Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to "Debra Winger":921,000

Good catch
Robert — (archived)

I find The Oracle at Google game endlessly fascinating. Here's another set of paired search terms:

"republican wingnut" = 372,000
"democrat wingnut" = 217,000

Large "scores" like that ought to tell hyperpartisans on both sides that their image is pretty tarnished. Not all of those references are one side slurring the other.

You probably didn't catch one of those obscure end-of-thread conversations where I told Tom about my experiment to formalize the game: The Oracle at Google. It treats Google like a primitive AI, and tries to ask Google how it "feels" on certain subjects by submitting serveral searches based on combinations of terms. I wouldn't call the results certain, but there are combinations that produce a distinctly lopsided result that must indicate something about which way the zeitgeist leans. There are some canned terms you can play with, and to get away from politics, try the terms for male and female genitalia paired against "holy" and "profane", or "evil" vs. "good". The results are so lopsided that it has to reveal something deep in human psychology. (Can you guess ahead of time which organ symbolizes evil and which symbolizes good?)

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