News — At The Edge — 5/25
While civilization skates on thin ice — existential technology & democratic issues, Gmail & phone tracking — governments, advertisers and cybercriminals feel free to rape and pillage.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Technology That Could End Humanity — and How to Stop It —
“[T]he history of human creativity as the process of extracting balls from a giant urn…[that] represent different ideas, technologies, and methods…[and] for the most part they have been beneficial…white balls. Some have been mixed blessings, gray balls…[but] we haven’t seen is a black ball…that by default devastates the civilization….
The vulnerable world hypothesis…[says] there is some black ball in the urn…[like] the ability to create weapons of mass destruction using synthetic biology….
[It] gets too easy to destroy things, and the world gets destroyed by some evil doer…[or] the ‘safe first strike scenario’ where it becomes in the interest of some powerful actor…to do things that are destructive because they risk being destroyed by a more aggressive actor if they don’t. Another is the ‘worse global warming’ scenario where lots of individually weak actors are incentivized to take actions that individually are quite insignificant but cumulatively create devastating harm to civilization….
What’s often hard to predict is, supposing you find the result you’re looking for, what result comes from using that as a stepping stone….[While] we did avoid nuclear Armageddon it looks like a fair amount of luck was involved….
[Perhaps] it’s a tubular urn so you’ve got to pull out the balls towards the top of the urn before you can reach the balls further [down]…[or] that some balls have strings between them so if you get one you get another automatically…[in] our real technological situation….
[T]o stabilize civilization in the event that we should pull out the black ball…there are four possible things you could do.
- One would be to stop pulling balls out of the urn….We can’t stop technological development and even if we did, that could be the greatest catastrophe at all. We can choose to deemphasize work on…biological weapons…but that won’t create a general solution….
- make sure there are there is nobody who would use technology to do…evil even if they had access to it [impossible]….
- surveil populations in real time so if someone began using a black ball technology they could be intercepted and stopped. That has many risks and…[is] an intrusive surveillance scheme….
- global governance capability that would prevent great power wars, arms races, and destruction of the global commons….
[If] advising a policymaker…it would be to take action on specific issues…[then find ] better alternatives about how…[to] better deal with black balls.” https://www.wired.com/story/technology-could-end-humanity-how-stop-it/
Democracy is floundering: we need to fix it or lose it —
“’A new dark age could descend in some regions where tyrants abuse their subjects and where jihadists or criminal gangs roam freely to terrorize dispossessed populations’…[unless] focus on solutions, from ‘universal basic capital’…to finding common ground between China and America to ensure stability…
[Otherwise] ’swaths of pandemonium’ that ‘surround gated outposts…divorced from their planetary hinterland in a kind of global apartheid system’….
[W]hat we are seeing is the result of elections…impartial rules, practices, institutions…reasoned discourse, negotiation and compromise necessary to reach a governing consensus in diverse societies…has decayed…[as]mainstream political parties were captured by the organized special interests…that failed to address the dislocations of globalization and disruptions of rapid technological change.
This led to a deep distrust of governing institutions by all those left behind…[aided] by the participatory power of social media…demagogues who fashion themselves as tribunes of the people ride the rage to power…throwing the baby out with the bathwater, assaulting the very norms and institutional checks and balances that guarantee [republics]….
[Must] mend the breach of distrust between the institutions of self-government and the public…by integrating social networks and more direct democracy into the system…‘mediated’ by new, deliberative practices that complement representative government and compensate for its waning legitimacy….
[A]s digital capitalism divorces employment and income…best way to address inequality…is, ‘pre-distribution’ — instead of only redistributing the wealth of others after the fact….
The return of China to center stage… shifts the center of gravity of the world order eastward. To maintain a civilizational presence…bond between America and Europe is more important than ever…[with] Europe’s social model [to] soften the harsher edges of America’s free-for-all market mentality….
The refugee and immigration crisis emanating from Central America…is not the result of strong states persecuting their citizens, but of weak states that can’t protect them…[and] Western military interventions and misguided attempts to ‘nation-build’…have worsened the situation….[So] first comes security, the rule of law, sound governance and development…[then] democracy, which can only organically emerge out of those conditions….
It is no surprise that those left behind by the enormous and rapid changes…sense they’ve lost control over their destiny…[and] politics becomes tribal: us versus them…[which] will only diminish to the extent the excluded recover a meaningful role in owning their future….
[Everything] must rest on competition over results, not on the dogma of a dominant ideology, interference by others, or imposition by force….
[But] neither the United States nor China can lead on its own…[but] urgent concern is that these two giants are headed in opposite directions….
Trust builds on itself just as distrust builds on itself as well, compounding into deep enmity over time.’ Time is short, and distrust is building.
The alternative to a world order anchored in a partnership of its two most influential nations looks grim….[Syria] is a frightening indication of just how real the peril is…[and] the price of leaderless globalization left to its own dynamics….
The danger of war looms most menacingly if the balance of power is reduced to only a military dimension…[and] the dark shadow of distrust in which each will seek advantage over the other.” https://www.economist.com/open-future/2019/05/16/democracy-is-floundering-we-need-to-fix-it-or-lose-it
Google uses Gmail to track a history of things you buy — and it’s hard to delete —
“A page called ‘Purchases ‘shows an accurate list of many — though not all — of the things I’ve bought dating back to at least 2012….using online services or apps such as Amazon, DoorDash or Seamless…but never directly through Google.
But because the digital receipts went to my Gmail account, Google has a list of info about my buying habits. Go here to see your own: http://myaccount.google.com/purchases....
There is no way to delete them from Purchases without also deleting them from Gmail….Google’s activity controls page doesn’t give you any ability to manage the data it stores on Purchases…[and] there was no such option to fully turn off the tracking….
[Moreover] most people don’t seem to know exists.
Even if it’s not being used for ads, there’s no clear reason why Google would need to track years of purchases and make it hard to delete that information.” https://www.cnbc.com/video/2017/12/06/everything-google-knows-about-you.html
Online identification is getting more and more intrusive —
“ONLINE fraud involves… distinguishing impersonators from genuine customers. Passwords help…[but] can be guessed…[and] fingerprint and facial recognition…can be spoofed….
[So] the next level of security is…things which are harder to copy, such as the way they walk…[using] a system called device fingerprinting…like the model type of a gadget…its hardware configuration; its operating system; the apps downloaded…Wi-Fi networks it regularly connects…and devices like headsets it plugs into…to build a profile of both the device and its user’s habits….But device fingerprinting is becoming less useful…[as] makers of equipment and operating systems…[restrict] attributes that can be observed remotely….
[So] behavioral biometrics, is gaining ground…[using] data from accelerometers and gyroscopic sensors, that reveal
- how people hold their phones…
- way they walk…
- distinctive ways in which someone’s fingers and hands move…
- whether a phone has been set down on a hard surface…[or] on a soft one…
- which part of someone’s foot strikes the pavement first, and how hard…
- length of a walker’s stride…
- number of strides per minute…
- swing and spring in the walker’s hips and step…
- is in a handbag, a pocket or held in a hand….
When coupled with information about a user’s finger pressure and speed…[and] device’s regular places of use…that user’s identity can be pretty-well determined….
[Yet] another electronic spy…[for] strangers to monitor your actions, from moment you reach…phone in the morning, to…[drop] on the floor at night.” https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2019/05/22/online-identification-is-getting-more-and-more-intrusive
Find more of my ideas on Medium at,
Or click the Follow button below to add me to your feed.
Prefer a weekly email newsletter — free, no ads, no spam, & never sell the list — email me dochuston1@gmail.com with “add me” in the subject line.
May you live long and prosper!
Doc Huston
