Mama Google might still know all, but it's hard to tell.

For the past several years, one of my favorite sayings has been, "Mama Google knows all." Never before was there a time in history when we could reach into a pocket or purse and consult a device that can answer any random question in a matter of seconds.

Assuming we have a signal.

And assuming the answer isn't behind a paywall.

And assuming the search results aren't junked up with ads.

And assuming the US Department of Justice's order that Alphabet sell off its Chrome browser sticks (which I am pessimistic about, for reasons I'll explain below).

Things are changing rapidly enough on the internet-search-engine front that the Wall Street Journal* ran an op-ed a couple of weeks ago suggesting that someday soon, saying "Google it" may be an age test: 

People are increasingly getting answers from artificial intelligence. Younger generations are using other platforms to gather information. And the quality of the results delivered by [Google's] search engine is deteriorating as the web is flooded with AI-generated content.

The WSJ article goes on to say that a lot of shoppers are bypassing Google's results to start their searches on Amazon. But I am here to tell you that that comes with its own set of problems. Amazon's results, too, are junked up with ads and banners like "Amazon's Choice" (which, when you read the fine print, actually means "Amazon's Choice for searches about a specific thing that wasn't in your query and you may not care about"). I've found that in many cases, Amazon's search parameters aren't granular enough. Or if they don't carry the exact product I'm looking for, they'll give me seven pages of things that might fit the bill, but probably don't. At least a Google search still provides a range of retailers that claim to carry the product I'm actually looking for, regardless of whether it's in stock.

That's for shopping. If you're looking for information, though? Maybe start with Wikipedia.

AI search responses are no help -- or not as helpful as they could be. At Thanskgiving, I went looking for information on converting a regular recipe for Brussels sprouts to one for a convection oven, so I could make them with my microwave's convection-oven feature while the turkey was roasting in the regular oven. Naturally, I asked Mama Google. Her AI feature said they would take 20 minutes at 375 degrees. What a time saver, right? Yeah, well, it was a good thing I punched through to an actual recipe. What the AI should have said was that the sprouts needed 20 minutes on the first side, then another 15-20 minutes on the flip side. And it took forever to find that information, because the vast majority of recipes Google offered me didn't have directions for convection cooking, even after I put "convection oven" in quotes.

And all that's on top of the valid complaints from human content creators that AI purveyors are scraping their content to "train" their AI engines without their consent -- and without compensation.

While the DoJ's move to force Google to sell off its Chrome browser is a good idea, I don't think it will solve the problem for end users. If it proceeds anything like the antitrust case against Microsoft, which started with a US Federal Trade Commission inquiry in 1990 and resulted in court approval of the legal settlement in 2004, it will drag on for years and not change much of anything. 

And I expect the antitrust actions against Big Tech will wither under the new administration anyway. I'm sure that's a big reason why tech companies are giving massive donations to Trump's inauguration fund, even though they may also be afraid of retaliation for kicking Trump off their social media platforms after January 6th.

In all, I think the halcyon days of having the answer to life, the Universe, and everything in our pockets are probably just about over. Maybe Google should bring back its "I'm feeling lucky" button.

And I guess I should look for a hard-copy convection-oven-conversion cookbook before AI gets hold of them and screws them all up.

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* Speaking of paywalls: I apologize. I thought that Yahoo! link to the WSJ story could get y'all around the WSJ paywall, but no -- it's a stub article that redirects to the WSJ website. Sorry about that.

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These moments of searchable blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Stay safe!

The health insurance CEO and the backlash.

Welp, so much for taking a break from the news. 

As you have likely heard by now, the chief executive officer of UnitedHealthcare was shot to death Wednesday morning in midtown Manhattan, outside the hotel where the company's annual investor conference was to start a couple of hours later. The assailant is still at large.

That's all I'm going to say about the murder. Feel free to google for more info; details, breathless updates, and social media rumors have been rife since it happened. 

(This story even eclipsed a school shooting that happened in California Wednesday afternoon. Although since only three people died -- two kids and the shooter, who killed himself -- it doesn't even qualify as a mass shooting. I only found out about the school shooting on social media, from friends who were commenting on the difference in coverage between the two incidents.)

The most interesting reaction to the UnitedHealth story has been to the company's social media posts about the CEO's death. Every last reaction has been a laughing emoji -- at least 77,800 on its post on the dead bird app.

While I don't condone violence in any form, I've gotta say that I get why people are laughing. UnitedHealthcare reportedly has the highest rate of claim denials in the country. And a congressional subcommittee report released this fall has taken insurers to task for using AI to deny more Medicare Advantage claims than ever. 

artursz | Deposit Photos

In short, people are undeniably angry. They're forced to pay for health insurance, and when they have to use it, the insurance company has the power to decide whether to pay for their doctor-ordered care -- on the basis of cost alone.

This happened to me several years ago. My doctor at the time had put me on a new medication called Januvia for my diabetes. She gave me a batch of samples, and they worked well. But when she wrote me a prescription, my health insurance at the time refused to pay for it; they wanted me to try other, cheaper medicines first. Those, of course, didn't work. Eventually my insurer did cover Januvia, but the whole thing was pretty frustrating, not to mention ridiculous.

This wasn't life or death for me -- just annoying. But it's not hard to imagine how people who are in life-or-death situations must feel when they're placed in this sort of situation. It's heartbreaking, and so unnecessary. And everybody knows it's all about the bottom line for shareholders.

Which is what probably inspired the CEO of UnitedHealth Group, the parent company of UnitedHealthcare, to issue a message to its employees via video. (Apologies for the Vanity Fair dunning notice at the link; I have access to the magazine via Apple News, which didn't charge me extra for it.) In the video, Andrew Witty called the open-season on his company a result of "aggressive, inappropriate and disrespectful" media coverage of the murder. He goes on to tell his workers, "I'd encourage you to tune out that critical noise that we're hearing right now. It does not reflect reality." The reality, he says, is that "the health system needs a company like UnitedHealth Group." He also says, "We guard against the pressures that exist for unsafe or unnecessary care to be delivered, in a way that makes the whole system too complex and ultimately unsustainable."

You might have noticed that he left out the part where companies like his add to the "too complex and ultimately unsustainable" nature of healthcare in this country. In fact, UnitedHealthcare has been in trouble with the federal government: among other things, the Justice Department launched an antitrust investigation into the parent company in November. And there's been class-action suit filed against UnitedHealthcare over shenanigans related to denials of coverage for its Medicare Advantage customers.

On social media yesterday, I called health insurance a remora -- a parasitical creature that feeds off its host, improving the life of nobody but itself. These companies' whole reason for being is to take in premiums and keep as much of that money for their executives and shareholders as possible -- and they do it by denying payment for services that doctors order for their patients.

It's a miserable system, and Congress could end it by enacting Medicare for All.

I'm not holding my breath.

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These moments of bloggy disgust have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Stay well!

Taking a news breather.

 

Lucian3D | Deposit Photos

Adweek reported on Friday that for the week prior, according to Nielsen, the three top cable news channels -- Fox, CNN, and MSNBC -- continued to see a drop in viewership compared to prior to the election early last month. While Fox News is still blowing away its rivals (as it has done for the past two decades) with a 72% share of the prime-time audience, Adweek says, "MSNBC and CNN received below 20% of the share across both dayparts, a trend that has remained constant since Election Night." Among adults ages 25-54, CNN attracted 79,000 sets of eyeballs during prime time to 60,000 for MSNBC.  

If the ratings news held a bright spot for MSNBC, it was that viewership dropped way less during the week of November 18th than it had the previous week, after morning hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski admitted they'd gone down to Mar-a-Lago to kiss Trump's ring. But overall, MSNBC viewership during prime time has dropped by 52 percent since November 5th.

Those dismal figures came on the heels of a report that Comcast is thinking of selling MSNBC (and Elon Musk has trolled that he's interested in buying it).

What's going on? It could just be a post-election ratings dip for the losing side. It's happened in previous elections, to both left- and right-leaning media. And this election loss was particularly disheartening to folks on the left. We'd seen this farce before, and we were sure the American people wouldn't want to live through it again -- and yet, here we are.

So folks are turning off the news on their TVs and the notifications on their phones -- for a couple of reasons. The Washington Post (free article at the link) quoted one MSNBC viewer as saying he thought the Monday-morning quarterbacking -- "the finger-pointing and bashing of the Democratic party" -- started way too soon. 

Another viewer told WaPo that she's not interested in revisiting the Trump-as-president horror show right now: "'I just don't even want to know what kind of outrageous thing he's going to do,' she says. 'I'm resigned to, "He's going to do outrageous things, and we'll deal with it when he's gone."'"

I hear that. It seemed to me like the media pivoted way too easily, post-election, to listicles of reasons why Harris didn't win. I was not ready for that. I'm still not ready. And having lived through one Trump freak show, it's been hard for me to gin up more than an eyeroll over his Cabinet picks. I know he's going to do outrageous things. Do I need to know the particulars in breathless detail right now?

After all, the holidays are upon us. That means gift shopping and wrapping, cookie baking, holiday concerts, and all the rest. As for TV viewing, well, there's a lot of comfort TV on offer: Christmas rom-coms, Charlie Brown, and the Grinch. And hey, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" is celebrating its 60th anniversary by coming back to NBC this Friday. That sounds like must-see TV to me!

Does all that seem like escapism? I dunno. To me, it feels more like taking a breather. 

Joe Biden is still president. The country's safe for another seven weeks. Anything can happen in seven weeks. 

Not to say it will. But it could. 'Tis the season for miracles, after all.

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It seems unlikely to me that I was six years old (technically, a day shy of seven) when ol' Rudolph first flew on NBC. I've always thought I was a year or two younger than that. But I'm trusting the people who actually keep track of such things.

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These moments of bloggy denialism -- er, I mean news-breather blogginess -- have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Stay safe!

What is gratitude? Part 2.

(American) Thanksgiving is bearing down upon us, and this time of year always encourages people to make public lists of the things they're grateful for. But hardly anyone talks about toxic gratitude. That's what I'd like to tackle in this week's post.

My posts this week and last week were prompted by a post in a private, Pagan Facebook group. Last week's post is here. I'm not naming the original poster because it's a private group. 

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So: toxic gratitude.

I thought I'd made this phrase up all by myself, but as ever, the internet has beaten me to it. Google's AI stole its definition from this Times of India article, in which toxic gratitude is defined as "expressing thanks without truly meaning it". 

AsierRomeroCarballo | Deposit Photos

The article says you can spot toxic gratitude when it's prompted by social pressure (or, I would add, religious pressure); the result of either being manipulated by someone or by your attempt to manipulate someone; and over-apologizing or over-thanking someone. 

Manipulation is kind of a side trip into gaslighting, which I've talked about before. Go check out those links if you're interested. Today, what I want to look at are social pressure and over-apologizing/over-thanking.

Let's take on over-apologizing/over-thanking first. There's nothing wrong with thanking someone who has done you a favor -- we're all supposed to do that, right? But there's a line. To me, it ought to be a one-and-done. Well, maybe a two-and-done. But thanking me over and over -- or apologizing more than once -- puts the onus on me: I'm constantly being forced to express my gratitude to you for the favor/support/whatever, or to forgive you even if, by your actions, you've done nothing to earn it. (I get in trouble every time I link to that post about forgiveness. Fair warning: my take on the subject is very different from the Christian viewpoint.)

Look, it's not my job to constantly reassure you that you did a good thing or I still love you or whatever. To me, that sounds very much like a you problem. It feels to me like your boundaries aren't stable, and you need for me to reinforce them for you. Not a sign of a healthy relationship. Plus I'm not going to do it.

It's a short step from there to manipulation of the "Say to me this exact thing in this exact way!" variety, which I have no patience for. Or the "Believe everything I believe and hate all the things I hate, or you're part of the problem!" variety, which I also have no patience for (and to be honest, I thought we'd all left that cliqueish crap behind in junior high).

I'm not talking about instances where, for example, a person is spewing hatred and lies and expecting everyone around them to show their loyalty by kissing his ring; of course, that's wrong (not to mention dangerous for our country). I'm talking about interpersonal relationships on a smaller scale: If you want to gather like-minded people around you, you have to accept that some of those people will have opinions that differ from yours. In fact, one sure way to push your friends away is to demand that they behave exactly the way you want them to. That's your insecurity talking. It's a you problem, and one I can't solve for you.

Since we've sort of segued into the topic of social pressure anyhow, let's talk about gratitude journaling. As I said at the outset, 'tis the season to profess what you're grateful for to everyone you know. 

There's a benefit, for sure, in recognizing the good things in your life. But I see a danger in pressuring people to post online a list of stuff they're grateful for. For one thing, most people aren't going to post negative stuff on social media, for obvious reasons. But if you don't express those negative feelings somehow, even privately, or if you're determined to put a positive spin on everything, then you're gaslighting yourself with toxic positivity: "Even the bad stuff has its upside!" And it's a short step from there to... well, selling yourself short. Keeping your light under a bushel basket. Making it your business to make everyone else happy at the expense of your authentic self.

If your life sucks right now, own it. I think there's a lot of wisdom in this quote by a therapist: "When my clients can't summon a genuine feeling for gratitude in their lives and the activity of gratitude journaling feels superficial and dismissive of their real experiences, I invite them to appreciate the crap for what it is -- crap."

Sometimes life is crap. Sugar-coating it just gives you sugar-coated crap. The only healthy way out is through. 

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These moments of bloggy gratitude for those who read this post all the way to the end have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Happy Thanksgiving!