What Does Google Suggest Suggest About Humanity? 513
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samzenpus
from the fire-makes-things-hot dept.
from the fire-makes-things-hot dept.
CNETNate writes "You'll laugh, but mostly you'll cry. Some of the questions Google gets asked to deliver results for is beyond worrying. 'Can you put peroxide in your ear?', 'Why would a pregnancy test be negative?', and 'Why can't I own a Canadian?' being just a selection of the truly baffling — and disturbing — questions Google is regularly forced to answer."
Personal anecdote (Score:3, Interesting)
I once many years ago went to Google HQ to interview for a part-time job. In the lobby, right above the receptionist's desk, they had a big scrolling LCD thingy that shows actual searches that have been sent to the search engine.
The list was censored so that nothing NSFW would pop up, of course, but it was far from perfect. So me and my friend got treated to a good one: "voir les culottes de filles."
Re:Really? (Score:3, Interesting)
Along those same lines I was pondering the question at the top of the article "Why would a little girl in Yorkshire think Jesus was born in an egg?" Oddly phrased, and I don't think google is the place to search for insight on the immaculate conception, but if you believe that, it WOULD be an interesting embryological issue. Was it like a human egg and, er... a set of divine chromesomes or what? I bet some church scholar has talked about that more than any person reasonably should, it's entirely possible that got transcribed and computerized.
Later on if I'm still as interested as I am now, I may run a google search of my own, though more along the lines of "immaculate conception, human egg fertilization." Probably not though.
Re:'Can I put peroxide in my ear?' (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree. Hydrogren peroxide is a common home remedy for ear-aches and wax buildup. It seems reasonable (and even smart) for someone, upon receiving advice to put hydrogen peroxide in his ears, to plug it into Google to see if it's actually a good idea.
I also don't think "Why would a pregnancy test be negative?" is that crazy a question. Yes, there's the obvious answer (you're not pregnant), but one might assume the intention of the question is "Are there reasons why a pregnancy test would be negative even if the woman were pregnant?" Pregnancy tests aren't 100% accurate, after all, so someone might have just wanted to know what factors might throw one off.
In fact, most of the questions in this article are pretty valid questions that I can understand a person wanting the answer to. "Am I going into labor?" Well it's not necessarily immediately obvious, and there's even such a thing as "false labor". "Why would a married man cheat?" It's a valid question, and I bet there are interesting scientific studies that try to address the question.
Follow the Rabbit Hole... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Really? (Score:3, Interesting)
But the Old Testament was nullified by the New Testament - similar to how European nations' sovereignty has been nullified by the Treaty of Lisbon.
From the New Testament:
"Christians who are slaves should give their masters full respect so that the name of God and his teaching will not be shamed. If your master is a Christian, that is no excuse for being disrespectful. You should work all the harder because you are helping another believer by your efforts. Teach these truths, Timothy, and encourage everyone to obey them." (1 Timothy 6:1-2 NLT)
Disturbing Search Requests (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
I should read the article.
Hopefully it does not simply say "the Bible is wrong about this, so why use it for that?" as - whether true or not - that misses the "out of context" point.
People that believe the Bible still very, very, very frequently take it out of context and simply use it as proof of their own ideas. "proof-texting." Finding texts to prove your idea instead of finding the idea the text is giving...
Re:Really? (Score:3, Interesting)
My friend told me most Indians don't know how to swim.
In the US Navy, the overwhelming majority of those who require special training to qualify for basic swimming proficiency are African American. Whether this is due to cultural or socioeconomic influences, I do not know. But it is very often the case.
Re:Really? (Score:4, Interesting)
Quoting just the part that is advice to the slave with a Christian master simply doesn't give a very full picture, unless you include the parts that are advice to the masters themselves:
How about Ephesians 6:9 "And masters, do the same things to them, and give up threatening, knowing that both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no partiality with Him. "
Or the People's New Testament commentary on Ephesians:
6:9 "And ye masters. The Roman law allowed masters to treat their slaves as brute beasts, to abuse and even to murder them. But Christianity at once put Christian masters under restraint. Do the same things unto them. Act on the same principles towards them, that the Lord requires of them towards you. There must be mutual good will and mutual service. Forbearing threatening. The habit of cruel masters. Knowing that your Master also is in heaven. That you have a Master who sees you, to whom your slave is just as dear as you are, and who will hold you to account if you wrong him."
or
Colossians 4:1 ( New International Version) "Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven."
(ISV) puts this as "Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven."
It's disappointing to many that the New Testament doesn't explicitly say "Free all your slaves". It's hard to reconcile with the idea that the whole book is the word of God as some Christians claim. Personally, I regard books such as Timothy, or Paul's letters to the churches at Ephesus and others, as principally man-made texts, but that doesn't rule out a touch of Divine inspiration, in the sense that these people started getting the idea that slavery was wrong, and thinking about how to do right instead. Since the early church mostly believed that the second coming was likely to happen at any moment, worrying about how (or whether) to clean up the whole institution of slavery didn't mean as much as how to act for the immediate term and the individual case.
Re:Obligatory George Carlin Quote (Score:2, Interesting)
Giving the range you are describing the label '"average" person' is nonsensical, and if you look at individuals and integrate across those individuals, by definition, the percentage of the population with a lower iq will be larger than 25% (because the very bottom of the range has an iq that indicates 25% of the population has a lower iq than they do, 25.249% if you take the distribution too seriously).
Re:Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
I was camping once during a nice summer weekend.. no chance of rain so i just slept on the ground. Early morning something was crawling on my face (happens a lot) so i swiped it off and was planning on going back to sleep. It was a little black beetle and i startled him badly apparently because he decided to find refuge in my ear.
You can imagine my surprise.. my surprise deepened into worry when i realized my finger could not get him out and he was still burrowing (or whatever it is beetles do). After a few minutes it really really started to hurt and i could hear the beetle screaming or something.. it was beyond loud. I tried not to panic and re-packed what little i had to GTFO of the woods. Made it maybe a half mile and could barely jog in a straight line. Stashed my pack and kept going. He stopped screaming and burrowing and the pain was down to a throb (but still quite intense). Blood was coming out of the ear and i couldn't hear anymore.
Anyways, finally got back to base and the hospital. They flushed my ear with a pinkish fluid and a large syringe type thing, just like you described. Of course they had to bring every freaking doctor and nurse in the hospital down to see the guy with a beetle in his ear. Not that i really cared at that point, giggling doctors is nothing compared to a beetle inside your head. After a dozen or so high pressure blasts and the little guy (and some of his legs) came out. What a relief!
Re:Really? (Score:4, Interesting)
Some of us received more than 12 years of religious education more rigorous than many college degrees on the subject and have PhD theologians for parents and friends.
Don't bother confusing us with smoke screens and non-sequiturs. The bible fully endorses the practice of slavery and makes little to no attempt to dismantle the institution.
A God which can inspire circumcision surely could also find means of persuading his followers to abandon slavery.
It was clearly never a priority since we have no record of Jesus explicitly telling his followers not to enslave others.
Re:Wow. just. wow. (Score:3, Interesting)
Something is definitely fishy here. When I entered "What are" the top recommended string was also "these strawberries doing on my nipples I need them for the fruit salad", which had 10,100 hits. However, the next on the list was "the 7 wonders of the world", which had 10,900,000 hits. Further down the list is "torrents" with 161,000,000 hits.
Ah, the post below indicates the "strawberries" string is the title of a book at Amazon.com. So Amazon is paying to have their products come up in the search string recommendations. How quaint...
Re:Really? (Score:3, Interesting)
Had something similar happen to me about 10 years ago, only in my case, it was a moth. Kept flying around my head and face, I waved it away a couple of times, and then, suddenly, it just flew straight in like Luke Skywalker aiming for that exhaust vent in the Deathstar.
At the ER, the doc -- instead of getting down to business -- decided to be an complete moron and wasted about 15 minutes first, by asking me repeatedly *why* I'd let it get in there. ...As if I'd invited the little bastard in there for tea or something!
One of the few times I've ever come close to just completely losing the plot and throttling the life out of someone from sheer rage/fear/frustration.