The problem that we are describing is not a principled commitment to pacifism or nonviolence. It is a more fundamental abandonment of belief in anything. The company, at its core, builds elaborate and extraordinarily lucrative mechanisms to monetize the placement of advertising for consumer goods and services that accompany search results. The service is vital and has remade the world. But the business, and a significant subset of its employees, stop short of engaging with more essential questions of national purpose and identity—with an affirmative vision of what we want to and should be
...more
