Maybe This Will Help Governor Daugaard Appreciate Philosophy

Governor Daugaard strikes me as a fan of banal programming like Full House. Michelle Foucault is a new Tumblr that combines pictures of Michelle Tanner, a character on the sitcom, with quotations from French philosopher Michel Foucault.

The Onion's AV Club sums up the site:

The work of multi-hyphenate artist Buzz Slutsky, Michelle Foucault expertly juxtaposes the 20th-century theorist’s insights into the imposed will of the hegemony with that grim specter of the societal norm, the Olsen Twins. The effect is a jarring, if hilarious, combination of the cute with the dire warnings of a society that embraces its own subjugation.

Here are three of my favorites.

Maybe Republican United States Senate candidate and former governor Mike Rounds will appreciate the Tumblr as well. Focault was French and Rounds likes photos from France.

YouTube Video Of The Day: Net Neutrality Explained In Three Minutes Edition

CISPA Proves Guns Never Will Be The Answer

PNR points to a story about an Amish farmer who was arrested by a SWAT team of federal agents because he dared sell raw milk. I must confess that I had no idea consuming raw milk was a crime nor do I know if I am a wanted criminal because I consumed thousands of gallons of raw milk from 1957 until 1975. I may have even delivered some raw cream for my mother who sold the dangerous product for the obscene sum of 50 cents a quart. I feel pretty healthy for a 55 year old. At any rate, I hope the statute of limitations has lapsed.

PNR uses the story not to extol the virtues of raw milk but to illustrate the need for the 2nd Amendment. According to PNR, the incident illustrates that citizens need guns to defend themselves from overzealous government officials.

Let's begin with some basics. the government doesn't need a SWAT team to take down Amish farmers. Armed citizens who shoot at federal agents will not fare well. I hope both statements are uncontroversial

More importantly, no gun will defend a citizen from agents acting under the ridiculously broad guidelines of CISPA, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing And Protection Act. When CISPA first came on the scene last year, Lifehacker reported:

Essentially, CISPA makes it possible for private companies to share potential cyber threat information with the government if the government concludes it needs it for cyber security information (and vice versa) immediately, without a complicated process.

That "complicated process" involves a minor thing called a warrant, something the SWAT team had, although the "no knock" component of the warrant in the Amish farmer incident is ludicrious. Lifehacker continues:

The privacy implications of the broadly defined "cybersecurity threat" is the cause for concern among CISPA's opposition. It's feared the information gathered would be released too easily and would violate the Fourth Amendment because it offers a simple, warrantless means to acquire personal data.

Several other advocacy groups echo this sentiment, including the American Library Association, which has this to say:

The ALA is concerned that all private electronic communications could be obtained by the government and used for many purposes–and not just for cybersecurity activities. H.R.3523 would permit, and sometimes even require, Internet service providers and other entities to monitor all electronic communications and share personal information with the government without effective oversight by claiming the sharing is for "cybersecurity purposes."

Today Computerworld reports that the legislation which was stopped last year has been re-introduced and reminds readers that the law protects both the government and Internet giants like Facebook:

CISPA also overrides existing privacy law and would grant broad immunities against lawsuits and liabilities to participating companies, EFF policy analyst Mark Jaycox wrote in a blog post Wednesday.

Importantly, there are few transparency provisions in the legislation, Jaycox wrote. Information collected by private companies and provided to the government would be exempt from Freedom of Information Act requests, he noted. There is also nothing in the bill that would require companies to inform users if their information is shared with the government, he said.

There are 310 million guns in the US. There's not a single one of them that will protect anyone from governmental overreach like CISPA. Of course the 2nd Amendment only crowd will continue to ignore encroachments on the 4th Amendment so they can protect themselves from roaming Latino gangs, an assertion that causes one to wonder if Wayne Lapierre could pass a background check.

The Interwebs and Philosohy

In my Sunday geekiness, I took my wife and mother-in-law to Sunday dinner.  (That's a noon meal on the plains.)  I called my mother to wish her a happy Mother's Day, and I watched  C-SPAN 2 Book TV coverage of a Richard A. Clarke speech about his new book Cyber War.  Clarke's thesis is that the United States is probably well positioned to make cyber attacks, but may not be able to adequately defend itself from foreign attack.

His presentation made me think of Ecclesiastes 1:9 "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again;  there is nothing new under the sun."  Clark discussed the idea that mutually assured destruction is a model that may not work because North Korea and Iran are not sufficiently connected to the world community to suffer the same devastation as more connected societies.  He also claimed that we may need treaties saying that civilian targets like banking may not be destroyed.  I hope that holds true for power grids and civilian air traffic control as well.  In short, we'll need to rethink just war theory. In a Twitter world, I hope that we can do it in 140 characters

The idea of just war theory made me commit philosophy without a license.  If, as some claim, the postmodernists have have their roots in ancient Sophists, I am fairly certain that someone will attempt to create a theory that illustrates an "ideal form" of the internet.  Then we'll be hearing the new arguments between the 21st Century equivalents of Plato and Sophists.  This time the argument won't be about the ideal horse or human or chair, the argument will be about the ideal world created by 1s and 0s.  I hope the people in the position to make good arguments aren't too busy checking their email.

Some Observations about Technology and the Web

I've been fascinated by David Gerlenter's observations about the Internet and it's impact.

I love this assertion:

"The Internet is no topic like cellphones or videogame platforms or artificial intelligence; it's a topic like education. It's that big. Therefore beware: to become a teacher, master some topic you can teach; don't go to Education School and master nothing. To work on the Internet, master some part of the Internet: engineering, software, computer science, communication theory; economics or business; literature or design. Don't go to Internet School and master nothing. There are brilliant, admirable people at Internet institutes. But if these institutes have the same effect on the Internet that education schools have had on education, they will be a disaster."

I can't agree more that effective teachers need to know their subject matter before they teach. I also can't agree more that education schools have been a disaster for education.

The most fascinating part, however, was the assertion that the question "if this is the information age, what do our children know that our parents didn't?" has a specific answer. According to Gelernter, The answer is 'now.' They know about now." He continues, "Nowness is one of the most important cultural phenomena of the modern age"

I see nothing to argue with in these points; I am, however, frightened by them. If he is correct, then knowledge of the past and preparation for the future cease to be important. Equally important, reflection is nearly impossible if one is currently in the moment.

Gelernter, however, is optimistic: ". . . the Internet could be the most powerful device ever invented for understanding the past, and the texture of time. Once we understand the inherent bias in an instrument, we can correct it. The Internet has a large bias in favor of now. Using lifestreams (which arrange information in time instead of space), historians can assemble, argue about and gradually refine timelines of historical fact. Such timelines are not history, but they are the raw material of history. They will be bitterly debated and disputed — but it will be easy to compare two different versions (and the evidence that supports them) side-by-side. Images, videos and text will accumulate around such streams. Eventually they will become shared cultural monuments in the Cybersphere."

I'm not so sure. It seems to me that lack of knowledge of the past makes it possible to use Orwell as a blueprint not a warning. If there is no real knowledge of anything but "now," then the evidence can be massaged in a way that makes the debate and the evidence used to support each side position suspect. It will be theater not fact.