Hacker News Reader

Comment by state_less | Hacker News Reader

>>Google could have been an advertising company with a search engine. I'm glad they aren't.

>They kind of are though?

Splitting[1] is a psychological phenomena that you'll find often once you learn to recognize it. Google can both be doing great research, and run a significant influence operation.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splitting_(psychology)

View on HN

This antinomical understanding (contradictory opposites that are both true) has its origins in Kant's work[0], which was of course picked up by Freud, consciously or not.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kant%27s_antinomies

This may be of interest to you, a few years before Kant with “Syādvāda” going beyond the binary implied by contradiction alone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anekantavada

I’m pretty sure the idea that things can be good in some ways and bad in other ways came way before Kant.

Its not "good in some ways and bad in others," its the idea that every action is fully mechanical and that every action is fully freely determined can both be argued to be true within the laws of cognition, even if they are completely opposed to one another.

Google is not a person

Splitting is referring to people's dichotomous impressions of Google.

Google is not being described as a person.

Google is not a person.

Google just is.

Google!

Feels like everything falls under this psychological phenomena nowadays

I assume that’s because most of the world we regularly interact with is run and/or shaped by humans

Reply on news.ycombinator.com