In The Public Eye

Snoopsters Ahoy!

As I've mentioned previously, I work for the Post Office, and so handle other people's personal information on a daily basis.  This means I avoid looking at or telling others about the information I'm exposed to.  For example:

   * I don't read postcards

   * I avoid talking about what little information I do know; if a letter from the IRS requires a signature, for instance, I like to skate around the obvious when handling the transaction

   * If I leave a package at the door of an apartment building, I turn the label toward the wall so the neighbors aren't unnecessarily informed of a person's name

This all surfaced in my mind as the nation came to grips with government spying on our communications, both foreign and domestic.  We've recently learned that a record of all telephone calls, for example, is kept, that can be accessed, if needed, for national security purposes.

Which raises the question of what's more important, privacy and a faith in the direction history will take, or security and the likelihood of less violence--especially terrorism?

Actually, there is little choice, politically, since there are many in the public realm who choose to focus on security and in a way that willfully overplays the risk involved.  Which often results in voters who are afraid for their safety more than they are concerned about their privacy.

And yet the dialectic of history would suggest that gradually, as fewer terrorists acts flow from increased security, the pendulum will swing in the opposite direction.  We shall see.

Robot-istan

Where's My Robot Taking Me?

Kevin Drum, an unusually able blogger at Mother Jones, has written about the likelihood of artificial intelligence soon outperforming the human brain.

The article's first page suggests that this may be but several decades away.  In the second, Drum deals with the implications.

If robots of the future can do the work that humans can, faster and more accurately and just as easily, what becomes of a society organized around the idea that everyone works for a living?

Drum suggests that we can head in two different directions as super-smart robots do more and more of our work for us: either we ramp up the redistribution of wealth, so that even if only a few of us actually work, we still all enjoy the ride, or, all but the few who own robots will be unemployed.

Ah, but isn't their a third possibility?  That the economy bifurcates into two parts: the super-efficient, robot-run, money-making machine that pays for national security, the welfare state, etc., and a secondary, artisanal, more locally-sourced economy that crafts and creates, as opposed to mass produces.

This secondary scene would likely center around the arts in their broadest sense: in areas where the primary focus is on relaxation, entertainment, the natural world and artistic expression.  Much of the initial support for these areas might have to be from visitors, although wealthy patrons, foundations and inherited wealth would also likely play a part.  

Any takers?

Good For The Goose Is A Fattened Gander

Subsidized Elbow Grease

The Republican-controlled House recently passed a Farm Bill that expanded government assistance for most farmers (those that grow corn, soy, wheat, sugar, cotton, for the most part) and there have been fingers pointing at lobbying by corporate agriculture as the cause.

Several writers, including Brad Plumer of the Washington Post, wonder how farmers, who represent 1% or 2% of the population, can have such a large impact on public policy.  Here are a few reasons why, aside from corporate lobbying:

  * the farm economy is much larger than the total number of farmers; think workers for John Deere, ADM and Monsanto, not to mention the small-town stores and service providers whose customers are often farmers

  * if you live away from metropolitan areas, chances are you transit through agricultural areas, and the intuitive effect is to subconsciously judge farmland as taking up many times more geographical area than developed land, so that the importance of the farm economy is likewise seen as larger than it in fact is

  * there is something in our social fabric that identifies with the farmer and makes his case easier to make: not so long ago--maybe 100 years, maybe a little more--a majority of our ancestors were making a living based on what thet could grow and what thet could make from the things that were grown in their community

All of which happen to zero in on the Republican party's sweet spot: rural voters, especially those who own land or a business as a sole proprietor.  Little wonder, then.

Unbundling Pay TV -- An Exercise in Game Design

Progressivism Comes To TV Bills

I looked at my satellite TV bill recently and was surprised to see it had climbed another few rungs on its way to $100-a-month.

Like everyone else who pays for TV (cable or satellite), I'm essentially offered three or four levels of programming, with the cheapest not including one particularly watched channel and the most expensive shoveling every last unwatchable offering at me.

Lately, there's been talk in Congress of forcing pay TV to offer customers a la carte programming where consumers pick and pay for only those channels they watch.  This has seemed like a sensible change to most, until they hear about the consequences.  Only a few sadsacks would pay for channels like the Home Shopping Network, for example, meaning less revenue for channel bundlers and so, higher rates.  In other words, we'd likely lose the smaller, less mainstream channels and end up paying about the same price, but for less content.

So, why is this an exercise in game design?  Because both sides to the question assume it's either / or; that there's no middle ground.

And yet additional alternatives are possible.  For example, if subscribers were offered either 3/6/9/12, 15 or 'all', channels of their choosing, let's say, and at those levels cable / satellite companies were able to add in, say, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 channels of their choosing (essentially, these extras would be "Look at what you're missing."), everyone would get most of what they wanted.

Most importantly, consumers would feel like they were picking and choosing.

Perhaps just as important, the basic rate for picking just three channels would likely be lower than it is now for a basic package.  This would be a great boon for families that can't afford to pay for more.

And the cable and satellite companies would be able to offer channel companies they bargain with access to what would become the much desired 10, 20, 30... temporary, free slots.  These would then be juggled periodically, giving providers bargaining chips.

Ideally, a bite would be taken out of corporate profits, while those who can afford all the channels would pay more and those who are economizing would pay less.

Update: A contrarian take from the Atlantic

2nd Book Read

2nd In A Series: Citizenville, by Gavin Newsom

Here's another book I ordered--this time new--and have read with some interest.

The author, former mayor of San Francisco and present Lt. Governor of California, identifies a desired transparency in government and the eventual public participation this will engender, as a new way forward for politics.

For example, if a city posts online all the information it gathers, citizens can then make use of the elements that interest them, and like app developers, the most popular compilations and uses rise to the top (a list of the oldest trees in the city, for instance, would be big with me).  All without a top-down approach that does the compilation and distribution on the taxpayer dime.

An approach that should appeal to Republicans (Newsom is a Democrat)!

The book's title is a reference to the online game Farmville that sees players caring for their imaginary rural spreads.  The author reasons that such a popular game suggests citizens would be happy to do something of the same thing in their own neighborhoods if given the chance at stewardship.

Excellent, except that if you've read my take on the eventual hook-up of public and polling, you'll know that rewarding the best new idea to be generated by a given neighborhood doesn't come close to the potential behind the thinking public mind, which is what I propose.

Looking Back at the Architect

I'm about to read The Jesus Discovery; Another Look at Christ's Missing Years by Dr. A.T. Bradford.

Bradford, according to the material I've read on the internet, finds that Christ was in fact a highly regarded, carefully groomed figure within Judaism's 1st century priesthood and not the son of a poor carpenter.  All very intriguing, and yet I expect the key to what happened in those times will be found in Christ's female companionship, or as seems entirely likely, the lack thereof.

Carefully examining many religious organizations, from the Vatican to the Muslim Brotherhood, one is struck by the lack of a female presence.  And that isn't accidental.  Males with a fully engaged, educated, and most important, free, female presence in their life have little need for the tendency to consult an outside authority, which often constitutes religion.

Not that there isn't a need for culture and a normative framework.

But, I've yet to read the book.

.............. update

Hey, I'm really enjoying this book.  Am about half-way through (it's little more than a long essay) and can't believe how other scholars haven't stumbled onto the author's path.

At this point in the book the author has laid out his Golden-Boy-of-the-Jewish-Establishment theory and Jesus has now come under the influence of John-the-Baptist (his cousin--Mary's mother and John's mother, Elizabeth, were of the same family), which begs the question, what might have transpired if Jesus had had a female friend whose mind could have lead him towards a more realistic accomplishment than "God, why hast thou foresaken me?"

America's First Published Poet

Many thanks, Heather, for the inspirational bio-sketches that led me down this morning's path.  The link

I began by clicking on Anne Hutchinson and ended with insight into the female experience in earliest, historical America.

Initially, my curiosity asked: What was Anne (Marbury) Hutchinson getting at with her theological emphasis on Grace, rather than Works?  The one hint I came upon was this biographical detail: "...(she believed) that God had given her the power of clairvoyance, and that she had known in advance of the exact day of (her ship's) arrival in the colony".  

Simply put, she was applying Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3 ("To everything there is a season...") to her daily life--or perhaps doing so subconsciously.  Being educated and unencumbered by dogma, she realized she could devine the meaning in events, and history more broadly, in a more crystaline manner than could her male 'superiors'.  In a virgin land where everything was beginning anew, there must have been an overwhelming, compelling need to witness.

This led to my reading about Mary Dyer, Anne's friend.  Each resisted the male oppression in 1630s New England in her own way, and each died a violent death.  One, from abandonment, one could argue, and the other from martyrdom.

And finally, the pearl found, unexpectedly: America's first published poet, Anne Dudley Bradstreet, 1612-1672, who came to the same colony as Anne Hutchinson and Mary Dyer (in 1630) and left, arguably, an even greater legacy, her inner-most thoughts.

Here are parts of three of her poems, each a jewel, that speak to me over nearly 400 years:

  * From "In Honour of that High and Mighty Princess, Queen Elizabeth"  

"....

Now say, have women worth? or have they none? 

Or had they some, but with our queen is't gone? 

Nay Masculines, you have thus taxt us long, 

But she, though dead, will vindicate our wrong, 

Let such as say our Sex is void of Reason, 

Know tis a Slander now, but once was Treason."

[Note: Queen Elizabeth I reigned from 1558 to 1603]

   * From "Another"

"...

He that can tell the stars or ocean sand,
Or all the grass that in the meads do stand,
The leaves in th' woods, the hail, or drops of rain,
Or in a corn-field number every grain,
Or every mote that in the sunshine hops,
May count my sighs, and number all my drops.
Tell him the countless steps that thou dost trace,
That once a day thy spouse thou may'st embrace;
And when thou canst not treat by loving mouth,
Thy rays afar salute her from the south.

..."

[Note: her husband, who she loved passionately, was away on government business for long stretches of time.

Also, note the emphasis on God's ability to 'tell' or count.]

  * From "The Author To Her Book"

[Note: this is the self-aware poem of an author who was published without a chance to edit.  It describes how she wishes she could improve on her "Ill-formed off-spring...".  Note the piercing, many-storied allusions.]

"...
And rubbing off a spot still made a flaw.
I stretched thy joints to make thee even feet,
Yet still thou run'st more hobbling than is meet;
In better dress to trim thee was my mind,
But nought save homespun cloth, i' th' house I find.
In this array 'mongst Vulgars may'st thou roam.
In critic's hands beware thou dost not come,
..."

Is this genius? I think so.

Is it 'clairvoyance', akin to what Anne Hutchinson experienced?  Perhaps the answer can be read in the final lines of her "High and Mighty..." poem:

"...

No more shall rise or set such glorious Sun,
Until the heaven's great revolution:
If then new things, their old form must retain,
Eliza shall rule Albian once again."