Observations about life

Jan. 28, 2012: Not only can you not go back home again, figuratively, you often can’t even go back to the same neighborhood again. That’s especially true if you were viewing the old neighborhood through rose-colored glasses. Or, if you’re viewing a possible relocation through rose-colored old neighborhood glasses. Often, that may be more the problem.

Jan. 21, 2012:  Early in a column about Joe Paterno's death, it said, "We in the media ... "

Whenever you see "We in the ... " there's often a sanctimoniousness alert ahead. The commenter is about to contrast his or her saintliness on the issue at hand against all other members of his or her profession.

That said, the column is primarily going to be my direct quotes/comments, like this one updating Erma Bombeck:

"The grass is often greener on the other side of the fence because somebody's been crapping on it a lot."

Social media vs capitalism

Early this week, Google rolled out its new privacy policy, translating across almost all Google platforms, being forced, and having no opt-out clause. You have to quit your Google account or else accept things.

Then, later in the week, Twitter announced changes to its platform that would, upon a government’s request, allowed Tweets to be blocked on a country-by-country basis rather than globally.

Twitter tried to spin it as better, not worse, for tweeting. Fat chance.

With the FBI announcing it was rolling out new social media tracking … how soon before the U.S. of A. and our current constitutional law scholar president make such requests? Or, ask Twitter to reverse-engineer itself with its American tweets to make FBI tracking easier?

Bottom line is that, when for-profit social media companies bump up against making more money, or at least not losing more money due to government censorship, “do no evil” or any other PR motto is going out the window.

Hence, I repeat my call for Mozilla, the nonprofit creator of the Firefox browser, to step to the plate with a nonprofit equivalent of Facebook.

That said, it would be nice to call for yet more regulation of the Internet as a quasi-utility public good … but … that would be the same government that wants to spy on social media more.

Muddled thinking on financial inequality

Recent polls continue to show that Americans have not ambivalent, but instead, ultimately uninformed, unreflective, self-misinformed, even brainwashed attitudes about financial equality.

Polls continue to show that Americans want more equality of economic opportunity, but that the majority doesn’t worry about income inequality per se.

Usually, I’m not harsh in this blog, but there’s only one word for people who want more equality of opportunity but aren’t worried about growing income inequality.

DUMBASSES!

Decreased equality of opportunity is part of HOW the rich increase income inequality.

And, if you don’t stop brainwashing yourself with various myths of American exceptionalism, including the myth of how much social mobility there is in the U.S., you’re part of the problem, not part of the solution.

On economic mobility issues, the American public is so willfully stupid.

And, the older, white tea party types who fear the increasing numbers of black and brown faces should instead look at the white CEOs who are showing ever-fewer qualms about practicing age discrimination.

Obama - looking backward or head fake on mortgages?

I vote for "head fake" on Dear Leader's announcement about a major new investigation into the mortgage fradu behind (in part) the subprime bubble.

After all, just earlier this week, his administration was trying to still,/again browbeat state AGs into accepting a slap-on-the-wrist deal with banksters on the robosigning and related issues.

Add in an election-year pseudopopulism push, and it's easy to see where this is coming from.

Paul vs. Romney - mano a mano

Barring a last-minute court ruling, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul could be the only two GOP candidates in teh Virginia primary. That said, the idea that movement conservatives will unite around Paul to defeat Romnney sounds laughable. But, it could be funny to se the two battle it out.

Actually, the "tell" would be how low the GOP turnout is this year.

The Most Human Human

The Most Human Human by Brian Christian

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Good, but oh, it could have been better.



There's an annual Turing test event in Britain every year. A group of top computer programs compete against a group of human confederates, as the computers try to prove, per Alan Turing, that they're really humans, just as the humans do.



So far, no computer has won this test, but, given the relatively narrow parameters of the test at this particular contest, that may not be too far off.



Christian, who successfully competed to be a human "confederate," takes off from that point in the paragraph above, to riff on what it means to be human (the human confederate the judges in the Loeber prize most frequently judge to be human wins "the most human human" award), larger issues in communication and information theory, and more.



Christian invokes the likes of Douglas Hofstadter at times, and in his last chapter, especially, does some Hofstadter-type pondering.



Contra others that gave this less than five stars, I didn't mind the digressive tone of the book at all; in fact, I loved it. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of depth or follow-through on the speculation.



This book could have been, and should have been 50 pages longer at a minimum. A full 100 pages of additional material, without getting as long as Goedel, Escher, Bach, or as technical, could have been doable.



Oh, and given the number of people mentioned in the book ... no index?



View all my reviews

Anyway, as for my thoughts, beyond the review ...


Christian looked at depth of communication, especially non-formulaic communication, as being part of what makes us human. So, the ever-more "on," wired world may be dehumanizing indeed. Even for the harried US CEOS and their mega-millions.


So, like slow food, we need slow talk. We need to break some chains. That includes OWS protests ... they must be about quality of life, as well as quantity.