<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">On Fri, Nov 14, 2025 at 6:25 PM John Klos via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:</span></div></div><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr"><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><font size="4" face="georgia, serif"><i><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> </span>You missed answering the one thing that makes Google a definite no go: <br>
what do you do when you need to communicate with an actual human at<span class="gmail_default" style=""> </span>Google?</i></font><br></blockquote><div><br></div><div><font size="4" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b>As I've said I never had a problem with Google groups<span class="gmail_default" style=""> but if I did I'd go to </span><a href="https://support.google.com/" style="">https://support.google.com/</a><span class="gmail_default" style=""> or call </span><span class="gmail_default" style="">their customer support line at </span>650-253-0000<span class="gmail_default" style="">. Actually just a few days ago I did need to call them when I was having a little trouble logging into my YouTube (a Google company) account with my brand new iPhone. They were polite and knowledgeable and the problem was soon fixed. </span></b></font></div><div><br></div></div><blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex" class="gmail_quote"><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><font size="4"><b>><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">></span> To avoid a monoculture is it necessary that competing book publishers<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> </span>use printing presses that are made by different manufacturers?</b></font></blockquote></div></blockquote><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> </span>This is a really poor analogy. Printing presses don't press new and<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> </span>different pages every day.</i></font></blockquote><div><br></div><div><font size="4" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b>They do, or at least they did, if they are printing newspapers, and paper books have not yet gone completely extinct<span class="gmail_default" style="">, and they still print lots of very different books every day. </span> </b></font></div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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><span class="gmail_default" style="">> </span> I am a militant capitalist and I like for-profit corporate entities, I<span class="gmail_default" style=""> </span>like them a lot, they sure beat the hell out of no profit corporate<span class="gmail_default" style=""> </span>entities. And I especially like Google, I certainly don't think it or<span class="gmail_default" style=""> </span>any of the high-tech companies as being one of the bad guys. At one time<span class="gmail_default" style=""> </span>most members of this list felt the same way I did about that, but<span class="gmail_default" style=""> </span>apparently not now.</b></font></blockquote>
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<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> </span>Good for you, but being a fan of capitalism doesn't change the fact that<span class="gmail_default" style=""> </span>Google is a shitty, evil company that does shitty and evil things.</i></font></blockquote><div><br></div><div><font size="4" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b>Google started small but it is<span class="gmail_default" style=""> now</span> large and powerful<span class="gmail_default" style="">. Can you think of any powerful nation or corporation or person or ANYTHING that has not done shitty and evil things? I can't. However if you added up all the evil that corporations have done over the last century it would amount to little more than naughtiness compared with the monstrous astronomically huge evil that came from nation states. Google has never stuffed people into ovens, nation states cannot say the same thing. </span> </b></font></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<font size="4"><span class="gmail_default" style="font-style:italic;font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> </span><i>I was a fan of Google ages ago</i><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><i> </i>[...] <i>but </i></span><i>there are many, many good reasons for feeling differently about Google</i><span class="gmail_default" style="font-style:italic;font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> </span><i>now than perhaps twenty years ago.</i></font></blockquote><div><br></div><div><font size="4" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b>You were a fan 20 years ago <span class="gmail_default" style="">because back then G</span>oogle<span class="gmail_default" style=""> was not large and powerful. In general I think large powerful things are inherently less lovable than small helpless things. However it is a fact of reality that large powerful things are going to exist, and I would prefer that those things be corporations rather than nation states. </span></b></font></div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><font size="4"><i><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> </span>People who care about security<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> </span>and privacy don't parse HTML nor load web links in email. </i></font></blockquote><div><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style=""><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"></font><font size="4" style="" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b>Huh? You included a web link in the very email that I am responding to. </b></font></div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><font size="4" face="georgia, serif"><i>
<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> </span>The point is that a problem might never happen to a billion Google users,<span class="gmail_default" style=""> </span>but the people who are affected aren't going to be swayed by others<span class="gmail_default" style=""> </span>saying, "it never happened to me".</i></font><br></blockquote><div><br></div><div><font size="4" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b>There is a non-zero probability<span class="gmail_default" style=""> that a meteorite will crash through the roof of your house and hit you on the head. So does that mean you should always wear a football helmet inside your house? </span> </b></font></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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<font size="4"><i><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> </span>You've never been an accident that has killed or almost killed you, so<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> </span>that means you can dismiss people who've been in bad accidents?</i></font></blockquote><div><br></div><div><font size="4" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b>No, but it does mean you should pay attention to how the laws of probability work.<span class="gmail_default" style=""> </span></b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b><br></b></font></div></div><blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex" class="gmail_quote"><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><span class="gmail-im"><font size="4" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">>></span>You can read the stuff off the web<span class="gmail_default" style=""> </span>or on any computer that is capable of reading emails. And who has a<span class="gmail_default" style=""> </span>computer that is incapable of reading emails or doesn't have a web<span class="gmail_default" style=""> </span>browser?</b></font></span></blockquote></div></blockquote><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"> </blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><i><font face="georgia, serif" size="4"><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> </span>This is no different than saying that because 95% of the world does<span class="gmail_default" style=""> </span>something (like, for instance, running Windows twenty years ago), you<span class="gmail_default" style=""> </span>don't know where anyone would get the idea that everyone can't do a thing<span class="gmail_default" style=""> </span>that can only be done by 95% of the world.</font></i></blockquote><div><br></div><div><font size="4" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b>Unless you resort to snail<span class="gmail_default" style=""></span> mail<span class="gmail_default" style="">, regardless of if you use Google groups or not you will simply be unable to send a post to somebody who doesn't have a web browser of some sort and who doesn't have some way to read emails. </span> </b></font></div><div><br></div></div><blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex" class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><font size="4" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b>> <span class="gmail_default" style="">></span>They sound like harmless imbeciles to me, and I'm sure people at Google<span class="gmail_default" style=""> </span>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<span class="gmail_default" style=""> </span>hasn't affected the good people at Google either.</b></font></blockquote></blockquote><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> </span><i>OF COURSE those letters haven't affected the way I administer this list.</i></font></blockquote><div><br></div><div><font face="tahoma, sans-serif" size="4"><b style="">Interesting.</b></font></div><div><font face="tahoma, sans-serif" size="4"><b style=""><br></b></font></div><div><div style="color:rgb(80,0,80)"><b><font face="tahoma, sans-serif"><font size="4">John K Clark See what's on my new list at </font><font size="6"><a href="https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Extropolis</a></font></font></b></div><font size="1" color="#ffffff"><br>mxx</font><br class="gmail-Apple-interchange-newline"></div><div><br></div><div> </div></div></div>