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Comment by Symmetry | Hacker News Reader

Even not considering financials, I'd expect at least 1 death from people looking up medical information and not being able to get it if Google was entirely gone for a whole day.

EDIT: Of course most reasonable people will contact a medical professional rather than an internet search engine, that's why I guessed "at least 1" instead of "at least a couple hundred".

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Turning google of would effectively turn the internet off for many people. Not sure about deaths (it's possible I guess). I could see the following implications:

Tech support line for every ISP would be ringing off the hook all day. The same for IT support providers as people assume their PC has been hacked or has a virus.

Google receive 1000s of complaints from people swearing to move to bing.

A number of companies get sued due to contractual agreements that somehow relate to websites being accessible to search etc or because emails are not replied to because someone couldn't access their webmail etc.

Hundreds of thousands of homework assignments are not done.

Spike in number of births due to people having sex instead of going online.

SOPA still gets passed.

Google going dark would be extremely interesting and a valuable lesson for society (that it will fail to understand of course).

True, but I don't think it's a lesson that google wants them to learn.

All those homework assignments are done using Wikipedia. It will be very interesting to see what will happen tomorrow when people can't look up stuff there.

Probably the same way I did before Wikipedia: by Googling the topic.

It's nice having all the relevant references on one page, but search results aren't usually too difficult to master either.

Of course, this would need to be weighed against the probability that if SOPA passes, someone _else_ could die from not being able to look up some information because of SOPA.

I am against this bill, but this kind of comment is absurd. SOPA could censor Google when it comes to piracy (and as most things do, it will end up being corrupt for many more things), but I fail to see how important information to save lives would be blocked. The Government will not take down Google and most normal searches would be intact.

The bills need to die, but sensationalism is not the way to stop it.

(Do you agree that "Having Google's DNS blacked out because Google linked to a copyrighted sitcom transcript" a possible outcome if SOPA passes?)

My comment was that you need to calculate the expected loss on both sides: if you do something and if you do not do it.

I wasn't even claiming that Google _does, in fact, save lives_; I was claiming that if you say "X will be lost if Y is done", you need to also say ", which is better than the expected Z loss if Y is not done".

Please do not insert your assumptions into my comment.

  Do you agree that "Having Google's DNS blacked out because Google linked to a copyrighted sitcom transcript" a possible outcome if SOPA passes?

No. Absolutely not.

Is your reasoning because "The Government will not take down Google and most normal searches would be intact."? I am not sure I would put too much faith in the thinking that Google will get special dispensation from the government because it is so useful to so many people. Google is vulnerable to SOPA. In fact they are vulnerable on more than one front.

I think the problem here is that google, and potentially any company, would be well within their rights to sue the federal government for damages and let a judge determine the merit for the take down.

Given that google makes approximately 3.5 million USD an hour, a take down and lengthy court battle could put the federal government on the line for billions of dollars. Not only in damage to revenue, but in loss of customers and customer conversion. If google lost even 1% of its users the government could have to pay for loss of future income.

IMO stopping SOPA/PIPA is protecting the government itself. A law isn't real until its tested in the supreme court. The major Tech companies run patent cases against each other like they're just trying to keep their lawyers busy. I don't know why the government would want to get on the wrong side of these multinational corporations. Sorry, but if too great an expense is placed on them by the government then it'll quickly become surprisingly cost effective to move entirely overseas.

Honestly I wouldn't mind. I live in Canada, I wouldn't mind the house prices in the Greater Toronto Area sky rocketing with a massive tech influx. I mean it'd be the greatest property market hike in fifty-years.

Google will fold. They folded to the Chinese for years, and they will fold for SOPA.

And he was saying Z = 0. Calm down.

Do you agree that "Having Google's DNS blacked out because Google linked to a copyrighted sitcom transcript" a possible outcome if SOPA passes?

For what it's worth, this is an unlikely outcome with Google (or Wikipedia) as it is now. It would have easily been possible with Google (or Wikipedia) as it was back in 2000.

That's the real danger: SOPA is unlikely to shut down Google or Wikipedia, but it could easily prevent the next Google or Wikipedia from getting off the ground.

When you have a medical emergency, you call 911 or go to the emergency room, not peruse Q & A sites for answers.

While true, I'm sure that there are plenty of users who search for information about something they don't think is an emergency, and then find out it is.

Sometimes is better to do both.

For example: Intoxication by adulterated liquor can cause strong headache and (permanent) blindness; but if you search in Google you may find out that drinking pure Whisky right away can neutralize its effects.

Really? cool! Honest question: do you have a reference for that? I can't find one Google but would like to know more.

http://www.politedissent.com/archives/905

See the 2nd paragraph after the warning banner. It might not look serious, but it is. This review is written by an MD.

Please do note that the GP said "adulterated spirits" — that is, rubbing alcohol and the like, which contain methanol. If you have normal alcohol poisoning (i.e. from ethanol drinks like beer, wine, vodka, etc.), drinking whiskey is a terrible idea.

Are you a doctor?

Well, no, but the fact that more ethanol isn't the cure for ethanol poisoning is not exactly MD-level subject matter.

This sounds suspicious - care to cite any references?

Well, wikipedia has references in this section:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol#Toxicity

Specifically, anything with a strong ethanol content will help, as the damage caused by drinking methanol results from the byproducts of you body processing the poison. The biological pathways that process methanol have a greater affinity for ethanol, so drinking whisky (or everclear or 151) or any other strong alcohol will keep you alive until your body has a chance to eject the methanol as a waste product.

It was just and hypothetical example, being honest: right now the only thing i could find is this link in Spanish:

http://www.bio-nica.info/Biblioteca/Gutierrez-Intoxicacion-M...

The theory is this: The consumption of ethyl alcohol (whisky/vodka) can prevent the conversion of methanol to formaldehyde and formic acid plus it extracts the toxic substance and neutralizes its metabolic effects.

Many people want to figure out if they have a medical emergency or not, before calling 911. Especially in a country like the USA, where a visit can mean thousands of dollars of expense or even going bankrupt.

There are plenty of cases where it's hard for the layperson to determine if something is serious or not.

And then you die on the floor of the ER during your 8 hour wait to see a doctor, when you could have just saved your own life by doing a simple Google search.

> When you have a medical emergency, you call 911 or go to the emergency room, not peruse Q & A sites for answers.

Life threatening, yes, but many people have ordinary emergencies likes burns and big cuts and won't go to ER because they know they can't handle the bill and will attempt to suck it up and self treat; even if it's not wise to do so. Emergency rooms aren't free; they have to treat you, yes, but they're going to bill you as well.

What about googling [emergency room near <zip code>]? I don't know where the closest hospital to where I live or work is, since I have (fortunately) never needed one.

I agree with you. Thousands of people use google to search for critical information and loss of that for a day would cause losses in the tune of millions of dollars (if not billions) for a number of companies. I dont think that can be justified in an effort to raise awareness. To me putting a black mark across their logo would be good enough with a link and video explaining why SOPA is bad and why could it stifle innovation.

Surely the best place to find medical information is via your GP / doctor, not Google?

Doctors use Google, too.

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2011/11/10/study-nearly-half-...

Certainly, but there are plenty of situations when people will consult Google before figuring out that they are having a medical emergency. Someone could for example google for "vomit like ground coffee" and realize they are probably bleeding inside and need to rush to the ER.

What about people in the US without medical insurance? They have a problem but want to consult online first to see if they can justify the cost of a doctors visit.

I'm sure this happens.

Been exactly there, done exactly that.

Try searching for [poison control] or [suicide]. Both of those bring up one boxes with phone numbers to call. Those probably help save a couple lives per day. Sure, you could call 911 and have them give you the poison control number, but now you've tied up 911 resources.

I'm sure that the 911 operator won't mind, especially if it is or could be a genuine emergency.

Speaking as a former 911 operator, I can say fairly certainly that a 911 operator won't object to you calling to try and access the poison control center. They'll probably just transfer you, OR (more likely, depending on the policies of the jurisdiction in question) go ahead and dispatch an EMS crew to your location.

I would think that the time saved not looking up those numbers yourself and just dialing 911 would make it worth always dialing 911.

Best along what dimension? Time? Common symptoms? You get to call up, wait for someone to become available, answer a ton of screening questions.

What if you don't have a regular doctor, because you haven't seen one in a while and just got your first real job? Well, you have to wait to establish a doctor/patient relationship before you get any advice.

Plus, have you ever actually tried to get a medical question answered without an appointment? They say to check with a doctor before taking tylenol, but realistically ... no.

In many cases, yes, an online diagnostic is going to be much faster and about as accurate as the doctor.

> via your GP

You do realize tens and tens of millions of people don't have GP's right?

"Darnit, googles down. Should we try yahoo to look up pa's symptoms?"

"Nah he just has a pain in his shoulder and shortness of breath, he'll be fine, lets play some games on facebook"

Google shutting down would probably cause a significant amount of awareness of the existence of Bing. This could be devastating to them. I would never expect a complete shutdown.

I'm pretty sure there are other search engines that would still be available.

Plenty of people don't know any other search engine but "the Google".

My mom still uses Bing to search for Google to get to the website...

I am sadly unable to tell whether you are serious.

http://xkcd.com/763/ relates.

if people are looking at google for medical information during serious cases, we are in a very bad state.

I'd much rather use Google than the "medical" alternatives that were available a hundred years ago or are still widely used in developing countries. These can result in increased pain, suffering and deaths because of poor diagnosis or idiotic ineffectual traditional cures.

I'd pick Google over a witch doctor, religious medicine or herbal doctor every time!!

Religious nuts and herbal quacks get listed on Google too. As do anti-vax, homeopathy, and other non-scientific crap.

Indeed, and these things lead to unnecessary deaths. Very dangerous.

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