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Change Too Late?

Wednesday, March 11th, 2020

https://www.flickr.com/photos/christopherdombres/20657778626/

As we saw yesterday, business is learning the hard way that walking their corporate responsibility talk is vital to their very survival.

They aren’t the only ones out of touch.

John C. Williams, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said in a speech last month that “there is still time to avert this fate.” Moving inflation up and keeping it there could convince millennials, he said.

“In this case, it’s fortunate that the young are impressionable.”

“Fate” refers to the potential economic mayhem that could result from the high savings rate among Millennials looking to retire ASAP. “Impressionable?” I wonder how long it’s been since he actually knew any of the “young.”

Powerful men who have seen women as things to do with as they please are thinking twice in the wake of #metoo and Harvey Weinstein’s conviction. Hopefully that caution will trickle down to the rank and file bosses who still seem untouchable, although that’s unlikely.

Big Tech is no longer seen a solution to the world’s problems, but, in many cases, as their cause.

Startups are learning that public investors, whether knowledgeable or casual, are still hung up on mundane ideas like profit as opposed to their beloved EBITDA.

Founders, too, are rethinking their actions. Thanks to high profile cases, such as Travis Kalanick (Uber) and Adam Neumann (WeWork), and a much savvier workforce, visions and charisma are no longer enough.

One might look at all this and say, “the world is changing,” although a more realistic view could be summed up as “too little, too late.”

Image credit: CHRISTOPHER DOMBRES

Irrational Humans / Rational Animals

Wednesday, March 4th, 2020

https://www.flickr.com/photos/146269332@N03/48571681591/

Way back when I was in elementary school I remember a teacher saying that the difference between humans and other animals was that humans were rational.

Being an overly-observant kid I was a bit skeptical of that comment.

That skepticism grew as I got older and over the last 15+ years has grown at warp speed.

Paralleling the growth of my skepticism has been research into the intelligence and rational actions of a multitude of animals.

Only two months into 2020 and it seems the world’s gone nuts.

Not just the problems/panic/hype/cons being driven by Covid-19, but all kinds of crazy happenings around the world, including the US, with a crazy election year that seems even crazier than usual.

Very little ‘rational’ anywhere in the mix.

Animals, from insects to primates, are far more rational.

Any animal living in a group needs to make decisions as a group, too. Even when they don’t agree with their companions, animals rely on one another for protection or help finding food. So they have to find ways to reach consensus about what the group should do next, or where it should live. While they may not conduct continent-spanning electoral contests like this coming Super Tuesday, species ranging from primates all the way to insects have methods for finding agreement that are surprisingly democratic.

Yet more proof that my long-ago teacher got it wrong.

Image credit: Marco Verch/trendingtopics

AI As Blunt Force Trauma

Wednesday, February 12th, 2020

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mikemacmarketing/30188200627/in/photolist-MZCqiH-SjCgwQ-78gAtb-4Wrk4s-Dcx4UC-24s3ght-2dZfNaQ-8nBs97-5JpQEE-4GXcBN-RNNXQ4-2eo1VjR-29REGc9-3iAtU2-8SbD9g-2aDXanU-dYVVaB-5Pnxus-29Jabm7-2em8eRN-24DS86P-4KTiY4-87gbND-TnPTMx-UWXASW-fvrvcc-9xaKQj-2dviv8X-7Mbzwn-4WrkmQ-EPaCDj-dWTnJy-4zWGpJ-2fuyjjE-23y8cHC-4HEcBa-585oYX-jR9gc-dZ2ueo-dZ2v6o-2etej9U-dZ2A5J-4vuuEb-TrNV8b-dYVQKp-4HCFvt-6kBMSR-7JvXoF-3Ym8Sz-ShBxCm

While AI can do some things on its own, it’s a blunt force, ignorant of nuance, but embracing all the  bias, prejudices, bigotry and downright stupidity of past generations thanks to its training.

Using AI to make judgement calls that are implemented sans human involvement is like using a five pound sledgehammer on a thumbtack.

Yesterday looked at what AI can miss in hiring situations, but candidates at least have more choice than others do.

AI is being used extensively around the world by government and law enforcement where its bias is especially hard on people of color.

The algorithm is one of many making decisions about people’s lives in the United States and Europe. Local authorities use so-called predictive algorithms to set police patrols, prison sentences and probation rules. In the Netherlands, an algorithm flagged welfare fraud risks. A British city rates which teenagers are most likely to become criminals.

Human judgement may be flawed and it does has the same prejudices, but it’s not inflexible, whereas AI is.

As the practice spreads into new places and new parts of government, United Nations investigators, civil rights lawyers, labor unions and community organizers have been pushing back.

Now schools are jumping on the bandwagon claiming that facial recognition will make schools safer, but not everyone agrees.

“Subjecting 5-year-olds to this technology will not make anyone safer, and we can’t allow invasive surveillance to become the norm in our public spaces,” said Stefanie Coyle, deputy director of the Education Policy Center for the New York Civil Liberties Union. (…)

Critics of the technology, including Mr. Shultz and the New York Civil Liberties Union, point to the growing evidence of racial bias in facial recognition systems. In December, the federal government released a study, one of the largest of its kind, that found that most commercial facial recognition systems exhibited bias, falsely identifying African-American and Asian faces 10 to 100 times more than Caucasian faces. Another federal study found a higher rate of mistaken matches among children.

So what do the kids think?

Students 13 and older are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff…

Read the Q&A to find out.

Image credit: Mike MacKenzie

Too Little Too Late: Updating Antitrust Law

Tuesday, October 1st, 2019

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Last week in a post about responsibility and the difference between Microsoft and other tech giants I said that change was coming, driven in by a surprising source.

The change is to antitrust law.

The University of Chicago is the intellectual birthplace of the consensus in antitrust thinking over the last four decades — that monopoly law should place consumer interests, usually in the form of lower prices, above the concerns of smaller business rivals.

Big tech has been protected, because you can’t get lower than free, but people are waking up to the fact that free isn’t actually free.

More importantly, so is the University of Chicago and a growing list of experts.

But amid growing concerns about the unchecked power of today’s tech giants, economists and legal scholars are questioning whether the Chicago School still makes sense. Even the university’s own faculty is starting to publicly challenge the ideology.

It’s about time.

Considering how fast the world moves these days there is no excuse for those who are supposed to protect us to move at glacial speed.

At last year’s summit, Makan Delrahim, the Justice Department official in charge of antitrust, told attendees that his view of the cost of free platforms “has changed” with a greater understanding of the nature and scope of data collection and sharing.

Duh. No kidding.

Makes you wonder how the European Union figured it out so much quicker.

Or not.

Image credit: Luiz Gadelha Jr.

Golden Oldies: The Story Of Labor Day

Monday, September 2nd, 2019

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pullman_Strike#/media/File:940721-remington-givingthemthebutt-harpersweekly.jpg

Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

Labor Day started as a sop to the working masses after a strike was broken using Federal troops. When I was young Labor Day was an actual holiday when businesses closed. Fast forward to today and for many it’s a workday like any other and a great reason for businesses to have sales.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

Have you ever taken time to wonder why there is a holiday dedicated to people who work?

No?

Then before you get too caught up in shopping, beer and BBQ, take a minute to learn exactly where the holiday comes from.

It’s the result of an 1894 labor strike against the Pullman Company (think aspirational, luxury private railroad cars).

Engineer and industrialist George Pullman’s workers all lived in company-owned buildings. The town was highly stratified. Pullman himself lived in a mansion, managers resided in houses, skilled workers lived in small apartments, and laborers stayed in barracks-style dormitories. The housing conditions were cramped by modern standards, but the town was sanitary and safe, and even included paved streets and stores.

Then the disastrous economic depression of the 1890s struck. Pullman made a decision to cut costs — by lowering wages.

In a sense, workers throughout Chicago, and the country at large, were in the same boat as the Pullman employees. Wages dropped across the board, and prices fell. However, after cutting pay by nearly 30%, Pullman refused to lower the rent on the company-owned buildings and the prices in the company-owned stores accordingly.

Federal troops used extreme force to break the strike resulting in 30 deaths, while rioting and sabotage left 80 million dollars worth of damage in its wake.

Indiana state professor and labor historian Richard Schneirov said President Grover Cleveland’s decision to declare Labor Day as a holiday for workers was likely a move meant to please his constituents after the controversial handling of the strike. The president was a Democrat, and most urban laborers at the time were Catholic Democrats.

Congress approved (knowing their constituents would also be pleased).

Makes you wonder what the current president and congress would do.

Image credit: Fredrick Remington via Wikimedia Commons

A Song From Then for Now

Wednesday, July 24th, 2019

The Superman panel KG sent yesterday reminded me of something I always wanted to see happen.

There is a song written in 1949 by Rodgers and Hammerstein for the musical South Pacific.

The song is You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught.

I’d love to see it done as rap, preferably by someone like LL Cool J, who has such a positive, good guy, persona.

And another version by Willie Nelson.

How ‘bout versions by Kacey Musgraves and Taylor Swift.

I could keep going, but you get the idea.

It’s a song that needs to go viral all over social media to all audiences.

A song to help fight the hate and bigotry that’s invading all spaces and nobody is safe from.

It’s this song.

Image credit: Critical Past

A 1950s Solution for the 21st Century

Tuesday, July 23rd, 2019

KG sent this to me.

What follows is our thread.

Me: Haha. This needs to go viral on social media! But did you notice the kids are all Caucasian?

KG: Yes — because is it the Caucasians that are causing the problems…

Me: Yeah, I realized that after I emailed you. But not all the problems. My sister dated a Black guy in college and his family threw fits. Taught me bigotry is universal, but white bigotry is more powerful/damaging.

KG: I understand. Humans are the problem, regardless of creed or color. However, white people expect that 400 years of slavery and oppression can just be wiped over and that suspicion of motives, etc. should just disappear. The reality is that we create problems for ourselves and for every other living thing on earth.

The consequences of slavery and oppression will be there for a long time.

Obviously. More than half a century and the things that have changed are the clothes, hairstyles and lack of phones.

If The Shoe Fits: an Entrepreneur with Balls (Literally)

Friday, March 1st, 2019

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.

It doesn’t matter which side you were on regarding the recent shutdown, because you were probably effected.

Maybe it was you, a relative or friend. Or maybe a friend or relative of a friend who couldn’t feed their kids or pay their mortgage/rent.

People were angry; some wrote letters, most unloaded online.

The more entrepreneurial (opportunistic) converge on Café Press.

But one entrepreneur went much further.

Greg Miller, founder of Neuticles, a company that sells testicular implants for neutered dogs so they appear unneutered, used his own product to make a statement.

As the shutdown has dragged on – it entered its 34th day Thursday – he is preparing to send his product to all 53 Senate Republicans, plus Vice President Mike Pence, with the message: ‘We are demanding that you gain testicular fortitude and have enclosed a pair of Neuticles to help achieve the necessity to stand up against the sole interests of this rogue president.”

Miller’s company, based in Oak Grove, Missouri, will spend around $13,000 on mailing plus the cost of the product.

He knows that sales are likely to take a hit from his actions, so why do it?

“I just want them to get some damn balls and think of America, not their political party.”

Male or female, entrepreneurs are known for being tough, in other words for having cojones, i.e., balls.

Greg Miller certainly does — in more ways than one.

Image credit: HikingArtist

Go Vote

Tuesday, November 6th, 2018

Image credit: League of Women Voters

Golden Oldies: I Hate Politics 3

Monday, November 5th, 2018

Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

Tomorrow is the most important election in my lifetime. I grew up a target of hate and discrimination and this election will forecast whether I’ll die in a reincarnation of that world.

Tomorrow Americans will choose between inclusion and bigotry; between acceptance and hate.

Choose carefully.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

The conventions may be over, but the rhetoric is still going strong. Did you know it’s a requirement

for politicians to have a PhD—which stands for “piled higher and deeper”— and that’s no bull. Adams and Lincoln never qualified as politicians, but both made it as statesmen.

Ambrose Bierce starts us out with a wonderful definition of politics, just so we’re all on the same page.

Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

Over the years I’ve read many descriptions of politicians and Congress, but John Adams provided my favorite.

In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm and three or more is a congress

The next quote is from Lincoln.

Republicans are for both the man and the dollar, but in case of conflict the man before the dollar.

But times have changed and it would be more accurate to say, “Republicans are for both the man and the dollar, but in case of conflict the dollar before the man.” Of course, it applies just as easily to Democrats.

Andy Borowitz offers our final insight today. I don’t know for sure when he said it, but it’s been applicable since before I could vote.

It would be nice to spend billions on schools and roads, but right now that money is desperately needed for political ads.

(Did you miss the first two I Hate Politics? You can see them here and here.)

Image credit: Jack

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