Sociological, psychological notes – Page 11 – Maverisk / Étoiles du Nord

Decision time for informational priv

When discussing Privacy, a lot of attention goes to informational privacy, easily tautologised with person-possibly-indentifying data.
If that reads mixed-up, it’s because it is.
But that’s for another session series. Of series.

What today’s post title is about, is the distinction between the two sides of the house; informational privacy (which is about information about you, or which you generate) versus decisional privacy (commonly defined in terms of your right to freely decide over your body’s integrity). As you read that, clearly the latter needs an update; a heck of a long KBxyzuvw article attached.
Because both the

Outright choice limitation through covert or overt profiling and covert or overt automated decision making, sometimes limiting your choice to none when you get rejected (from the ability to even decide) for something, or get no service proposition at all, a.k.a. the Hobson’s choice of socmed,
Covert choice limitation through filter bubbles – which would more accurately be called filter fish-trap,

can result from a lack of informational privacy. But both aren’t well covered in the definition of decisional priv whereas that infamous thing with The Freedom of the Pursuit of Happiness or whatsitcalled I don’t care you get it, Freedom, should be guaranteed.
So tightly coupled with all sorts of metaphysics, ontology, and topology of Privacy. Like, the feeling and understanding y’all have when you hear that word. It’s not only ‘bugger off nothing of your interest here’ privacy but also ‘get off my back‘ privacy; no weighing down.

Oh well. This being among my interests but not really my training, so I’ll go read up the latest qua this all. Pointers appreciated. And:
[For no reason whatsoever, totally unconnected; Riga Jugendstil]

Music to AI’s ears

Will AI eventually appreciate music ..?

Not just appreciate in a sense of experiencing the quality of it — the latter having ‘technical’ perfection as its kindergarten basement’s starting level only; where the imperfections are cherishable as huge improvements, yes indeed [Perfection Is Boring!] … but moreover, music appreciation having a major element of recognition, subconsciously mostly, of memories of times almost-im-memorial.

Of course, the kindergarten perfection gauging, AI will be able to do easily. Will, or does; simple near-algorithmic A”I” can do that today.

Appreciating imperfections, the same, with a slight randomiser (-recogniser) thrown in the algo mix.

But the recollection part, even at a conscious level requires memories to be there, and as far as AI goes (today) even ASI will have different memory structures since the whole facts learning processes are different. And don’t mention the subconscious side.

Yes, ASI can have a subconscious, of which we aren’t aware of even able to be aware [Note to self: to cover in audit philosophy development]. But when we don’t hear of this, was there a tree that fell in the forest?

I’m off some tangent direction.

What I started out to discuss is: At what point does music appreciation through the old(est) memories recall, become an element of ‘intelligence’ ..?

With the accompanying question, on my priority list when discussing AxI: Is it, for humans ..?

And a bonus question: Do you really think that AI would prefer, or learn earlier about the excellence, of Kraftwerk or Springsteen? Alas, your first response was wrong; Kraftwerk’s the kind of subtle intelligent hint-laden apparently-simple stuff that is very complex and also deeply human — which you perceive only when listening carefully over and over again till you get the richness and all the emotions (there they are!) and yearning for the days gone by when the world was a better place. Springsteen, raw and Original-Forceful on the surface — but quickly showing a (rational-level) algorithmics play with not as much depth; even the variations and off-prefection bits are well thought-out, leaving you with much less relatable memories if at all.

Your thoughts are appreciated. And:
[Appropriately seemingly transparent but completely opaque; some EU parliament (?), Strassbourg]

Nutty cryptofails

Considering the vengeance with which cryptobackdoors, or other forms of regulation into tautological-fail limitations, are pursued over and over again (case in point: The soon luckily carved out surrender (to Monay) monkeys [case in point: anyone who has seriously tried an invasion, succeeded handsomely]), it may be worthwhile to re-consider what the current situation is. As depicted in the following:

In which D is what governments et al can’t stand. Yes, it’s that big; pushing all other categories into corners.
Where C is also small, and probably shrinking fast. And B is known; maybe not empty but through its character and the knowledge of it as cracked-all-around part, hardly used if ever, by n00bs only.
And A is what governments want for themselves, but know they can’t have or it will quickly move to B — probably without governments’ knowing of this shift…

And all, vulnerable to the XKCD ‘hack’:

Against which no backdoor-for-governments-only policy will help.
I’ll rest.

Glee because of support

All the mavericks of the world rejoice (and Maverisk among them, of course, already); finally there’s new [howzat for a typifying contradictio..?] evidence-of-sorts that the below that had popped into my mind a couple of days ago, is still, more, valid than ever. Being, related but in an angled/vector-transposed way, not about rebels but about other mischievings in general business management culture(s).

[Should I note that the ‘evidence’ already is worth much study and implementation? Yes I should.]
[Edited to add: Be ware of the other side, too; too many mediocre men just drift upwards by lack of weight: here.]
[Yup that’s a re-post from yesteryears, like, 12 March 2015 …]

Two points to make:
* Middle management will be.
* Secretaries should be.

The discussion regarding middle managers being superfluous or not had a slight uptick the past couple of months. With the latter voice having been a bit too quiet. Yes, middle management is under threat. It has always been; only the (history-)ignorant will have missed that. And Yes, all the Disruption things and similar empty barrel half-baked air by a lot of folks who have hands-on experience in the slim to none bin with (real) management altogether let alone this kind, have predicted over and over again that the disruption by Server-with-algorithm-app-that-schedules-day-laborers will make middle management redundant, as the believed task was only that.

Quod non. And as if just an algorithm will capture the full complexity (and incoherence, inconsistency, internally and externally contradictory ..!) of the requirements and work of the middle manager.

OK, we’re not discussing the drone administrative clerk that has Manager on his card (huh?) and sits in an office passing top-down orders and bottom-up reports back and forth. We’re talking the real, 24/7 problem firefighter here. The coordinator of chaos. The translator of lofty (other would say, ‘airhead’) ‘governance’ (quod non) mumbo jumbo into actual work structure and tasks, and translatereporting back. That survives and in doing so, shows great performance. The other ones, will be weeded out anyway, every time there’s an economic cycle downturn. [If the right ones would be kept, and the wrong ones ‘given growth opportunities elsewhere’. Seldomly the case; offing is by the fte numbers, and the wrong ones have being glued to their seats as their core competence, through sucking up or otherwise.]
So, the middle manager stays for a long time to come as (s)he does the kind of non-predictable work that will remain longest. If start-ups don’t have them, see them grow: They will.

Secretaries deserve a come-back. In similar vein as above, the vast majority of ~~managers~~ office clerks (from the shop floor (even if of knowledge workers…) all the way to near the top) these days have to do their own typing, scheduling, and setting up socializing things. Whereas before, economies of scale were many, and there were additional benefits because the good (sic, again) secretaries would e.g., know the best, unrenown restaurants all around and could get you a table even when they would be fully booked, and they would manage (massage away) some internal friction as well, often very discreetly and efficiently. Now, vastly more expensive (by hourly rate, productivity (think switching costs in the managers minds …, and utilisation), cost of ineffectiveness (sic again) and opportunity costs re their actual objectives (if these would be achieved; good/bad manager discussion again)) managers must manage their way around. An impoverished world it is indeed.

To bring back some joy:
[Some colour, but it’s down there… Zuid-As]

Mixing up the constitution

When your state secretary is mixing up all sorts of things. When at the official site, at last email (and other ‘telecomm’) is listed to be included as protected on the same footing as snail mail has always been, qua privacy protection.

Which raises the question: Does that include the right to use (uncrackable) encryption, because that is what is equivalent to a sealed envelope ..? When the same government wanted to ban that, or allow simply-crackable [i.e., with bumblinggovernment means – the most simpleton kind or ‘too hard’] encryption only?
Why would this have to be included so explicitly in the constitution no less, when just about every other tech development isn’t anywhere there, and in the past it has always been sufficient to interpret/read the constitution to automatically translate to the most modern tech without needing textual adaptation ..? [As has been the case in every civilised country, and maybe even in the US too.]
And where would GDPR impinge on this; is the rush necessitated by GDPR (with all its law-enforcement exemptions, pre-arranging the ab-use of those powers GDPR will give), or is this an attempt to pre-empt protection against Skynet overlords (pre-pre-empting GDPR protection for citizens), – recognising that anything so rushed will never be in favour of those citizens – or what?

One wonders. And:
[So many “unidentified” office buildings in NY, NY …]

DNA not so Determinant; there goes another piece of Evidence

[ Commemoration of the Dead, today in the Netherlands. Never forgotten. Never forget! ]

In the series of surrealisation of proof, in courts and elsewhere, turning anything into faker news than before – a trend that was under way already for a long time, maybe centuries but now speeding up enormously – after the most recent class of proof (yes don’t complain I’m clear, qua ‘class’!) we have even old (?) evidence classes being overthrown. Like, your DNA.
Somehow, we already knew that. Where the analogue of hash collisions happened IRL, with disastrous consequences for peoples’ lives, and that of their families, et al. Really, imagine yourself in the midst of it all: Ragnarök and the collapse of the foundations of society … I’m not joking any bit.

But now, again. What Evidence classes remain? When each and every class can be planted, fabricated (signatures, pictures; untraceably), coerced (‘rat out your partner or all of your family will be killed before your eyes’), etc., indeed nothing remains. Nothing non-repudiatory…

But flipside; Skynet is here. Like before.

And:
[Either way, you lose; Zuid-As Ams]

The Secret of Innovators — “Keep on trying harder!”

Recalling all those ‘motivational’ quotes about seriously too late, ridiculously over-aged to ever still start a unicorn eleven-somethings, you having to fail for the rest of your life or you’re a failure (right? If you don’t fail, you don’t learn or whatev’), or in conclusion, you’re not failing grossly enough if you don’t succeed – or was it the other way around ..?

Suddenly I realised: If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it. (W.C. Fields)
And: The above keep-on-trying train / ship of fools, is a perfect application of The Secret to innovation.

Yes, indeed, ‘perfect’ with the pejorative tone you carry throughout the day. And The Secret being that oh so rightfully discredited piece of paper (!) waste that even today some still believe in; would you believe it?
Yes, have a fresh look at the first line above: It’s the same as the book’s content.

On a less black-and-white note: Aren’t ‘Innovators’ typified as those that naïvely believe that one just have to deny very hard that anything might not work, just put in endless effort and hey presto you’ll succeed? If you fail, you didn’t deny hard enough.
[ Or you’re outright criminally breaking the law, then complain that the law needs to be changed to allow you to reap unethically large profits for just-above cold air, like the … U know who … Why am I not allowed to be a gun for hire!? I make good money out of it and the current system doesn’t get my opponents killed fast enough! Totally ineffective! but that’s beside the main line of this post…]

Where actual Innovators that win in the end, are (what you read in Originals plus) the ones seeking the highest-risk roadblocks and undo them when possible or evade them, believing that fortune will come your way when caring against ill fortune.

So no putting your life’s all into something and hope you’ll win life’s lottery of purely accidental unicorn success, but spread your bets, cut losses, etc. Less exiting a gamble maybe but less of your life at stake.

Plus:
[Down (to) the Tube(s); for no apparent reason and no reference to ‘Samsu’ in the background either, Vienna]

What should also be in the GDPR

At least, as an idea: Foreign countries that interfere with privacy in the EU, should be included in the penalisation stuff. Same levels, like; 4% of GDP for e.g., registering political opinions of citizens of the EU even when they’re also citizens of that foreign, alien, enemy country, without explicit opt-in consent. [This happened, happens..!] For every transgression. Then enforce via trade sanctions and import taxes [after checking the trade balance will effect the ‘payment’ of the fines; won’t be stupid].

Oh, and:
[Or the supreme leader goes to jail for a long, long time and is struck by lightning; unrelated, Ottawa]

Common(s) as privacy and vice versa ..?

Remember from your econ class that concept of The Commons, and how problematic it was? Is?
There was this intriguing post recently, on how Free Speech might be considered and deliberated in terms of the commons being exhausted by undue over-use (abuse) — for its use alone ( → ). Leading to aversity of the concept not of the abuser or his (sic) apparent locally recognised but globally not, ‘valid’ reason(s) for over-use.

Which, as is my wont of the moment, driven by personal business interests, I took to be applicable to Privacy as well. Maybe not in the same way, but … This will need quite some discussion between me on the one hand, and peers and others on the other who would actually know what they’re talking about. Throwing in a bit of anglo-american data-isn’t-yours versus European (‘continental’ — will brexit – which starts to sound like a lame Benny Hill kind of joke ever more – change that ..??) data-is-datasubject’s-always divides, and some more factors here and there. Complicating matters, but hey life’s not perfect.

Waddayathink? In for a discussion ..? Let’s start!

And:
[Not so very common-s; Toronto]

Ben still has all the Ayes

There is no end to the need to repeat the, somewhat but simply never sufficiently, quote by the Ben you know best:
Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.

How valid today. How utterly moronic in comparison all that would allow crypto-backdoors (for other reasons, too), and covert catch-all dragnet surveillance. Etc. Etc…

Oh and for the few that are still interested in the United States Constitution, they shall refer to article 1, section 7, clause 2 , that has not ayes and nays but yeas and Nays. Just wanted that off my plate.

Leaving you with:
[You’ll be naked and that will not be pretty; Barça]