Is Google the Anti-Christ?

This is a statement I’ve made on more than one occasion, that Google, the user-friendly search engine company, is indeed the future dreaded Anti-Christ of the Bible. I say it tongue in cheek, but with a certain amount of reservation.

It’s no secret to folks who know me that I am a semi-literate computer geek-ish type person and for those who know me well, they are privy to my fears that technology is a bad thing. I love it and I hate it. I’m drawn to computers for reasons I can’t explain and like a child without proper supervision, I have an almost unhealthy fascination bordering on overindulgence.

However, I am not a child, in fact I am not even close to childish inclinations and I do see that this geek-ish fascination is probably going to end up a bad thing. It’s not bad because I like it, or because I spend too much time involved in it (as I earn money working with computers that I contribute to the family coffer), but it’s bad in that in the long run, technology is slowly enslaving us. Enslaving us?

Most people readily embrace new technology as an improvement. It’s true, they do and I do. If we own an electronic device and a newer version becomes available, we want it. If new software in the form of updates is offered, we download and install it without a second thought. Personally, I never take the default settings for granted when installing software or even as a reason for buying a new product - it’s not always a benefit for me, but the seller.

A good example of this is one of the many upgrades “patched” by all of us to Microsoft’s Media Player actually removed it’s abilities to write music from your computer to compact disk(CD), based on a set of rules in the update that perceived a violation of copyright laws. Let’s take an old-school look at it. We buy an L.P. album of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” and decide to make a copy of it onto cassette so we can enjoy it in our car, but because our record player has the newest technology, we can’t “tape” the record. All because someone decided we shouldn’t be able to do this and we were the one who downloaded this update to our machine.

We are inoculating ourselves on a daily basis with technology and Google is helping us make the transition. I love Google actually. They buy up great programs and make them available to us – free. Take the image managing program Picasa. When it first became available, it didn’t work very well and I uninstalled it. A few months later, I gave it another try and presto, it worked great. Last week, I scanned some old slides in high-resolution (1200DPI) and they were automatically migrated into Picasa by the program.

Looking at the bottom of the screen while in Picasa, I noticed a button “Order Prints”, so I clicked it and was offered a number of companies who would do the work for me, so I selected Snapfish and uploaded 3 of my scanned images to their web site. Clicking a couple of buttons after registering, I ordered three 8X10 color glossies delivered to my doorstep for about 12 bucks. Just like that. Technology. Google. Cool…

Want $20 million bucks? Google will give it to the first team to build a privately funded space craft, land it on the moon, have it roam for at least 500 meters and send photographs and video back to Earth. Google is everywhere and we are welcoming them into our homes like long lost relatives.

Google has either bought into or outright purchased over 50 companies since 2001 and the list is growing. They are so efficient at what they do (buy, improve and give away) that they wipe out anything that competes against them. All of this works for the consumer or so it appears and that is exactly why we welcome and use it and that is exactly how they gain control.

Google Earth has gone where only high-tech spy satellites dared to go and they are bringing it right into our homes. Panoramio, in cahoots with Google Earth is a geolocation-oriented photo sharing website. Currently, some of the photos uploaded to the site can be accessed as a layer in Google Earth, with new photos being added at the end of every month. The site's goal is to allow Google Earth users to learn more about a given area by viewing the photos that other users have taken at that place. Think about that for a minute.

Like I said, we welcome technology and upgrades with open arms and that is exactly why it scares me. Will we, the people, unwittingly welcome in that which we should have shut out?

The Anti-Christ will be viewable by everyone on earth simultaneously according to some sources. I no longer wonder how that could even be possible.