According to the Chinese zodiac, Google went public in the year of the monkey, in August 2004.
In Western culture we are familiar with the story of the three monkeys who: see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil. In some Asian cultures there is a fourth monkey: the one who does no evil.
Do no evil, as a famous Google slogan, is often misinterpreted and many people think it means: “Don't be evil” or “Don't be bad”, but it is essentially the same.
In 2015, Google was tired of its responsibilities and the fourth monkey reorganized its business operations, renamed itself Alphabet, abandoned the old problematic slogan and replaced it with the modern one: “Do the right thing.”
It is quite close to the old slogan but it is somewhat unlikely that we can give it a different interpretation that refers to something that is not moral. But the new slogan is also quite vague with a formulation that provides endless relativistic moves that can respond to any challenge.
An evil temptation..
No one could morally consider Google's slogan "Don't be Evil" due to the company's strategic importance on the Internet and for the economies of entire countries.
As Google grew in size, so did concerns about its philosophy of “Don't be Evil.”
We have seen many times that the universe loves irony and finds opportunities to hurl oversized insults at our ambitions.
With a slogan like “Don't be Evil,” there was the nightmarish risk that Google would somehow end up responsible for evils it had never imagined. Fate seems to love such opportunities.
A less bad slogan..
Someone once suggested a slogan to replace Google's motto, with the aim of reducing the risks of attracting disastrous ironic consequences:
“Brush your teeth before bed.”
If Google used it, what worse could happen? Slogans like: Don't be grumpy, don't fall asleep in meetings, and you should chew mint gum sometimes, don't do any harm, although no one knows how they will be used one day.
But with “Don't be Evil” there is no end to the potential situations that come from a universe that has ironic intervention as its high motive.
Google did the right thing and we should get rid of it.
By Tom Foremski of ZDNet.
