Stuff and Such

"...at least since World War II, the most effective propagandists have insisted that propaganda should tell the truth."

a great site, full of interesting articles

‘Cashless society’ is a privatisation, in which power over payments is transferred to the banking sector.

Early reports indicate the language will be a thorough protection that includes language disallowing client-side scanning, a form of bypassing encryption

This enables the government of any EU member state to issue website certificates for interception and surveillance which can be used against every EU citizen, even those not resident in or connected to the issuing member state. There is no independent check or balance on the decisions made by member states with respect to the keys they authorize and the use they put them to. This is particularly troubling given that adherence to the rule of law has not been uniform across all member states, with documented instances of coercion by secret police for political purposes.

The text goes on to ban browsers from applying security checks to these EU keys and certificates except those pre-approved by the EU’s IT standards body - ETSI. This rigid structure would be problematic with any entity, but government-controlled standard bodies are especially susceptible to misaligned incentives in cryptography. ETSI in particular has both a concerning track record (1,2,3) of producing compromised cryptographic standards and a working group dedicated entirely to developin

Pierre Bourdieu in The Forms of Capital wrote, “The best measure of cultural capital is undoubtedly the amount of time devoted to acquiring it.”

The Consumer Products Safety Commission wants to ban Buckyballs, the magnetic office toy for "adults with Asperger's", because kids swallow them.

("Hey, stupid, isn't the Buckyballs story two months old?" I'm writing a book of pornography, it's taking up a lot of my time. "Of?")

This is the kind of story that gets the public to unanimously cry, "We're a bunch of coddled babies!" and if you cried that, please recall my useful heuristic: if you ever find yourself in complete agreement with the public, especially when "public" includes people you wanted to murder in the last election, then your position is not only wrong, it's not even yours. You have been trained to have this thought, so the money is in understanding why.

Here is the mistake the conventional wisdom makes: it forgets it lives in the West. It is free to compare risks because it believes all risks have been considered, by someone else. This isn't a social problem, it is a philosophical one: we are taught to think like this. This is why an otherwise intelligent person still thought to say, "are you saying we should ban electrical sockets? They kill more people than Buckyballs!" That person is confused, but it isn't his fault.

Here's how it plays out.

Nine year old kid: Mom, I swallowed a Buckyball.

You: Oh my god, you are an idiot, I am so embarrassed. I want an abortion.

What would you do? The balls are non-toxic and they can't rip out all your blood iron like Magneto. So you do what every parent does, you call a psychiatrist and wait for your kid to poop it out.

Of course the problem is the balls clump together while in different parts of the intestine, pinching through the intestinal wall, kinking or twisting it-- and as he's dying you're saying, "well that serves you right for taking after your father."

Now that I just told you this it seems obvious, but would you have known this before I told you? Would you have known to take the belly pain of your child that seriously? That's the issue: that the toy is "conventional wisdom" safe, the precautions taken are the same as for regular ball bearings.

If you doubt this, please admit to yourself that you will be more careful with them around your children simply because you heard about the ban. It is that warning that needs to be communicated by the product manufacturer. "Well, it says it on the box." As they point out in the complaint, however, the warnings so far have failed, kids are still swallowing them. "They're stupid." I agree entirely, however you've misunderstood me: the warnings have failed on the parents. Note that "parents" here isn't your usual signifier for stupid parents (non-Asian minorities, Central Time moms, Christians, etc). Buckyballs are sold at Brookstone with proof of subscription to Wired, that's the demo.

It's probably necessary for me to announce loudly that I am AGAINST THE BUCKYBALLS BAN, but the point here is why in 20XX such a ban is not only possible but expected.

II.

Have you ever seen a bus and had the fantasy that if you got hit, you could sue the city for $5M? While it's probably means you're a follower not a leader (e.g. "I hate frivolous lawsuits, but if everyone else gets to do it...") I want you to focus carefully on the implication of this fantasy: in the secret studio of your mind, even a bus accident is safe.

"Yes, we know, humans miscalculate risk." No, they are very good at calculating it-- for other people. No one ever thinks, "It would be awesome if my wife got hit by a bus and we sued for $5M."

"!HA! You're wrong, I think that every night!!!" You're a tool. And a cuckold. It's not that you are more willing to take the "risk"-- you are not altruistic-- you're just 100% certain she would die if a natural gas powered leviathan hit her in the tits and 100% certain you would live. (Sorry. It's the porn book.)

It is this kind of example that trips up the "public" when judging things like Buckyballs because we don't think in large numbers and apply to one (statistics), we think in terms of ourselves and multiply by 6 billion (narcissism). Here's a piece from an extraordinary video I am ashamed to admit I found on Metafilter. Watch this dummy try to climb 8 stairs (spacebar to play):

She got up this time, but let's pretend she smashed her face in. What would happen next? Lawyer crawls out from under a Horn And Hardart's and they sue the city for $5M in future earnings because she says Revlon now won't return her calls. That story gets picked up by the internet and you, the public, have something to yell at.

You will no doubt observe she is overweight, which about 80% of you will consider of central importance, and you'd be right for the wrong reason: it's not relevant to her fall, it's relevant to your hate. Of course you know I picked her on purpose; but what you will forget to know is that Dateline and HuffPo and the others will have looked for her- or a black woman or a guy with his nose in a Bible- to be in their story about tripping and suing, to ensure you'd spit your soda all over the screen. "#frivolouslawsuits!" The system wins.

But now watch the director's cut:

From JimmyJames on Metafilter, who has a remarkable insight into the relationship between personal responsibility and what permits it:

On its own, when you see one person slip, you automatically assume that person slipped, was clumsy or not playing attention. But when you look at the aggregate, you realize that the failure isn't on the individual at all, rather the structures that cause certain people to fail with almost no fault of their own. And yet, without this data, they will very quickly ascribe the mistake to themselves.

It difficult to explain to someone that the reason they live their life the way they do because of the structures built to help them live that way. But imagine, instead of a stupid mislaid step, the faulty structure is a punitive late policy on a credit card, or a bank that has a minimum balance fee and very quickly the maintenance of the status-quo is laid bare.

This is a very smart insight, and no surprise this is one of the most favorited comments on Metafilter. But it is still wrong, and wrong in a very specific way, the only way that matters: pro-status quo. Wrong, to ensure that things do not change.

JimmyJames has it backwards. The issue isn't the faulty step, it is all of the correctly laid steps. That seems abstractly unrealistic to you, so I'll simplify with JimmyJames's own examples: the problem isn't the minimum balance fee, it is the bank; it isn't the punitive late policy, it is the credit card.

She didn't trip because the step was high, she didn't trip because she should have been more careful; she tripped because the city taught her not to be careful, in the same way you taught your daughter not to be careful when she crosses the street. "Huh? I taught her to look both ways!" Slow down, Hawthorne:

DAD:

Look both ways, stupid!

GIRL:

Um, isn't that your job?

DAD:

But I'm not going to be holding your hand all the time, you have to learn to do this yourself.

GIRL:

So let me understand you. Your thesis is I am so mentally defective that unless you teach me to look both ways even when you're with me, I will not remember to look both ways when you're not with me. Isn't it more likely that the omnipotence I attribute to your symbolic identity as Father is what causes me to be more dependent when I know you're with me?

DAD:

How dare you talk to me like that. You should respect your elders.

GIRL:

I do respect my elders, that's the whole problem. You have taught me that there is always an appeal to a higher authority. Meanwhile, your cynicism has split my loyalties, you've made me highly suspicious of individuals in authority, yet simultaneously reflexively obedient to symbols of authority as long as there is no defined individual attached to it. And when I get old enough to see you're just Willy Loman, I'll start looking for a more abstract, omnipotent, father, and his name will be "Someone Else's Ideology."

DAD:

That sounds insane.

GIRL:

Don't blame me, man, I just lease the space. I think we would both respond more reliably to this kind of dependency branded as self-reliance if it was reinforced through the medium of a car commercial. Something that promises complete freedom of the road and superb handling responsive to my every wish, but knows when to deploy safety features. That way I'll be able to text with both hands.

DAD:

Maybe I should let you make some mistakes, maybe get a little hurt, to teach you self-reliance?croatia

GIRL:

Ha! You won't even let me play outside by myself. You're afraid someone like you will try and eat me. Or that if I ever got hurt, the lesson I'd learn is that you are an unreliable Dad, and there's nothing worse than an unreliable Dad, except---

III.

On the one hand, we live in a society that values free choice and personal responsibility, but we are told that it is safe to value those things only because people expect a certain amount of absence of choice and freedom from responsibility. You assume you would not be allowed to make a truly dangerous choice.

What you don't understand consciously is that your judgment of risk is based on the fact that you believe in God, and this is even more true if you think you don't believe in God. I can sense your resistance to this idea because you think you don't believe in God, but sadly for your immortal soul, you do.

The reason you think "personal responsibility" is the answer to the Buckyballs problem is that Buckyballs already exist, and if they already exist they must be safe-- or "some other omnipotent entity" would not have permitted them to come to existence. That is the problem of the West, and you cannot change it. All of the metaphors of the West imply this omnipotent entity, from "free market" to "inalienable rights" to "peace in our time."

Imagine if when Buckyballs were first invented, the manufacturer decided not to bring them to market because they were too dangerous. What would you have been furious then? You'd have thought: "meh." That is because your brain is broken, and your brain is broken because the system broke it. Again, it's not your fault. The true danger of the "Nanny State" isn't that it limits your freedoms but that it causes you to want less freedom.

Note again and again that the instinctive reflex among the public is to blame the individual and protect the corporation, the system. You'd think we'd be happy if the system caught an after-market danger, but clearly we aren't, it enrages us. The rage isn't because the government intrudes into our lives-- it always has-- it's because it's evidence that the system wasn't-- and therefore isn't-- omniscient. When a product isn't brought to market because it's dangerous it confirms that Dad is reliable, but when it's only discovered later it suggests Dad can be unreliable, and there's nothing worse than an unreliable Dad, unless it's an unreliable God. Hence Buddhism.

IV.

I get that this kind of theoretical model doesn't seem practically applicable to every day life, but you'll see the "some other omnipotent entity" everywhere if you look for its three characteristics: it is omnipotent; it opposes the existing (dis)order; its sole job is to protect you from yourself. Not from the world: from your bad decisions.

Here's an easy example: other than me, Rana Foroohar is the only person still reading Time, and since she has a degree in English Literature and I do not, they gave her the job of Assistant Editor In Charge Of Economics. Here she is with other assistant editors being in charge of economics.

rana foroohar.jpg

As you can tell, economics is hilarious. She also somehow writes a column called-- take a drink-- "The Curious Capitalist." I'll assume she means all of those words ironically. Here's a sentence she wrote without any irony at all:

In order to keep things afloat until politicians get their act together, the Fed needs new strategies.

Holy mother of Buddha. Leave aside policy controversies, what should make your eyes bleed here is how easily, naturally, she went over the government, to a higher authority-- how easily she was able to find "some other omnipotent entity" to save us from ourselves.

This doesn't mean the Fed is always that other omnipotent entity, it means that Foroohar will always locate such an entity because she cannot live without it; her allegiances will shift but she will never permit herself to live only in the abyss-mal world of her actions. She is always on the side of "who can fix this," she is never on the side of "I helped cause this." This isn't a political problem, it is a psychic problem: this is how all of us think.

And if that entity one day fails to save you, you'll feel the kind of rage you hear described on psychiatry blogs. Which is what happened when Chief Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States Of America John Roberts seemingly turned his back on the conservatives and upheld Obamacare. A lengthy legal explanation was of no importance, what drove people bananas was not simply his ruling, but that he didn't at least pretend to omnipotence, "I can rule however I want!" Instead, he said out loud the unsayable, the terrible awful truth about himself: "It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices." You traitorous, black robed son of a bitch, how dare you reveal there is no God.

V.

Try it the other way.

NYC Mayor Bloomberg's proposal is to ban soda sold larger than 16 oz. Is it a government intrusion into our private lives? Shouldn't we be allowed to make our own free choices about what to do with our own bodies?

The answer to both is a resounding yes, but nevertheless that's the trick. The question that you should have asked, that you did not ask because you were hypnotized into asking the above questions, is: to what extent am I free to make the decision TO drink soda?

Soda was tested, refined and improved so that you would probably like it; but it was packaged and marketed so that you would like it regardless of whether you liked it, and "you" means you now, in this time, in this place. Do you believe 10th century Viking marauders who previously described rejecting pop music would drink 3 sodas a day? I saw Valhalla Rising.

valhalla rising.jpg

The answer is no.

I just heard you say, "yes, they would. Yes, they'd take a few sips and find it delicious and yes, they'd drink 3 bottles a day." WRONG.

If you believe that they would, then you are saying that marketing is unnecessary, all that money is a waste, the soda is delicious enough to hook anyone. That the terms "market penetration" and "early adopters" and "branding" are meaningless. But if this symbol

pepsi_logo.jpg

not the brown liquid, but that image-- which cost millions of dollars to create and promote-- if that strategy was necessary to making Pepsi a huge seller, more than the minor difference in taste from generic brand cola which no one drinks and thus no one needs protection from-- then you cannot say that your choice to drink soda is a free one. And it doesn't matter if the risk of diabetes with the liquid in the bottle labeled generic cola and the liquid in the bottle labeled Pepsi is the same, because product= object + branding: Pepsi is more dangerous than cola.

The vast majority of the people complaining about the Big Soda ban don't buy big sodas, and those most enraged about the Buckyballs ban either already have them or would never want them. So the reaction has nothing to do with the products themselves, the rage is on a theoretical level, "I don't want government intruding in my private choices." But they already do this in a gazillion different ways, bigger, more important intrusions. The difference is that those are invisible. You know you can't value the risks in airplane safety or radiation leaks so you trust them to do it, but you think you can value the risks of a soda and hate that they try to do it for you.

I know you are thinking, "but I can resist soda; I understand the risks"-- never mind you don't even know the ingredients of soda, the point here is you are starting from you and multiplying by 6 billion.

When you say, "personal responsibility!" you are really saying "this is safe enough for it to be a question of personal responsibility." But you must ask yourself the question: how do you know Buckyballs and soda are safe enough for them to be about personal responsibility? Because "some other omnipotent entity" allowed them to exist. How do you know that Entity can be trusted? Because it even tries to ban silly things like Buckyballs and soda. The system is sound.

What is the final common pathway of all of this? If the system is sound, there's no reason to obstruct the pressures of marketing. That's what's at stake, not your safety or your personal freedoms. The point of consumer protection is not protecting the consumer from the market, but protecting the consumer for the market.

The ban has the simple purpose of taking something deemed too dangerous away; but the purpose of the ban is to convey the impression of a watchful eye, so that when you say, "we live in a nanny state!" you are simultaneously saying, "and thank God!" Hence your desire to get hit by a bus.

You're like a teenager who is perfectly happy-- strike that-- indignantly self-righteously deserving-- to live in his parents' house, eat their food, drive their car, "but for Buddha's sake, Dad, don't ever show your face if I'm hanging with my friends-- I can't have them thinking I have parents!!!" No worry that their entire existence proves active parental involvement, but tell the kid he can't have get an Xbox or wear a miniskirt and it's an identity catastrophe, "how dare you try to control me!" Dummy, they already control you in every way, so totally and efficiently that you believe that the miniskirt or the Xbox is a legitimate sign of independence. The trick isn't that you have no freedom, the trick is that you think that is freedom. All your fighting is for... consumer products. "When I turn 18, I am so getting the hell out of this oppressive death hole!" Where will you go? "A four year undergraduate college!"

But the analogy goes a step further: all the other teens already know you have parents, they have parents, too-- but all must act collectively like they don't. No discussion needed, all silently know to pretend that there is not the obvious 1 to 2 omnipotent adults you can immediately appeal to if things go sideways; that there isn't a huge infrastructure, plainly visible to everyone else, propping up your very material existence. "Live free or die!" Why specify a choice? For you, they are exactly the same thing.

"The left has no particular place it wants to go. And, to rehash an old quip, if you have no destination, any direction can seem as good as any other. The left careens from this oppressed group or crisis moment to that one, from one magical or morally pristine constituency or source of political agency [...] It lacks focus and stability; its métier is bearing witness, demonstrating solidarity, and the event or the gesture. Its reflex is to “send messages” to those in power, to make statements, and to stand with or for the oppressed."

"According to the legal services of the EU, the CSAR proposal's parts on chat control via client-side scanning are disproportionate and contrary to fundamental rights. The EU CSA Regulation is illegal under EU law."

"...the web of for-profit AI companies pushing anti-encryption legislation in Europe"

You should strongly oppose that bill and help build resistance to it. Most importantly, if such a law ever came into effect you would be morally obliged to disobey, to boycott.

"The article accused the European Commission of using ‘microtargeting’, meaning in this case that the ads were not shown to those interested in privacy, are Eurosceptic, and even those interested in Christianity were left out. [...] The campaign was run on X (formerly Twitter). The platform subsequently censored Danny Mekić, the author of the article, without providing an explanation."

"Looked at through a Buddhist lens, what we call social fictions Buddhism calls karma, the causes and conditions into which we are born. In the popular imagination, the Buddhist concept of karma is about personal decisions that create good or bad consequences: the actions of an individual influence the future births of that individual. We say, “Don’t do that, it’s bad karma.” But there is also a karma of the collective. Personal decision-making happens only within a larger karmic context. No one has to go to the trouble of inventing destructive ways of life; they are always already here waiting for every child. [...]

Herzen’s solution is to remove our fetters through “self-reliance,” a remedy not so far from capitalism’s appeal to economic individualism and the American obsession with self-determination and “going it alone.” Happily, there are other ways of looking at the problem. From a Buddhist perspective, the way out of Herzen’s dilemma is to awaken from the world’s orthodoxies, stop perpetuating the harm of karma/culture, and then go beyond it, into an alternative social reality, the sangha, human community defined not by the suspect freedoms of the ego, His Majesty the Sovereign Self, but by “right understanding” and by metta, kindness.

In a word, Buddhism offers not just critique but counterculture. [...]

By creating communities against the grain, Buddhism provides a demystified enlightenment. To whatever degree we can withdraw not from the world but from worldly forms and social fictions, to that degree we are enlightened."

"This is generative placemaking, the urban design equivalent of a large language model cribbing from all the existing ideas about cities and running them through the tautologitron."

art by Ivan Rabuzin

"So large are the regional gaps that the poorest set of counties in predominantly blue Yankee Northeast actually have higher life expectancies than the wealthiest ones in the Deep South. At a population level, a difference of five years is like the gap separating the U.S. from decidedly unwealthy Mongolia, Belarus or Libya, and six years gets you to impoverished El Salvador and Egypt. [...] Other researchers have found the mortality advantage is greatest among Mexicans in communities where they are more insulated from less healthy U.S. dietary and lifestyle choices than those of Mexican descent who have been in the U.S. for decades or centuries.

Regional differences persist in other measures of health outcomes that contribute to mortality."

"The two benefits of competition are that it breaks the cash reserves that are used to enact public policy and it introduces the collective action problem that makes the remaining reserves harder to spend."

What’s amazing is that the difficulty of creating this situation of “fully democratized information” is entirely economic rather than technological.

"Edge culturists end up living lives that are continuously repeated rehearsal loops for a future that never actually arrives. They do experience a version of the future a little earlier than others, but the mechanisms they need to resort to are so cumbersome, that what they actually experience is the mechanisms rather than the future as it will eventually be lived."

“To me, it just continues the transformation of the internet into this shitty mall,” Marwick said. “A dead mall that’s just filled with the shady sort of stores you don’t want to go to.”

“Editorial independence is clearly unworkable with the Saudi operation. We can’t even do basic news about Saudi.”