Sunday Smiles

David Strom 2:30 PM | February 25, 2024
meme

The past few weeks have been an exciting ride if following the news is your thing. 

I follow the news a lot—way too much to be mentally healthy.

In my mind, the two stories that will have the most long-term impact are the apparent collapse of the Fani Willis Jihad against Trump, and the exposure of Google's extreme bias for all the world to see, literally. 

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To the detriment of my writing, I was glued to the Willis/Wade disqualification hearing a week and a half ago, as I never watch TV during the workday. I was on the bubble regarding whether the judge would do the right thing (Willis and Wade clearly perjured themselves, but perhaps not provably so); after Friday's revelations from Wade's phone records, the judge would have to use the most tortured logic to argue that Willis and Wade were credible. 

I still won't predict the outcome of the judge's deliberation. Still, even he must know that the outrage of allowing clear perjury to be used to exonerate the two would be a travesty of justice that would tear the country apart. 

But then again, the Left wants the country torn apart, so let's wait and see what comes out of it. Whichever way it goes, it will be hugely consequential. Either the case against Trump gets fatally delayed or dropped, or the country gets even more divided than it already is, and the division will get far more nasty. 

The Google Gemini story is important because the image-generation fiasco is so clear, so obvious, and so visual that no amount of argumentation or sophistry can erase or confuse the truth: Google is dishonest. Everybody can see it. 

Almost everybody relies on Google, which means it has enormous power to shape the narrative. It is, at least implicitly, trusted as an information source by the vast majority of the world, even if people claim to know it is unreliable. We use it even if we don't trust it, and the information we are delivered shapes our perception of the world. 

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When Google Gemini produces images of a Black Founding Father, it is gobsmackingly obvious that Google has been gaslighting us. No amount of sophistry can overcome the evidence of our eyes, and visual evidence is so much more powerful than words on a screen. Black Vikings, female popes, and all those ridiculous images Gemini spit out make it obvious the deck is stacked. 

Worse, Gemini's propaganda is also hilarious, and funny things lose their power in a way that evil things don't. Everybody suspected the Soviet Union was evil, but liberals still defended it in the 1970s and early 80s because they could obfuscate--baffle with bulls**t. The Left spent a lot of effort defending communism then. 

But how do you respond to this? It solidifies impressions more than any set of statistics. We laugh because we recognize an inescapable and absurd reality. The Reagan years and the visual truth of decrepit leaders, backward technology, and the genuine ugliness of the Soviet Union inspired humor, and that was devastating to the reputation of communism. We got Yakov Smirnov, and this:

Gemini's launch is probably the most damaging product launch in decades because it harms not only the product but the Google brand. Now, when people talk about Google's bias, they will think of the Black George Washington and the female minority Pope. 

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Google will not be dethroned as the world's most popular search engine, but its credibility has taken a HUGE hit. And as more comes out about why it produced results so absurd, the details are yet more damning. 

Google didn't just stack the AI; it changed the prompts to generate them. When you asked for an image of a Pope, it changed the request behind the scenes to include "diverse." There is a DEI filter, which changes the question to suit Google's ideology. 

Google doesn't just stack the answers; it changes the question for you. 

That's devastating.

Conservatives' weakness in reaching normies is that we often sound like conspiracy theorists. We say that Google is rigged, and it sounds crazy to people. Or, even if they believe it, the reality doesn't sink in enough to change behavior. 

Well, guess what--Google just inadvertently proved us right. And you can see it with your own eyes. 

Over time, these revelations have an impact. Trust in something like Google rarely evaporates quickly. But look at opinions about the MSM--trust has dropped, not like a rock, but more like an airliner drifting down without engines. It might glide for a while, but eventually, it meets the ground. 

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That, I hope, will happen to Google. 

On to the smiles...








































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