Friday, October 31, 2014
I get started on my video sequence, "on the road"
Yesterday, October 30, 2014, Beggar’s Day, or “Yelloween”,
I made some video selfies, first cuts at my planned “Video Sequence” examining
the question of diversity, and how those of us who are “different” fit in. Particularly, I see three big areas: “taking
v. acting”, “accomplishment v. service”, and the meaning given to personal
intimate relationships (and this bears on sexual orientation). Remember, I am not easily "recruited" and remain "nobody's tool".
I’ve embedded the first of these (MVI17411). The other two are 1738 and 1740, and I’ll get
to those later. I shot this at Shrine Mont, in Orkney Springs, VA, near the W Va boundary, site of church retreats in the 1960s, where I once hit a real home run in a softball game.
Yes, I do like citizen journalism, and if I could get
into a time machine and start over, I might become a “real journalist”. But to get anywhere, you have to pay your
dues. That can me conflict reporting, in
war areas, or in areas with pandemics.
This involves taking considerable personal risk, as we know from what
has happened to those in Syria, reporting on ISIS, and in West Africa,
reporting on Ebola. If I was 30 years
old, would I go? Anderson Cooper,
remember paid his dues as a young man reporting in southeast Asia.
We know, from the conflict reporting risks and what
has happened to journalists, that there are those who see journalism as morally
evasive, rather like kibitzing a chess game rather than actually playing it
(and risking losing). They see journalists as people who don’t really quite
step into the lives of others and take their turns, almost a Maoist view of
ethics. But we also see this reasoning
break down, as, for example, humanitarian aid workers and kidnapped and
executed in Syria, and as doctors and nurses fighting Ebola are at generally
much more risk than most journalists in the area.
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Information used to follow social hierarchy; the Internet changed all that, and now "national security" can jeopardize our permissive use of user generated content
The way Vladimir Putin throws around the term “propaganda”,
and in fact the explanation my high school government teacher gave for the
concept back in 1960, reminds me of the way most people both transmit and
receive information, or have done so for most of history.
Generally, people learn and transmit on a “need to
know” basis, predicated in their role in the family and in a workplace and a
political structure, much of all of this hierarchal. Until the Internet, with the idea of
user-generated content (and very limited downstream liability for service
providers) came along in the mid to late 1990s, along with lower costs in
traditional book self-publishing, you didn’t get heard by others “globally”
until you competed successfully for the right.
You did get heard by people over whom you had authority, or for whom you
were responsible. A lot of people
probably wish it still worked that way. Particularly
in authoritarian societies this is even more the case. It should be no wonder that Putin, then, sees
public advocacy of “gay rights” as “propaganda” that could influence young men
not to have the children in quantity that “mother Russia” so badly needs.
You could compare Putin's idea to the way security clearances work, based on "need to know". But that applies to only a tiny fraction of the information that flows in our society.
The biggest value of a plethora of UGC is that all
ideas stay on the table, so politicians (and advocacy organizations) are “kept
honest” in the arguments they must make to remain partisan for their own constituencies. Of course, the validity or arguments also
depends on the ultimate “big picture” objective. We’d like it to remain sustainable ordered
liberty, with some balance between innovation and underlying fairness. But some people think mainly about future
generations for their own nation or religious creed. Some groups think that “virtue” and “perfection”
are their own valid moral ends. And
sometimes the freedom to speak and self-distribute that we have come to value
so much can be turned on themselves to promote what turn out to be totalitarian
ends, in the pursuit of some cult of “beauty”. The “logical” antidote to this
possibility is that people have some “real” responsibility to others before
they are “heard”.
Even before there was the possibility of
self-distribution, I had made a personal career of playing devil’s
argument. Back in the 1980s, while
living in Dallas, I had made an avocation of writing lots of letters (to
newspapers, to the CDC, to politicians and lobby groups, including some hostile
to gays) checking on the “logic” of arguments concerning putative future danger
of HIV to the general public (the “chain letter amplification” argument
circulated by the right wing in those days).
That sort of critical thinking seems to be needed today with other
crises, such as obviously Ebola.
People will, with some justification, retort to me
that they have real responsibilities for others, which I, because of my
schizoid nature in a more individualistic and permissive culture, have been
able to avoid while still having some public effect. Leading my “different life”, I’ve always felt
offside, like the observer who is close enough to affect what he watches (just
as relativity predicts).
A big concern is, of course, that the very asymmetry
of UCG that keeps big boys honest and that make social and political hierarchy (and
personal loyalty to it) less relevant to “people like me”, also facilitates or
magnifies the harm that can be done by those who feel stiffed (genuinely so,
sometimes, by inequality of opportunity and exploitation) or those with evil or
psychopathic inclinations, when simply prompted to do so by what they can find
online, planted right now largely by religious ideologues. We may be making too much of this (people
knew how to make pressure cooker bombs before there was an Internet) but the
probability of mischief by “lone wolves” certainly increases in our permissive
online culture (however constitutionally protected), especially when enemies are willing to trigger them, almost "Manchurian style". In fact, right after 9/11, there was another
concern, that amateur websites would be targeted to host “steganographic”
content planted by hackers to convey instructions for future attacks, but that
hasn’t materialized, as terror itself experiences diaspora. Another idea is that in an asymmetric world, a
much wider range of people (and speakers) might be perceived as targets for
psychological warfare. We saw that in a
controversial FBI bulletin just last week.
I do think there is a “danger” that schemes to reduce
the ease of deploying UGC will be proposed as a national security issue, even
given constitutional questions (First Amendment) and given the value of
trolling UDC for threats. Perhaps UGC
would be limited only to specific “friends” or “followers” lists and that those
lists would be limited in a way related to the number of persons someone can
really interact with. Perhaps it would
be limited in duration (Snapchat is the ultimate idea) or to content that can “pay
for itself” in terms of the willingness of people to pay for it. Of course, it’s easy to poke “Titanic” holes
in proposals like this, and in a sense “the cat’s out of the bag”. There remains also the question of the jobs
and wealth that are generated by supporting UGC, and that seems to be a bit of
a mystery in Silicon Valley. But the
times may have never been more dangerous since 9/11, and the Internet is
working in both ways now.
Monday, October 27, 2014
Forbes article says "user generated content is dead". Oh, really?
As I’ve hinted before (Oct. 13), the recent abuse of social media by ISIS (or
ISIL) will generate more debate on the permissive aspect of user-generated
content, that is, material “self-published” online, often on social media sites
or forums, without gatekeepers or financial accountability. I saw this rather startling headline on
Forbes from July 14, 2014, by Steven Rosenbaum, “User-generated content is
dead, as video evolves”, link here. The writer suggests that most amateur
content has few visitors and low following and makes little money. I could probably challenge that claim by
rummaging through a lot of amateur YouTube videos that do well (starting with
Nora the Cat playing piano), but his point that companies are paying more
attention to the quality of their marketing videos is well-taken. Indeed, a commercial with really attractive
people or with interesting actions or perplexing fantasy world-views can be fun
to watch. (A good example: AMC Theaters
has an outstanding and realistic video showing a hypothetical outdoor theater
on another planet with an extraterrestrial city in the distance, although
lately it has replaced it with a newer one made with Coca Cola, whose “Love
Bird” character appeared in NYC gay pride this year.)
But it’s possible that content with relatively low
number in terms of distinct original visitors or even income can have
significant impact on a social or political debate, by “keeping them honest”.
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Amazon's control of Kindle represents a dilemma for consumers, even self-published authors
Timothy B. Lee has a valuable story on Vox Sunday
morning explaining the effect of Amazon’s management of the Kindle device and
its leveraging of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), link here . Lee comments on a Matt Yglesias column on Vox
maintaining that Amazon has done the public a favor by “crushing book
publishers”. What about self-publishers
like me?
He points out that the law didn’t affect much the
ripping of music CD’s (just as a I and a friend used to make tape copies of
records back in the 1960s and justified it by the idea that we both bought “so
many records” as my father would say).
But DVD’s and other devices like Kindle (and Nook) have anti-copying
technology that is protected by law. Lee
notes that it would be now illegal for Apple to add a “rip” feature to
iTunes.
Lee points out that consumers with large collections are confronted with choices between repurchase of material in new protected format, or having many formats.
Nevertheless, there are legitimate reasons to copy DVD’s. There is software to rip DVD’s for YouTube
postings, but that sounds illegal according to Lee’s article. I have DVD’s of my family’s home movies from
the 1940s. I own these (or the estate
does, which is effectively me now). But
I could run into trouble making YouTube and Vimeo videos of these, which I want
to do.
I still wonder why Kindle disappeared for my first two
books, leaving overpriced versions of older non-fiction as the only one’s
available. I can address this myself,
but wonder is it best to reconvert them to Kindle and Nook myself (possible) or
simply offer well-assembled PDF’s.
Tablets now can read Kindle anyway. I'd like all my works to be on one consistent format.
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Many commercial websites still have hyperlink policies
While trying to catch up NBC's “Days of our Lives” today
since I was gone, I went to “soaps.com” and was surprised to see a statement
after today’s plot summary, “Please be aware we have a link-only policy”. I wasn’t even sure what that means. Presumably that means you can’t copy their
summaries, you can only link to them – and that would be reasonable as the site
(“Dustin’s” former site) uses the detailed daily summaries to attract
advertising income.
However, the site would not be able to tell someone
they can’t claim “fair use” – if it really was “fair”. Possibly it could be fought in court –
expensive. For example, other’s (myself
included) will sometimes discuss individual characters in this or other soaps
as they would in discussing any TV series or movie. For example, a reviewer might write is own
discussion of Will and Sonny in light of the gay marriage issue, or might
discuss the interesting legal and ethical problems subsumed by the plot thread
where Will writes about his own family and gets paid for it, or why EJ didn’t
want a funeral when he was gone – because that really brings up some
interesting issues that can apply to a lot of people. But the words and analysis have to be “yours”
(or “mine”). (The “soaps” site is in a
sense a “derivative work”, but that’s another matter.)
I checked around, and found some commercial sites do
have “linking policies”. Jack Daniels,
for example. But no company, in today’s
legal environment, can stop some other party from linking to them. (It can stop reproduction of its trademark
dress designs, for instance.) Back about a dozen or more years ago, there were
some battles over “deep links” which are legally the same thing as
bibliographic footnotes in a term paper.
Some companies in the past worried they would lose advertising revenue
to deep links, but in practice that is very much a red herring.
A site called “Seq legal” has a presentation on the
issue, here. It offers a good explanation as to why
links matter.
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Open Access Button should prompt institutions to be more cooperative in sharing research papers
There is a new group online called “Open Access Button” which offers a free
subscription (link). When you need a
research paper the group emails the author or source to see if you can get the
paper free without delay or red tape (as with JSTOR, which I have used and
found clumsy). It allows you to keep
track publicly of which publishers and researchers will share their
information, especially with other students, inventors, or researchers. Imagine the value of this if there is some
new idea for an effective drug or early intervention test for an infectious
disease like Ebola or SARS (or HIV).
This is the kind of facility Aaron Swartz (“The
Internet’s Own Boy”) would have wanted.
Note that the button can be tailored to the individual web browser.
Note that the button can be tailored to the individual web browser.
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Could government surveillance extend to train and theater seatings for possible "contact tracing" and "controlled movements" downstream during epidemics?
The possibility of “partial quarantine” in the early
stages of pandemics, where there is perhaps some residual uncertainty about
transmission that authorities don’t want to talk about, could give more impetus
to concerns about privacy from snooping.
For example, I might not want government to know what seat I had
occupied on a train (plane you can’t help), or in a movie theater if a health
department or even CDC got very aggressive with secondary contact tracing. Imagine not being allowed to return home
from a trip based on a train or plane seat assignment.
If something unusual happened in a venue, that would
be one thing. But I can’t afford to be
grounded on just a speculative whim.
Theoretically, the government could try to get the
information from email or text content – although we all know that it sometimes
does it without a warrant, or can get one too easily.
Saturday, October 18, 2014
Copyright prosecution in Colombia against Diego Gomez recalls Arom Swartz; EFF marks Open Access Week
A disturbing case has occurred overseas in the area
of open access to scientific and other journals – the passion of Aaron Swartz
(and more recently teen scientist Jack Andraka). In Colombia, Diego Gomez faces 4-8 years in
prison for posting material about zoology (amphibians) obtained from a library
in Bogata online. Colombian copyright
law does not have a Fair Use provision like ours. His own story of his endeavor is here. The Daily Dot has his story, as written by
Rob Price, here.
Electronic Frontier Foundation, in a brief story by
April Glaser about Open Access Week, leading to an online petition, mentions
the story in her pitch, here.
Update: June 30, 2015
According to EFF, Diego's hearing has been postponed until mid October 2015.
Friday, October 17, 2014
A troubling singularity in my own experience of liberty
A couple of the incidents involving “coercion” (as I
mentioned in the previous posting) do lead to some troubling – and interesting
territory.
One “incident” concerns the simple act being invited
to dance in a disco – when I’m “watching” (someone who is attractive). The individual, who may not be interesting to
me, breaks in. No big deal, and sometimes I have danced. (And a few times he may have been someone I
would “want”.) But onetime, to a
particular woman, I said no, and she got upset. “Really?” This was a walk on “the right to reject”
someone.
Another incident concerns an “interview” one cold
fall evening in 1974 in the East Village, to join a talk group sponsored by the
Ninth Street Center. The interviewer
(who was the “psychologically feminine” partner in a particular relationship,
using the terminology of Paul Rosenfels), suddenly lambasted me, with “don’t
you see you incredibly boring you really are?”
Ironic to quote it, isn’t it.
What seemed to unnerve him and some other people was my tendency to
bring “outer world” issues (of the time) or “current events” (history class)
into social interactions and the talk groups at the Center. At the time, the energy crisis (following the
Arab Oil Embargo) was a big issue for me, still living in New Jersey – as it
could affect my mobility – my ability to get to the Center or to gay social
scenes at all – and my economic stability, my job (although it never did in
fact). Many of the people who came to
the Center at the time had simple jobs (cleaning apartments), lived on little,
and stayed in the neighborhood all the time.
They felt “bullied” by my hitting their “complacency” about bigger
issues. They took “stability” for
granted. Of course, “gay activists” know
that in much of the world (especially then), you couldn’t take your ability to
function for granted.
Of course, someone I really look up to (the “upward
affiliation” idea from George Gilder) I would be much more careful with. If I bring up the “on the outside” problem
(as we had called it at NIH in 1962) I’d make sure it’s really pertinent to the
other person. But the people that I
tended to “prattle” about this were people who maybe made some kind of
impression on me, which would weaken quickly.
I wasn’t serious. So the
interviewer would ask, well, why don’t I “care” about “people” more? Why don’t I cry about this sometimes? He said sometimes people would be socially
brutal “back” at me and I seemed oblivious.
I really didn’t care.
It’s pretty easy to see that stuff like this can
play out in social media today. In fact,
I don’t make a big deal of “followers” or “friends” since the posts are
public. I don’t let the “unfollow” or “unfriend”
event become an issue. Some people I
simply just look at their threads once a week or so. I’m pretty sure a number of people,
especially in college, do that with me.
That’s fine – there is no issue then.
But there will be people who say, “I don’t need to
get bad news from you” -- about Ebola or
ISIS or whatever – even though it’s pretty clear that some of these things
could affect them, and affect us all, adversely, even existentially. They want some kind of personal “sharing” of “own
experiences”. Well, I can do some of
that.
And I once got an angry email from someone in
Australia about one of my posts, saying something like “You are not the judge
of the cretins of the world.”
So, here I come back to the central point. I recall one evening in December 1961, when
my father, lying on the love seat in the den and putting a heat pad over his nervous
stomach (a quick complication of my William and Mary expulsion), said, “The psychiatrist
says, you don’t see people as people.”
That’s right (and I don’t mean that as a Christian
chant). I see in someone what I
see. It’s a tautology. The person matters (interpersonally, not in
the sense of having individual human rights respected legally, but personally)
if he appeals to me. If he does not
appeal to me, I don’t look for explanations or “bad luck”, which may be quite
pertinent. He may have started way
behind me “in line”. He may have a
biological disability. (So may I, but I’m
am right on the “coin edge” as to whether that matters.) He may have been injured by the carelessness
or violent hostility of someone else.
But he still is “what he is”.
That is how I feel. And that is
how I feel about myself. The word “victim”
means nothing in my own psyche; if anything it seems shameful.
I have indeed noticed this more in my own thinking
in retirement, since 9/11 and Mother’s long eldercare. I’ve
also noticed it in my substitute teaching, when unexpectedly and suddenly confronted
with situations with disabled or disadvantaged students (“other people’s
children”) that were much more personal than I had ever imagined possible. (I could tell a story about “the swimming
pool” here, but that’s for another time.)
I used to have a much simpler, libertarian
idea of “personal responsibility” (as I outlined in my first book).
Of course, I can decline because of age (and the
medical events that come with age), or I can “screw up” myself. But I have come to realize I can become “less”
because of someone else’s antagonism or negligence, too. Once I am “less”, that’s an absolute
thing. I don’t extend myself to anyone
else this way, so I can’t accept the idea of someone extending to me just
because of “bad luck”. This can become
more disturbing than the normal losses of age or one’s own failures. I didn't become "socialized" to the point that marriage would be meaningful, because I wasn't competitive enough; so the alternatives were "diverge and watch", become subservient. or die. So, yes, I am exposed if something "happens", and I am irrelevant outside of our own immediate way of life.
And that is difficult. I can see how it undermines the idea that
people can take risks for one another when it can really cost them
something. That’s an important idea
behind military service or any period of service. (In fact, before my own draft, I used to say that I didn't want to come back if maimed in Vietnam, and other people, on campus, said the same thing; we were willing to let the disadvantaged become what I see as real "sacrifices" through the deferment system.) If it is “acceptable”, it can undermine the
passions of marriages – of others who witness it. That explains some of the antagonism I
sometimes encounter, in the two incidents I mention here, as well as the
troubling period at William and Mary and NIH in 1961 and 1962.
So this is another side of morality, one we have
forgotten how to talk about in moral terms.
Libertarians talk about “personal responsibility” and honoring voluntary
promises and contracts, and sometimes defiantly announced (like the appealing teen
character Bob in “The Zero Theorem”) “I’m nobody’s tool” (or imagine John Galt’s
speech in “Atlas Shrugged”). Yet
sometimes we don’t get a choice on belonging.
Sometimes things change us whether we think we will accept it or not. Courage and cowardice belong in moral debate,
too. Omissions can be as deadly as
commissions.
People who live in authoritarian societies experience this view of "morality" all the time, because often their social, tribal, familial, religious or political structures face threats and leaders can exploit the idea that, if the culture is to survive. it can only be as strong as its least resilient link, so threats to "social capital" are viewed as criminal.
People who live in authoritarian societies experience this view of "morality" all the time, because often their social, tribal, familial, religious or political structures face threats and leaders can exploit the idea that, if the culture is to survive. it can only be as strong as its least resilient link, so threats to "social capital" are viewed as criminal.
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
I do want to do an "autobiographical" video, and here is why
In the coming weeks, I expect to make some “autobiographical”
videos. These will present “my story” in
a way that doesn’t require someone to have read my books (and to understand my “Do
Ask, Do Tell III” book you need to know something about the first two in the
series). The videos would constitute
material that could be used to interest others in making one of the DADT
scripts into a film (it’s not easy to imagine pimping Kickstarter for it, but
possible).
Let me make a technical note. I have been experimenting with Final Cut
Express on a MacBook with the older 10.6.8 operating system – but that is the
problem. Even though the editing in
Express is supposed to be the same as Pro, it’s becoming apparent that I need a
much more modern environment with Pro to get this done.
So, why do I “keep on writing”? Why do I “talk” instead of “act”. Well, I research before I “talk”. But, seriously, that’s the question I have to
explore. People do knock on my doors and
want my attention at various life levels, as they have at different points in
my life. This issue, of my “responsiveness”
and apparent “lack of assertiveness” was somewhat less of an issue when I was “working”
in my main track career in mainframe IT for thirty-plus years, than it was
earlier in my life or later, during the eldercare period with my mother. I think it’s fair for me to ask of “you”,
well, “What do you want from me?”
Frankly, there are a lot of contradictions, things that don’t add
up. It’s fair for “you” to ask, “what I
do I want?” Public recognition for my content?
Well, yes. I’d like to get my
music performed professionally (which can only happen if it is technically
presentable enough). I’d like to the get
the fiction novel done (finally), and the screenplay produced. Yes, this gets me up in the morning, at
71. And “ordinary” social connections
don’t, although the hope connected to certain “fantasies” or dreams does. And, yes, I find some succor in publishing
analysis of current events and then later claiming “I told you so.”
Yes, I am “different” and there is tension between
my pursuit of my own goals, even in retirement, and the “real needs” of others,
leading to existential questions like, to I really like or “love” my customers
enough to “care”? There are times in
life when we don’t fully get to choose what we do, and sometime we “must” do
the bidding of others, despite our best efforts of prevention, and despite
narrower libertarian ideas of “personal responsibility” and “contract”.
A good way to kickoff the discussion is to invoke
the idea of “service”, and even acceptance of some servitude, as I discussed in
a posting here Sept. 30, commenting on a congregational prayer at the Trinity
Presbyterian Church of Arlington VA (it’s also on the International Issues blog
Sept. 28, the same Sunday that the prayer was used). That ties into another discussion, about the
relationship between “Asperger’s Syndrome” and “schizoid personality”, both
which have applied to me. There are
behaviors (and omissions) common to both.
In general, “Asperger’s” refers to a problem in neurological
development, and is viewed as part of autism (the mildest form). “Schizoid” refers to a pattern of reflection,
preference for many solitary activities, and a disdain for intimate relations
with others, and aloofness to sharing emotion of others. It gets very negative press, as "malignant self-love", but it is a fry cry from the narcissistic personality, or even schizophrenia.
It isn’t much good to dwell on “diagnostic criteria”.
In my life, “Schizoid” represents an adaptation. If someone (like me) isn’t able to compete
socially according to gender norms in life, then “I” may try a lot of other
means: solitary activities, upward affiliation, emotion connected to art or
music, a fantasy life, and a certain style of self-broadcast. Fortunately, my society became progressive enough
that I was able to live a “productive” life as an “individual contributor” (as
HR people call it). That might not have
been. The alternative for me might have
been “servitude”. If that was not
acceptable, it might have been death. I
must see this in moral terms, not just medical. In a way, I’m lucky, and other people aren’t. But important in my adaptation was intense
emotion for some people I “thought a lot of”.
With such people I was usually very careful in how I managed
relationships. With others I could be
careless. Sometimes I would prattle
about external issues to “second choice” people, which I saw as threats to me,
but which are less relevant for those who are socially well adapted, even if
not terribly accomplished individually. Of
course, that’s self-indulgent. Part of
my adaptation is that I don’t become jealous, and I don’t need to play the
numbers games or “likeonomics” on social media.
I don’t have continuous electronic chat (like in “Men, Women &
Children”) with anyone, because I don’t need to; it’s not my strategy. Overuse
of social media chat just risks rejection and blocking (as in that movie).
So examination of all suggests that there is some
common understanding of what should be expected of “people who are different”
or “people like me”. Inductive reasoning
then intervenes, and one thinks there are some moral principles that apply to “divergents”
in general. That’s because it is easier
for people to “do what they have to do” if they know that others in similar
circumstances “have to” and will. An associated question is, when do societies
properly worry that a “divergent” sill set an example that others will
emulate? I turn this question around
with a Vox-style cardstack that I made in 2011, where I examine logically (in
the style of a mathematical or plane geometry “proof”) the idea that “liberal democracy” is
sustainable but limits on individual choice need to be systematically examined,
Wordpress link here.
Sexual orientation used to play out as a “proxy” for
this larger debate (and what is going on in Russia and other non-democratic
countries with respect to homosexuality will illustrate this point). This has a lot more about the meaning people give to procreation (of others around them as well as their own) than we want to admit, or than I even wanted to accept in the past. People fighting battles over marriage
equality today don’t remember how it was a half-century ago, when it was more
about “privacy” and being “left alone”.
But it’s because sometimes we have to work together closely and share
risks (as the old military draft with its skewed deferment system illustrated)
that we aren’t always left alone. Another
aspect that played out when I was younger was that at least one roommate feared
that my homosexuality could make other men around me impotent and unsuccessful
with women. In a more modern setting, encompassing the idea of gay marriage and couples, excess "upward affiliation" counters the expectation that people in a relationship can remain passionate during physical adversity (an absolute necessity when a population faces enemies or serious external adversity), or that less "attractive" persons find partners at all; so the presence of someone who exhibits this pattern is seen as a serious distraction to others. You see how this style of “thinking”
goes.
I plan to present some scenarios in videos where
others have “pressured” me inappropriate, and, to play fair, how I have
pressured them. There are some areas
where reflection leads me into circular and disturbing areas. For example, authoritarian societies (like
Russia) do seem to be “successful” in a way;
but I can’t fit into them and would have no purpose, so I would feel I
should not exist if I found myself one.
Or, society might become much less accommodating to “someone like me”
modern civilization broke down because of some calamity (nuclear war, or enemy
EMP attack, for example); again, there would be no “purpose” for me (so, in a
Christian sense, why would I even want to be “saved”? No, I can’t see any point in “manipulating” people
just to get them to buy things – so I don’t compete well in a social hierarchy;
There’s nothing for me hereafter either
if I fail here.) I think there is a
good question in wondering how someone who is different should behave when he
decides the society around him is “evil” and I’m afraid that, confronted with
that, I might not want to survive. I don’t
see the point of salvation after being a “loser” – a reaction that does affect
my openness to relations with others – yet I realize that it is easy to “lose”
because of deliberate violent hostility or negligence of others – just as it is
easy to lose because of one’s own misbehavior or failure. The concern that it is possible to become a “victim”
(or “casualty”) has become much more disturbing to me in recent years, as the
apparent social tensions connected to inequality increase. But of course, if people “give up” when
things go wrong, that makes it easier for authoritarianism (Putin-style or
radical Islam) to take over.
My own father spewed double meaning when he preached
“To obey is better than to sacrifice”. Because
the need to accept sacrifice can come true. "Cowardice", the way we used to see it as something that crawls out of the woodwork during hardship or coercion, can be as big a "sin" as ordinary transgressions of commission. When someone in my shoes is perceived as a "parasite" or as beholden to the unseen sacrifices of others, he can meet brutality and even force, and it can get very ugly, often from those who believe they are just following religious precepts. "Fundamentalism" and political radicalism can seem attractive to some people exactly because it derives meaning from the idea that everybody follows the same rules and is exposed to the same risks and sacrifices. The only counterweight is love and openness, sometimes to showing affection for others or feelings one would have rejected in the past. The willingness for people (even like me) to do that may be the last defens to authoritarianism when things get tough. Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Can bloggers get insurance? Should they? Another look
A few times in the past, I’ve discussed the issue of
liability insurance for bloggers. Back
in 2001, I carried a policy arranged by the National Writers Union for six
months, and then was denied an extension because of the “controversial aspect”
of my writing, and a rather brazen email from the underwriting company used
that language as explaining “the declination”.
In 2008, the Media Bloggers Association mentioned
another policy plan that seemed to be available. Shortly thereafter the national financial
crisis ensued and the whole topic got forgotten.
In the past, various financial professionals have
recommended that people buy “umbrella” policies with their auto and homeowner’s
policies in order to cover such risks.
It is credible that someday there will be calls to
make insurance mandatory, because the harm that has come to some families has
been so devastating. But such a
suggestion would probably be accompanied by the idea that such coverage should come
from homeowner’s or auto policies.
I think that’s a bad idea. As far back as 2000, I looked at expanding my
auto liability coverage above the standard $300,000. At the time, umbrella policies were being
offered but were newer. I was told that
such a policy could not be sold to someone who “is an entertainer.”
Such terminology shows a surprising lack of grasp of
what is going on. As a self-published
book author and now blogger, am I an “entertainer”? I’m no Justin Bieber. And I’m no drag queen performing regularly at
a club. And I’ve never hosted SNL. I can imagine winding up in the movies, as a narrator
or in a dramatic role of some kind. Is
Anderson Cooper, who hosts his own news analysis shows, an “entertainer”? I guess so, since he’s been in “Live with
Kelly”. So what is an “entertainer”?
I’ve looked at “extra liability coverage” with auto
insurance more recently. Generally, that’s
what you need to go above the $300,000 liability limit, and generally they
cover incidental libel and slander, concepts which normally have nothing to do
with one’s driving record or accidents.
Sounds like apples and oranges, still.
But now they typically don’t cover libel resulting in the course of “business”,
only incidental personal use of the Internet.
That means, defamation that occurs in the middle of
genuinely “social” use of social media (like trying to get dates) as in the
film “Men, Women & Children”, would be covered. But organized self-publication might not.
I suppose my activity would be “business” since the
books are sold in commerce (as on Amazon) and the blogs accept ads. The self-publication has become my “second
career” (or “second life”) in retirement, to the fact that I couldn’t go out and
peddle life insurance, Medicare Advantage, long term care, or tax preparation
in retirement, as callers have tried to urge me to do, without creating a “conflict
of interest”. Indeed, it you do that,
you are no longer yourself on social media, you are what you sell or peddle. It sounds demeaning.
Monday, October 13, 2014
Social media is of more value in uncovering terror and crime than in facilitating it (Washington Post op-ed)
This might be a good occasion to point out an op-ed
in the Washington Post Sunday by Daniel Byman and Jeremy Shapiro on the
intelligence value of social media, link here.
Some detractors have pointed out that ISIS us using
social media to recruit “impressionable” and frankly gullible young men into
overseas fighting that doesn’t make sense to westerners. In fact, the logic inside this collectivist
thinking (that it is “selfish” not to go fight for a brother [Sunni] Muslim who
is attacked, or that future generations have to be protected from western “filth”)
seems remarkable in how it unwinds and falls apart when you look at it. Usually, we’re glad when young men eschew
alcohol. But the ideology that allows
slavery and forced marriages? How in the
world can all of this compute, add up, and make any sense? That’s not to say that I don’t have problems
in getting my own ideas to “add up”.
The writers of the piece point out that the
intelligence value of social media probably outweighs the “recruiting”. And the men who fall for this ideology don’t
seem to realize that others are watching or listening, and that many more
people may be repulsed by this than are won over.
CNN has a piece on the issue by Peter Bergen and David Sterman, link here.
CNN has a piece on the issue by Peter Bergen and David Sterman, link here.
Friday, October 10, 2014
Case at Lincoln Memorial stirs more debate on photography issues; Jennifer Lawrence swings at voyeurs, too; more on "selling"
The question of photography in public, and the idea
that there is no real right to “privacy” in a public place, came to a head in
Washington Thursday when a judge dismissed charges against a Virginia man
charged by Park Police of “attempted voyeurism” near the Lincoln Memorial. WJLA has the news story here.
The case is “United States v. Christopher Cleveland”. The defendant was accused of “upskirting”,
taking pictures of women seated above him in potentially embarrassing ways. While the judge said she was personally
disturbed by the defendant’s supposed conduct, it did not break the letter of
the law, because it photographed only what was already publicly visible without any attempt at technical enhancement. More court papers from Scribd show on the WJLA news story.
This week (regarding the "involuntary porn" issue) , Jennifer Lawrence made statements to the
effect that people who hacked nude photos from the Cloud, posted them, or even
viewed them at home, as well as the people who ran the sites that hosted them,
had committed “sex crimes”, but that view has been challenged, as in this
story.
In another matter, I got a small catalogue from
Angie’s List in the mail. Is hosting an
audience rating site, and then selling products that the people rated, an
ethical conflict of interest? I would
have thought so. I don’t like to pimp
things at all, but I understand people have to make a living, before retirement,
and sometimes afterwards. One could say
to someone like me, “you shouldn’t publish something until you can sell it and
make it pay for itself” because that shows that I care about my customers
enough to give them something they want to actually pay for. Or that I shouldn’t enter the debate until I
have my own dependents, my own skin in the game. You see how that kind of thinking goes.
Monday, October 06, 2014
More on the "innovation depends on inequality" debate
I’d like to follow on a bit on my post Sept. 30,
particularly on my “aloofness” (or "schizoid personality" or "hyperindividualism") issue, as well as the debate over the nexus between innovation and inequality.
I have a general perspective that there is more that
can be done for people with medical needs, to extend their lives, even within a
family, than there was decades ago when I was growing up. Sometimes the efficacy of treatment depends
on the willingness of other people (in and outside of a family) to sacrifice to
support it. Despite all the moral
teachings in Sunday school when I was growing up, there wasn’t much said about
this earlier in my life. When someone’s “time
was up”, he or she accepted it and didn’t expect more, because less could be
done.
Likewise, much more can be done for the disabled, in
all areas of life, whether injured in war or by crime, or born with disability,
or having childhood cancers – than was thinkable when I was growing up. But this capability would depend on the
emotional support of those around the person.
In a “democratic” society, this seems critical to valuing human life
(even more than does the “debate” over abortion).
The media also sells the idea of “paying it forward”,
and with self-giving generosity that generally wasn’t promoted as much in
decades past. Consider programs like “CNN
Heroes”. This seems like a paradox,
given that there is so much gratuitous self-promotion and aggressive behavior
on the Internet at the same time.
Even so, a lot of gender conformity was coerced when
I was growing up, particularly the idea that men could “protect” women and
children (the biological future) of a family or tribe. Compared to today, the pressure was more
related to competition and performance (leading naturally to “personal
accomplishment”, as in sports especially) than now, when it has become more
hands-on. The greatest effects on me
were early in life, and then toward the end, and less so in the middle, when I
performed as a single working adult. As “gay
equality” progressed, in marriage and also the military areas, as I had
written, new pressures, some of them unwelcome, came upon me directly and
indirectly because of eldercare. This
puts aside the usual arguments about “personal responsibility” as connected to
having (or not having) children. My life
became U-shaped.
It’s useful to look at instances where one has felt
coercion from others, directly or not, whether from family, the culture, the
law, or even outright enemies, even overseas.
The “common good” sometimes really has a big impact on what we can do
with our lives, at least those of us who can’t compete with John Galt. Certain kinds of “threats” do indeed trigger
a “chain of logic” that is quite troubling, and that transcends any immediate
situation. This “chain” may have been
more noted when I was a patient at NIH (and perhaps earlier at William and
Mary) than other later times, particularly when I was in the Army, until perhaps
more recently, post 9/11.
It’s critical in a “liberal” society that life
partners (usually, marital) can remain not only faithful but even interested
and passionate after hardship, especially when that occurs from enemy or
criminal hostility, as well as plain bad luck.
It’s important that people be able to find partners in the first
place. That means it’s important that
others can step up, sometimes even in personal ways, when confronted suddenly
by the challenges of others (Biblical “neighbors”) in perhaps unexpected
circumstances. Call this the ‘radical
hospitality” issue, perhaps, but also delves into the emotions.
When I
displayed an unwavering interest in “upward affiliation” (George Gilder’s
term), and the surrounding community lets this remain OK, there is an implied
message that those who have stumbled (and become unappealing as a result) are
disposable. That is what seems so
intolerable – we fought WWII over this, and then quickly forgot what our “victory”
could mean in personal terms. Consider,
then the meaning of violence, when it is conducted as a kind of “warfare”. It plays out differently in religious (radical
Islamist) and far-Left-wing scenarios (Maoist-Communist) but to me any threat
becomes very personal and an existential challenge – particularly regarding my
own “karma” (inheritance, family, “did I get a break”, the way I met the draft,
etc). I cannot contemplate the idea of
being remembered as a “victim” of anything, given my own life; a “casualty”,
perhaps becomes an appropriate word. I
don’t offer “emotion” in the context of complementarity or jump into the “virtuous
circle” that makes a permanent marriage possible, so I cannot accept it.
There is a disturbing reflection of fundamentalism in my own thinking, where I don't see interaction with someone as "worthy" unless the person displays what I perceive as "virtue" (which can be fragile and subject to chance). And it tends to place me in the position of expected readiness to become somone else's "backup", until I have more standing myself (in direct responsibility for dependent others). It tends to turn normal libertarian ideas of personal responsibility on their own edges. I am also on a "coin edge" in another sense: it seems as though I am challenged, not so much to turn the other cheek, but to "pay backward" to others a break that I got as someone whose abilities lived in a twilight zone. Even here, there is another disturbing notion, "well-ordering", simply a consequence of mathematics: given any two individuals, I see one as "in front of" the other, as necessary from logic. This "rigid" style of thinking, a concern of therapists in the past, seems necessary for everything to "work" and for even personal mental or psychic pleasure to become possible. The "natural family" has been proposed by some social conservatives as a way to give everyone his own "value" to others in close proximity, but, again, that implies some authoritarianism.
I do have a pet term for the "psychological defense" that someone "on the continental divide" like me uses, "fighting with your fingernails." It's understandable and seems to gain recognition for "being different". But it is left as OK, then the social context for some other people, probably less fortunate, becomes even more compromised and they have less incentive to fit into society than did the "divergent" like me.
There is a disturbing reflection of fundamentalism in my own thinking, where I don't see interaction with someone as "worthy" unless the person displays what I perceive as "virtue" (which can be fragile and subject to chance). And it tends to place me in the position of expected readiness to become somone else's "backup", until I have more standing myself (in direct responsibility for dependent others). It tends to turn normal libertarian ideas of personal responsibility on their own edges. I am also on a "coin edge" in another sense: it seems as though I am challenged, not so much to turn the other cheek, but to "pay backward" to others a break that I got as someone whose abilities lived in a twilight zone. Even here, there is another disturbing notion, "well-ordering", simply a consequence of mathematics: given any two individuals, I see one as "in front of" the other, as necessary from logic. This "rigid" style of thinking, a concern of therapists in the past, seems necessary for everything to "work" and for even personal mental or psychic pleasure to become possible. The "natural family" has been proposed by some social conservatives as a way to give everyone his own "value" to others in close proximity, but, again, that implies some authoritarianism.
I do have a pet term for the "psychological defense" that someone "on the continental divide" like me uses, "fighting with your fingernails." It's understandable and seems to gain recognition for "being different". But it is left as OK, then the social context for some other people, probably less fortunate, becomes even more compromised and they have less incentive to fit into society than did the "divergent" like me.
As for the Afterlife – I’ve talked about it. Physics tells me that it must exist – once established,
an element of consciousness and freewill can’t be destroyed
(thermodymamcs). But the conventional
idea of Heaven (and Hell and Purgatory) doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I won’t be in a position to benefit from it,
regardless, because, as an only child, I didn’t extend the family. Someone
who dies as a child (Mahler’s “Kindertotenlieder”) could not experience “eternal
life” appropriately without another opportunity to become an adult. So reincarnation has to make sense, even if
most of us are on our first journey.
Teenagers coming of age today may one day learn that other planets are
populated with people whose first chance was here. The Law of Karma really does work – but at a
Galaxy or Universe level. Maybe there
is such a thing as “a family of souls.”
Sunday, October 05, 2014
Family magazines caution parents as well as teens about blogging, online behavior, even "spending too much time online"
At church today, I noticed a copy of Washington
Parent, and a cover story on p. 52 by Carolyn Jabs, “Think Twice About Pressing
‘Post’; Blogging About Your Kids”, link here.
Whoa, I thought.
Some of the most successful and profitable blogs of all time have been
the “mommy blogs”, especially “dooce” by Heather Armstrong.
The tone of the article, though, suggests that
gratuitous talk about your family or even personal circumstances in front of a
global audience will only get you into trouble – attract predators, thieves, or
real enemies. I could become really
flippant here and say that blogging about being an infidel (not the same as
admitting infidelity) amounts to potential self-targeting.
The alternative, of course, was to compete in the “real
world” (and cater to the “real needs of other people”), which has become
increasingly difficult – and meaningless – because the Web makes people “feel”
self-sufficient, like they don’t need others except on their own terms. “Selling”, even in my own father’s day, was
not only reputable, it was joyous. No
more. Now, it sounds like pimping and
hucksterism, an admission of insufficient personal creativity. So it gets desperately hard for a lot of
people to make a living the way they used to – by manipulating others in the
real world to do their bidding.
When I see this magazine, I immediately think of CNN
host Don Lemon, who always announces that he is not a parent, and then gives a
lot of fatherly advice to guests.
Certainly, teachers shouldn't blog about their students, usually.
Wednesday, October 01, 2014
Departing US Attorney General warns of danger to people if tech companies go to far in blocking cops from encrypted cloud data; could government search "private data" this way?
Attorney General Eric Holder (who is leaving office) said that tech companies need
to leave cloud data open to police, at least when with proper warrants, in
response to stories that Apple and other companies can design encryption that
won’t even be broken under warrants.
The online “Switch Blog” story in the Washington Post by
Craig Timberg is “Holder urges tech companies to leave device backdoors open to
police”, link here. In print today, p. A14, the title was more
alarmist, “Holder says encryption may aid kidnappers, abusers.” The story appears to follow an earlier one in
the Post Sept. 18.
Much of the concern would be about child pornography and sex
trafficking, but it could compass criminal or terrorist kidnapping of ordinary
citizens.
It is probably possible for the government to search (without
warrants) cloud backups more than 180 days old for “digital hash” matches to
known images of child pornography (from NCMEC), just as Google has started
doing with gMail attachments. I haven’t heard
that this has actually happened. But illegal content found in a Cloud account, however private, would still legally imply a "possession" offense (as with c.p.).
Very disturbing could be the idea of subpoena of cloud data
to look for copyright infringement in civil cases, where the copies are still
private and have never been “published” online but only kept for private
use. Normally lawsuits for illegal
downloads in the past happened by spying on direct P2P networks, not
clouds.
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