Does George W. Bush understand the meaning of "Freedom"? I don't think so. He keeps trying to get the world to adopt a broken system he calls "democracy" in which he promotes large centralized government. He and others are using the terms interchangeably, as though Freedom and Democracy have common cause. But they do not.
Modern notions of "democracy" have become the tyranny of majority and the enemy of liberty. We are confused if we believe that the cause of one is the cause of the other.
The cause of democracy is the just means by which societies may hear the dissent of individuals. The right of an individual to voice dissent and be justly considered is the cause of true democracy. It can provide the means to protect us from the tyranny of majority. Yet the cause of democracy is not the cause of liberty.
The cause of liberty is the sanctity of the individual, the protection of the individual's right to act without constraint or coercion. A society that maximizes the ability of its members to act in this way is a free society. Government in a free society is minimal, decentralized, and transparent - and powerless against a free individual that is doing no harm. Harm lies only in the constraint and coercion of others.
Liberty needs no committee. And true democracy is not a vote, it is the right of dissent.
— Steven
A reminder:
"Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of the public authorities. But reflecting persons perceived that when society is itself the tyrant — society collectively over the separate individuals who compose it — its means of tyrannizing are not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries. Society can and does execute its own mandates; and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development and, if possible, prevent the formation of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own. There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence; and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs as protection against political despotism."
— John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, published 1859.
Everyone and the birds in the trees have been expressing an opinion on software patents, but no-one that I have seen is making, what seems to me to be the obvious argument - the inevitability argument. I was moved to make this argument last year, and I amplify and attempt to clarify those remarks here.
The argument is this: the vast majority of software patents, on general purpose computers, are "obvious to one skilled in the art." This is one of the phrases that the USPTO uses to reject patent applications and its application in software patents is insufficiently broad.
Here's why: Solutions to well-known problems are the inevitable product of the general purpose computer. Solutions develop in the hands of an individual using well-know principles of computer science that have inevitable consequences. Simply because you were the first to consider the problem does not justify a patent award. The solution was the inevitable product (one of an inevitable few) of a general purpose computer architecture and a priori computer science. I hold such a patent, US Patent 6,519,771. The Amazon one-click and Gemstar one-touch patents also come readily to mind.
Let's consider some patent examples to explain. Was the electric light bulb patentable? Yes, because Edison had to invent fundamental new technology – he invented electrical engineering, he was not trained in it, no-one was. The electric light bulb was not the inevitable product of existing training and technology. Was VisiCalc patentable? No, because spreadsheets already existed in the world and their implementation was inevitable on general purpose computers.
Turing could have, in my view, patented what we know today as the Turing Machine and Charles Sanders Peirce could have patented electronic logic. And if general purpose computers (aka the Turing Machine) did not exist and had Briklin and co. built a special purpose machine that was a VisiCalc machine, then that would be patentable in my view.
The software patent gold-rush has served only multinational corporations; it has not served individual inventors or the general public. Corporations are hijacking the intellectual property of employees whose "work-for-hire" contracts deny them any reward for their so-called invention, the bounty paid at companies like Microsoft for a patent award (as I recall , a few years ago) is an insulting few hundred dollars. Meanwhile Corporations are raping computer science, and reaping unjust rewards by laying claim to the inevitable consequence of established engineering practice and technology.
Are any software patents justified? In general, I don't think so. I can see how software can be a part of a patent, or a component of the programming in a special device, but I simply cannot justify patents on general purpose computers.
Many people do not yet get the informal, public and social nature of blogging. But how much of yourself should you disclose?
1995 was the year that blogging, as we know it today, was born - more than a decade ago. That was the year we saw web pages with opinion and redirection, instead of earlier web link pages. Three things happened in 1995. Professional journalists first awoke to the opportunity (Dan was still in nappies), the first deals involving blogs were made, technologists and writers (aka geeks), like myself, got into the game for the sheer fun of it. By December 1995, the first flush had passed, and I was lamenting the acquisition by HotWired of the first blog written by professionals that I recall, Carl Steadman and Joey Anuff's Suck.com, and I was predicting the rise of the independent author and the death of the online magazine conglomerate. You can find that blog entry in the archives, here:
... what is exposure?
... up-beat and to the point ...
... technology-babble ...
... technology-venture-pain ...
... net-business ...
... bullshit-free ...
... ear-to-the-ground ...
... street-smart ...
... gutter-thrashed ...
... over-opinioned ...
... underground ...
... under-pressure ...
... vocab-attack ...
...
... silicon-valley ...
... california ...
I ran my blog "Exposure" for a year through two start-up ventures before hitting a career crisis – in which I became the whistle-blower on start-up founders that had defrauded a couple of VC companies you all know well.
My family were in jeopardy - and dispatched to England for safe keeping - and I simply could not write about the details, and I could no longer bring myself to write “Exposure.” But, for your edification the Exposure columns remain in the Internet archive:
Also in 1995, my 13 year old son (Zen) was one of the earliest kid bloggers with his blog KidZMagazine. KidzMagazine appeared in May 1995 according to the record in archive.org.
Zen has run blogs and web projects of one form or another since then. Notably he ran a Reboot (Kids TV Show) fan site and he has run a LiveJournal since the beginning of LJ and he makes good use of the privacy features. In particular, blocking his father from reading his blog :-) He continues to share his intimate thoughts - and no-doubt family business - with close friends whose parents are all known to me.
There is then the challenge of your children, your family, having a public profile while you are undertaking business.
During a time, several years ago, while I was closing delicate business deals - I was also divorcing Zen's mother. A teenager, Zen posted to his blog an anxiety, inspired by his mother, that he might become homeless. Needless to say this is not something that you want to have on the net while you are closing critial business deals. Teenagers - in this blogging age - are entirely insensitive to why this might be an issue. You have been warned.
In the evolution of the medium, the situation has not changed any. I am surprised that we continue to treat blogging as a new and fresh phenomenon – but I consider that a good thing. I remember when Dan Gillmor first came to the Valley and started writing articles on technology and I am often surprised by the claims Dave Winer makes. Dan learns fast, and I am really excited by his grassroot journalism efforts - predicted in my December 1995 blog above and entries in early 1996.
We continue to see the conflict of interest between employment and individual expression. Further confirmation that employment is a bad thing. I don't know that I have anything more useful to say about that conflict, but it is clear to me as a matter of self-preservation, not everything can be blogfodder.
Feynman fondly iterated that science is the sum of, “Observation, Reason and Experiment.” Observation and Experiment should be clear enough, but what is Reason in science?
The cornerstone of modern scientific reason was laid by the great American philosopher and logician Charles Sanders Peirce, and re-enforced later by the Austrian philosopher Karl Popper. That cornerstone is the notion of FALSIFICATION. From what you know already, even if you haven't heard of falsification before, your intuition may give you a clue as to what it means, but the odds are that your intuition is wrong. So, let's see.
Consider the statement “God placed the Earth at the center of the universe.”
As we know, this statement held sway until relatively recently when the science of Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo presented an alternative view that ultimately gave birth to the first truly predictive scientific explanation of the physical world in the work of Issac Newton.
Newton asserts that “Gravitation is a universal force.” It is a force, he demonstrates, that shaped the universe and, in particular, describes the motion of the planets.
Now we have two statements here, one is an assertion of faith, the other an assertion of science. “God placed the Earth at the center of the universe” is a statement that has no observable premises. “Gravitation is a universal force” is a statement based on the rigorous observations that came before Newton (by Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo) and the accompanying calculus that makes precise predictions.
Falsification is dependent on predictions of the kind that Newton made. That is, for an idea to be falsifiable it must consist of a theory based on sound premises that makes a prediction that can be proved false, not merely verified.
Alleged actions of God are not falsifiable in this sense. Copernicus did not falsify the statement, “God placed the Earth at the center of the universe.” He simply showed the intuition to be mistaken, a faith not supported by the facts of observation.
In fact, Newton's theory has been falsified. Einstein's theory of general relativity falsifies Newton's theory since it shows that the phrase “Gravitation is a universal force” is false. Gravitation is not a force. It is inert and can be characterized as the curvature of spacetime in the presence of mass.
Einstein's theory makes predictions that better fits observation.
In general, the more observations that can be explained by a single theory, the more reliable or more valuable the theory is considered. But arguing that God explains everything is simply an assertion born of no reasonable premise and it ignores the intrinsic value of “explanation” by avoiding it.
If we take a modern positivist view and account for the origin of life scientifically (and I have every reason to believe that such an account is within our grasp) we do not falsify any prediction of a scientific theory that argues "God did it." Since an assertion of faith is not science we simply show the intuition upon which the assertion is made to be wrong.
In any case, the subject of Evolutionary Theory is not the origin of life - it is the variation of species. The origin of life is an interesting related question, about which Evolutionary Theory says nothing in particular. True, it is widely accepted in the scientific community that life is emergent and the inevitable product within an unfolding universe, but Darwin's "Evolution of Species" does NOT make any scientific assertions about the origin of life - and that origin is an open question today.
However, even if "God did it" is the answer, that answer can never be considered a scientific one, since it is an assertion of faith and not falsifiable. Even if God turned up tomorrow and said "Dude, I did it!" it still would not be a scientific answer since there is no means to falsify the claim even though it might be verified by repeated demonstration.
The science of natural selection, the source of variation in species, has been demonstrated many times and is readily observed. But is it a falsifiable theory? Yes, it is because it provides explanation and makes predictions. The theory does not currently have the rigorous mathematical foundations of Newton's theories, but that challenge is significantly harder, since complexity lies at the core of the problem. But before you run off to falsify natural selection from a bunch of Wikipedia examples, consider what falsification of natural selection would lead to ... it would lead to a more robust scientific theory - it simply could never support a theory that "God did it."
All pleas to faith vanish in the face of good science.
Arguing that Intelligent Design should be taught in schools as an alternative to Evolutionary Theory simply illustrates an ignorance of what science is. That this is true shows the woeful inadequacy of our educational system at all levels, where one might reasonably expect such things to be clarified. But since we still bury our children in theology in their earlier years, and direct them into ignorance with Angel wings upon their backs, is it any wonder that this crisis is upon us? That falsification is manifestly not a central part of contemporary curriculums should give us all cause for concern.
Science makes the universe no less exciting, no less remarkable, and no less full of grace. Science is that one remarkable achievement of nature that distinguishes our species from all other living things on this planet. It is THE noble act of our species.
It was 1992 before the Roman Catholic Church acknowledged their mistake with Galileo. They punished him for advocating Copernican principles, and forced him to denounce them. I pray we live in more enlightened times.
Some years ago, at a company in the Midwest, I was reprimanded by my employer for “fraternizing” with the “lower” engineers. This same employer also refused any offer to socialize with yours truly; then a bright eyed and bushy tailed English immigrant with a young family and a fresh doctorate from the Sorbonne.
His reason in both these cases was the same, “It makes it harder to fire people,” he said.
The group of QA engineers he was referring to were working on a product for the illustrious, but imminently terminal, Kendall Square Research. I was responsible for the technical relationship and getting the product back on track.
The fact is, I am comfortable talking with people from a variety of educational and economic backgrounds – perhaps that has to do with my own origins – but, in this case, there was method to this supposed madness. I needed to know the technical problems with the KSR product, and the truth is that the QA team told me more in social settings and in informal hallway conversations than I could ever get in filtered formal meetings.
Shortly after my arrival in the Valley, the Taiwanese CEO of a new start-up went to great lengths to explain how inferior the Chinese people felt European intellectuals are. They think we are Barbarians apparently. The disclosure was conspiratorial and, it seems, meant to make me feel better somehow about being associated with the predominantly Chinese company.
Some years later I promoted an attractive female engineer in favor of male counterparts and was promptly asked by the CEO if I was having an affair with her. No, I explained, unlike her male counterparts she had a scientific training, in addition to her outstanding record, and this better qualified her for the role on my team.
More recently, also here in the Valley, interviewing for the Executive Director position of a new Research Institute. I am told by non-white candidates and advisers that in the USA you simply cannot place a non-white person in that top position if you want to succeed.
The color issue is underscored for me recently in debates in working-class studies forums in which the white working-class are subjected to racial prejudice from non-white working-class groups because the they benefit peripherally from the systemic prejudice of US society. I argue that prejudice is unacceptable in any degree and that the white working-classes cannot be penalized for perceived benefits of the prejudice that is outside of their control, but I understand the resentment that leads us to these vicious cycles.
I recall, growing up in working-class England, that one of the favorite pastimes of white working-class Yobs is “paki-bashing” - violence aimed at the influx of Pakistani immigrants. Witness myself to the continuing prejudice toward Pakistani's in the members of my family that linger in the English working-class, I am ultimately unsurprised that it is Pakistani youth raised in England that become the new generation of terrorist and bomb the London underground.
Just yesterday I was asked by a prominent Valley personality if the product my start-up project is building could be extended to allow individuals to rate content. “For example,” he said, “articles on Evolution.” Given the recent public torture of the subject, I observed that I didn't think such a feature would be useful since I would fully expect articles on Creationism to supersede those on Evolutionary Convergence Theory (the most advanced form of Evolutionary Theory).
At this point I'd like to tell the story of Hyapatia and Library at Alexandria, but I fear for the attention span of my audience – and in any case it is too late, the mob is upon us.
Growing up in the 1970's, with the foundations of the 1960's behind us, I had somehow come to believe that we lived in enlightened times. As the 1980's was born and the first public networks appeared, I became convinced of it. And fifteen or so years ago the Internet, bright eyed and bushy tailed, promised a new future, one in which information and, potentially, education was at everyones finger tips. A world where individuals were knowledgeable and enlightened, and one believed, compassionate. I, and I hoped the rest of my generation, saw a world where reason prevailed and where peace was the natural order.
What the hell happened?
In the recent frenzy of Google panacea one is left wondering if the transformation of the modern world into the information age has served us well. The quick fix info junky with a poor education and impatient self-learning is now the master of the art of “Googling” and “Cut and Paste” - creating the illusion of deep and substantive knowledge in a paper thin web of guessed relevance, creating a world of illusion where the teen and the senile dominate the truly professorial.
In the fifteen minutes of Warholian fame foist upon us by each blogger, chat room commentator, or web page narcissus, whence authority?
I have put a good deal of effort over the past few years into conducting "field research" on various citizen journalism and information sharing sites like Wikipedia, Always On, Bayospehere and, more recently, the "Hyperlocal" Back Fence.
These sites aggregate the work of many Bloggers and I have been trying to understand how they evolve and develop trust and deliberation. I have been studying how they contribute to public debate and how they impact our ideas and their development.
Now I am done with that and at some point I will try to articulate the conclusions of this work in a paper.
This new web log is strictly my personal log and anything I say here is solely my individual opinion and not those of my affiliations.
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