Sociological, psychological notes – Page 23 – Maverisk / Étoiles du Nord

Area man will reluctantly vote for Hillary

“I’ve had enough of hanging around at that White House.”

27 july 2016 by Jack Dornbusch

After the nomination of Donald Trump, many Americans have indicated their intention to vote for Hillary Clinton this November, while they actually do not particularly want her for president. The same for the 69 year old Bill, just the average next door American for whom the Democrats rooted the past 23 years. “I would rather enjoy my pension in quiet.”

It is that strange feeling of responsibility that moves Bill to vote for Hillary anyway, but it will not be full-heartedly: “I’ve had enough of hanging around the White House and at my age, I’m not particularly fond of all that travel abroad. But then, I owe her one.”

Eight years ago, Bill voted for Obama, when he contested the nomination against Clinton. “ I thought then that her political career would be over, but she’s unstoppable. Oh well, here we go again.”

Flickr-Steve-Jurvetson-670x375

[Original, in Dutch, on the Speld; translated with permission]

Reverse firing squad (LIBORgate et al.)

When designing cross-organizational processes ‘hence’ including cross-organizational control structures, who will be accountable to look after the controls in question?

Take LIBOR(gate). Someone(s) dreamt up a structure of ‘self-regulation’, which even the most brief moronically-superficial gleaning over history will tell will fail, and then forgot one’s accountability for putting in place such a sure to fail thing.

’cause only accountability will force ‘taking’ responsibility and actually doing both parts of Trust But Verify.
No, the latter part was not taken up by the individual banks involved. Because they had perfect (O)RM in place. That, by perfectly sensible, justified, and objective achievement-perfecting arrangements, focused on the risks to the own organisation only as they were, are, internal departments working for the optimization of the organisation (taking into account local Board’s risk appetites and attitudes, risk estimations, budgets, cost/benefit analysis and what have we); nothing more or they would bordering-on-(?)-the-illegally overstep their remit. Hence, intra-organizational conspiracy was not something any individual bank’s (O)RM department, or manager, had to worry about let alone be actively fleshing out as a potential risk.

The supra-organizational oversight required, the level where the scheming took place (huh I mentioned ‘supra’ not for nothing..!), could technically, operationally, tactically and strategically only have been envisioned at that same supra level, with the regulator(s) at that level, that instated the L-scheme. [Oh I could add a ton here on how any ‘lower’ level cannot in any logical way have ‘seen’ the risk(s)] So, accountability and responsibility, for setting up a scheme that was prone to the risk(s) in the first place and for not applying due control and oversight (from the strategic all the way to the operational/technical levels!), was and still is with those regulator(s).

How then have they escaped being kicked and imprisoned ..? By claiming ‘temporary’ insanity where Reality in the L-process and elsewhere, is only a string of ‘temporary’ moments ..? The lack of competence is appalling. But drowned in the finger-pointing flying all around except in the right directions.

Uch. One could get very depressed, and/or feel belligerent. Or see the mirror of a firing squad. In the latter, a number of soldiers fire, with only one round not being a blank so no-one knows who did it so none can be held accountable individually for the collective shooting of some villain. [If only in some miracle world it wouldn’t be that most victims are the Honorable very much in an Aristotelian Virtue sense.] Now, we have ‘one’ regulator shooting a whole squad, and all of the squad are blamed …!?

[Just a MSc uni in Delft. Because science ..!]

The carrot won’t stick

Almost as an intermission, on my way to a full-length post on behavioral change and InfoSec: A shortie on Compliance.

Having realised that classical compliance is a hygiene thing: Nothing happens, until some factor sinks below the surface / zero; then, all heck breaks loose.
I.e., no carrot, many many sticks. Not your average well-balanced incentive scheme, right?

Classical awareness / behavioral change programs, then. Where only the winner, Employee of the Month, or less, will receive some recognition. Often, recognized among peers and colleagues ‘for being a d.ck’. The rest, that tagged along without doing anything particularly bad, or even only just arriving at the #2 spot: Not much, often Nothing.
A tiny carrot, possibly up some unsunshined place or used as pick, and not much by way of sticks.

Where is the scheme with a lot of carrots (but not for all, especially not as guaranteed sign-on bonus…!!) and a few sticks-in-private (as they should be!) …?

Just asking, maybe for an impossible thing but your considerate responses are very much welcomed… and:

[‘Dagpauwoog’ i.e., back yard beauty]

Said, not enough

Here’s a trope worth repeating: Humans are / aren’t the weakest link in your InfoSec.

Are, because they are fickle, demotivated, unwilling, lazy, careless, (sometimes! but that suffices) inattentive, uninterested in InfoSec but interested in (apparently…) incompatible goals.

Are, because you make them a single point of failure, or the one link still vulnerable and through their own actual, acute, risk management and weighing, decide to evade the behavioral limitations set by you with your myopic non-business-objectives-aligned view on how the (totalitarian dehumanized, inhumane) organisation should function.

Aren’t, because the human mind (sometimes) picks up the slightest cues of deviations, is inquisitive and resourceful, flexible.

Aren’t, because there’s so many other equally or worse weak links to take care of first. Taking care of the human factor may be the icing, but the cake would be very good to perfect for making the icing worthwhile…!

Any other aspects ..? Feel free to add.

If you want to control ‘all’ of information security, humans should be taken out of the (your!) loop, and you should steer clear of theirs (for avoiding accusations of interference with business objectives achievement, or actually interfering without you noticing since your viewpoint is so narrow).

That being said, how ’bout we all join hands and reach for the rainbow ..? Or so, relatively speaking. And:

[Where all the people are; old Reims opera (?)]

Plusquote: ‘Big’ Data

People never lie so much as before an election, during a war, or after a hunt.

Otto von Bismarck was right. The bias for socially acceptable answers plagues all analysis when that concerns data gathered from humans. Before an election, during a law suit, or after one has by the most unthinkable Luck (after most irrational stamina kept you going) stumbled upon a unicorn like here.
That’ll be all for today! Plus:

[(The quoted general was) solid as a rock; Amersfoort of course]

From Top-10 to Bottom

Dawn. Of a new association.

That there are still quite a lot of folks around, that are happy with any ranking of themselves / their organisation, on just any Top-something list. Even when not at the very Number 1. Which of course means people are happy about some very, very random and insignificant external motivator. For, if they would care about real motivation, they wouldn’t need any outside recognition.
Just like most business KPIs or what have we, are poor, paltry proxies for the performance one would want, which, to signify anything, for sure would not be measurable outright.

Leading to those that cherish the wrong thing, to be ranked Bottom. Dev0. Etc.
Your arguments, please. No, not mere countering ‘did not’s; arguments.

George Hamilton, VIII+, and Roderick W. Kennedy criticize the elites

“The elites have lost sight of the underlings.”

By William Mayflower

The American elites are playing havoc on Democracy. This harsh statement is issued by George Hamilton, VIII-and-counting, and Roderick Wendall Kennedy of the seventh consecutive lifetime U.S. Senator family branch. ‘The upper crust has completely lost it,’ as they write in a pamphlet that they graciously allowed the press to receive at their Jackson Hole cabin-of-sorts.

‘One should be sensible governors again,’ posits the Founding Father (heir) while taking a serious pinch from his snuff box. ‘The elites of today are much too cosy with the UN and IMF, and with the disconnected multiculturals.’ “Wendall Rod” concurs from atop Butch, his thoroughbred. ‘When one may see protests in the street, that will be all on the elites and as lords protector of democracy will have to drive the peasants back to Mexico again.’ His Colt Python E’s are fully loaded.

The right honorable gentlemen have come up with a solution to the arrogance of the elites. ‘The self-styled leaders should for one thing stop doling out leadership jobs to one another. It is about time that they pass the gavels of power to common men like us.’
[Original, in Dutch, on the Speld; translated with permission]

~vergent predictions, Do or Don’t

This idea, or lack of it, crossed my mind:
When it comes to predictions, following the lead of Tetlock’s Superforecasters may very well work (though note much of it starts with the, sort-of, mental, 50-50 approach of soberly realizing that one may improve, by admitting imprecision and those that claim precision or high scoring rates are wrong) … for issues and questions that converge on one, somewhat exactly determinable, outcome. This, all being within the realm of said book which is very much recommended by the way.
Where some questions, like “What is the best strategy?” may not have such a single outcome; the world changes, and (business-like) having a vision is a grand prediction already. Let alone that the ‘mission’, one’s desired place in that vision of how the world will be in the future, (often / always without a miss) skips the implicit choice issue of what one’s future place could be within that, vaguely defined, future state of affairs. Even if you shoot for the moon [and end up in an infinite and infinitely cold vacuum, among the stars but near-infinitely dwarfed by them] and miss, you may end up in a not-first but still pretty comfortable position; no hard feelings. … This, as an explication of what I’d call diverging predictions: Wide-ranging future states that you might ‘predict’ but most probably in a vocabulaire that will not be valid or understood in the future so traceability of your predictions is … quite close to zero hence your advance predictions have no worth ..! This of course is also in the book but still, too often not realised.

Now, let’s combine this with Maister’s Advisor let alone simple consultancy …

Oh well. Plus:

[Predicting quality of resulting still wines … for second fermentation, mariage, and onwards — priceless; Ployez-Jacquemart]

Silent majority presents new spokesman

David Walker will ‘smash the oppositions with considerate nuance’

By John Neighdor and Harry Lydell

The silent majority wants its voice back. Today, it presented a new spokesperson: David Walker.
It will be Walker’s mission to give the silent majority a new identity, a new voice once again. “We have been silent for way too long, and it is time we start to communicate to The Others what really goes on inside our heads. We might continue to whisper to each other that we actually are a majority, but we’ll not convince The Rest with that.”

The silent majority will stay in character by remaining nuanced, moderate, and politically correct and decent, but its voice will from now on be heard. Walker: “The essence of the silent majority is that we do not tend to raise our voice. We often think before we say anything but therefore we often don’t say too much. Where in the past, the focus was on the thinking part, I would consider laying more stress on the other part, possibly and where appropriate. It’s not just about how one would say something, but also about saying anything in the first place.”

David Walker even hints at ‘smashing the oppositions with considerate nuance’ when a debate might polarize: ‘When both extreme sides are just yelling at each other, I could for example outdo them both: “You both have some arguments worth considering so why don’t you try for once to see the other’s valid points! Maybe we could even reach a compromise! We can only be successful if we arrive at a bipartisan solution! If you keep yelling at each other, you’ll not achieve much!” or something like that.’

The appointment of David Walker was a surprise. Gallup polls had shown a clear victory for D. Trump as new spokesperson.

[Original, in Dutch, on the Speld; translated with permission]

Plusquote: Your organisational environment

If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee – that will do them in.

Just putting it out there — from Bradley’s Bromide yes. And very true, of …, well, whatever environment you find yourself in. And, as a ‘solution’ to the ever-growing power of ASI, leapfrogging past AlphaGo-or-was-it-DeepMind and Watson. If those (sic) in the latter category don’t see the stupidity of our common ways and do away with it altogether even when (not if) that would mean doing away with humans as minor collateral damage.
Hopeful, eh?

[Strange Quine: The artwork is High Humanity, the depicted, not so much (or is it??); Stedelijk, Amsterdam]