HOME | DD

Description
"Google it."

"Do I want to?"

"What do you mean? It's just Google."

"You say Google like it's a good thing. Like it's an entity that bears some sort of universal answer."

"It's a search engine. Nothing more, nothing less. Unless we go into Google Maps, but it's all the same difference, on some satellite-dish stalking level. You search for a place, it finds it for you. Especially in America. Yeah, they have the streets labeled in America."

"That's creepy. The zoom-in function too. Like, you can zoom down to street level and stare face to face with someone's house. Sometimes you can see their cars too. But never people. That's the part that irks me. They get all these pictures from space or something and capture what they claim to be the world and shit, and yet there are never any people in it –"

"–it them out."

"Hm, what?"

"They edit them out. The people. Privacy and shit. Imagine checking out Google Maps and being able to see everyone in their homes. Like, through the windows and all. Especially in America. I mean, some people might think that's cool, but it'd be hella creepy. Can you imagine going around your house, doing your business, when someone in the far distant corner of the world could just type in your address and see into your house? Heck, it wouldn't even have to be deliberate. It could be some bored kid going up and down the streets, checking out all the houses because he has nothing better to do. And he'd be watching you, without you knowing it."

"It's not live, at least."

"Yeah, but it'd still be you, and you wouldn't ever know."

"Still, think about the irony behind it. Editing out the people but leaving everything else behind? The same theory's applicable here. There could be some kid in the far corner of the universe looking into my house right now. Just because I'm not in the simulation doesn't mean that it isn't violating my privacy in some way. He could be some thief checking out the structure of my place. Heck, multiply that by street view and zoom."

"Well, if they edited everything out, it'd defeat the purpose, wouldn't it? It's Google Maps."

"What about Google Maps?"

"You're starting it all over again."

"Starting what all over again?"

"This thing of yours, with Google and all. Why are you making such a big thing out of it? It's Google, for god's sake."

"Well, you're implying something bigger when you say 'Google'. You're not referring to the corporation itself, but rather a larger entity on which you rely on."

"Google gives answers…?"

"It's like you're treating it as Deep Thought."

"Deep Thought?"

"You know, Hitchhiker's Guide and all? Douglas Adams? Forty-two?"

"Forty-two."

"Yes, it's the fictional answer to life, the universe, and everything in it."

"You do realize that Google provides that same answer, right?"

"Hm?"

"Type in 'the answer to life, the universe, and everything' and the Google calculator gives you forty-two as the answer."

"You're shitting me."

"I kid you not. Go type it in. There. Mm-hm. See?"

"Whoa. Shit. You got me there."