For the past year or so, I’ve been using and enjoying the search engine Kagi.
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@inthehands "We don't want politics in XYZ" is just another way of saying "we like the political situation as it is". Always. There is no "politically neutral" model of interaction. What we should promote is a *cosmopolitan* model, where people can express a variety of political views safely. Some views (e.g. those that deny others' rights including the right to their own opinion) should still have consequences, but most should be able to *coexist*.
@Obdurodon I mostly agree.
On top of that, I want a model where people actually think about their actions, and listen to others about those consequences.
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@inthehands Renewal coming up on Jan 22, so that was impeccable timing. Cancelled
@finestructure I’d renewed on Dec 28. Sigh.
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@codedude@masto.ai I mean, you might not be wrong — and Google in particular has gone downhill fast in recent years. But at least with them there’s a sense that they think they need to have reasons for things, not this “I”m a safe driver because I don’t look at the road” businesses.
And yes, some companies really are better than others. Google & MS are still ethically miles better than Facebook, for example.
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@mastodonmigration @inthehands young and privileged. I always cringe when I see phrases like this, especially as they're usually uttered by white able-bodied heterosexual cis-men. Someone for whom marginalization is an abstract idea rather than a lived reality.
To complain about politics "entering" tech and wishing for it to be "politics-free" is an obscene luxury. For someone marginalized that's in all likelihood not even an option, as our mere existence is already political.
Blergh
@alexocado @mastodonmigration QFT: “our mere existence is often already political”
Yup yup. And that’s why “I just stay out of politics” sounds to me like “I just don’t look at the road when I’m driving.”
Sigh.
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@briellebouquet@queer.party @JessTheUnstill Yeah, you really do have a point. It probably isn’t a word that can be rescued.
Your reply makes me realize that the cultural baggage of the word “politics” — connotations of being distasteful, dirtied, venal, low-minded — serves as a protective shield for power in many spheres. “No politics” serves as an easy off-switch for any discussion of human impact, a way to believe covering one’s eyes makes things disappear.
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@JessTheUnstill @briellebouquet@queer.party Yes, that does invoke a much better connotations. “No ethics” has a very different flavor in our cultural context than “No politics.”
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@JessTheUnstill @briellebouquet@queer.party Yes, that does invoke a much better connotations. “No ethics” has a very different flavor in our cultural context than “No politics.”
@inthehands @JessTheUnstill @briellebouquet@queer.party I wonder if that word is unrescuable too though... [mumbling something about games journalism...]
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@Itty53@mstdn.social @inthehands yeah the angry goose is an excellent one, its something I've often seen used well to call out unspoken goals in political action.
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Search is a wasteland right now. Alas. And there are no good choices.
But look, if I’m going to •pay• a company money for search, it needs to be a company run by ethically mature people. If and when Kagi is run by such people, maybe I’ll give that paid plan another go. For now, well, maybe these childish people will blunder their way to maturity and maybe they’ll just blunder, but either way, they won’t be doing it on my dime.
/end
@inthehands Not Duck?
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@inthehands I discovered kagi not too long ago, and was really happy.
Now I'm not, and wonder what I'm going to use for search now...
@jollyorc @inthehands Copilot????
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@phiofx@hachyderm.io @inthehands Mozilla is moving away from their browser focus, their head has said.
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Think you are right. No idea about this particular case, but imagine the founder(s) to be a technical sort, maybe kind of unsophisticated, perhaps young. Coded up a cool thing and got it going. Now, things change. They start to be approached by some real sharks who puff them up and tell them how big it could get. They are completely unprepared to play in this league, and boom it's done.
@mastodonmigration @inthehands He's not young. Based on his bio, he's in the 45-50 age range.
"I started my journey in tech in 1983 with C-64 and Elite"
Vladimir Prelovac
Vladimir Prelovac - Founder/CEO Kagi Inc. Builder of user-centric products and a dad of three.
(vladimir.prelovac.com)
He's run several different businesses over the past couple of decades.
He is not young and unsophisticated.
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@finestructure I’d renewed on Dec 28. Sigh.
@inthehands Meh, that sucks
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@CptSuperlative Back to DuckDuckGo for now, very very very open to suggestions.
DDG has been pretty good for me in the last few months. Much better than when I tried it a few years ago.
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For the past year or so, I’ve been using and enjoying the search engine Kagi. Its search results are…fine, no worse than others, and it’s ad-free, stated privacy as a primary goal, and seemed to have a better ethical sense than its competitors.
Or so I hoped.
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@inthehands Yeah, the search results seem to net just about as bad as Google’s except for one test. https://danluu.com/seo-spam/
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@inthehands Yeah, the search results seem to net just about as bad as Google’s except for one test. https://danluu.com/seo-spam/
@jotaemei
A fascinating post, thanks -
@jotaemei
A fascinating post, thanks@inthehands It’s very long though, IMO. I gave up a fraction through it yesterday. I was just basing what I said on the matrix.
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@inthehands Yeah, the search results seem to net just about as bad as Google’s except for one test. https://danluu.com/seo-spam/
I thought it was pretty OK at boosting a handful of sites it appears to have special support for -- Wikipedia, Reddit, and StackOverflow, for instance -- but admittedly, if I was building a tool to replace Google, I would see it as unethical to boost those specific sites.
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What I found was _not_ a thoughtful, careful response. What I found was the founder of Kagi saying:
“Politics finding its way into tech is one of the reason we do not have innovation any more.”
Reconsider your partnership with Brave - Kagi Feedback
Brave, as you know, is led by Brendan Eich. s homophobia is so disgusting that he was forced to resign as the leader...
(kagifeedback.org)
Well shit. That is the reddest of red flags.
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@inthehands but they love open source, well-known to be a completely apolitical concept.
Lolbertarians are just fucking stupid. Like mind-numbingly, relentlessly fucking stupid.
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@CptSuperlative @inthehands vivaldi is great. Replaced chrome for me and the built in email client suits my work mail as an added bonus.
