Outlook – July 20, 2019

COVER STORY

What if Google suddenly ceased to

be? What would going back to an

older time look like? Is life without

Google even possible anymore?

by Jyotika Sood

OD...or Google. Someone

actually makes that com­

parison in this story: “We

don’t know God, but

Google.” As you’d notice

in its slightly odd phras­

ing, it could mean either of two things,

depending on whether you’re using the

noun or the verb. “We don’t know God,

but we know SOMEONE/SOMETHING

like God...as omniscient, omnipresent,

omnipotent...that’s Google.” Alter­

natively, “We don’t know God, but of

course we could always Google for him/

her.” Either way, the name looms like

some rival cosmic force. The kind of

ambition it expresses is not new in

human history—to know everything that

exists. They’ve all partaken of that fan­

tasy, from medieval encyclopaedias, to

22 July 2019 OUTLOOK 31

Illustration by RAJAT BARAN