this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2025
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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

Remove Google (Alphabet), Apple, Microsoft, Facebook (Meta), and Amazon from your life (and more, of course, but these are the big tech ones). Difficult but 100% necessary these days. De-Google your Android phone/tablet (basically Android without Google is possible), use Linux, order from small businesses, don't use social media owned by big corporations, etc.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

“maintaining hundreds of moments manually and consistently globally wasn’t scalable or sustainable,” says the company, which also states that its “mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”, has the explicit goal of “mapping the entire world” and has, for example, already captured tens of millions of miles of Street View imagery… 🤣

[–] [email protected] 39 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Corporations, at their core, are profit-generating engines—nothing more, nothing less. The corporate board’s one legal imperative is to ensure the shareholders see a return on their investment, by any means necessary. Morality? A marketing gimmick when convenient- not an operating principle.

All companies are evil. Google is not any more or less evil than any other company. The difference is they have a significant power base and therefore have a lot to gain or lose in the transition to fascism. They understand that Trump is spiteful and willing to bend and even break the law to punish those who defy him. They also understand he rewards those who bend the knee. Therefore, the most profitable path of action is bending the knee.

This should not surprise anybody. You substitute Google for any large corporation and they would have done the same thing. Don’t believe me? Google around (while you still can freely search for information) for the Coca-Cola saga in Colombia, where union leaders were getting forcibly suicided by narco-paramilitary death squads hired by Coca-Cola.

You know- the commercials that make you feel all warm and fuzzy around Christmas time with the polar bears and Santa Claus? Yeah, they'll murder you if you threaten their bottom line. It's just what they do.

There's a simple math equation:

Let

P = Probability of getting caught,

F = Expected fine or penalty,

R = Potential revenue or profit,

Constants

α = The weight assigned to the probability of getting caught ( P ). If this constant is high, the corporation is more cautious.. if it's low, the corporation is willing to make more risks. In Colombia, this is much lower than in the US.

β = The weight assigned to the probable size of the penalty ( F ). A high β means there's a serious potential danger. However, if β is low (like when Ford decided the cost of simply paying lawsuits from deaths due to known car malfunctions was probably lower than the price of recalls) then they'll be more likely to push forward

γ = The weight assigned to the impact on their bottom line ( R ). For example, if Boeing thinks they will lose a lot of money from whistleblowers, they will find a way to suicide them. If the impact is small, then it's not worth the potential risks.

C = ( αP ⋅ βF ) − γR

Let's give an imaginary example. Let's say a corporation is considering dumping toxic waste illegally into a river, potentially giving thousands of people cancer. Let's say they're gonna save $10M a year from doing this.

R = 10,000,000

The probability of getting caught is 10%

P = 0.10

The expected fine is $5M

F = 5,00,000

Let's try out some constants

α = 1.5 ⇒ they're somewhat cautious about getting caught

β = 1.2 ⇒ they're moderately concerned about the penalty

γ = 2.0 ⇒ they're really motivated by profit (maybe their profits went down 10% last year, a big no-no)

Plug in the values

C = (1.5 · 0.10 · 1.2 · 5,000,000) - (2.0 · 10,000,000)

C = (900,000) - (20,000,000)

C = -19,100,000

C is less than 0? Dump that toxic waste, baby. It's the logical position if you're trying to maximize profit. Sometimes you will get caught, but imagine you did this in a simulation 1,000 times. Most of the times, you will be more profitable because of it and therefore you dump the waste.

It's like a poker player. If you get AA, you raise pre-flop. Sometimes you will lose on the flop to some dunce who goes in with 2-7... but in the long term, most of the time, you will win. Therefore it's the right move.

This is what companies do. People need to realize and internalize this. They are profit generating engines. Nothing more, nothing less. They are not your friends. They don't care about the environment. They don't care about the future of the world or anything. Literally nothing at all.

They are a math formula and if destroying everything you love happens to be the most profitable move most of the time, they will do it without second guessing. Because they aren't people. They are a machine.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Great write up, I appreciate the modeling.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

All companies are evil.

Disagree. Publicly traded companies are amoral, so whether they do something good or evil depends on what's profitable.

Healthy competition tends to make "evil" actions unprofitable. Google doesn't have healthy competition, hence the current situation.

These companies aren't the bad guys in the same way that weeds in your garden aren't "bad." If you don't want weeds to take over, make sure there's sufficient competition and incentives so desirable plants crowd them out, and stay on top of the handful of weeds that take root. We've neglected the garden for decades and allowed some truly nasty weeds in, but that doesn't make the weeds "evil," that means we were poor gardeners.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (7 children)

To me, apathy and amorality when the consequences are harm towards others is evil. It's sort of like if a driver was in a rush and ran over a protestor on his way to work.

Sure, he did not wish any harm on the protestor. He just simply needed to get past them and chose the most effective and efficient path.

It's an amoral act but the act (and the driver) is still evil. Evil is not just a mustache twirling genocidal dictator or sadistic serial killers.. In fact, the amoral does infinitely more harm than the malicious. The Nazis did not come to power because of malice. They did not kill millions of Jews because of malice. They got there through apathy and amorality.

They didn't want to kill the Jews at first- they wanted to deport them. But once they got them in the camps.. it was impractical to supply enough logistical power to actually move them all. So while they figure out a plan, let's have them do slave labor.

And then after a while, since we can't move them, we may as well just kill them. It's the most effective path to where we want to be. The driver driving over the protestor.

If this isn't "evil", what is?

Healthy competition tends to make “evil” actions unprofitable

Competition helps. I agree that this negative aspect of capitalism is exponentially magnified when monopolies form.

The thing is, in capitalist the wealth tends to snowball. Wealth is power and wealth buys influence. Look at how Disney singlehandedly changed copyright law when Mickey Mouse was about to enter public domain. Once you reach a certain size, you can modify the rules of the game. So it creates a self-perpetuating cycle.

This position we are in is the natural consequence of free market capitalism. I agree that free market is better. But this is the grown up version of free market. There was never going to be any other scenario but the one we are in.

We’ve neglected the garden for decades and allowed some truly nasty weeds in, but that doesn’t make the weeds “evil,” that means we were poor gardeners.

We can debate on the ontology of the world evil. It really is an interesting debate. But for all practical purposes, if the weeds are killing the crops that feed your family.. what is the difference? Whether they want to kill you indirectly through starvation or don't want to kill you- you're dead either way.

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[–] [email protected] 321 points 3 days ago (5 children)

A haunting reminder that rainbow capitalism is 100% about profit and convenience.

Corporations were never your friend. They were never going to defend you.

[–] [email protected] 81 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

They were going to defend you for as long as doing so remained profitable.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 3 days ago (3 children)

I like to say that corporations will never go out of their way to be charitable. There's always a bottom line, being it PR or direct profit. Even PR and Marketing spend has to eventually lead to increase in profit.

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

It's not even "rainbow capitalism."

This goes all the way back to women's suffrage and the Civil Rights era.

They didn't start accepting women into the workforce and blacks into the workforce because they saw them as valuable humans just for existing.

They realized they were leaving money on the table. If women had money, they could be marketed products, if blacks had money, they could marketed products. That was "opening up new markets." Hiring them meant they would get paid and have money in their pockets to spend at your business.

Every single group that got attention and understanding was about being able to exploit them for more money. The only color they've ever cared about is the green on their money. This is also why it's been such an uphill battle for anyone disabled, because if you can't maximize your output by absolutely destroying your body and mind for capital: they don't want you.

Further, if you get enough money to do some capitalism yourself and create something like "Black Wall Street" they'll bomb the living fuck out of you to put a stop to it.

They never thought of us as humans, just as "Human Capital Stock." We're just units to be used and discarded like millions of mistreated farm animals every single day.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (22 children)

If you're left leaning and want to send a message, do it with your wallet. Switch to tutanota for mails, search with duckduckgo, use f-droid as an app store... No one needs google, it's just somewhat inconvenient to get used to alternatives

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

Cowardly sycophants giving their "divine" leader his wishes without question

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 days ago

Fuuuuuckkkk I wish I could degoogle again

Don't be evil, lol

[–] [email protected] 102 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Wow Google's licking boot like there's no tomorrow.

Fucking shameful.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Downloading these, don't mind me

[–] [email protected] 74 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I'm not angry at this point. Just sad.

It's disheartening how quickly everything was washed away.

[–] [email protected] 60 points 2 days ago

Wait, rainbow capitalism wasn't sincere?!

[–] [email protected] 69 points 2 days ago (6 children)

Google managed to create a very clean image of themselves in most heads, but looking closer it is an ugly profit maximization machine. It cares about shareholders. If it cares about you, then probably for spying on you and learn how to manipulate you and others better. I hope people start realizing finally.

And let's state it clear: Google could have a voice. They could object to the Musk-Thiel-Trumpian destruction machine. They could be there for the world. But they're not. Not at all. They serve the money. And if it pays off, then they are willing to ruin peoples lives.

Google is on the wrong side of history.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Seems like their motto isn’t „don’t be Evil“ anymore for a reason.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 days ago

It was limiting them. To truly maximize profits they need to strip off all limits. I'm not joking. Really not. This is why capitalism and fascism go so well together.

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 2 days ago (3 children)

This was always going to happen. Companies in Germany when Hitler rose to power didn't protest and speak up against him - they needed to sell his army goods. They made his uniforms and cars and didn't say a peep about the extermination of people around them. The companies that spoke up were crushed. A corporation's bottom line is their bottom line, no matter what horrors they need to assist in perpetrating.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 days ago (1 children)

They did not merely passively "assist". They established factories in close proximity to the death camps so that they could profit off of the slave labour deemed too fit for immediate extermination.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 days ago (2 children)

The Nazis organized a closed door meeting with the leading German industrialists and told them about their plans to rebuild the German military to take revenge for WW I. They agreed and many of those same asswipes escaped the post war prosecution.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago

Now these closed meetings happen at MaraLargo

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[–] [email protected] 75 points 2 days ago (6 children)

Every time a straight person has wondered why I hate rainbow capitalism, shit like this is why.

"Oh but it moves your kind forward, you should be thankful they support you now!" They only supported us when the government wouldn't take away contracts and people were sure they supported queers.

Same thing for every other company and every other minority. I can at least mask that I'm queer, black people can't mask being black.

God I hate being right about horrible things.

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[–] wise_pancake 31 points 2 days ago

I'm happy to say I'm officially degoogled in my personal life/computer.

I still have legacy accounts with gmail that I can't migrate though.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Fuuuuuck.. I was really hoping I didn't need to migrate away from gmail.. But looks like this is it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I went to proton about a year ago, and I don't love it. I'm not ready to leave yet, but I'll tell you to do as much research as you can and consider a paid service if you have to. I wish I had.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Remember when they removed "don't be evil" from their code of conduct back in 2018

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 days ago (1 children)

They didn't. They moved it from the foreword to the final line.

To be clear, Google is absolutely evil, and the unofficial motto was always worthless. I am just annoyed everyone ate the clickbait reporting about something that never happened and is repeating it to this day. I guess "Google moved Don't be evil Clause to a less prominent spot" doesn't click as well.

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (4 children)

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.

We're a long long way from those lofty goals of yesteryear, aren't we Google?

The audacity to still have this quote up, right now, is off the charts.

This is a screenshot from today. Get fucked Google. What a fucking lie. You're busy changing information to capitulate to a government that wants certain information hidden.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 2 days ago

They also removed Holocaust Remembrance Day. Probably because it's going to have to be renamed Holocaust I soon.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 days ago (7 children)

The only thing I need to drop is my gmail account. Everything else went into the circular file.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago

They sent it all to the Gulf of Mexico...

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 days ago

Lmao, damn… I was done with them before this announcement but thanks for reinforcing my decision.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago (5 children)

I’ve already deleted Google maps. Deleting calendar will be tough.

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