Desperately Seeking Ethics and Reason

Language and Conflict

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 12:58:00 -0700

Misuse of language is the cause of incalculable harm throughout human history. Can that misuse, either the intentional or unintentional misuse, or both, be eliminated?

I have no quibble with "big words" or the need for thesauruses (thesaurii?), nor do I shirk from metaphors nor similes when they're warranted; I have no issue with the "artistry" of the language. I know how to wield a linguistic brush a bit myself. The misuse of all that vocabulary and semantic flexibility, both intentional and unintentional misuse, however, has caused much conflict in human affairs on both a micro- and macro-scale. The result is the meatspace equivalent of what happens when a programmer fails to communicate an idea correctly to his silicoid comrades: a "bug".

Human history is littered with such linguistic bugs. The worst of them have arguably been caused by deliberate misuse of all that artistic choice. How much cumulative physical and emotional harm has been caused by it? Perhaps selven was addressing the learning aspect of the language that sometimes causes the unintentional incidences, which also causes harm. The imprecision is not the fault of the language, but rather the fault of the creatures using it. Do we change the language - simplify it or dumb it down - to eliminate that potential for harm, or do we change the creatures using it?

The primary goal of a language is to facilitate the transmission of information and abstract ideas. Humans also try to use it to communicate emotions, and that is arguably the goal of the "artistry" of the language. There are also less artistic ways of communicating emotions with language. It's the interplay of language and emotions that causes much of that harm. Do we change the language to eliminate faulty attempts to communicate emotions (manipulate the emotions of others), or do we change the creatures using it?

So we have several issues: deliberate misuse to misinform, deliberate misuse to manipulate emotionally, unintentional misuse to misinform, and finally unintentional misuse to manipulate emotionally. Can't we prescriptively and conscientiously agree to change the language to eliminate even one of those problems?

My comment to FCC re: National Broadband Plan and 'Net Neutrality

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:20:00 -0700

I submitted a comment to the FCC regarding the proposed National Broadband Plan, specifically regarding so-called 'Net neutrality and if and whether that should be achieved:

The only true form of 'Net neutrality is the kind where the physical medium - the wires or "tubes" - is collectively owned by the public. Our network of roads is almost entirely publicly owned, and the companies that build and maintain them are contractors... we don't allow them to own the stretches of asphalt they lay down. Contractors are exactly what AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and all the others in the telecom infrastructure ownership business should be, rather than owners.

We made an error in judgement when AT&T began laying the first telegraph wires, and we failed to recognize the future import and insist that they deed the wires to the public trust. We perhaps had a second chance to correct our error when AT&T was hauled into court for antitrust issues: we could have forced AT&T to sell back the wires to We The People at that time, as a part of the judgement, or perhaps transitioned it into a non-profit pseudo-governmental agency like the USPS, rather than breaking it into smaller entities which STILL owned the wires in their respective fiefdoms.

We're still paying - dearly - for that original error in judgement and our continuing failure to recognize the error and deal with it, even belatedly. It appears that it might now require a revolution with guns to get the wires back into public hands, because the only way any of these corporations' CEOs are going to relinquish this profit-making control is by forcibly prying the wires from the vise-like grasp of their cold dead fingers.

As a result, we now talk about kludges and band-aids for the problem, in the form of laws and regulations, and we call these band-aids "Net neutrality" even though they're really nothing of the sort.

Does the FCC have the spine and "guns" to finally create true telecom network neutrality? I doubt it, but I suggest that perhaps you should try. If not, please do not entertain any of these legislative band-aids: in this case covering the wound with a band-aid will not actually aid in healing, rather only hide the wound from view and defer the surgery necessary to finally heal it. LET IT FESTER IN THE OPEN - in other words let the telecom companies section and "tier" the network - until it becomes so noxious that we're collectively ready to agree to the surgery.

No Talking!

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 22:01:00 -0700

News and unpublished reports have surfaced that warn of the risks of any telephone use by the driver of a moving vehicle, whether "hands-free" or not. The big news is supposedly that these documents were quashed and not published for political reasons, but there's a larger conclusion to be drawn from them that is even bigger news, I think.

The documents state that there is evidence to conclude that the act of the conversation itself is the true source of distraction, and the particulars of the devices merely add additional factors of risk of distraction. This is not news to anyone able to self-analyze, as I've observed the effect that conversation while driving has had on me; however, that effect was true for me of any conversation, not specifically telephone calls. Given that effect is true in general for all humans and not just me, you know what the next logical step should then be, right?

It would be to outlaw passengers that can talk while the car is moving. I have no doubt that the conclusion is correct, that both hands and hands-free phone conversations pose equal risks to focus and ability, but given that fact means that all other forms of conversation also pose an equal risk, including having a chatty passenger. Are we ready to take that step, after a century of tolerance? Can you hear the mutiny that would result? How would we enforce it, without resorting to something indistinguishable from Big Brother?

I think we now have to accept the fact that people will try to multitask, even though research has proven that the human brain isn't truly capable of doing it well; that multitasking will include the process of driving. That ship sailed a century ago and it's too late to call it back to port for a refit. The person too stupid and unobservant to "recognize his limitations", as Dirty Harry put it, is simply going to die more often on the road, and sometimes take a few of the rest of us with him in the process. The best and truly observant drivers will spot these rolling risks and avoid them and survive, so hopefully some genetic trait for better awareness will get carried forward with the survivors?

My larger point, of course, is that we've gotten ourselves on a course of outlawing behaviors which, of themselves, are not criminal but which might lead to a criminal or antisocial consequence. There is an increasingly longer list of these laws. Is that right? Doesn't that sound a bit too much like the events in the movie Minority Report? In outlawing a behavior which isn't actually criminal or dangerous to the common welfare, are we "presuming facts not in evidence" and presuming guilt before a crime against society has even been committed?

We already have laws to deal with the actual criminal and antisocial acts. The death of innocent people caused by negligence of any sort is and has already been a punishable civil offense, at the least. We do not need to specifically outlaw behaviors which merely might be precursors to those acts.

Our Cubic Zirconia President

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:40:00 -0700

I'm still angry that I didn't get to vote for the man I thought was capable of actually making a difference in our political and economic systems. Barack Obama is not that man; that man is Dennis Kucinich. Kucinich is the one man in our Congress who had the balls to stand up and try to start impeachment proceedings against culpable officials of the last administration; he risked his own political career to do it. His own party leadership publicly vowed to oppose his effort. Obama, a member of that same party, has refused to support an investigation. Meanwhile, Obama has proceeded to cozy-up to the "intellectual property rights-holders" in ways that make even Bush look like an amateur huckster. I get angrier about this misguided choice with every new week's revelations.

It's funny to me that such a huge amount of political courage and ethics is concentrated in such a physically diminutive man as Kucinich. It's my opinion that ethically he's a giant compared to most of his Congressional colleagues. Most of them talk about ethics but don't actually have any, just as corporations say quality and customer satisfaction is their priority when in fact neither is the case. Most often the ethically dubious scum rises to the top, but every so often you get an iconoclastic gem like Kucinich. He's a diamond in the rough, but we got the polished cubic zirconia as President.

Addendum:

Just in case you don't understand who "intellectual property rights-holders" are and what sort of people they actually are, here's a rude introduction for you from an ongoing court circus:

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/06/ascap-wants-be-paid-

Hoaxed!

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:53:00 -0700

I was suckered-in by an e-mail forward from someone yesterday, which resulted in a blog post that I now regret because the whole thing was a hoax! Well, not really a hoax so much as terribly obsolete "news": http://www.snopes.com/science/astronomy/brightmars.asp.

I'd like to say it will never happen again, but that's a promise I may not be able to keep.

Run-of-the-Mill Abuse of Power

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:28:00 -0700

This is what common everyday abuse of power - by people who really don't have any - looks like:

Agent: Is there a reason you're not answering any questions
Bierfeldt: I'm not refusing to answer any
Agent: I want you to see it from my -- from what we're seeing, you come in with some money but you don't want to answer any questions about how much it is that's in your possession.
Bierfeldt: I don't know.
Agent: Is it a secret why you have the money or something?
Bierfeldt: I don't know the exact amount... you're asking where my employment is, I'm simply asking whether I'm legally required to answer
Agent: Well may I ask, the question is, why do you have this money? That's the question, that's the major question.
Bierfeldt: Yes sir, and I'm asking whether I'm legally required to answer that question.
Agent: Answer that question first, why do you have this money?
Bierfeldt: Am I legally required to answer that question?
Agent: So you refuse to answer that question?
Bierfeldt: No sir, I'm not refusing.
Agent: Well you're not answering.
Bierfeldt: I'm simply asking my rights under the law.
Agent: I'm asking you a question and in return you're asking me a question. You're not answering it.

And then later:

Agent: Why do you have all this money?
Bierfeldt: That's my, I asked you sir, am I required by law to answer the question.
Agent: I'm just asking you why you have $4700?
Bierfeldt: That's my question, I don't understand the law.
Agent: You want to talk to DEA about it? They'll probably ask you more questions.
Bierfeldt: If they can tell me if I'm required to answer by law the question, I'll answer the question. I'm just looking for a simple yes or no.
Agent: It's just a simple question. I just want to know why you have $4700 on you, that's not a usual thing. . . .
Second Agent: He's refusing to answer any questions, he don't want to answer so, we [sic] gonna have to take him down to the station.
Agent: I mean yeah, that's suspicious.
Second Agent: DEA, FBI, and all those
Agent: Every one of them.
Second Agent: So we can do that.

In case you're wondering what the heck that is all about, it's about a Ron Paul staffer getting detained by the TSA for no other reason than he was in possession - legally - of $4700 in cash; when he asked during their questioning to know his legal rights regarding those questions, they refused to answer him and continued to detain and harrass him. The ACLU has filed suit against the TSA as a consequence; it is requesting that the TSA be directed to limit its detainment, searches, and seizures to situations relevant to pre-flight security... which is supposedly why the TSA was created in the first place.

What the fuck country do I live in, again? I thought it was the United States of America, but increasingly it feels like some dystopian nightmare from the plot of a science fiction novel I once read.

When Birds Attack

Thu, 28 May 2009 15:29:00 -0700

Well, I wish I had been able to get a video of this:

One of my cats was perched on the sill of my front upstairs window, as he often does. This happens to put him at about the same height as the foliage on a tree no more than 15 feet away. Until this year that tree hasn't had much foliage for three years, thanks to a hatchet job done by an alleged "arborist". Little did my cat know - or perhaps he did - that this year there is a sparrow nest in that tree. One of the doting parents decided he was uncomfortably close to their hidden treehouse, and tried to divebomb him! I heard a combination of a click and loud thump: first the beak and then the rest of the bird, courtesy of inertia, and then my cat leaping down from the window and streaking in under the bed. I ran to the window to see what had spooked him, and there were both the feathered parents, one sitting on the lawn looking dazed, and the other perched on the rod iron fence above the other!

Yep, that would have been one awesome video. Remember, this actually isn't the first time this house has endured a feathered assault: the last time involved a pigeon, a patio door, and a falcon!

The Truest 'Net Neutrality

Tue, 19 May 2009 18:13:00 -0700

Cory Doctorow warns today in The Guardian about the dangers of not enforcing some form of so-called 'Net Neutrality. His most interesting and compelling argument appears in the final two paragraphs, wherein he reminds both us and the Big Telcos that we charge them nothing for the public access and rights-of-way upon which they depend in order to lay and maintain those precious wires. This was an excellent observation, but it doesn't appear that he drew what I think is the correct conclusion from it: the Big Telcos shouldn't own the wires in the first place.

The truest form of "'Net neutrality" is for We the People to force the telcos - at gunpoint if necessary - to sell us back the "wires" and shared public infrastructure that they built for us.

The telecom industry should have been nothing more than contractors to the public interest, just as road construction crews are contractors; we don't allow road crews to retain ownership of the asphalt they lay down, and neither should we have allowed AT&T and its imitators to own the telegraph wires and everything else that has followed. We should have paid them once for that work, and then perhaps kept them on as maintainers of that network; at no point, however, should they have been allowed to own the wires. That is where we screwed-up. Those wires belong to all of us, just as do the roads and the airwaves (spectrum) and the air we breathe. Those are all things shared and used by everyone, which lend themselves perfectly to a bit of socialism... in this case public or (*gasp!*) "state" ownership.

The result of public ownership of the wires would be the inability of the telcos to blackmail us - or each other - for right of access. We the People would be in the driver's seat; if we didn't like the antics of one or more telcos, we could use our ownership of the wires to force them to shape up or ship out.

That is the truest form of Network Neutrality: the universal majority for whom it exists also owns it collectively for the Common Good. Thanks to sins of the fathers, however, we're nowhere close to having that sort of neutrality. Instead we're arguing about half-assed bastard-child alternatives that still aren't truly neutral: they still leave ownership in the hands of a hostile minority that doesn't value the Common Good, only their own enrichment at at the expense of the Common Good.

Zombie Ideas

Fri, 15 May 2009 08:47:00 -0700

There seem to be certain enduring zombie-like stupid ideas that just won't die; we can't ever seem to manage to bury them deep enough to keep them buried. Inevitably some bored marketeer who is at a loss for a truly useful concept will exhume one of these creatures and set it on a renewed course of destruction.

Take Dell, for instance, which has once again decided that women need "different" computing devices from men, and that in order to sell them to women they must take a uniquely illogical approach to it. The result is a zombified Web site they call Della.com, which has already begun generating indignant reactions. Someone in tech support should have stopped this errant zombie before it ever left the cemetery. A computers is a general purpose tool that crosses gender boundaries intact, just like virtually every other bit of consumer electronics I can envision. Are there televisions specific to women? Are there distinct toaster models for men and women? Della.com smacks (or did smack) of emotional manipulation and abuse of women specifically; it's one thing when corporations engage in unisex equal-opportunity manipulation and abuse of consumers, and quite another when they single out a specific class for an even bigger dose. We call that discrimination, don't we?

The very notion of a gender-specific computer sales Web site in this era - regardless of the specifics how it was implemented - is pig-headed and doomed to failure on the face of it. Apple is no doubt breathing a sigh of relief that they now get to learn from Dell's mistake rather than making it first themselves.

Down Time, May 2009

Sat, 09 May 2009 00:24:00 -0700

This blog had an "outage" from May 6th until today, May 9th, because of failed hardware that had to be replaced. This is what happens when you self-host rather than pay someone else. There's nobody to rely on - nor blame - but me when the lack of redundancy catches up with me.

Mr. Deity: Almightiness One Day at a Time

Wed, 24 Jan 2007 01:52:00 -0700

link

Wikipedia: List of Cognitive Biases

Sat, 13 Jan 2007 12:18:00 -0700

link

From the Wiki: "Cognitive bias is distortion in the way humans perceive reality". Of course I have no such bias myself.