Saturday, March 30, 2013

Did you mean: Racism?



While I'm performing random Google searches to find any sort of relevant subject matter to make a post about, I get some information that I wouldn't have seen on a Wikipedia page.
Okay, Google...
I'm not an expert on how Google works,
but it looks like whatever generates the
"Did you mean:" suggestions thinks that
"racism" is more likely to be searched with
"Louisiana" than with "Taoism".Okay, I can
sort of understand that, Google. Even though
there were plenty of search results that were
relevant to my "taoism louisiana" search query,
why was such an unrelated alternative offered?
I know that I'm probably reading way too much
into this but that Google search made me ask
"Why?".

A Different ism
I tried again but I searched Catholicism
with louisiana instead and Google didn't
question my intent like it had the first time.
This may be because, according to what is on
the internet, Catholicism and Louisiana
fit with one another, or at least
better than Taosim and Louisiana. Taoism, an
Asian religious tradition, is not widely
practiced in Louisiana but is it so obscure
that racism in modern Louisiana is a more
appropriate search query? Racism has a past
in Louisiana that is pretty well known and so
do other things like creolization and religious
traditions that came as a result of it. Taoism,
on the contrary, does not. So when I
consider the historical significance of racism
or Catholicism in Louisiana compared to
the historical significance of Taoism, I can
understand your suggestions, Google. 





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