rather than a top down approach to a problem
Should people be required to give out all their personal information?
No need....THEY already have it
Would you live there?
If it was in North Korea or Eritrea ? possibly, but I'd draw the line at Arkansas.
 
Google CEO Larry Page wants to set aside a part of the world for unregulated experimentation. Let’s help him out. Where should this place be? What should it be called? Who would rule it? What sort of experiments should be...
Well, Aldous Huxley tackled this issue a long, long time ago in "Brave New World". He discussed a colony of only "Alpha Caste Individuals", that needed to be broken up, since everybody wanted to be a chief, and nobody wanted to be an Indian.

With that said, I'm fairly certain Larry Page imagines himself the omnipotent ruler of "Google World". If he thought he could get away with, "Pageland", I'm sure he would take a shot at it. (That's pronounced, "Pagelund" to give it a British monarchic flavour).

I feel pretty safe in postulating that you don't get that high up in any organization without being a closet sociopath, with delusions of grandeur.

Take Steve Jobs, as an example. Behind the scenes, do you think he was the same laid back yuppie in a turtleneck, which he tried to portray himself?

This would make a great epitaph for Mr. Page, "he hung on his own every word"...

Would you live there?
If it was in North Korea or Eritrea ? possibly, but I'd draw the line at Arkansas.
You might want to expand that line you're going to draw to include , "anywhere in the Ozarks or Camden NJ". Oh, and West Virginia too...
 
Where should this place be?
It should be on a ship in the sky? idk
What should it be called?
Google Life.
Who would rule it?
No one, there should be no government or leader, but there should be some sort of justice system to enforce basic human rights.
What sort of experiments should be run?
Anything, experiments may be a new website or program that if deployed in the real world would violate patents or ridiculous laws.
Should people be required to give out all their personal information?
No, this place should respect citizens privacy other than basic information(Name, DOB) .etc
Would you live there?
Yes, as long as privacy is respected and there is some form of justice system to enforce basic human rights.
 
It depends on what your definition of "unregulated experimentation" is. The Nazi's and Japanese conducted unregulated medical "experiments" on prisoners during WWII. In the technology world, how far and in which direction are we willing to let AI development go? I'm not talking Skynet (yet), but you could develop pretty nasty robotics and software attacks by letting AI development go in the wrong direction.

There are some pretty evil minds and intents in this world. Hence there has to be checks and balances somewhere along the line. Unregulated experimentation is just another way to say anarchy.
 
...[ ]...There are some pretty evil minds and intents in this world. Hence there has to be checks and balances somewhere along the line. Unregulated experimentation is just another way to say anarchy.
Evil has given itself a name, and that name is "Google"......
 
We already have a town like this in the US... perhaps not quite on the level of transforming or studying the sociological affects and emergent behaviors of new technological on a population... nevertheless, it is called Eureka! =P

Also, if I let my imagination run whiled this sounds more and more like something out of Bioshock.
 
Ever since I went to the university of chicago lab school in grammer school where they do experiments on the students my life seems to have been one experiment after another. One such experiment was they taught us german where half the school were jews to see how we'd all get along. I'm not for such a thing. Solution - cuts.
 
I think you guys all missed the point. I'm sure google doesn't want to create zombies and super weapons... what he wants is no regulation so they can take more risks.

Here's an example... NASA right now is using rockets from the 1960s to put satellites in orbit... not 1960's models, literally rockets made 50 years ago. The reason is, they're too scared of failure to build new models and take chances. It's why Elon Musk has passed them by.

Private business can afford to take more risks because the don't waste tax payer money when they fail, they just waste their own. But look at how Google thinks... they think really far ahead, and there's probably stuff they want to try that they just can't because of regulations that were never meant to prevent the stuff google would like to do. Look at the patent system if you want to see an example of old regulation that's failing in the 21st century.

You guys compare to science fiction, but I'm sure the reality would be far less interesting.
 
Here's an example... NASA right now is using rockets from the 1960s to put satellites in orbit... not 1960's models, literally rockets made 50 years ago. The reason is, they're too scared of failure to build new models and take chances. It's why Elon Musk has passed them by.
Probably not a great example. NASA was originally under tremendous time constraints for the Mercury/Apollo programs, and at that time the only viable choice was to turn to the same tech as the much better funded military. There was no ( 32 million horsepower) alternative at that time for putting large payloads into space. After Apollo's first manned mission was in the history books, NASA's programs budget was scaled down, whilst the programs multiplied. The continued use of rockets basically typifies maximum return on investment, since many satellites were put into orbit using recycled decommissioned ex-USAF ICBM's. If there had been an effective anti ballistic missile system in place years ago, you would likely be seeing air breathing space delivery systems already, but the need to fund these systems only arose with the rise of systems like the SA-20 Gargoyle that can defeat conventional ballistic missiles.

Technically Elon Musk hasn't passed them by. Falcon-1 uses the exact same method as F-1 (Saturn V) and other liquid propellant rockets. Turbine compressor to inject liquid oxygen and kerosene under pressure into a thrust chamber (NASA is funding a booster propellant competition at the moment).

Other than that I'd agree with your argument. The private sector moves faster than a similar initiative instituted by government, mainly due to the fewer layers of bureaucracy and interest conflict- in much the same way that proprietary standards in software/hardware usually see fruition must faster than open source projects. It all comes down to how much oversight you're ready to relinquish to see accelerated change, and whether you trust private business any more than you trust government (assuming they are distinguishable entities of course ;) )
 
As a side note, perhaps you should have a weekend open forum about what people would like to see in a weekend open forum.
 
As a side note, perhaps you should have a weekend open forum about what people would like to see in a weekend open forum.
I'd like to see a weekend open forum about a megalomaniac in charge of a pseudo-governmental information monopoly, shooting off his mouth about wanting to start his own country.

Oh wait, that's what this is....:D

Dude, it just doesn't get any better than this....:p
 
Google CEO Larry Page wants to set aside a part of the world for unregulated experimentation. Let?s help him out. Where should this place be? What should it be called? Who would rule it? What sort of experiments should be...
Well, Aldous Huxley tackled this issue a long, long time ago in "Brave New World". He discussed a colony of only "Alpha Caste Individuals", that needed to be broken up, since everybody wanted to be a chief, and nobody wanted to be an Indian.

With that said, I'm fairly certain Larry Page imagines himself the omnipotent ruler of "Google World". If he thought he could get away with, "Pageland", I'm sure he would take a shot at it. (That's pronounced, "Pagelund" to give it a British monarchic flavour).

I feel pretty safe in postulating that you don't get that high up in any organization without being a closet sociopath, with delusions of grandeur.

Take Steve Jobs, as an example. Behind the scenes, do you think he was the same laid back yuppie in a turtleneck, which he tried to portray himself?

This would make a great epitaph for Mr. Page, "he hung on his own every word"...

Would you live there?
If it was in North Korea or Eritrea ? possibly, but I'd draw the line at Arkansas.
You might want to expand that line you're going to draw to include , "anywhere in the Ozarks or Camden NJ". Oh, and West Virginia too...

Like you've ever been to any of those places you so casually badmouth. I'll take WV over a big city any day of the week - people there don't shoot you for "dissing" them (I.e. looking at them funny). You can knock on almost anyone's door and say you ran out of gas and 90% of the time they'll drive you to a service station, buy you a can of gas and take you back to your car. Oh, and give your kid a candy bar.
 
Like you've ever been to any of those places you so casually badmouth. I'll take WV over a big city any day of the week - people there don't shoot you for "dissing" them (I.e. looking at them funny). You can knock on almost anyone's door and say you ran out of gas and 90% of the time they'll drive you to a service station, buy you a can of gas and take you back to your car. Oh, and give your kid a candy bar.
Dude, "Camden NJ" IS a big city, murder per capita capital of the US. So, that makes me an "equal opportunity, "disser".

And please don't feel to compelled offer me a definition of "dissing", there's no need. But true, in the big city, a lot of people do suffer from "taxi driver syndrome" You lookin at me..? (like that).

That said, never trust anybody that offers your kid a candy bar. From candy bar to a picture milk a carton. Better safe than sorry.

Every time I watch Craig Ferguson, he insults someplace. Then says, I'm only joking, no need to send a letter.

How about a compromise, let's let Google build it's research center / concentration camp in the same place they filmed "Deliverance"....
 
How about a compromise, let's let Google build it's research center / concentration camp in the same place they filmed "Deliverance"....
They probably aren't welcome after the Google Street View cars proved a dangerous distraction to canoe enthusiasts (note Ned Beatty's desperate attempt to retain anonymity) in Georgia
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