Is Your Red My Blue? Google's Gatekeeping Abilities.

The title of this article stems from an interesting question I used to find it entertaining to ask people, and engage in the thought conversation that follows.

How do you know that what you see as blue, I also see as blue?

When we are children we learn the colors, and learn to associate them objects. Objects the look the same color as the object originally associated with a color in turn are also associated with that color. We learn that the sky is blue. The ocean looks similar to the sky, therefor it is also blue. However, if one of us actually saw the sky as red, we would see the ocean looking like the sky, however we are told that the sky is "blue".  So although we are seeing two totally different colors we will not know this because since our information is coming from a unified source, be it our parents or the schooling system, when asked "what color is the sky" we will both respond blue.

What does this have to do with Google? Quite literally a gatekeeper is someone who holds the keys, to access something. In the current day a gatekeeper is someone usually associated with having the illusion of providing information will covertly keeping information from people, or giving them false or misleading information.

It is currently believed that most people in the U.S. have access to an open internet. There are relatively few restrictions to what you can access on the "internet" as it is known within the basic domain name structures of www, and ignoring the deeper "darknets" and parts of the internet people either don't know exist or don't have the technical knowledge to know how they operate. If you want to look up something, you have the free will to do so. From pornography to cooking tips, if you want it, you can find it.

Some areas of the world do not have that apparent freedom, however. For example China has large sections of the internet blocked off. When attempting to access a website they will never get the return signal, it will be intercepted, and blocked, or their request will never be allowed to be sent. This allows the administrators to determine what a person is allowed to access, or not. Material that is negative to the ruling administration in China is often censored. Likewise many companies block access to gaming websites to keep their employees productivity higher, and schools block access to pornography to prevent students from accessing that type of adult content.

Read more...

Is Kingergarten a Good Thing?

Is Kindgarten a Good Thing?

Definition:
Kindergarten, from German. Kinder - Children; Garten - Garden. 

Often English speakers will misspell the word as kindergarden, and often assume that it is the correct spelling. While it is not the correct literal spelling, perhaps it should be the correct spelling for it's modern day usage, and people will associate it with what it really is. As the root of the word shows, it's a garden for children. One could look at this as a loving place to nurture children, but it also the very beginning of indoctrination in a system of beliefs that have very little to do with personal growth, and everything to do with growing to meet standards set by others.

There is a lot of controversy of the successes or failures of the public schooling system in America, and the growing number of parents who choose to home school their children. It may be surprising, or perhaps not as there is nothing new under the Sun, that the same debates about the public education system have previously occurred.

Kindergarten was actually banned in Prussia, and most German states in 1851, and wasn't allowed again for almost 60 years, and even then there was restrictions.

Read more...