The Curmudgeon Speaks

I was listening to a podcast from the TWIT.tv network [https://twit.tv/] and started to think about a conversation between host Leo Laporte and tech commentator Jeff Jarvis. They were discussing the ugly state of social media and how the present trend seems to have corrupted the original idealism of shining light on issues for the good of all. Leo said that he had become disgusted and given up closing his Facebook and Instagram accounts. Jarvis argued that “good guys” leaving would not solve the problem because many innocents would stay on and be influenced by the perpetrators of hate and fear.

Jarvis came up with an expression he said came from the corruption of UseNet [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet]. As I remember his statement, it was something like “when all of the flowers are driven from the garden, all that will remain are the weeds”.

I am not at the point of abandoning my social media presence, but I am very concerned by what I read. I am connecting with a wide assortment of folks – tech influences, family members, college profs from my working days, people I have not seen since high school, but who have connected to me for one reason or another, a few politicians, etc. Out of this mix I experience the good and the bad (very bad). Sometimes when I encounter a meme I find particularly disturbing (often shared), I search back to see what else the original author posts. There is some real trash out there.

I am not certain what it is. Perhaps it is my past life as an academic and researcher in which I assume I should engage to argue a point to convince someone else of their misguided impressions. Perhaps it is simply outrage when I encounter someone perpetuating racism, misogyny, or outright lies. Depending on my mood, I have this urge to reply. Once you go down this rat hole, there is no end. Still, what about those flowers someone must defend?

Recent events (the attacks on Ilhan Omar) have finally forced me to some kind of decision. This is it. I must ignore the comments that I find offensive as much as I can. There is a free speech issue and taking on every person wanting to spew hatred is beyond my endurance. If you disagree and have the stamina, I encourage your full attention to this task. Good folks have free speech rights too.

What I have decided I won’t tolerate are statements that are demonstrably false. There is a claim I agree with usually attributed to Patrick Moynihan – everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts (I think this is close). I intend to respond when I encounter something I can cross-check to determine as false.

What to say? The issue with truly evil people is that they don’t really care. The real problem is the interconnection among people that social media encourages and the disinformation amplification that occurs. False statements spin about within a network and are repeated over and over. So many people doubt that Russian disinformation and their bots could actually influence an election. How many false statements could they produce? The issue is not necessarily the original false messages, but the sending of such messages to individuals prone to believe them and to pass them on to others with a similar view of the world.

So, what do you say? I want a statement I can cut and paste when I encounter the type of statement I feel I have a right to address. Here is my first effort. 

If you are willing to promote memes without fact-checking, it would make sense to include in your circle of online friends some who do make the effort.  In this case, I will play this role. The statement you have posted is known to be factually incorrect. You could end up spinning in a circle of lies you and others come to accept.  

This could work for both Twitter and Facebook, but I decided maybe perceived as elitist. People wanting to believe something take any opportunity to discount a challenge to their actions.

How about something that is simpler?

The statement you have just circulated has been shown to be false by reputable fact-checkers. I thought you would want to know.

Reputable fact-checkers. I like Politifact [https://www.politifact.com/] and Snopes [https://www.snopes.com/]. Both services offer a judgment and explain what exactly about the claim is incorrect. I want to be sure of my facts.

Save the flowers

P.S. I am not certain I have the energy to apply my strategy to Donald Trump. His falsehood rate is too high. Here is the Snopes analysis of his comment about the popularity of Omar and Ocasio-Cortes [https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ilhan-omar-and-aoc-polling/}.

It is informative and scary to pay attention to how our personal models of the world inform and sometimes bias our cognition. This morning I see this image on my walk to the coffee company and my mind immediately labels this image – adult mower teaches its young. You probably don’t get this until you take a second look. Yes, the mowers are not actually interacting, but the cluster of little mowers around a much larger mower fits with some general model I must have. Part of human intelligence is driven by pattern recognition. An important part of human intelligence (metacognition) is also recognizing that situations we place in a category have not been accurately located. Humor sometimes depends on the recognition of these interesting misplacements. There is a lesson here. Some assignment of situations to concepts are not appropriate and the more general model needs to be refined. Be aware that your experiences and background influence how you interpret new inputs. Not all Muslims and women who cover their heads are terrorists.

We picked strawberries today. Each of us filled two gallon pails. As I crawled down the row, I was thinking about how long I could do this and what I might make if the farmer was paying me. When we finished, I did some online research. It looks like I would not have been able to make $15 which nows seems a bare minimum wage.

There are lots of folks and kids who face this kind of labor to try to make ends meet. Hard to imagine. Hard also to understand those who think those who take on this kind of work are taking their jobs. BTW – Lindy’s Berries and many other farms hire ag workers.

California Farm Workers

Kid farm work is unregulated

Rate for farm labor

Too many folks take to social media to complain and I don’t want to be known as one of these people. I would like to offer this as a personal suggestion.

I frequently walk through one of the parks in Richfield on my way to write at a nearby coffee shop. Minneapolis/St. Paul has spectacular parks and ours is no exception. However, in recent years the grounds keepers of our park have decided to stop mowing the hillside I walk past. I am a big fan of natural grasses and forbs, but not overgrown lawn grass. Take the opportunity to convert this hillside to native prairie.

We attended the parade for the 4th in Siren, WI. Here are some images from a small town celebration.

The local veterans group presented the colors. This is an older group and the guy carrying the U.S. flag was struggling at the end.

The local band made an appearance.

There were few military vehicles and those that made an appearance were being used for other purposes.

Most parade entries throw things for kids. There were a couple of unusual offerings. I am guessing that cheese curds are unique to Wisconsin. The fire department and the local water purification service offered water. You had to run if you were not interested.

Tractors are standard entries in midwestern parades. The bigger the better.

What would be a parade without clowns.

Enjoy your 4th. It is a great country – tanks or not.

I encountered this idea this morning and admit it is likely more valuable than trying to get something out of the Democratic candidate debates. This group in Iowa has organized to read the books put out by the candidates. As I understand the approach, the group intends to allocate three weeks to each book. Yes, the sound clips on television and the brief exposure on the debate stage is not sufficient, but even as much of a political junkie I have become, this is way over the topic.

I did read Obama’s “Audacity of Hope” but one book is different from the dozen or more that are now available. As a more modest proposal, I would recommend the Pod Save America series one-hour interviews with the candidates willing to participate. This seems more reasonable. I do commend the book study groups willing to take a more ambitious approach.

The potential problems of big tech have come to the attention of the public, but this has mostly been because the public has become concerned that their personal information is being collected and exploited. Without the politics of the 2016 Russian election meddling scandal would anyone know or care?

There are other issues that everyone should concern us all and these have to do with the virtual (I admit this is a word with multiple meanings) monopolies of a few tech companies and the implications of what the money and power of these monopolies represent. The argument that these companies are just examples of successful capitalism based on innovation and the government should not interfere with success need to be examined. The case for regulation applies when monopolies retard innovation and exercise power outside of what would be the normal range of service a company provides.

Technologists making the monopoly argument explain how what the end user presently experiences lacks the innovation that unknown already offer. Big companies accomplish this end by buying up small innovators who lack the capital for their services to gain recognition and by purposefully or practically limiting the opportunity of users to take their attention elsewhere. This latter problem is frequently called the network effect implying that the influence of a service is not so much due to the quality of that service but from the user base the service has developed. Translated – it is just too difficult to get your friends and those you may want to influence to move to a better service with you.

Facebook may make the best example. Facebook is not just Facebook, but now includes other services such as Instagram. Offering these related services affords an advantage. There are multiple options to both service. For example, I use Pixelfed as an option to Instagram and I would challenge Instragram users to identify a disadvantage of Pixelfed beyond the reality that their friends expect them to post to Instagram. I would suggest that the advantage of Pixelfed is the federated approach taken by this service preventing power from being accumulated by a single provider. I assume this difference would appeal to many concerned about centralization. How many users know that this alternative exists or what federation means?

Me calling grocery store: Do you have tiny shrimp in a can?

Grocery store manager: Kid, you have the joke wrong. It is “Do you have Prince Albert in a can? Let him out.”

So, Cindy and I are on one of those “this is your new life” diets. It is mostly very low carbs and little sugar. Only some proteins are allowed in the short term. Beef is bad. We are to focus on chicken and sea food. I am spending a few days by myself at the cabin and am not much of a cook. Salads with a protein source are one of my specialties. Ideally, the protein would come from something I do not have to fix on a stove. For some reason, shrimp in a can appeared in my mind so I stopped on the way home from the coffee shop.

No, I did not actually call the store, but that old joke did pop into my head.

I need to begin upgrading my physical conditioning in preparation for a trip to South Africa in mid-August. At my age, the demands of walking several miles over uneven ground is challenging. I like to walk in the city my trekking to and from a nearby coffee shop. This is about 1.3 miles each direction. I decided to push it a bit today and put in 3.4 miles.

This is the Gandy Dancer trail in northern Wisconsin. During the summer it is a bike and walking trail that goes on for miles. Yes, it is straight and it may not look like it would offer many photo opportunities, but I did find some things to capture.

This final image is kind of interesting. There are lots of backwoods bars in Wisconsin. Some are located close to what are snow mobile trails in winter. There is a path here to the bar. I am not certain what purpose the golf cart serves, but perhaps the bar owners are offering rides for those who don’t want to walk the path.