Jewish Atheist

[This post has been revised in response to Facebook’s upcoming IPO. See “Facebook set for record cash-in,” Keene NH Sentinel, Feb. 2, 2012].

“Facebook is incredibly greedy with our personal information. It wants to own us and our online identity. . . There is nothing altruistic about it. This is a pure financial play. Tech workers and investors are goning to become obscenely rich.”

Andrew Keen, author of “Digital Vertigo” (forthcoming) and founding member of the Facebook Resistance.

In a cartoon in USA Today, a man and woman are about to go into a theater to see “The Social Network.” He says to the box office lady, “How will we know if we’re watching this, or if THIS is watching us?”

Indeed. Facebook is really weird. Beyond weird. And its weirdness and meteoric rise were driven by the collapse/destruction (pick your word) of privacy in the Information Age…by the disappearance, in fact, of the value of privacy…because now everybody can be famous.

Everybody’s a star

I once read that in the 1930s and 1940s, people who found themselves in front of newsreel cameras appeared stilted and self-conscious. No more. We’re all performers. And in an age of technology-enabled narcissism, it is quite possible for such a self-exhibitionistic entity as Facebook to attract close to a billion users in 6-7 years (adoption began in ‘05 and really took off after ‘07), have a movie made about it, and even to be the cause of at least several deaths, inasmuch as it enabled nonstop bullying and other sadism formerly limited by physical distance.

I didn’t much bother with it, figuring my life wasn’t that interesting, and if someone wasn’t in my life, there was a good reason. Superficial hi-bye friendships aren’t my thing. But millions of techno-sheep and cyber-exhibitionists disagreed with me. I’ve always been a questioner. If 500 million people (or commercial entities) just have to have something – that in itself is a good reason to question it.

Wealth from electrons

For a while I was getting contacts from high school friends, who then made it onto my network. I still didn’t pay much attention to it. I still had email if I wanted to tell somebody something.

The old-time contacts faded away, I was consumed by the minutiae of relocation, and Facebook, please forgive me for not visiting you as often as I was supposed to. There actually was a “You haven’t been back to Facebook…” message!

It’s 2012, and people have stopped trying to befriend me. I don’t get such wistful messages from The Beast anymore, but I do receive “notifications,” usually that someone friended someone else or that someone liked something. Ah, the trivia of life, preserved eternally.

I’ve followed Facebook on the news. Could hardly avoid it. Once again the Net creates billions in wealth from literally nothing but electrons. Well, it’s mostly electronic wealth. How many people really understood Facebook’s business model?

Now the answer is becoming clear: Facebook’s potential wealth is defined by the infinitude of freely-given information that people provide about themselves. This is sold to marketers of all kinds, as well as people who think they have a right to know about your digital life — potential employers, insurers, and mates, to name a few — regardless of whether it reflects your actual life.

That’s why Facebook is going to make a spectacular IPO. Its value is confirmed. It is using you.

Being evil

Unlike Google, Facebook took no pledge not to “be evil.” Who knows what they reveal about their membership, and to whom? Their customer service is a joke. There’s a phone number that no one answers. The Contact Customer Service site is a mess of dead ends and angry posts from DISsatisfied customers. Some had encountered serious identity-theft problems through Facebook. On the site, I described my recognition problem (see below) and was referred to a network of specialists (not Facebook employees).

Never a dull moment

It’s seems as if there’s always some privacy issue with Facebook. Well, what do you expect when you urge the world’s narcissists to gush about themselves? As for the countless commercial sites…does anybody really “follow us on Facebook”? Who has the time? Even the local VFW Post (e.g., in Merrimack, NH!) wants you to be its friend on Facebook.

Does anybody really care? No, they’re too busy recording their purchases for others to like or not like. I am not making that up; there are such websites. How the sheep rush to reveal every tedious detail about themselves.

With Facebook we come close to what Jaron Lanier describes (in You are Not a Gadget, highly recommended) as the “hive mind.” The highly aggregated billions of bits begin to have a slug-like intelligence of their own, collecting and distributing all manner of personal data according to their secret algorithms. (BTW, Ray Kurzweil and the “strong AI” folks are wrong: a computer can never have subjective awareness, can never, like HAL in 2001, say “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Dave,” because it cannot process the concept “I”.)

Beyond security to creepiness

This pseudo-intelligence phenomenon made its unsettling appearance after I tried to log on from an unfamiliar computer. I am familiar with security measures – copying squiggly letters, remembering my secret question and codeword — but Facebook goes even beyond my bank’s security levels (and becomes more than a little creepy) when it forces me to identify pictures of my friends to prove that I am me.

How did they do that? By what ingenious mechanism are people selected from my network and a multiple-choice list of six names and photos populated?

Well, these fucking programming geniuses left out one little loophole. The first time, I nailed everybody (it was still creepy). But after that, when, before settling down, I tried to log on from unfamiliar computers, the pictures became more obscure. Sometimes it was someone I’d never seen, because I knew him or her only through the Internet. Sometimes it was someone I hadn’t seen since high school. I flunked twice before I called the technician. We finally got it resolved.

Living without it

I actually logged on to do what Facebook is for – find like-minded people in my new area (in this case, libertarians in New Hampshire). But because of the entity’s irrational obstacles and nonexistent customer service, I can’t do that.

Fine. I lived a richly rewarding life before Facebook, and I’m sure I can do so without it. I’ve heard that some people, including celebrities, have sworn off. Good for them. In a culture drenched with narcissism and self-presentation, it takes courage to defy the all-powerful hive mind. I’m proud to be one of the few who can say, “fuck Facebook.”

PS. I tried once more and lucked out - I got people I (barely) recognized and was able to log on. At the same time, I resent jumping through hoops for a machine (like keeping your Tweets to 140 characters) and having to pass flawed security measures. Sometimes I wonder who’s really in charge (e.g., when “the system’s down”).

PPS. In midsummer 2011, Facebook reminded me, in its cyber-solicitous fashion, that – sob! – once again it’s been quite a while since I’ve been back to let its tentacles interact with my neurons. Indeed, there were perhaps 16 messages awaiting me. One was from a friend on a delicate topic (of his) I don’t want public. Another was a vicious exchange between my wife and another woman, partially played out on my wall, or site, or whatever it is.

Principal Skinner was right: there IS a permanent record, and it is called cyberspace. You must not put anything up there that you don’t want everybody to view, forever. Sounds simple, but if it were, we wouldn’t have sexting, live sex cams, and various other ways to tempt the male (and often female) libido. The mixture of the newly-possible and the strongly forbidden is intoxicating, so we flirt, and snap and sext. I’ve heard that porn drove the development of the Web and the Net, just as it drove every media previous advance — VCRs, DVDs, and others.

I still don’t know what Facebook does that email doesn’t, except make trillions for Zuckerberg and cronies. Facebook may help rally people for causes, but, by the same token, if anything’s to be kept secret, it better not be on Facebook. Aside from that, the main motivations seem to be:

(1) resume envy: people don’t feel as if they’ve accomplished anything much in their lives, but a rich posting to Facebook of the top three dozen ‘80s bands I like (the logos appear magically!) will definitely cure that. So will my virtual garden. In connection with that…

(2) existential doubts and terror: “I post, therefore I am.”

(3) reality TV: now everyone can be the star of his/her own channel, 24/7. Just think of it: a channel devoted to the thing I love most in the world – myself — and 24/7. Irresistible.

I’m still resisting.

“Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable.”

Mark Twain

Here in the land of “Live Free or Die,” the government purports to dictate educational curriculum – not a good sign in a supposedly free society. The legislature, as reported in the Feb. 3 Keene Sentinel, is contemplating a law that would require schools to offer an elective course on the Bible.

Say what??

Isn’t the damn thing in our faces enough as it is? Are there no other collections of folk-tales, pseudo-history and kindergarten morality that merit our attention? Is there no civilization, however primitive, that doesn’t have its version of how things came to be and how people are supposed to act? This is just forcing the dominant religion’s version to the fore once again. What is this, Saudi Arabia?

Fortunately, opposition was quick in coming. The best quote came from Claire Ebel, of the NH ACLU: “This is a specific attempt to hold one religion over others and hold a religion over no religion.”

Inflated importance

The problem with the Bible is its inflated importance, maintained by both civil and clerical authorities. The cause and effect is circular: It’s important because it’s always been – and that’s partly because clerics have filtered and whitewashed its more primitive stories. Massive numbers of rabbi-hours have been invested in giving the Torah far more respect than it deserves.

Once again: the Bible is not inherently unique. It is very special mainly TO CHRISTIANS AND JEWS, who exert a disproportionate influence on the actions of Western nations. A heavily armed, religious nation like the US is a threat to the stability of the world. I wouldn’t mind if Denmark had nukes. But religion drives policy in many other non-Christian nation as well.

God and the Presidency

And of course, there is no way an atheist could be elected to lead this great land of ours, even though a person free of religious superstition (I’m willing to believe that Obama’s such a person; he just goes through the motions) is a much better choice, because he/she can make decisions without having to believe that God is on our side (they ALL believe that).

Milllions of people believe the Bible represents history, despite all efforts to disprove its truth (especially the most primitive parts: why do people cling to the psycho-killer God in the Torah?). Disturbingly large numbers of people believe without proof. There’s no debate about the folk-tales of other religions; they’re false.

NOT a Christian nation

Another factor that’s inflated the importance of the Bible is the fallacy that every time the Founders said anything about God, it bears on the question of whether this is a Christian country. WTF? I hate the way religious believers cherry-pick their quotes, but that is the way of ignorant, devious people.

The truth is that some of the Founders were outright atheists. Jefferson cut out all the mythology and isolated the parts that were relevant and worthwhile. Maybe some of the Founders mentioned God because they were politicians and the rabble expected it.

The point is that the government they created in no way rests on religious fantasy. And before that, they didn’t rely on prayer to deliver them from the British. They acted exactly opposite to the church poster I saw in Troy, NH: “Put your faith in God, not yourselves.” Passivity, always. God will take care of everything.

God as underachiever (Woody Allen)

Except that he takes care of nothing. He didn’t stop the Holocaust (sorry, cheap shot). His resume is thin. Prayers may or may not be answered. Anything clerics say come from God – forgiveness, grace, salvation, strength – comes in fact from people themselves.

The NH proposed law is just another example of creeping Bible-worship. I’m sure it’s not the only such legislative proposal in this great religious land of ours. But give it a rest. There’s plenty of Bible study going on. Way too much, in fact. Along with all the Bible courses, formal and informal, that we already have, there are entire institutions devoted to obsessing over it.

Who the hell do these politicians think they are, deciding what knowledge is important? As one of the measure’s opponents said, the Roman Empire is just as important to our history and culture – why not mandate that?

Politicians should get out of education, stick to the Constitution, and concern themselves with the threats to our rights and liberties, chief among which right now is the government itself.

“Now that I’ve shed my skin completely,
One true reality alone exists.”

Zen saying

Zen monk: “How should I escape birth and death?”
Zen Master Shih-kung: “What is the use of escaping it?”

“In this world, we eat, shit, sleep and wake up. After that all we have to do is die.”

Inkyu

Once again it’s Groundhog Day, which was nothing more than a rather witless locally-oriented celebration until Harold Ramis’ brilliant movie of the same name. It became — and still is — my all-time favorite message film. Continue Reading »

“What is conceived well is expressed clearly, / And the words to say it with arrive with ease.”

G.K. Chesterton, As I Was Saying, 1936

In a previous post, I suggested that legalese/bureaucratese has been taken to a whole new level in recent years – specifically, although the fine print has always been with us, it has been exploited by devious corporations, accountants and lawyers, to supply a house-of-cards foundation to the financial machinations that caused the nation’s economy to implode.

Indeed, the financial manipulations that led to the current fiscal mess were founded on (probably intentionally) obscure language.

In “The Banality of Avarice: Why the finance industry never had to lie” (a review of James B. Stewart’s new book Tangled Webs: How False Statements Are Undermining America, Harper’s, Feb. 2012), Jennifer Szalai says that the industry, unlike Martha Stewart and Bernie Madoff, lever had to lie because it was so good at creating complex financial instruments and hiding its duplicities under a fog of words.

According to Szalai,

“Banks structured derivatives and other securities to enable their clients to take on a massive amount of risk that was nevertheless legal; accountants and law firms ensured that those risks would remain hidden from investors, who could be counted on to trust the triple-A rating or to avoid the eye-glazing chore of reading the fine print.

“’False statements’ were useful but mostly superfluous because of a peculiar system of regulation left much of the actual regulation to the market participants. Rules about ‘disclosure,’ which specified that an investor be kept informed of any ‘material’ information [on] the company’s finances, meant that disclosures in a financial report could be buried in the footnotes and, with some clever wording, made sufficiently dull to ensure that they would barely be seen as red flags. Companies could create Special-Purpose Entities to keep debts off balance sheets, mentioning the possible existence of the debts in another dull footnote.”

The author then directs us to page 30, note 3 of Enron’s annual report of 2000, a mere one year before the firm imploded (drink some strong coffee before you attempt to understand it):

“’Securitization. From time to time, Enron sells interests in certain of its financial assets. Some of the sales are completed in securitization, in which Enron concurrently enters into swaps associated with the underlying assets which limit the risks assumed by the purchaser. Such swaps are adjusted to fair value using quoted market prices, if available, or estimated fair value based on management’s best estimate of the present value of future cash flow. The swaps are included in Price Risk Management activities above as equity investments.’”

Oy, vey. What the hell does that even mean? Not much, according to Szalai:

“The text was undoubtedly fussed over by a platoon of lawyers in order to achieve just the right balance of discloht have sold some assets, or it might not have sold some assets; those sales, if any, might include securitizations, they might not have included securitizations; the securitizations might have had a market price, or they might not have had a market price; if they didn’t, then Enron’s management gave them a price according to ‘management’s best estimate’ – which is to say, whatever management believed they were worth.”

And later in the article: “All this would merit the word ‘monstrous,’ except the adjective implies an element of excitement and drama, whereas this is a system that thrives on obstruction and boredom [emphasis mine]. According to the conventions of the system, the footnotes are more important than the main body of the text. Sentences are crafted so as not to be read [emphasis mine]. Language should confound rather than communicate.”

Reading and understanding

But all too often, it does confound. I expect not to understand most of what I read in Scientific American. The writing is as clear and simple as they can make it, but only a specialist in the subject matter would grasp it all.

No, the gripe is not with writing that’s opaque because it’s intended for specialists. This is a far more sinister phenomenon: deliberate obscurity in an account what of companies are doing with the wealth of the people reading the account. We don’t have the time or inclination to wade through it all, and it’s doubtful that clarity would emerge even if we did.

Shorter sentences. Concrete examples. Explanation of technical terms that the reader can understand without taking an accounting class (or maybe include a glossary at the end).

The principles of clear communication don’t change. To disregard them in order to confuse and deceive is unconscionable.

Deliberate obscurity does irreparable damage to the thin bonds of trust that are supposedly encoded in words on a page. It buries, in a steaming pile of verbosity and BS, the premise that the writer is actually trying to tell the reader something.

“The tongue of men is a twisty thing, there are plenty of words there / of every kind, the range of words is wide, and their variance.”

George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language”

Since I advertise myself (accurately) as a “linguistics expert,” I sometimes get questions about language usage, which I answer pro bono. If a person actively seeks expertise, he/she’s done enough by searching – the rest should be free (unless it takes me more than a few minutes.)

One recent correspondent was wondering whether – given all the usage “errors” people commit these days – the language wasn’t somehow losing its nuance, somehow reduced to the lowest common denominator…being “dumbed down.” Maybe, the reasoning goes, if we lose these important distinctions, we won’t be able to communicate at all. Continue Reading »

The following letter was sent to the Keene NH Sentinel and published in the 1/21 issue, appropriately headed “We’re not living up to our state motto.”

Dear Editor:

After a little over a year in New Hampshire (drawn here by the Free State Project), I have concluded that Live Free or Die is about as valid as an ad slogan. Continue Reading »

“..a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them free to otherwise to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.”

Carl Gibson, Reader Supported News

I’ve read various criticisms of Ron Paul, and I am encouraged that libertarian ideas are for once being openly debated. I love to see young kids flock to Paul, with his message of smaller government and legal cannabis. On the other hand, I roll my eyes at the stupidity of the critiques – especially the fear mongering, but also the ignorant interpretation of what liberty means. Continue Reading »

“Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”

Martin Luther King
Nobel Prize Acceptance speech, 1964

This week we celebrate Martin Luther King’s birthday. He would have been 83. There are tributes and speeches. After all, we have a (sort of) African-American President.

1968 and beyond

King was murdered in 1968 – what an incredible, tumultuous year. Anti-war hysteria and conflict. The disastrous Democratic convention in Chicago. And TWO political assassinations (Bobby Kennedy, remember?). Continue Reading »

“..a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them free to otherwise to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.”

Ambrose Bierce

Ah, to be in New Hampshire on the eve of the New Hampshire primary, in which yet another state that is glaringly non-representative of the rest of the country exerts powerful, undue, and undeserved influence on the Presidential electoral process.

But wait. I AM in New Hampshire. We came here because of a nutty dream called The Free State Project, the goal of which is to get a critical mass of liberty-loving people into a small state that already has a reputation for small government. At some point in the distant future, it is hoped, a libertarian candidate may win the New Hampshire primary and vault from there to national prominence. Continue Reading »

“For players, the adventure of jazz can be both exhilarating and awe-inspiring. Abdullah Ibrahim [South African jazz pianist ne Dollar Brand] likens the improvising musician to ‘a samurai warrior,’ implying that it is the ‘fearless’ confrontation of almost limitless challenges under tremendous pressure that leads to artful mastery and the ultimate achievement of ‘bliss.’”

William Hazlitt

Who would drive from New England to Illinois, nearly 1,000 miles each way, just to attend a Christmas party? (Flying would have been just as hard — and much more expensive.) Such a person would have to be HIGHLY motivated, because the drive is grueling: 19 hours, including stops. Nineteen hours is at the limit of human endurance. If it were 24 hours, you’d stop for the night. If it were ten hours, OK, no problem. Nineteeen, you can make it in one shot — but just barely. Continue Reading »