With so much ado about the presidential nomination process going on in the states presently, I feel some commentary on this matter from a more technologically-inclined view might merit my attentions. The greatest question raised by these elections is not which of the three possible nominees are going to best serve the ideals of the nation. It is quite simply this: is the current methodology by which we determine our leadership at all adequate for solving the problems that our country currently faces?
First a bit of an ahistorical preface: I do not here intend to concern myself with facts and a politically correct (read: moralistic) account of the current state of affairs. It is possible that my current diet of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer has motivated me along this course; the important thing is that those who read this article must withhold judgment if it is based upon some petty disagreement with the facts I invoke. If you can see the ideas and processes with which I am struggling then the value of this essay will not be lost on you. If, however, you choose to assume a reactionary, moralistic stance towards me and deny my views a priori on account of their seeming to be politically incorrect, then I encourage you to visit a more palatable website.
The American electoral system has its roots in the founding father's desire for a sort of 'landed aristocracy' (or as close as possible in the then just-conceived USA) to make most of the political decisions. I believe that it is from this viewpoint that women and African-Americans were excluded by the constitution from the voting process, not because of any virulent racism (though it of course did exist and was jockeying for this state of affairs as well). The electoral college as such comes into being as a way to limit the ability for the popular vote to determine who holds power in a country. This is obvious to most people: it is for this reason that our political system is so inhospitable to 3rd-party candidates. Instead of getting into this fertile topic however, let us simply concede that the electoral college as such functions as a way to remove and diffuse the power of the popular vote. If an electorate votes in a 'winner-takes-all' local election for the right to decide who their representative will nominate as president, it logically follows that a candidate with popular appeal--that is, a candidate who wins the popular vote--may not and in fact will not necessarily win the election (2000 is the most recent example of this phenomenon; there are other instances as well).
How has this system gone wrong? For several reasons. First of all, the 17th amendment (changing the election of senators to a popular vote instead of being nominated by a state's assembly) and universal suffrage are two glaring examples of "just" or "virtuous" democratization that has had a detrimental effect on the country's election system. Now before I get into the meat of my argument I would like to preface that some of the views (indeed even the one just mentioned) I do not in any way espouse; I am undergoing an exercise to see just how viable our current electoral system remains in this hyper-technological world.
Now, the result of this diffusion of voting power has been beneficial in recent years. Indeed as a fully-liberal democrat I can only be happy that women and minorities are allowed to vote; these demographic groups form the backbone of the Democratic election effort. But what has happened as a consequence is that most people who vote today do not have the slightest knowledge about who they are voting for. Indeed the current state of American democracy is a paradox of epic proportions: presently the widest number of people exercise power over the election process (we are second-only to India in this regard), but also the centralization of both power and the media has induced a process of stultification amongst this country's electorate that is staggering.
And this is the crux of my argument: the internet and its associated de-centralization of media distribution has been a boon to those members of society who have the time to learn about those men and women who stand for election. But at the same time, the people who really do know about what is happening in this country are effectively silenced by the great mass of people who are either too busy or too ignorant to bother with learning about the calamities that stand on our collective doorstep.
So we must grapple with the democratization of information but the necessary limiting of power. Can you not see why this is necessary? The only alternative is to work towards the education of everyone so that they are not so ignorant of our situation. But this is impossible with the current politics in play. The republicans are of course aware of this and have successfully neutered our public education system. So what does a Democrat of good conscience do? Hope for the best and assume that somewhere down the line people will be educated enough to make decisions that are based upon informed opinions and rational debate?
It is saddening for me to have to say this, but if you asked me my political views today I would say that I am a fascist. Not in the antiquated 20th-century use of the term. Global Warming, the war in Iraq, the coming conflict with Iran, and the economic crisis cannot be adequately dealt with by any of the candidates that stand for election (though a cursory glance to the left will show you where the realist inside of me places his hopes and hard-earned cash). What is most necessitated by the internet revolution is a de-democratization of the political process; one that does not allow the current farce to continue. What I refer to as the 'current farce' is the fact-of-the-matter situation in which a select group of people are elected regardless--this is the same situation as the one I am advocating--but for one major distinction: We must realize the pervasive corruption that has taken hold of Washington and destroy it by replacing not the people who hold office but the people who decide who stands for office.
It remains to be determined just who will retain the power to decide elections (and I suppose in that sense this article is most lacking). In this sense my ignorance of history does not pay off: I haven't the slightest idea of how to create a meritocracy that on the one hand keeps the best interests of the nation as a whole in mind but on the other keeps complete fucking tossers such as Jon McCain and George Bush out of the political process. Because indeed our current political situation is the result of a perversion of the existing meritocracy. Where previously distinguished military service or an Ivy-league education were beneficial requisites for holding office, the administration of George Bush has proven this state of affairs to be woefully inadequate.
I do not propose any solutions but I think that it is the job of this generation (my own) to come up with a solution to this problem that can be summed up as: "disenfranchisement, but disenfranchisement of the right people". More later.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
free will?
I just watched John Searle's talk at Google about the question of the existence of 'free will'. I'm going to gloss over the details (the video is above for anyone interested in reading it), but Searle offers two contradictory theories of Free will:
Theory the first
The mind, like all physical objects, is directly affected and determined by physical processes. Thus all thoughts that are considered 'free' are actually determined by a long, causal chain of events.
Theory the second
The mind's processes are at base determined by quantum-mechanical models of reality, and free will arises from these quantum-mechanical processes, which are not deterministic.
If you are an adherent to the philosophy that Free will exists, Searle argues, then you must accept theory #2. However this theory is unsatisfactory because Quantum processes are only 'random' insofar as we cannot understand them fully. If we come to understand Quantum mechanics fully, we will come to understand this randomness as part of our physical picture. Additionally, this 'randomness' of quantum-mechanics does not do justice to our notion of 'free will'--our decisions are not 'random' when we make them, though they are free. Therefore the two concepts are actually incompatible.
But Searle is begging the question: what exactly was the point of free will in the first place? In the past we believed it was important that an earth-centric astronomical model be proven, because otherwise the importance of the human race (at least, with relation to god) would be diminished.
Now, what is the real consequence of conceding: yes, there is no 'free will', as such? Well, if this makes you decide to simply let life come to you, and let yourself slip into indolence, then you are simply fulfilling your own destiny. Indeed, the importance of 'free will' is just that: even if it is a mere figment of our imagination, it impels us towards achieving the most we can in life, and helps us keep at bay the dismal thought that life does not amount to anything at all, and that the collective existence of humanity is nothing but a small pebble tumbling through the downward, unstoppable flow of the sands of time and space.
So does it matter, strictly speaking, that free will can be explained by cognitive science to be mere epiphenomenological froth? Nay, I say. We must speak in these matters with regard to use, not simply verificationist 'truth'. If physics can explain biology, does this demand that we discard biology in favor of it? Both are simply conceptual systems used to explain the phenomenological milieu. Why not say the same of 'free will'?
Sunday, April 13, 2008
politics, technology--and language?
Dick Cavett writes a brilliant piece examining Ryan Crocker and David Petraeus' language in the recent Senate hearings about the Iraq war. Seemingly unrelated, but it raises a tangential yet important concern: to what extent is the 'cop-speak' which Cavett refers to a result of our technologic society? Without succumbing to the vagaries of Blog-writers I think I might do well to suggest that the rapid professional and educational specialization that has been a marker of the past 20 years has wrought (and has still to make) incredible effects on English.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
What to make of the recession
Though for my dear readers it must be quite easy to come across analyses of the current economic climate in the United States, I think the topic deserves some play here, if only because it will come to have a much greater bearing on the technological industry in the coming months.
The first relevant issue will be immigration. For the past 5 years the apparent lack of American engineering graduates has forced many technology companies (Google, Microsoft--the usual suspects) to look abroad to import labor. The ability for companies such as Google to attract engineers from all over the world depends in large part upon a valuable dollar. With competition from the EU and Asia increasing, the ability for US companies to snag the best graduates from 'farms' such as India and China (who produce massive amounts of engineering skill) will decrease.
Secondly, the preeminence of US information technology depends in large part on US cultural hegemony. Indeed, the two concepts seem inseparable: Computers worldwide use some form of Windows, and the word 'Google' as a synonym for 'Search' is not exclusive of english-speaking countries. As the US dollar slides and the US government's foreign policy clout recedes, will we see the rise of other companies (possibly russian or chinese) that will begin to take the place of Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Apple?
These questions are relevant, but any sufficient answer is impossible, and this is why: There has never been an economic funk of this size and scale since the internet came into popular use. The so-called "burst bubble" of the 2001 dot-com boom was little more than a readjustment of stock valuations in the technological sector (something that was bound to happen, and did not hurt any of the really valuable companies in this market--it only eliminated redundant ones).
Contrary to what my questions above seem to suggest, the possibility remains that a market has developed in the US that will be nearly recession-proof. Why? Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft have been steadily building their international presences. Google recently inked a deal to build a massive datacenter in Taiwan, and the existence of computers with operating systems anywhere outside of the US and EU is largely dependent upon the efforts of Microsoft and Cisco.
So the coming years should turn out to be interesting ones--that is, what happens to Google & co. will be a drama of political, economic, cultural, and above all philosophical implications (will the world allow the US to become the gatekeepers of electronic information exchange?).
The first relevant issue will be immigration. For the past 5 years the apparent lack of American engineering graduates has forced many technology companies (Google, Microsoft--the usual suspects) to look abroad to import labor. The ability for companies such as Google to attract engineers from all over the world depends in large part upon a valuable dollar. With competition from the EU and Asia increasing, the ability for US companies to snag the best graduates from 'farms' such as India and China (who produce massive amounts of engineering skill) will decrease.
Secondly, the preeminence of US information technology depends in large part on US cultural hegemony. Indeed, the two concepts seem inseparable: Computers worldwide use some form of Windows, and the word 'Google' as a synonym for 'Search' is not exclusive of english-speaking countries. As the US dollar slides and the US government's foreign policy clout recedes, will we see the rise of other companies (possibly russian or chinese) that will begin to take the place of Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Apple?
These questions are relevant, but any sufficient answer is impossible, and this is why: There has never been an economic funk of this size and scale since the internet came into popular use. The so-called "burst bubble" of the 2001 dot-com boom was little more than a readjustment of stock valuations in the technological sector (something that was bound to happen, and did not hurt any of the really valuable companies in this market--it only eliminated redundant ones).
Contrary to what my questions above seem to suggest, the possibility remains that a market has developed in the US that will be nearly recession-proof. Why? Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft have been steadily building their international presences. Google recently inked a deal to build a massive datacenter in Taiwan, and the existence of computers with operating systems anywhere outside of the US and EU is largely dependent upon the efforts of Microsoft and Cisco.
So the coming years should turn out to be interesting ones--that is, what happens to Google & co. will be a drama of political, economic, cultural, and above all philosophical implications (will the world allow the US to become the gatekeepers of electronic information exchange?).
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
The case for pessimism on technology
Most conjecturing and theorizing about technology is tainted by moral positivism. Even the lowliest gadget blog (Engadget or Gizmodo come to mind) can trace their lineage to the early projects of scientific enlightenment. Tall words coming from a blog that purports towards the development of a ‘theory of technology’, you might say. Indeed, undertaking even the most cursory examination of technology and its place in modern society (as if the two were somehow separable) is destined to be bent and manipulated by this pervasive, technological optimism. The belief that technology is good is fundamental to almost all human philosophy. Is it not artifice and craftsmanship that sets humans apart from animals? We reason that our frail, fragile bodies are more than made up for by our ability to adapt to any situation with our ability to adapt the environment that surrounds us to suit our purposes (Inuit tribes).
What, then, prompts our discussion today? If there is one thing which gives intellectuals reason for comfort it is the progression of technology. “Deliver us,” most pray, “from the sweaty hands of religious fundamentalists and our Paleolithic fellow-man”. With extremism popping up everywhere and the environment gone awry, there is little that seems to stand in the way between humanity and utter oblivion than our time-tested ability to get ourselves out of binds with the tools we make.
But that is just it: so far, industry, hard work, and ingenuity have saved humanity from its (often self-inflicted) destruction. What is there to say that things will continue to be so. My suggestion is not simply a petty adaptation of Hume to modern times, but a valid question to be asked of every person who believes in technology as part and parcel for humanity’s progress. Humans have pretensions towards enlightened thought and physical capability beyond their god-given means. We explore space, we turn over rocks on the bottom of the deepest of oceans. Yet one inescapable fact remains. As much as we may distance ourselves from animals, it is still bare, animal necessity that drives us.
An optimist (or a capitalist more likely) would praise animal necessity as the progenitor of all progress; I do not dispute this fact. Ask yourself: is man’s ability to think beyond his means the very undoing of his existence? I do not intend to turn this bit of words into praise for the ‘noble savage’, who lives off of the land and does not challenge the might of his gods. But the question would do well to be asked: If the collective natural costs for all of the technological innovations which we hold in exultations were to be comprehended by all men, could we still justify our headlong rush into technocracy?
What, then, prompts our discussion today? If there is one thing which gives intellectuals reason for comfort it is the progression of technology. “Deliver us,” most pray, “from the sweaty hands of religious fundamentalists and our Paleolithic fellow-man”. With extremism popping up everywhere and the environment gone awry, there is little that seems to stand in the way between humanity and utter oblivion than our time-tested ability to get ourselves out of binds with the tools we make.
But that is just it: so far, industry, hard work, and ingenuity have saved humanity from its (often self-inflicted) destruction. What is there to say that things will continue to be so. My suggestion is not simply a petty adaptation of Hume to modern times, but a valid question to be asked of every person who believes in technology as part and parcel for humanity’s progress. Humans have pretensions towards enlightened thought and physical capability beyond their god-given means. We explore space, we turn over rocks on the bottom of the deepest of oceans. Yet one inescapable fact remains. As much as we may distance ourselves from animals, it is still bare, animal necessity that drives us.
An optimist (or a capitalist more likely) would praise animal necessity as the progenitor of all progress; I do not dispute this fact. Ask yourself: is man’s ability to think beyond his means the very undoing of his existence? I do not intend to turn this bit of words into praise for the ‘noble savage’, who lives off of the land and does not challenge the might of his gods. But the question would do well to be asked: If the collective natural costs for all of the technological innovations which we hold in exultations were to be comprehended by all men, could we still justify our headlong rush into technocracy?
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Google Android and the Apple iPhone
Dan Farber of cnet news.com writes about the recent release of the iPhone SDK and the effects this will have on the brewing war between Google and Apple for control of mobile computing in the next 10 years. Although Farber wants to say that the battle will not be between Apple and Google but between Google, RIM and Microsoft, I think he is wrong on this count.
We are at the tipping point of mobile technology. To anyone who has used an iPhone before, it is easy to see how someday a device that fits in your pocket could replace a laptop, especially if a user only needed word processing, e-mail, image editing, and web surfing capability. In this sense the coming battle is going to be between Google and Apple, because what Google has managed to do is create a mobile OS that is both easy to use and good-looking and appeals to carriers and manufacturers because it can be freely modified to suit a specific purchaser's needs.
Microsoft and RIM, to be certain, will play a large role in which permutation of mobile technology will become the 'de nouveau' progenitor of the next generation or itineration of mobile computing devices. However Microsoft and RIM are limited in the sense that they can only cater to business customers. What the iPhone has demonstrated, quite remarkably, is that personal, private demand dictates the demands in the business market. It should not be surprising, but there is little attention paid to this fact in the current analyses of the mobile market. Apple's iPhone is making waves in the business world not because of its capabilities. When I was interning for a small private equity firm in London this summer, almost all of the executives there were drooling over the iPhone. This is not because it possesses some capability which the RIM blackberry does not: by all accounts, the Blackberry is far and away the most capable business mobile device on the market. The reason they were jonesing for one was simple: they found the iPhone aesthetically pleasing, and the 'personal tech' features such as youtube videos and google maps far exceeded the Blackberry's.
This means that Google must first and foremost create an operating system that appeals on a visceral level (it seems like they are well on their way). If Google can stimulate on a purely sensory level, then the game is Apple's to lose, and Google's to win. Farber, in the article above, quite astutely points out that the current distribution model for the iPhone means that Apple must face the same problem with its iPhone as it faced with Mac OS: whether or not to confine it to its own hardware or to license it out to other manufacturers. Apple has of course taken its traditional view and is aiming to create a reliable revenue stream from hardware sales instead of software licensing. But this is exactly why Apple has so far failed to make a dent into the enterprise market for software computers, and it is exactly why Apple will not penetrate the business mobile market. Google, on the other hand, has the chance to succeed where RIM and Microsoft have both failed (by creating an operating system that is intuitive to use and pleasing to the eye) and also to succeed where Apple will undoubtedly fail, by creating a mobile operating system that can be used by any handset manufacturer and adapted to any carrier network. This is crucial for the success of any OS in the Business world, and Google seems well on its way towards realizing this goal (even more than RIM has so far).
We are at the tipping point of mobile technology. To anyone who has used an iPhone before, it is easy to see how someday a device that fits in your pocket could replace a laptop, especially if a user only needed word processing, e-mail, image editing, and web surfing capability. In this sense the coming battle is going to be between Google and Apple, because what Google has managed to do is create a mobile OS that is both easy to use and good-looking and appeals to carriers and manufacturers because it can be freely modified to suit a specific purchaser's needs.
Microsoft and RIM, to be certain, will play a large role in which permutation of mobile technology will become the 'de nouveau' progenitor of the next generation or itineration of mobile computing devices. However Microsoft and RIM are limited in the sense that they can only cater to business customers. What the iPhone has demonstrated, quite remarkably, is that personal, private demand dictates the demands in the business market. It should not be surprising, but there is little attention paid to this fact in the current analyses of the mobile market. Apple's iPhone is making waves in the business world not because of its capabilities. When I was interning for a small private equity firm in London this summer, almost all of the executives there were drooling over the iPhone. This is not because it possesses some capability which the RIM blackberry does not: by all accounts, the Blackberry is far and away the most capable business mobile device on the market. The reason they were jonesing for one was simple: they found the iPhone aesthetically pleasing, and the 'personal tech' features such as youtube videos and google maps far exceeded the Blackberry's.
This means that Google must first and foremost create an operating system that appeals on a visceral level (it seems like they are well on their way). If Google can stimulate on a purely sensory level, then the game is Apple's to lose, and Google's to win. Farber, in the article above, quite astutely points out that the current distribution model for the iPhone means that Apple must face the same problem with its iPhone as it faced with Mac OS: whether or not to confine it to its own hardware or to license it out to other manufacturers. Apple has of course taken its traditional view and is aiming to create a reliable revenue stream from hardware sales instead of software licensing. But this is exactly why Apple has so far failed to make a dent into the enterprise market for software computers, and it is exactly why Apple will not penetrate the business mobile market. Google, on the other hand, has the chance to succeed where RIM and Microsoft have both failed (by creating an operating system that is intuitive to use and pleasing to the eye) and also to succeed where Apple will undoubtedly fail, by creating a mobile operating system that can be used by any handset manufacturer and adapted to any carrier network. This is crucial for the success of any OS in the Business world, and Google seems well on its way towards realizing this goal (even more than RIM has so far).
the cityshrinker and other odds and ends
This blog is going to be mainly a platform for theoretical babble, backed up by loosely-collected evidence. However from time to time I see some pretty awesome stuff online that I think is worth posting on here. Most of them (including the one above) will be collected from blogs I frequent. In any case, cityshrinker is a project by Ben Thomas to shrink various cities from their mind-numbingly complex and large-scale apparitions to bite-sized and easily understood diarama-type photographs, taken from a quasi-aerial perspective.
The blog I got this from, kitsune noir, was quick to downplay the Ben's clever technique when he realized that these were not actually hand-made dioramas of world cities but were actually photographs. While I think that making dioramas of these cities to this level of detail would have indeed been a task worthy of praise, I think these photographs are even more amazing for the progress they symbolize in the realm of digital photography. Take a look, you'll see what I mean. Maybe later I'll post some sorf of interpretation, but I'd rather just let it stand.
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