Cory explains how Google harnesses a designed order to make the sponteneus order of the web explicit, but surveillance agencies are stuck with the synoptic delusion in their panopticon.

Google's near-magical ordering of the Internet is built around the notion that computers are good at doing repetitive, uncreative things -- fetishistically counting things, for example -- and rotten at understanding why they're being asked to do these boring tasks. By contrast, human beings are great at understanding why they're doing something, but they're woefully deficient in the do-the-same-thing-perfectly-and-forever department.