Are you aware of Kagi (kagi.com)?
With them, at least the AI stuff can be turned off.
Membership is presently about 61k, and seems to be growing about 2k per month: https://kagi.com/stats
With them, at least the AI stuff can be turned off.
Membership is presently about 61k, and seems to be growing about 2k per month: https://kagi.com/stats
Now we need a 2nd Kagi, so we can switch to that one instead. :(
Some of us would rather take a stand, imperfect as it is, than just sit and do nothing. Especially in the very clear case of someone (Kagi) doing business with a country that invaded a neighboring country for no reason, and keeps killing people there.
First, any stand is better than whataboutism and just sitting there doing nothing.
Second, this stand results from my thoughts. It is my stand. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Third, in the history of the modern world there were very few black&white situations where there was one side which was clearly the aggressor. This is one of them.
I definitely disagree with this. There are many cases where you might take the wrong stand, especially where you do not have detailed knowledge of the issue you re taking a stand over.
It's a lot easier to live with yourself when you act according to your best understanding of the situation than when you allow fear to paralyze you into inaction at a time when you should have done something.
But that's the whole point, isn't it? What is "wrong"? You decide.
You see people in a peaceful country getting invaded and being bombed, shot, raped and tortured? You decide if this is "wrong". I'm just saying that you should decide, rather than say "but what about something else".
* most of the evil stuff Russia's done, the USA's done way more of
My point was that we should either not take an issue with things like this and block everything in the whole country because their government is bad. Or we should do the same for other countries too.
You can't call for a boycott on a cosmetics company that experiments on dogs if you are a rival cosmetics company that experiments on ten times as many dogs.
It's worth pointing out the flaws of all bad actors. The more info we have, the more effectively we can act.
But as one counterexample: The end of the US penny was formed and announced not with public legislative discourse, nor even with an executive order, but with a brief social media post by the president.
And I don't mean that it's atrocious or anything, but I wanted to see that social media post myself. Not a report about it, or someone's interpretation of it, but -- you know -- the actual utterance from the horse's mouth.
Which should be a simple matter. After all, it's the WWW.
And I've been Googling for as long as there has been a Google to Google with. I'd like to think that I am proficient at getting results from it.
But it was like pulling teeth to get Google to eventually, kicking and screaming, produce a link to the original message on Truth Social.
If that kind of active reluctance isn't censorship on Google's part, then what might it be described as instead?
And if they're seeking to keep me away from the root of this very minor issue, then what else might they also be working to keep me from?
But Google does censor.
There certainly is a huge army of people ready to spout this sort of nonsense in response to anyone talking about doing anything.
Hard to know what percentage of these folks are trying to assuage their own guilt and what percentage are state actors. Russia and Israel are very chronically online, and it behooves us internet citizens to keep that in mind.
The post you linked was posted when the divestment was already going underway, so it is at least dishonest if not malicious.
Its a different story if the payer truly can't afford to pay the alimony, but at that point they wouldn't have the immense power you are concerned with.
For instance here you can learn that Yandex NV is fully controlled by a group of Russian investors: https://www.rbc.ru/business/06/03/2024/65e7a0f29a7947609ea39...
They have a lot of hardware in e.g. Finland. I don't think they provide GPU access to the russian companies, feel free to correct me
https://som.yale.edu/story/2022/over-1000-companies-have-cur...
You pays your money, you takes your choice.
That's one way of phrasing it.
FWIW, I don't think Kagi should remove or avoid indexing content from countries that invade others, because a lot of the times websites in those countries have useful information on them. If Kagi were to enact such a block, it would mean it would no longer surface results from HN, reddit and a bunch of other communities, effectively making the search engine a lot less useful.
/hj?
Kagi uses both Yandex and Google btw.
Should we stop using products imported from China for the cultural genocide they've perpetrated against the Uyghurs?[2]
Is Yandex Russia?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Uyghurs_in_Chin...
However if that's the case how can they continue buying Chinese products when China has done the same thing, but worse, and for longer, to their own population? Because it's less convenient to stop? _That_ to me lands squarely in the "take whatever stand you want" category with the addendum of, "and don't worry if it doesn't make sense."
Is it because it's within their own borders and therefore isn't our problem?
Why are you assuming they are?
If someone can point me to a better index for that purpose, I'd love to avoid Yandex. Please inform me.
If you are concerned about heinous war crimes and the slaughter of civilians to the point that you don't want to use private services from countries that conduct such acts, you should avoid both already.
Feels more like a scare campaign to me - someone doesn't want you to use Kagi, and points to Yandex as a reason for that.
Regardless of one's position on the 'everything online is Russian propaganda, Russian bots or misinformation - invest in sickles and hammers, comrade / wtf just use basic common sense and the internet is as safe as it ever was' continuum, such universal enthusiasm for a Russian-owned, Russian-controlled search engine should generate a little more counter-argument, at the very least.
Absolutely no mention of Google, Bing, Startpage, DDG, or even Mojeek search engines usually pass online without somebody detailing the problems, flaws, or why they're not as good as the alternatives. Usually, at least 20% of the comments will be overtly critical, with at least 1 person passionately arguing that this search engine is going to destroy life as we know it / funds genocide / is an abomination unto God.
On open forums and spaces where a variety of users and tastes are represented, that minimum level of criticism usually applies to absolutely everything from movies to toothbrushing techniques to kids' TV to low-carb breakfasts. If more than 3 people care enough about something to discuss it, at least 1 of those people will hate it and feel the need to enunciate why.
Except Kagi. Kagi must enjoy the highest praise-criticism ratio of anything I've ever seen on the web, including concepts like sunshine and heaven and the eradication of polio.
Seriously. The only 'real' criticism I ever see of Kagi is like 'I personally don't like it because I don't think a search engine is worth more than $19.99' or 'unfortunately I need x feature', and it's always followed by a reply saying 'Ah, well Kagi is now available for $19.50' or 'you'll be thrilled to know that x feature can be enabled in Kagi by following these steps'.
And the occasional 'I don't use it because it seemed a bit wierd and wasn't worth it' comment languishing on the outskirts of the discussion.
So yeah. I do not expect this comment to stir much discussion, mainly because it's like 24 hours after the main debate and is on a pretty low-impact thread on hacker news from an uninspiring new ish account. But also because Kagi critical comments are written in sand, whatever the discussion or authority or audience.
That should make people more suspicious.
Maybe people just turn up too late and their comments generally aren't seen?
https://www.google.com/search?udm=14&q=kagi
ie it's not forced down your throat, nor mysteriously/accidentally/etc turned back on occasionally