[ExI] Just say no to Google

[John Clark]

On Fri, Nov 14, 2025 at 12:13 PM John Klos <john at ziaspace.com> wrote:

*> **Do you want a monoculture? Because that's how you get a monoculture ;)*


*To avoid a monoculture is it necessary that competing book publishers use
printing presses that are made by different manufacturers? *


> *> Even though lists in general are public, the idea that we should
> normalize having for-profit corporate entities have access to all
> data everywhere is just wrong and broken.*


*I am a militant capitalist and I like for-profit corporate entities, I
like them a lot, they sure beat the hell out of no profit corporate
entities. And I especially like Google, I certainly don't think it or any
of the high-tech companies as being one of the bad guys. At one time most
members of this list felt the same way I did about that, but apparently not
now. *


* > Google Groups functionality is limited in email clients that aren't
> basically web browsers*


*I don't know where you got that idea. You can read the stuff off the web
or on any computer that is capable of reading emails. And who has a
computer that is incapable of reading emails or doesn't have a web
browser?  *


> * > Their filters are unknowable. They do what they want and don't tell
> anyone what they do, so we have to guess.*


*I have seen no evidence for these mysterious "filters " during the last
five years, nothing has ever been censored on my list by me or Google or
anybody else. *

>
* > But most importantly, if someone lodges complaints and Google decides
> to take action, what will you do?*



*You're dreaming up hypotheticals that I have never seen in the last five
years.  *

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> * > As the administrator of the servers hosting extropy.org
> <http://extropy.org> and this mailing list, you should know that in the
> last few months I've gotten quite a number of (probably mostly "AI"
> generated) complaints demanding that the site and lists be taken down. It
> seems to be a concerted campaign to hurt the community. My guess is because
> of "trans" being part of the word "transhuman", but I don't know for sure
> because the complaints have no actual content (no examples of wrongdoing or
> specific claims). Some say that the site and lists are "anti-family" and
> "harmful to children", but offer no examples.*
>

*They sound like harmless imbeciles to me, and I'm sure people at Google
get even more ridiculous threats than you do, but those letters written by
nincompoops haven't affected the way you administer this list. and it
hasn't affected the good people at Google either.*

* > Also, Google isn't as reliable as you might guess. *


*Maybe things have improved but I know for a fact that over the last five
years Google groups has been one hell of a lot more reliable than this list
had been from 1993 to 2021.*

*John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis
<https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis>*

12d
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