Google As Alphabet Subsidiary Drops "Don't Be Evil" 247
CNet, The Verge, and many other outlets are reporting that with the official transition of Google (as overarching company) to Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet, Google's made another change that's caught a lot of people's attention: the company has swapped out their famous motto "Don't be evil" for one with a slightly different ring: "Do the right thing." Doing the right thing sounds like a nice thing to aspire to, but doesn't seem quite as exciting.
Paved with good intentions... (Score:5, Insightful)
Millennials and "codes of conduct". (Score:5, Insightful)
Can anyone explain to me why Millennials are so gung-ho about "codes of conduct", and why they're so hypocritical about them?
To see what I'm talking about, read these comments [github.com] about the creation of an open source code of conduct template.
It's unbelievable. A number of the participants in that discussion claim to be against discrimination, yet they're actively pushing for it to be deemed completely acceptable to discriminate against people who happened to have been born with white skin and a penis!
To many Millennials, a "code of conduct" isn't something to help keep social interaction civil. It's actually a weapon that they use against those whom they dislike.
Re:Millennials and "codes of conduct". (Score:5, Insightful)
Power corrupts. It's always been true, and it's still true. That's why a focus on personal and consensual choice, "your right to swing stops at my face", and liberty in general is needed to keep the error rate down to a dull roar -- just about every committee or action of a legislature is an act of exerting power. Far too often, that power is inappropriately construed, far too often that power is inappropriately applied. Classing is another wielding of power that consistently proves to be used as a means of harm and revenge. I can think of numerous examples in the technical realm, from ridiculous and irrelevant "certifications" to college degree requirements regardless of your knowledge and experience, to portions of the GPL.
As for millennials, this didn't start with them, not even close. As a 60-year old fellow, I could go on for pages with accurate stories about social codes of conduct that were (and in many cases still are) used as attempts to bludgeon people into compliance with everything from superstition (by which I primarily mean various aspects of religion), to the red scare, to the 'Murica mindset, to the ridiculously exaggerated "sex trafficking" nonsense, to drug use and the drug war, slut shaming, gangsterism, terrorism, and so on. Seems to me that you're probably just finding the millennials more annoying because for whatever reason, their behavior has clashed with your outlook -- which is not to say anyone is right or wrong, just that there's an up-front conflict.
Re:Millennials and "codes of conduct". (Score:5, Insightful)
You can change your behaviour. You can change your opinion. You can even change your religion. You can't change the colour of your skin or whether or not you were born with nuts, drastic surgery excluded. That's why making racism and sexism of any sort acceptable, in particular under the flag of some warped version of "justice" is particularly dangerous. Because once it becomes acceptable to hate there is no final destination, it keeps on rolling until someone rolls it back, and no matter which direction the pendulum swings the situation is usually worse than it was to begin with. That's the difference.
There's a good reason collective punishment is usually viewed as a war crime. If you go down that road you end up asking why people with white skin, English, Irish, French, American, Polish, Russian, all of them aren't generally being punished for the crimes of the Nazis generations later, or even just Germans. Or why stop there, maybe Mongolia owes Iran reparations for the actions of Genghis Khan. Islamic states should pay for the conquest of Spain perhaps?
Some peoples' attitudes do need to change but what the "millennials", which is to say that subset of American youth who've been fed various offcolour sociological activist theories - not an entire generation by a long shot - need to understand is that if you rope in everyone as guilty you end up creating a reaction and creating problems which never needed to exist in the first place.
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Seems to me that you're probably just finding the millennials more annoying because for whatever reason, their behavior has clashed with your outlook -- which is not to say anyone is right or wrong, just that there's an up-front conflict.
I have a feeling that the annoyance felt by the existing generations when they view the generations below them stems from those younger generations being not part of the established mindset of those of the older generation. David Bowie's song, "Changes," and the line, "And these children that you spit on, as they try to change their worlds, are immune to your consultations; they're quite aware of what they're going through." comes to mind. To each of us when we're the budding generation, the issues of our
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> I have a feeling that the annoyance felt by the existing generations when they view the generations below them stems from those younger generations being not part of the established mindset of those of the older generation
And I remember this in the 1960's. The 1970's. The 1980's. The 1990's. And from Shakespeare's writing, it certainly dates back to the European Middle Ages.
Is there anything surprising about this?
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An interesting hypothesis. But have you considered the possibility that they actually are a bunch of feckless twats?
Re:Millennials and "codes of conduct". (Score:5, Insightful)
Jesus fucking Christ that thread was painful to read.
That so many are so hell bent on pushing their agenda of having the right to be offended and the power to decry / denounce / ban anyone they don't like for whatever reason (usually based on their own flawed perception of a utopia where everybody thinks exactly like they do) is pitiful.
Has a name been attributed (a la Godwin) to the death of a thread when someone writes "Check your privilege"? Because apart from "Go fuck yourself" there isn't any response to it.
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"Check your privilege"
Duly noted. Thanks for being so polite.
Getting back on topic.......
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What's funny is that they don't think a majority can be the party discriminated against. I should go there and point out the traits of South Africa during the Apartheid. The black people were the majority yet were openly and ruthlessly oppressed. I'm not even white, well not entirely - I'm mixed, and even I see white people being subjected to biases because of their race. The minute you assume something about a person's being based on their skin color is the minute you become racist. If they're going to be
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Ending discrimination in favor of a group is not discriminating against that group.
Re:Millennials and "codes of conduct". (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, I could be wrong but I suspect every generation has had problems with snobbish moralism and hypocrisy. I've heard that August Caesar claimed himself to be a first amongst equals [wikipedia.org]. But I would have hated to be anyone who in his presence dared treat him as an equal. About 2000 years ago, the Jews had a group known as the Pharisees, whom Jesus is said to have excoriated for excelling at making sure everyone around them saw how well they followed Jewish ceremonial law, but ignoring God's moral laws. I.e., they were sanctimonious jerks. Etc.
But I think the bigger issue is that many of these organizations espouse code of ethics which are internally inconsistent, and yet they won't admit that. They won't admit that people might hold different moral viewpoints for reasons which are just as defensible as theirs.
For example, Google says (said) "don't be evil". But there are different groups which have very incompatible views on what's evil: Pro-lifers vs. Planned Parenthood; conservatives vs. liberals vs. libertarians vs. anarchists; Christians vs. Muslims vs. atheists; Taliban vs. the Boston Symphony, etc. It's pretty clear that Google doesn't limit its actions to only those which all of those groups consider to be not evil.
So which of those groups' definitions of "evil" does Google willingly transgress? That's how you know which religions they consider false, which ethnic groups' beliefs they consider outmoded, etc. But they will not admit this fundamental truth of moral logic. Making them, in addition to everything else, disingenuous hypocrites.
Another problem is that organizations try to side-step the issue of whose ethics are correct, but saying that the real problem is causing offense. But this means that the most-offended person in the room gets the power to suppress the speech or actions of anyone with whom he disagrees. Some of whom find that, well, offensive. It stinks of sophism inspired by the fear of lawsuits.
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ok, what circumstances are... "certain", in your view? Honestly curious. Can't think of any, myself, and I consider myself both open-minded and a creative thinker. Please elaborate.
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A computer system detects the delivery of large quantities of bomb-making materials to an address in the suburbs. You arrest the parents, and they seem completely baffled. You get a warrant and search their computers, only to find that their 13-year-old son has been in communication with Al Qaeda. You know that somewhere in the city, there is probably a bomb, and the only lead is a kid. The kid is uncooperative, and you realize that if you do not get the kid to spill his guts, thousands of people will
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The only thing missing from your post was a prefix of "Previously on 24..." and a shot of Jack Bauer looking pensive :)
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...or, you could just read those communications with Al'qaeda that you say are still on that computer. In fact, you most likely had, or you wouldn't be doing a home invasion on the American dream. And let's face it, if the bomb isn't in the place it was constructed, then it's 99% likely it's already been exploded at it's target location because real life isn't written by script writers trying to pad out a 42 minute long TV episode.
There's an old philosophy that those who wrestle with demons, become demons.
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You're assuming that the actual communications were on the computer, rather t
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O
Re:Paved with good intentions... (Score:4, Insightful)
Odds the 13-year-old has been told where the bomb has been planted: low.
Odds the 13-year-old will make up something even remotely believable just to make the torturing stop: not low.
Odds the 13-year-old has been told, if at all, where the enemy wants you to believe the bomb has been planted: not low.
Odds the parents and neighbours of the 13-year-old didn't notice "large quantities" of bomb-making material being delivered: not insignificant.
Odds you will fuck up by torturing a 13-year-old to no avail and create a perception that the US government finds torturing children acceptable in the eyes of its citizens, its allies and its enemies: high.
Odds that even if the torture "works", you have created a perception that the US government finds torturing children acceptable in the eyes of its citizens, its allies and its enemies: high.
If I was your CO and you did this, even if you succeeded: arrest you and throw the entire damn book at you, because you just made that kid a martyr. AQ is not an existential threat to the nation, but agents of the state endorsing or carrying out the torture of minors? Are.
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ok, what circumstances are... "certain", in your view? Honestly curious. Can't think of any, myself, and I consider myself both open-minded and a creative thinker. Please elaborate.
Hmmm, what if the child was really a 1000-year old Reptilian from Jupiter who is hatching a Master Illuminati Plan to blow up the Earth and enslave all the survivors? It's a stretch, I'll admit, but what if? CHECKMATE, RATIONAL PERSON!
(Note for the humor impaired: Reptilians actually come from Saturn; I know that and was just trying to throw the NSA trackers off by citing slightly erroneous data. Carry on, nothing to see here, sharks with laser beams, in Russia something something, etc etc.)
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I notice you subtly passed-over mentioning Uranus. I know that was intentional: your kind always pretends to "forget" Uranus, but everyone who knows about Uranus remembers Uranus, and we notice when you passover Uranus. You think you'll get away with it, but we know, and we're watching you and we're watching Uranus.
Why do ACs always focus on Uranus? In every goddamned discussion about planets, it's always ACs that have to bring it up. Can't talk about Saturn or Pluto. Neptune is always left in the lurch.
Assholes.
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ok, what circumstances are... "certain", in your view? Honestly curious. Can't think of any, myself, and I consider myself both open-minded and a creative thinker. Please elaborate.
This may be an extreme example, so let me cite a more accurate one with this new loophole Google is now using as their new motto. Members of ISIS likely do not consider themselves "evil". In their minds, they're out to "do the right thing". See how the difference can be applied and justified, even in the face of something so blatantly evil as ISIS?
Anything can be justified as the "right" thing given a sick enough mind. That said, Google is a publicly traded US corporation. Their definition of "right"
Until someone decides (Score:5, Funny)
The problem wth tyrants is they're friendly ... (Score:2)
Until someone decides ... That being evil is the right thing to do. You know, ends justify the means and all that jazz...
(At the risk of precipitating a storm of posts misapplying Godwin's law...)
One of the big problems with tyrannical systems and the tyrants who end up running them is that they're attractive. The rhetoric sounds nice. The people setting then up and running them are sweet, reasonable-sounding, and persuasive (at least at first and/or to those they need to support them to obtain and keep p
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Doesn't even have to by tyrants. EVERYONE honestly believes they are doing the right thing. Jesus thought he was doing the right thing. Pontius Pilate thoughr he was doing the right thing. Your mom thought she was doing the right thing. Elite German SS soldiers thought they were doing the right thing. Abortion clinics and the people who put down dogs and cats for the SPCA thought they did the right thing. Abortion clinic bombers thought they did the right thing. Suicide bombers thought they did the
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No you are wrong. I have met some evil people in my life.
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I agree with GP.
Are you sure those evil people weren't acting out of some extreme "survival of the fittest, and I decide who's fittest" principle they thought right, instead of intentionally and knowingly being evil? Minds can become horribly twisted and self-justifying, you know.
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The new motto should be, "Kneel Before Zod!"
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It's the right thing to do for more profit.
What if the right thing to do is evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What if the right thing to do is evil? (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"Do the right thing...." (Score:5, Insightful)
You've nailed it. "Do the right thing" is highly ambiguous when compared to their previous motto.
Clearly they want the wiggle-room because doing "evil" can sometimes be highly profitable.
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"Do the right thing" is highly ambiguous
As opposed to the standard internationally-agreed and completely unambiguous defintion of "evil" that everyone always agrees on...
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At least morality is in the room though; with 'do the right thing', it might as well just be for the shareholder's wallets; and that's not morality, that's finance.
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Don't be evil could apply just as well to shareholders. It also lacks definition. Google was never evil. I never saw a Google employee actively punch babies out of spite. But Google was always evil because ... errm ... advertising and tracking and stuff.
The original slogan lost all meaning.
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I don't see it as any different. People have been truly distorting the word evil for the past few years to mean "anything I don't like about what they are currently doing". The word had completely lost its meanings with regular threads comparing completely benign actions to the reign of Hitler.
The previous slogan was just as ambiguous and lacked just as much meaning which should come as a surprise when using so few words.
Re:"Do the right thing...." (Score:4, Insightful)
You've nailed it. "Do the right thing" is highly ambiguous when compared to their previous motto.
Clearly they want the wiggle-room because doing "evil" can sometimes be highly profitable.
Wiggle room? That's a laugh.
Tell me, who exactly are the ignorant fools on this planet who believe that Google to date has lived up to any motto as they thrive very well in the unethical and immoral world of capitalism?
Point here is I see no reason to bullshit customers with pointless mottos or trying to claim they need "wiggle room" when their revenue-generating priorities will guarantee they won't care enough to follow them, especially when answering to shareholders who care about one fucking thing, and that one thing sure as hell ain't being right.
Googlers generally apply those words .. (Score:2)
Re:Googlers generally apply those words .. (Score:4, Insightful)
What now, do the right thing or follow the law? C'mon, make a decision, you can't have your cake and eat it too.
I don't want to hold your beer (Score:3, Insightful)
Really? Like charging them for a service that you won't fix the bugs in? (base)
Really? Like forcing everyone to remove their copyright info from images so you can use those images to benefit competitors who pay you more (base, again)
Really? Like never adding the most basic, 1990s-old commonly used features to GMail?
Really? Like classing websites according to your anti-sex moralistic bullshit and then locking those people out of earning a living
I can understand the change in motto (Score:3)
Well, come on (Score:4, Insightful)
It's been obvious for several years they haven't been using "don't be evil" as any sort of guiding principle anyway. Then and now, it's just a motto - useful for PR purposes but not much else.
Do the right thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Do the right thing... for whom? Without a specifier it does not tell us anything. It is definitely not the same as "don't be evil", although we've figured out that Google has not followed that mantra for a while now (not at Apple levels yet!).
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Do the right thing... for whom?
Spike Lee, of course.
Stupid People (Score:2)
Do the right thing... for whom? Without a specifier it does not tell us anything. It is definitely not the same as "don't be evil", although we've figured out that Google has not followed that mantra for a while now (not at Apple levels yet!).
Do the right thing is more appealing as a marketing slogan because it caters to people who are stupider and more plentiful. It's useful for reaching them. It doesn't even admit to the possibility of evil, It's much more cliche, it probably tests better with focus groups, it's not quite as easy from a communications standpoint to be mocked with it, and it's even easier to make it mean whatever you want and trot it out to use as part of product launches--better, it's designed to do that *without* making som
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Really? Why? Please define "evil" with a clear line. I want to know exactly what threshold crossed that puts Google on the same arbitrary side of the evil / not evil line as Stalin.
Have they not been watching the new Heroes series? (Score:3)
In the new NBC series "Heroes Reborn", the big bad corporation, Renautas, is in effect torturing an "evo" (a person with powers) to use her powers to enable a system that can locate all other evos on Earth, so that they can be rounded up. Their corporate motto? "Doing good is good business."
Google is keeping "don't be evil" (Score:5, Informative)
Even though Google is underneath Alphabet, its own, more specific code of conduct remains largely the same, and it retains the "don't be evil" motto. And since most of Alphabet's employees work at Google, that means "don't be evil" is still very much alive and well in Mountain View.
It is just Alphabet that is dropping it.
Re:Google is keeping "don't be evil" (Score:5, Funny)
What part of the alphabet? The letters N, S, and A? Or C, I, and A? Or is that F, B, I, D, E, A?
They're the same.. (Score:3)
Both are based on subjectivity. What is evil to some is good to others, what is right to some is wrong to others, etc. Google's behavior to date vs the criticisms it has received is evidence of this.
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They're only evil towards copyright because it resists their business model of information aggregation, and they are evil towards ibm because ibm competes with them. None of this has to do with giving a damn about doing the right thing (whatever that is).
Re:They're the same.. (Score:5, Informative)
They don't consider that evil.
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They are NOT the same thing.
With do the right thing, you're supposed to seek out 'goodness', but with 'don't be evil' you're supposed to avoid badness.
Although avoiding badness sounds weak, it's more in compatible with western values; western societies have a list of things you're not supposed to do.
To do the 'right' thing, is more of a totalitarian position.
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I don't buy that. Any place 'don't be evil' fits, 'do the right thing' fits as well, and both are subjective, dangerously so.
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We don't live in a binary world.
If we did, you would be right though.
But we don't.
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Apparently, we also live in a world where people like to imply distinctions where none exist. Words have definitions for a reason.
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Honesty would be refreshing in today's age of political correctness and doublespeak. As far as kindness goes, sure, as long as it's not mandated. Once it's mandated, it becomes shallow and meaningless.
Wide open to interpretation (Score:2)
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This. All the squarehead engineers here start to speculate and reason, and the intern who probably suggested that the negatively formed sentence be recast as a positive, 'actionable' sentence is having lots of giggles as people seek 'meaning' to it. It's just a fscking motto.
Has a nice Machiavellian ring to it, don't you thi (Score:3)
... has swapped out their famous motto "Don't be evil" for one with a slightly different ring: "Do the right thing."
So now, in true Machiavellian true-believer fashion, they can comfortably be evil as long as they're being evil to do the Right(eous) Thing... whatever that is.
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"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive."
C. S. Lewis
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I know of the quote, but isn't it ironic coming from a monotheistic Believer that penned the Chronicles? The Christian God is the ultimate tyrant. Was this quote a momentary bursting of his bubble?
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I wasn't talking about the rules of behavior for His Children; that's secondary. I was referring to the Author. I was referring to the tyrannical behavior of God himself as *ahem* "documented" in some detail in the Old Testament in particular. He Himself doesn't operate by the Ten Commandments; His behavior is worse than what is mandated by those. Dude is a full-on psycho tyrant.
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You haven't been paying attention. God - or at least his minions - gets his pound of flesh.
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Google is not a person, unless you buy into a sick legal fiction perpetrated for the benefit of such. And "without cause"? What cave have you been living in for the last five years of news about Google wrongdoing?
Morally right? Ethically right? Legally right? (Score:2)
There's some big philosophical differences. (Score:5, Insightful)
Evil, outside of special pleading for a particular belief system, is usually framed in terms of actively choosing the harm of others (even if it is masked in deniability). There's some very important meaning in 'don't be evil' that I always liked. Even if some evil is deemed unavoidable by sheer weight of circumstances in life, the general policy should still be to avoid it if at all doable, by any philosophy I'd respect..
"Do the right thing", however, is utterly subjective. Genocide can be seen as the right thing, by a great many, many belief systems, as could complete elimination of all other belief systems. Complete stagnation lies down most 'pure' roads. Utter evil, the complete willingness to harm others at a whim, is constantly 'justified' in the name of most ideals taken in isolation.
I suppose that's a problem with business groups though - the more people involved, the more push to 'optimize' towards some ideal that gets so important, that 'evil' is no longer a limitation. All groups do evil, because there are people involved, but most businesses seem to become blind to their own evil as they grow, until they specialize in mostly doing that evil. Well, until those outside the group start reacting to their actions, then they seem to asymptotically bounce against, and push out the ethical line.
Fortunately, the end result isn't so horrible, by most standards, basically ever measurable aspect of culture has reliably improved over time, from freedom, to intelligence scales, to health and others - but it's just interesting how groups specialize and play such strange roles.
Ryan Fenton
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"do the right thing" is all well and good, as long as one remembers how to apply the golden rule. Namely, we wouldn't want people doing things to us in the name of helping us, only for us. Which means consulting us first.
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There's some very important meaning in 'don't be evil' that I always liked. .... ... "Do the right thing", however, is utterly subjective.
Hardly. People have been equating the words evil with anything they don't like for a good 5+ years now. One of the best cases I saw was something being opt out instead of opt in like the poster wanted, thus Google is evil.
Meaning is derived on a person by person basis. When people derive meaning from some inbred hate for a corporation it doesn't matter what the slogan is, subjectively it is still the same and the company is breaking it. Damn those corporations.
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> Hardly. People have been equating the words evil with anything they don't like for a good 3500+ years now.
Go back to the Code of Hammurabi for the earliest written examples.
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I'm not sure "special pleading" means what you think it means.
hmmm... (Score:2)
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Yeah, and sometimes, not being evil is the wrong thing to do. So what now? Both are incredibly vague, unactionable, unmeasurable things whose meanings completely hinge on interpretation and value system. It's a corporate motto, and adherence to it is impossible to measure, even if there existed common understanding about what's good and evil. I.e. it's just part of a company's PR.
Really? (Score:2)
Is it just me?
"Don't be evil" is like said "Don't commit crime".
It's stupid, obvious, and pointless to say. It should be obvious.
"Do the right thing" is much, much, much more difficult to do and something that happens much less often.
Not that it matters, it's a fucking company motto, which means nowhere near as much as they've spent on consultants to come up with that bollocks.
But in terms of semantics, this is an upgrade, if anything.
We're google, we dn't care because we don't hve to (Score:3, Insightful)
They did the right thing...and decided to be honest.
We have been doing evil for a long time now and it is time we come clean. We are a corporation and as such are legally obliged to make our shareholders money. Sometimes it comes as collecting data on you to sell better ads. Other times it is making spying software for the government using your tax dollar.
The gloves are off (Score:5, Insightful)
Without the "Don't Be Evil" mandate, Google can now do all sorts of wonderful things like collecting data on every mouseclick and page visit, correlate it with your credit card spending data, insurance records, search history, phone records, mortgage info, geo-tracking data, and use it to flood you with tailored ads. Oh, wait, they already do that.
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And there we have it folks. Collecting and correlating data to gain profit from advertising while providing an otherwise free service that many people benefit from has yet again been equated as being evil.
This is exactly why it was pointless to keep the slogan. Evil has no specific meaning beyond some person disagreeing with a course of action and thus deeming the other party to be "evil".
It's just a sad joke anyhow (Score:3)
'Don't be Evil' has been a sad joke since Schmidt joined - and yes, it was made 'official' only after he joined (the 2004 IPO letter).
As long as you've got a Bond villain running the thing it's just a cynical publicity ploy, typical Bay Area 'activism'.
Comma-phobia (Score:2)
Google As Alphabet Subsidiary Drops "Don't Be Evil"
Why are we still continuing the tradition of writing headlines in weirdly mangled and abbreviated English with stupid capitalisation?
Google, as an Alphabet subsidiary, drops "Don't Be Evil"
"Don't be evil" - "Do the right thing" (Score:2)
The beauty of "do the right thing" is that you no longer have to be seen to be claiming the moral high ground. I wonder who they will be doing the right thing to or for. On the bright side, Goog's mission statement of doing the right thing will now be more accurate - literally and figuratively: if you are a shareholder.
New Motto (Score:2)
"Do the right thing...for the shareholders, all all and any cost."
Evil too is in the eye of the beholder. (Score:3)
Ganga Mata, consort of Emperor Shantanu the Great, threw her new born baby into the Ganges, not once but seven times. You see eight celestials, Guardians of the eight directions were sentenced to live as humans, for some crime[*] they committed. On appeal their sentence was commuted for seven of them, they were allowed to die as soon as possible and return as celestials. They appealed to Mother Ganges to serve as their mother and kill them before they get a chance to commit any sin and be caught in the perpetual cycle of sins and rebirths. The eighth one who had to serve a full lifetime as a human, was spared by Mother Ganges. Once you get the details, you see what mother Ganges did was not evil at all, but an act of utmost kindness.
What life the eighth one had!
He was the one originally named Satyaviradhan, later named Bheeshman and lived a long and illustrious life, torn between the allegiance he swore to his father's throne and the degenerate their Crown Prince Duryodhanan had become. He gave his life for the oath of loyalty, his blessings and love for the righteous descendants of his dynasty. He fell on the tenth day of the battle, shot by his beloved grandson Arjunan (and the first gender reassigned warrior recorded anywhere, Shikandi) and died on the following winter solstice, roughly five thousand years ago.
[*] Their crime: They stole a cow that gave ambrosia as milk for the benefit of a human friend, lied about it.
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Is there some tl;dr version of this?
still better than a few alternatives I could name (Score:2)
Still better than a few alternatives I could name, such as:
1) redefine good.
2) redefine good to mean good for google.
"Do the Right Thing" allows more room for Evil (Score:2)
Settling for less... (Score:2)
I'll accept being good and not very evil.
Changed motto because ... (Score:2)
Maybe now [after careful analysis, of course], "Being evil ..." is "Doing the right thing ..."
Hitler (Score:2)
I'm sure Hitler thought he was "doing the right thing."
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"Evil" is just a lot less subjective than "the right thing." The "right thing" for what reasons? What motives? Whose benefit?
Evil, on the other hand, is a much clearer term in most people's minds.
Do the right thing for who? (Score:2)
Summery is Wrong (Score:5, Informative)
Google's code is still 'Don't be evil.'
https://investor.google.com/co... [google.com]
Alphabet, the new company that Google is a part of, has it's own code that is the 'Do the right thing'.
But that's a much less interesting headline.
The reason (Score:2)
Unfortunately Amazon already had 'Be Evil'
Negativity and the Subconscious (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
"Don't be evil" also implies that, unless they keep reminding themselves not to with a motto, they'd be doing evil by default.
A bit like walking into the dentist's and being told "Here at Premium Dentacare, we always try to send our patients home alive!"
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps they understood that for-profit companies DO default to evil.
Dentists default to keeping patient alive enough to keep paying dentist bills.
Re: (Score:3)
Neither does "Do the right thing".