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Category: Newsletter (page 19 of 28)

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This website was archived on July 20, 2019. It is frozen in time on that date.
Exolymph creator Sonya Mann's active website is Sonya, Supposedly.

March 16, 2016

Conflict Resources & Murky Culpability

After I wrote this dispatch I read “Your Phone Was Made By Slaves” by Kevin Bales and immediately felt silly — his longer piece covers a lot of the same ground in more depth. If you find this topic interesting, it’s a good read.

Computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices contain conflict minerals. For those of you unfamiliar with the term: “Conflict resources are natural resources whose systematic exploitation and trade in a context of conflict [AKA a war zone] contribute to, benefit from or result in the commission of serious violations of human rights”. Furthermore, “Take away the ability to profit from resource extraction and [the fighting groups] can no longer exacerbate or sustain conflict.”

To provide an example, minerals in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are mined by rebel militias and sold to fund the continuation of the fighting. The buyers are nobody in particular, but those minerals are laundered the way illicit money is laundered, by being passed through middlemen. Eventually manufacturers use the minerals on behalf of multinational purveyors of consumer electronics. Big companies — brand names that you would recognize. And so the violence continues, because local warlords want to keep access to their money machine. (If you have a Netflix account, I recommend watching the investigative documentary Virunga to learn more about this.) The DRC is only one of the places devastated by neocolonialism paired with local power-mongering.

Image via Wikimedia Commons.

The photo above dates from the late 1800s or early 1900s. According to USC’s caption, “The Congolese man is likely to have been a victim of the ‘Congo atrocities’, punishment, murders and mutilations (particularly amputation of the right hand on living victims or after death) that took place on colonial rubber plantations in the Congo Free State, territory owned by Belgian King Leopold II […] Workers on rubber plantations were paid with worthless goods, and it was in noticing this imbalance of trade that shipping clerk Edmund Morel reported in his columns for The West African Mail, noticing that large numbers of weapons were going into the country to control the rubber workers.” I call it neocolonialism because we are continuing an old pattern, just shuffling the guns around.

The New York Times’ East Africa bureau chief Jeffrey Gettleman wrote in a piece for National Geographic:

“In the ensuing free-for-all [after dictator Mobutu Sese Seko was deposed and Congo was consumed by war], foreign troops and rebel groups seized hundreds of mines. It was like giving an ATM card to a drugged-out kid with a gun. The rebels funded their brutality with diamonds, gold, tin, and tantalum, a hard, gray, corrosion-resistant element used to make electronics. Eastern Congo produces 20 to 50 percent of the world’s tantalum.”

How do we cope with this, as consumers? Do we drop out of modern life, eschewing all the connected devices that have become standard in the “First World”? Do we cling to guilt and shame because we don’t care enough to actually change our behavior? I’ll admit it: I don’t care enough about this problem to sacrifice my iPhone or my laptop. I’m not going to switch to a Fairphone. Neither do I only buy fair-trade food and clothing.

So, should I blame myself for the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo? Is it my fault and yours? I’m genuinely undecided. On one hand, the demand side of a transaction doesn’t specify the methods of the supply side. I didn’t ask anyone to buy from militias. I didn’t ask the seventeenth-century European superpowers to pursue mercantilism and shoulder the spurious “white man’s burden”. On the other hand, I am funding terrorism, albeit very indirectly. Amnesty International released a report on cobalt sourcing in January — it’s pretty clear that this is not a resolved issue.

March 15, 2016

Imaginary Numerical Encroachment

Remember imaginary numbers? In case you need a refresher — I did — here’s what Wikipedia says:

“An imaginary number is a complex number that can be written as a real number multiplied by the imaginary unit i, which is defined by its property i² = −1. The square of an imaginary number bi is −b². For example, 5i is an imaginary number, and its square is −25. Except for 0 (which is both real and imaginary), imaginary numbers produce negative real numbers when squared.”

The square root of a negative number has no representation in the physical world. You can hold a couple of apples in your hand, but you can’t hold the square root of -4 apples in your hand. Searching for i leads you to a paradox. Of course, the idea of a negative item is already nonsensical — even regular negative numbers are concepts without material form. And yet they’re “real”, if that term can be judged applicable. The most simple example of IRL negative numbers is finance: any balance you owe can be represented by negatives. But imaginary numbers specifically are used in electrical engineering and physics.

Image by fdecomite.

There are two basic ways of looking at math. Either math powers the universe — it’s the underlying engine — or math simply describes the universe. In the latter scheme, arithmetic is a human construct. I think both of these frameworks are somewhat right. Math is a logical system based on units, and there is no logic without a mind to perceive it. And yet the regularity and accuracy with which numerical manipulation explains our world says that we’re onto something.

In an old Guardian article, Gareth Owen commented on imaginary numbers:

“They are of enormous use in applied maths and physics. Complex numbers (the sum of real and imaginary numbers) occur quite naturally in the study of quantum physics. They’re useful for modelling periodic motions (such as water or light waves) as well as alternating currents.”

Imaginary numbers are imaginary — it’s right there in the name — but they’re not exactly made up.

You know the joke, right? Literature is psychology is biology is chemistry is physics is math. Scientific inquiry always leads us back to numbers. Computer science is a kind of applied math (artificial intelligence even more so) and now I’m getting to my point. The internet emerged from this tension between real and unreal, and the way we talk about it reflects that. VR will be a new realm for us, even less solid in the everyday sense. The requisite devices are built with engineering expertise, founded on a system that no one can observe — we must rely on paradoxical tricks to make it work.

So what’s the conclusion? To be honest, I don’t have a profound insight to wrap things up. Maybe the takeaway is just that humans invented the term “real” and language is a flawed tool. Math is not inherent to the universe, and it doesn’t always function as a mirror of the physical world.

March 14, 2016

Don’t Show Up If You Won’t Cash Out

Stanford historian Leslie Berlin wrote an homage to Silicon Valley’s success that you may have seen linked around. It’s a good essay, but I was irked by a particular passage about Silicon Valley’s tradition of mentoring and reinvestment:

“This model of one generation succeeding and then turning around to offer the next generation of entrepreneurs financial support and managerial expertise is one of the most important and under-recognized secrets to Silicon Valley’s ongoing success.”

Berlin’s observation is true, but it’s phrased to make the phenomenon sound altruistic. Like I said on Twitter, the last round of entrepreneurs support the rising stars because they’ll get richer by doing it. There’s nothing wrong with that, and I don’t begrudge Marc Andreessen or Peter Thiel their fortunes.

However, I always feel slimy when self-interested profit-seeking is dressed as friendship and fatherly good feeling. Not that they can’t coexist, but no one amasses billions by only funding their friends and nephews (or nieces, theoretically). I’m reminded of Facebook’s Free Basics (née Internet.org), which is a marketing initiative passed off as philanthropy.

Stanford Theatre in Palo Alto. Photo by Franco Folini.

Language is important. Stories are important. The cultural memes that we absorb and the words we use to express them have real-world ramifications. (I know I’m either preaching to the choir or wasting my time, because those are the only two options on the internet…)

Maybe I shouldn’t worry about anyone else’s capitalist instincts, but it’s easy to be exploited when you’re convinced that everyone who helps you is doing it out of the goodness of their heart. If you feel like your business partner or your employer is granting you a favor, you’re less likely to stand up for your own end of the bargain.

inb4 someone calling me paranoid or cynical 😉

Photo of a protest marcher from the US National Archives.

Photo from the US National Archives.

March 13, 2016

Go Ahead & Change Bodies; Just Remember To Take Your Soma

The following story was written by Reddit user ehwut in /r/blastfromthefuture, and is being distributed here with permission. Lightly edited for this venue. You may notice that the style slips in and out of newsiness — I must chasten you to remember that the journalistic habits of 2064 will differ from our own.

Pamela Greensbury is a member of a human group once thought extinct: a stay-at-home mother. Whenever her friends brag about their accomplishments since the introduction of Kindercryo chambers, Pam feels horrified. “I keep thinking, what happened to a normal childhood? Watching cartoons, playing in the yard, going to school? Today, kids learn everything in their dreams. They miss out on so much.”

Pam’s objections echo the headlines we were accustomed to back when decades-old VR academy brands were first becoming household names. Her peer group regards her as the economic equivalent of lifelong lunar pioneers wobbling and fumbling under full Earth gravity. Pam told me, “No one remembers the work that a full-time live household requires. For choosing a traditional path, I was nearly isolated, and became a kind of quaint thing kept around for decorum.” She says that she has few friends.

Photo of Navajo children playing from the US National Archives.

Photo from the US National Archives.

We seldom hear their stories, but mothers who share Pam’s frustration with our twenty-four-hour work culture are more commonplace than we may think. Last year, the SomaCo plant strikes across New Jersey were mostly led by women who professed to be frustrated with being denied their natural range of emotion. In Beijing there are rumors of armed revolt by couples who demand a right to private intimacy as a matter of humanist faith. Have we tread down a path our species was never meant to go?

Doctor Rowan Johnson of the Center for Economic Culture may have the answer. “We tend to forget the struggles of the past once they’re over with. At one time, women couldn’t vote, men were expected to solely shoulder the bloody cost of war, and parents had to maintain nearly endless reserves of energy and discipline to raise their children in person. Kids played, yes, but they also got hurt. There were vaccination objectors, cultural battles between the genders, epidemics of abuse in various forms, and totally out-of-control rates of anxiety disorders.”

“Now, we are free to pursue our goals. We contribute to society every waking moment, our children are safe, and yet women object to the loss of their motherhood role. Men feel displaced in a culture that no longer provides them with any gender-specific role expectations. We may not always see the resentment there, bubbling beneath the surface of our collective social consciousness, but it is very real. National mood regulation has failed to correct this. We might as well face the truth — the alternative seems to be a return to the old days of social calamity.”

Perhaps no longer. Doctor Johnson has worked for thirteen years to perfect what his research team calls the ultimate solution for personal freedom. Through a combination of applications of nanomolecular manufacturing, gene therapy, and a minimal number of implant procedures, volunteer subjects have been gifted with the ability to take total moment-to-moment control of their physical identities. A simple interface allows users to change their gender, fine-tune their physical attributes, and even (despite much controversy) change their race.

“This is the true end of the gender divide.” Doctor Johnson beamed as he showed off a set, which the FDA is expected to rubber-stamp this December. “We can revert to the old way of doing things without disadvantage, due to attributes previously beyond our control. If our work reaches the mainstream, then matters of old contention such as equality and social injustice can be mitigated with the touch of an icon. Does somebody think they’ll be discriminated against for their gender? Then they can take on the appearance of the opposite gender for work and go back to their natural looks when they get home. Is there evidence of disproportionate law enforcement? Then adopt the characteristics of the privileged race while in public. Never before has the individual had such power to overcome social obstacles.”

Photo from the US National Archives.

But not everyone is convinced. Pamela Greensbury seems like a natural fit to advocate for this solution, which might draw people back into the physical world, but her testimony before the Senate Human Augmentation and Enhancement Committee proves otherwise. “We cannot sacrifice our individuality and diversity to save ourselves from ourselves. We will only adopt new problems! What happens to private relationships when the people you meet in public aren’t who you think they are? What will the psychological effects be when people feel forced to hide their race or gender in order to succeed? We’ve gone too far down a dangerous road already by sacrificing our nature to eliminate problems. Hiding from those problems is no solution either.”

Doctor Johnson was reached briefly for comment. He sighed and said, “Take away the root of these problems, and somebody complains. Give people the tools to mitigate discrimination with the freedom to live however they want at home, and somebody complains. Let people figure it all out for themselves, and somebody complains. Solve problems through regulations, and somebody complains. Anybody who doesn’t like our work doesn’t have to use it.”

It’s too soon to guess whether we’ll see a new kind of diversity or just continue as usual. The market will be the ultimate test. In the meantime, we may be wise to question those who stand in the way of progress. On her way out of the Senate chambers, Pamela Greensbury was arrested for mood regulation noncompliance. A spittle test administered by security at the entrance to the building proved that not only has she not taken her soma in recent months, but she has never been treated. CPS is investigating allegations of neglect, but has not commented on whether her children’s mood regulation needs were being fulfilled.

Once again, I encourage you to join the subreddit and upvote ehwut’s story. Thanks to fellow Redditor and sub moderator mofosyne for directing me to this piece.

March 11, 2016

Career X-Risk: The Legitimate Reason To Fear Computers

Artwork by Braydon Fuller via Post-Software.

Aeon published a long reflection on the possibilities of emergent consciousness, written by George Musser. In the essay he noted:

“Even systems that are not designed to be adaptive do things their designers never meant. […] A basic result in computer science is that self-referential systems are inherently unpredictable: a small change can snowball into a vastly different outcome as the system loops back on itself.”

It’s the butterfly effect, in other words. A small change within a complex system will cause a cascade of new small changes that quickly add up to large changes. Thus computer programs can surprise their designers. Often they’re just buggy, but at other times they develop capabilities that are difficult not to anthropomorphize. Either computers are messing up — cute, maybe frustrating — or they’re stumping us with semblances of creativity. It’s a human impulse, to ascribe intent and meaning to any output comprised of symbols (for example, text or numbers).

I’m not a mathematician, an engineer, or a scientist. Like most of us, I don’t have the training to understand rudimentary AI. (I don’t have the aptitude either, but that’s a separate discussion.) It’s starting to scare me more and more. I’m still skeptical of x-risk, so that’s not my worry. To be honest, I’m anxious about becoming obsolete. It’ll be a long time before the kind of work that I do can be fully automated / algorithmized, but maybe humans who understand computers better than I do will be able to glue different smart programs together and perform my job with less human labor.

The economy is a complex system. Small gains in efficiency can ripple out to transform entire industries.

March 10, 2016

Software Is Hungry

You may have heard that DeepMind’s machine-learning program AlphaGo beat reigning world champion Lee Sedol in the ancient and complex game of Go. (Technically, AlphaGo has only won two of five matches, but the writing on the wall is clear.) More and more lately, artificial intelligence is in the news, gaining on the analogue world by leaps and bounds. I’m glad of this, despite the accompanying proliferation of media fear-mongering. Hardworking programmers and data scientists are accelerating the future; they deserve recognition. (Shoutout to Francis Tseng!)

Illustration by Michele Rosenthal.

Unfortunately the present — I know Exolymph’s gimmick is the future-present, but in this case I mean the past-present — consists of tediously logging back in on website after website. Daily life is so mundane compared to the cutting edge. I restored my laptop to factory defaults, which is great because it’s not broken anymore, but I had to reenter my username and password(s) all over the place. It was a little disturbing to realize how many companies have dossiers of data about me. I don’t expect anything bad to happen to that information, but it’s an inherent vulnerability. What if I had a stalker? What if I want to pursue investigative journalism at some point?

The connecting thread between AlphaGo’s prowess and the way privacy keeps slipping away from individuals is that software is eating the world. We’re subsumed by technology, by the math that powers flashing lights behind screens. I’m okay with it. Human nature is fundamentally the same — all that’s changed is the conduit.

March 9, 2016

Technical Difficulties In The Twenty-First Century

Photo by Luka Ivanovic.

My laptop functions as an extension of my brain. I use it to store memories, to explore the environment that matters to myself and my peer group, and to express my will. Both my work and large parts of my social life live online. When I don’t have access to a reliable computer, I’m cut off from participating in the spheres that I care about. Sure, I can still read Twitter and Instapaper and text my boyfriend from my phone, but a laptop is so much more powerful. Unlike a phone, it’s a robust creative tool. I’m much more text-based than visual, so without a proper keyboard and word processor, I feel stymied. The Notes app is just not the same.

Currently I’m hurting for lack of a machine that will do my bidding. I don’t want to complain about my IT troubles too much, but it’s striking how drastically my life is affected by a slow and glitchy computer. This old Lenovo ThinkPad has been degrading gradually for a while — since I first got it four years ago, if we want to be precise — but over the past couple of days the situation has dramatically worsened. I can still do things, but not consistently, and I have to restart whenever I want to open or close a new program. Downloading images is basically out of the question. (Yes, a factory reset is on my schedule, and a Chromebook is winging its way to me from an Amazon warehouse.)

There’s a parallel between my computer and my antidepressant meds. Every day I take 225 milligrams of venlafaxine, the generic form of Effexor. It’s a drug that I’m incredibly grateful for, because it enables me to feel happy and energetic. But venlafaxine has hardcore side effects if I miss a dose — the colloquial term for what happens is “brain zaps”. You know that feeling when you drink too much caffeine, so you’re shaking and buzzing with anxiety? It’s like that, but also static electricity shocks me behind the eyes periodically. It’s not painful, but it’s not pleasant.

The frustration caused by trying to get my broken computer to just fucking do things is like trying to navigate the world when my brain is missing the right levels of serotonin and dopamine or whatever chemicals are affected. It’s not as bad as being depressed or being stuck with paper notebooks — but I am still filled with enough rage to want to cry.

March 8, 2016

Infants For Sale At Walmart

The following article was written by mofosyne, Cornelius, and Zhenya Slabkovski for the subreddit /r/blastfromthefuture. Distributed here with permission. Edited and expanded for this venue.

Walmart recently launched their new line of Chubby Cherub infants. Early sales records show that Millennials prefer the Chubby Cherub brand to other leading names, such as Amazon’s FatCheeks. However, this cutting-edge product and its competitors are not without controversy.

Conservative groups have protested what one impassioned citizen deemed “the dehumanizing effect of selling infants on store shelves”. Most readers will be aware that this movement’s popularity has swelled since the July bombing of Walmart’s BioLife research facility. This week, a notorious incident in Washington DC led to the deployment of LRAD police drones, which successfully neutralized a riot attempt by au naturel protesters outside of the Supreme Court.

Photo by JE Theriot.

The conservative rally coincided with a special court session in which the justices ruled on legality of “shelf babies”, as Chubby Cherubs and FatCheeks are called on social media. The Supreme Court effectively gave the commercial infant retailers an all-clear sign, prompting the furor outside. Well-known conservative politicians attended the court session and later participated in the protest. In particular, Senator Zhenya was heard shouting, “My pastor will hear of this. Repent!” while being roughly escorted to the door by security personnel.

The industry alliance behind “shelf babies” points to the benefits of standardized human manufacturing. Babies grown in controlled environments have demonstrated greater intelligence and more rigorous health in preliminary studies conducted by the University of California at San Francisco. But the Child Design Group warns that the prevalence of off-the-shelf babies will endanger genetic diversity. A spokesperson recommended that aspiring parents use their specialty design service.

Now go join the sub and upvote the story!

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