How bad is your googling habit and what does it mean?

How bad is your googling habit? Mine's up to about 50 googles a day, on average. Google is something like the Wizard of Oz: Oh, Great Google, what is the current human population of the world? Or, oh, great Google, what do you know about figerglass blisters? Or, oh, great Google, what did Bob Dylan mean by "blowin' in the wind"? Or, Oh, great Google, has anyone ever wondered if tsetse-fly genes jump into their victims? Great Google will always come through with answers, no matter how far-fetched or stupid my question might be. And even if I can't spell, Google will help me out. Google is patient and kind. Google is Lord.If I cared to take the trouble I might be able to make an argument, using Google, of course, that Google is something of quantum-mechanical monster. Google could even be the new threat to our free will and self-determination. Too early to tell. But I can tell you one thing: If Google had been around when I was in school or during my profession career, life would have been very different for me and everyone else. It's hard for us to see it, but the powers of information-gathering in human affairs are growing very fast. Maybe we are becomming Homo sapiens googleease.So my coffee-house questions are these: Could you live without Google (or any of its peers)? Is googling good or bad for humanity? Is it going to change us. Is Google a potentially mind-controlling monster? Or is just a better librarian?”HM

Do you even need to submit coffee House topics as PNT's? Either way this looks good to me.TTFN,AW

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

In The Loss of Serendipity we discussed part of this issue.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

What's so bad about it? I wish more people had a Googling habit.How many times do we see discussions hit potholes because a participant can't be bothered to open a window and look up something?

There is a place for you at the Church of Google. Take a pew and submit to the Lord's indomitable Will.

Amen, brother.

quote:

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We at the Church of Google believe the search engine Google is the closest humankind has ever come to directly experiencing an actual God (as typically defined).

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I can see now more easiliy that this notion of Google Is Lord is not new. Still, the quantum-mechanical aspects of it are interesting. I think I see versions of actions-at-a-distance, or entanglements, very large number of participants, and collapsing wave functions. Could be the closest thing we have to a quantized human consciousness.”HM

So you think Google is just a better librarian?”HM

You're right, of course, which is why all human civilization came to an end when they invented encyclopedias and people could just look stuff up in them.Oh, wait. That's not what happened at all?

Only use it when I need info.

google?
who uses google!?
wiki or yahoo for me.

I've googled a lot of stuff you can't find in any encyclopedia. Besides, didn't Diderot fuel a revolution when he wrote the Encyclopedia? Your trouble here is that you're too young to see the fuller sweep of history. You need to consult with older people more often.”HM

bluescat48, have you every asked yourself "Am I googleable?" The world is now divided into two subspecies of virtual humans, those who are googleable and those who are not.”HMEdited by Hoot Mon, : Subtitle added

I don't recall it being a revolution that threated human free will, as you suggest. I try but they're always yelling at me to turn off my devil music and get off their lawn.

Same applies to you, gramps.
Unless, that is, you are as old as human civilization.Keep in mind that not even historians can see the fuller sweep of history, we can only see parts in that which we specialize.