Minority Report

Camera obscura

2009-04-13T11:56:00.008+01:00

There was a time when the public trusted any plausible narrative given by the state. People went to war based on radio broadcast descriptions of events happening in nations they knew nothing about. I think it is safe to say we are now in a different place.

Ever since the police beating of Rodney King, image evidence from private individuals has been used to challenge official explanations. Conversely, the lack of CCTV evidence damned the police investigation into the July 7th attacks. The death of Ian Tomlinson updates the same pattern.

This is a strange inversion of the "surveillance society", whereby everyone watches everyone and no-one trusts anything unless it is on camera. But holding authority to account simply by trying to catch them in the act of cheating simply gives power to those who cheat well. And it ironically punishes the usually honest who naively trip up.

Reconstructing events by using any number of restricted viewpoints is no replacement for vital missing facts. If I present you with a black box that contains a photo I made of a scene, I'll happily let you make as many pin holes as you like - you will still struggle to make out whats going on. Especially if I choose the image.

Professional journalists pieced together Watergate, but it would be hard to build up a case by relying on passing tourists getting incriminating evidence on their Nokias. Its more likely than an infinite number of monkeys coming up with the works of Shakespeare, but the focused plans of a well resourced state will only fuck up a small number of times.

No amount of individual observations can replace trust. Even government officials who lie occasionally are a better bet than hoping to trip up the seriously devious. Unfortunately lost trust doesn't really return.

Somehow the current low trust institutions need to be rebuilt. The solution will probably involve systems that break the ties of loyalty to careerist superiors. But this problem won't be faced unless we stop using institutions we no longer trust, and stop making one nation under CCTV.

Panic on the streets of London

2009-03-25T14:37:00.005Z

The newer, shinier, War against Terror was introduced by Gordon Brown over the weekend, and by a Metropolitan police poster campaign .

Mr Brown's article is by turns depressing and hysterical:

We should be under no illusion, however, that the biggest security threat to our country and other countries is the murderous agents of hate that work under the banner of al-Qaida

The preparation of ordinary citizens who have been co-opted, or "trained and equipped", to deal with problems looks very, er, National Socialist. In any other sphere of crime prevention, this would be, quite rightly, regarded as vigilantism.

What has led the New Labour think tanks to come up with this stuff? I will assume, for charitable reasons, that there is more to it than "because they are cunts".

The government fears losing the reigns of power if another terrorist incident occurs. Even a temporary blip will be magnified during the G20 summit or the London 2012 games. By pre-booking the fear response, they hope people will give them credit for being on a known track should the worst occur.

You might think that a better way to avoid panic is just to lead by example, as opposed to resetting the clock back to 1984. But from an administrative point of view, that may not be an option.

The economic downturn is beginning to undermine the assumption of authority that the incumbent establishment usually has. If stuff just works, there are few reasons to ask questions. But the sudden onset of poverty tends to focus the mind. Yeah, just like hanging does.

And on top of this, the net is providing a ready source of alternative narratives as to why things are as they are - few of the 700 replies to Mr Brown's article are supportive.

Economic collapse. Terrorism. Alternatives.

Outside of alarmist films, most of us settled in the west have little experience with extreme situations. The governments deepest fear is that people will swing wildly between ugly nationalism and dysfunctional behaviour - leaving society kaput. There have been moments in the last few months that hint at this.

None of the above justifies the fear pimping because, ultimately, the governments job is to protect society as it is - not to subvert it to taste.

During the original Irish terrorist troubles, open propaganda was limited to functional reminders not to stop tube trains in tunnels. It was supposed that people did not require the state to fill in the blanks - the history between the English and Irish is twisted, but well documented.

But there were strange moments. Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein leader, was subject to a ban on the media broadcast of his voice - in the belief that he had Svengali like hypnotic powers. Laughable today, but that is what panic does. We now know that an awful lot of things were done in our name that we had no idea about - but in most cases they were focused on dealing with the IRA, not selling Double Think.

This may be a way point to further measures, or just the stuttering of a leadership running out of ways to look serious. Either way, prepare for a long hot Summer of Rage.

Modern Liberty

2009-03-01T11:30:00.005Z

I went to catch the train. Buying the ticket was easy - I didn't have to, as all I did was walk through the barrier, my National ID card and my Credit Card had been interrogated by contactless technology. The rescue services said it was much safer if they knew who was in which carriage when the train crashed.

As I walked into the shop my ID card registered my presence, and the CCTV checked it was me. Once or twice a week I get stopped by the security guards, they say it is my fault, because my beard causes more false negatives. The shop keepers say it has reduced shop lifting.

I get home to a message telling me that unless I walk more I will be deemed to have failed to keep my responsibilities to the State, and that the level of my health cover will be reduced. They promise that this will not impact emergency care, but that I will have lower priority in booking appointments. They list my travel over the past month, identifying 20 journeys that I could have walked rather than driven or taken the bus.

While the narrative doesn't seem like such a terrible Dystopia, on closer examination much of it is coming to pass with data already held in the public and private sector. The above is taken, with thanks, from another attendee of the Convention on Modern Liberty that took place over the weekend.

Despite the lack of anything in writing, a comfortable British consensus supports the notion that a set of civil rights are required for the relationship between the state and its citizens (er, subjects) to remain healthy. In recent times, the government has traded some of these in, to more keenly prosecute The War on Terror. Quite a few cross party organisations have sprung up in defence of these rights, that we don't actually have.

The speakers were pretty much those you would expect to see on Question Time; there were multiple panels sessions with the Great and the Good (well, the Guardian anyway) to cover the various areas that have been trampled on recently. Shami Chakrabartis (Liberty) keynote speech was manic, Philip Pulmans (the author and atheist) was lyrical, and that from David Davis (Tory without portfolio) was certainly powerful.

Helena Kennedy suggested there was something in the water in the Home Office, to allow so many rights shaving measures to be introduced. From 42 days detention, ID cards, attacks on the jury system, the DNA database, there was plenty to debate. I say debate - but that isn't quite correct. There was little discussion on how or why, only on what method of complaint was best. Its as if the awkward parents of teenage lovers were working out how to punish their delinquents.

The ID card debate is a good example of this. We all move around with dozens of pieces of plastic that refer to some data on ourselves. A possible future scenario could involve a policeman asking me to produce an ID card. I "willingly" give my data to private companies, but I should not be forced to give it to a "central state database". The fear of the government holding data appeared to the delegates as a massive spectre; the shit loads of data held privately was of little interest. In fact the idea of the State being separated by some Chinese wall from the private sector is fairly quaint.

As the young black inner London New Labour MP pointed out, CCTV does improve the experience in otherwise dangerous Streatham neighbourhoods. In fact the few New Labour representatives tended to talk in a different language. They talked about "mainstreaming" and "service delivery". Maybe that is not so surprising. The chattering classes are mainly talking to themselves, whereas the government is trying to communicate with the electorate, and the electorate are only talking to Tescos.

As dangerous as correlated data is, the structures of repression cannot cause that repression by osmosis. It has to be in peoples brains, or it doesn't exist. Once there, any law can be bent to the needs of hatred. I give you the SPG.

There is something rotting inside the current administration, but it is not the result of some choreographed master plan. People have to ask themselves, did they believe that the London bomings on 7/7 was the work of Al Qaeda, because Tony Blair said so? I can't remember a lot of people questioning him at the time. It is the forgotten moments of fear and compliance that gave birth to most of the curbs in civil rights we see now. Look back in anger all you want.

Politics by other means

2009-01-25T19:31:00.006Z

Donald Rumsfeld knew he had a problem. It wasn't how to take Iraq; it was how to control the US army. He knew that there are two types of army. The large hierarchical state armies that project power through equipment, systems and organisation. And the small racially cohesive units, that are agile and can follow political objectives.

An army, or a a state force that Clausewitz would recognise, is only controllable by the military and follow military rules. And that is why Rumsfeld wanted to remake it into the second type of army that he could control. He couldn't do anything about cohesion, but he knew he could do business with about 75,000 troops. The US Army wanted to send 400,000.

Rumsfeld will be remembered as the the man who didn't plan for what to do after Iraq was "captured":

One of Secretary Rumsfeld's close associates was telling me, quite passionately, that Rumsfeld axiomatically is against predictions and expectations. Life is uncertain and that's fine. But when he comes to drawing up plans for running a country, it's hard to have quite this existentialist view. Existentialism is fine as a personal philosophy. But if you're running a nation's occupation, it can lead to problems.

The large state army still works, witness Russia slapping down Georgia when it tried to push its luck, but this is now the exception.

After Gaza, it is clearly obvious which way things will go in the future. Gaza was bloody because two modern style small armies were prepared to go head to head. As Hamas were by definition surrounded before they had even started, the result was not at issue - even if the forces had been balanced.

The Israeli army, or IDF, is not really a military force - it is almost totally political. They had no, and didn't need any, achievable military objectives. (Stopping your neighbours sticking two fingers up at you is not a valid military objective). But the Israeli racial distrust of their enemy allowed them to ignore the rules of fair war and just put fire down where it would have most graphic effect.

Of course, Israel were trying to punish Palestinians. In Israeli eyes, it is they who voted for Hamas - and thus all Gazans were valid targets. And a political tool can be used to instill fear, in order to destabilize a regime. Hence killing a few children here, using a little white phosphorus there and hitting UN schools for kicks sent the required message - nowhere is safe; if you tolerate Hamas your children will be next. These are not the actions of regular disciplined forces.

Successful armies are now more likely to be sectarian in nature, because with a reasonable cost base they can do a lot of damage, and easily hold their own against bigger slower forces. But much more importantly they can take direct political direction - as long as its correctly dressed up. What if you don't have a small racially cohesive pack of war dogs? Don't worry - use someone elses! A proxy war is still a good war.

A little local difficulty

2008-12-30T13:47:00.005Z

If there is one thing that the internet has certainly done, it has reduced the cost of giving a damn.

During summer weekends in 70s London, a "demo"was a fairly common event. Protesters would be bussed in from around Britain to protest about.. well anything. Vietnam, pay and conditions, racism, fascism, nuclear confrontation - Piccadilly or Hyde Park would grind to a halt with slow walking banner holders, mothers with prams and flanking policemen. Londoners are quite used to the world's troubles (and bombs) being aired on its streets. It's what real cities are all about. By the evening, the television news would show a few seconds of protest - and then let the corresponding minister assure the country that Everything Was Alright.

To show support for those wronged abroad, many chose to follow letter writing campaigns via Amnesty International. Letters are a much more accurate form of communication than slogan shouting.

A lot of energy and thought was needed to make small, one way ripples of concern that could be denied in a moment. (I have no wish to stop anyone working with Amnesty International, their work is still vital.)

Compare and contrast with today. The Israelis Hasbara or propaganda machine realise that killing 300 Gazans over 48 hours might cause a few waves of concern in the West. Starting a war over Christmas is no longer enough to confuse 24 hour news coverage.

By using the popular social media service Twitter, the Israeli consulate held a "conference" and got the chance to see how the connected world's opinion sees their little conflict. They are sensible enough to realise that they cannot control the hosepipe of condemnation, but they can at least place their own objectives and viewpoints into the stream.

The definition of the "connected world" is now no more than the ability to read and write on a web site. It takes little time, but is visible to all, immediately. Letting everyone voice their opinion is not in itself a panacea, but from it flows more understanding of how others view the world. And it is much harder for those who have missed the zeitgeist to slip by unnoticed.

The losers of open debate are politicians who speak without first listening; for example David Milliband's initial statement was very anodyne even for a foreign secretary, as if mourning a death on Eastenders. Or take this example, from the start of an article by Seumas Milne:

Israel's decision to launch its devastating attack on Gaza on a Saturday was a "stroke of brilliance", the country's biggest selling paper Yediot Aharonot crowed: "the element of surprise increased the number of people who were killed". The daily Ma'ariv agreed: "We left them in shock and awe"

Put simply; when your finger is on the trigger you seek to cover your exploits in darkness, not light. Israeli forces are mainly just kids, many of whom are "Generation Y" social media junkies and they can see for themselves that preserving the safety of their homes is not best done by torching their neighbours.

Have a great 2009.

No more heroes

2008-12-14T18:45:00.006Z

In a scene from Steven Soderbergh's first film about Che Guevara, we see the icon inspect a few potential recruits who have come from the nearest village to join up with the Cuban revolutionary army. He glances at the motley villagers, and immediately accepts those with their own weapons. Then he asks those who can't read and write to go home.

This selection method seems to confirm the view of Che as the romantic poster revolutionary cum poet. Later, he explains that those who cannot read are too easy to fool. He wasn't trying to gain control of Cuba by some type of common coup, he wanted complete revolutionary change. Nothing reversible.

Partly to avoid this calamity, most modern democratic styled nations use adversarial politics. A government is balanced by an opposition with, usually, opposite opinions. Except of course when they agree.

This system seems to work well when ideas are placed, like a football, between the two sides. After getting buffeted about a bit, the idea ends up either helping one side win or it gets rejected. If rejected, proposals can always be put through at a later date. Those on the losing side of the debate don't try to start a revolution - they just adapt their tactics for next time.

This leaves the public, like football fans, to watch and support one side or the other. So although we don't get to make any decisions, we get to cheer or boo and are entertained in the process.

We all know that this system only really supports two political parties, with independents or a third party as little more than a tasty pie to be consumed during half time. But we are getting just a bit bored of this sport.

While we are still all willing to go to the match, we are beginning to realise the sides are often just going through the motions. Because events happen at a scale or speed that can no longer fit into a 90 minute spectacle. While the sides kick the truth about on the pitch, those guys in the executive suites aren't even taking any notice. Maybe they already know the result - or couldn't care less?

And like the premiership, politicians don't really have deep rooted reasons for being on one side or another anymore. Indeed, most can quite happily argue for or against the same policy on demand - because being adversarial is their job. The right position trumps the right solution every time.

A revolution is one method to change an ineffective system - but something bloodless would be more comfortable. Either way, the current systems do need to be revamped to become more flexible in responding to circumstances. For instance, it is still controversial to not compose the main decision making body wholly with the members of the majority party - except in a national emergency. And we also know that by supporting both sides, anybody with sufficient money and influence can push any vaguely acceptable idea through.

In reality what needs to be done gets done outside of government purview - which just pisses everybody off. The much coveted ability to throw one party out for another one is a great solution to the national evils of a previous century. It doesn't help much today, when a single banker, or a lucky terrorist can change the world in a matter of minutes.

Crash

2008-11-15T13:39:00.003Z

I like cross cultural parodies, such as this T-shirt design. To get the reference, and thus the point, you need to be familiar with video games as well as modern art.

So is the joke half Magritte and half Super Mario? Well, yes. The picture belongs to the Nintendo game, and the French words are from the well known painting. But is what makes the T-shirt funny half Belgian and half plumber? Obviously that doesn't make sense. The joke simply refers to contradictions and surprises - clearly something that both Magritte and Shigeru Miyamoto enjoyed, but not unique to them.

There have been quite a few heated debates by columnists and bloggers trying to decide whether the new president elect of the United States is black, of mixed race, or neither. Treating a human as a tin of paint (or a T-shirt) is unlikely to yield much truth, though some interest in what makes Obama tick is hardly surprising. Is it always wrong to wonder how culture may effect people?

I was intrigued by what Malcolm Gladwell, the Tipping Point author, had to say about how a persons culture has a greater effect on their job than many other factors. He gives the example of how a cultures deference to authority has lead to increased air crashes, purely because of bad communication between pilots. If a co-pilot sees a problem, but does not feel it is right to confront the captain, what happens? What happens if he cannot find the right form of words, in a timely fashion, to indicate that fuel is low, or there is ice on the wing? Well, statistically, the answer is that he could cause a plane crash. Hence a culture’s attitude toward authority can influence things unexpectedly elsewhere.

So it isn't wrong to think about how culture can influence how people behave, as long as you realize individuals don't spend time fitting in with statistics - a point Mr Gladwell emphasizes. And the way people interpret statistics.. is cultural. The tendency to look at a story, then counterfactually make connections that don't really exist is a hard habit to break. For example, if Obama was involved in street crime, he would definitely, as far as the media was concerned, become black.

(Having said that, you may want to avoid Colombian airlines.)

Brown man in the White house

2008-11-05T21:32:00.005Z

It would be hard for a blog that is often about the politics of identity not to mention what is a momentous event in identity politics. On the face of it, a country with so many relatively high profile non-whites should be able to throw up a suitable candidate. But Barack Obama did not vote himself into office, so his accession is really about the people who did. And what they think they have done.

One question that is worth asking; why did the same electorate that chose a right wing Texan four years ago, suddenly switch to his polar opposite now? Was the election of the now unlamented George W. Bush an early indication that people wanted to break racial barriers?

Without intending to, people tend to view president elect Obama as a transformative character. Not from any known abilities, but purely through his existence. Indeed, much of the world also views him in this way. Given that what he says isn't that much different from any previous Ivy league liberal academic leader of the Democratic party, it might well be down to his "dual heritage". Especially the African part, of course.

Racism is strange that way. The human mind's inability to override the primal fear of the other, has caused quite a few hardships. That a mixed race guy is now deemed as a solution to a complex abstract problem, Americas loss of power and popularity, partly because he represents the joining of two races... maybe Freud could sort it out.

Feared one minute, leader of the free world the next - quite a journey, and all in the mind of white America. To be fair, Mr Obama didn't milk his "advantage". He did an excellent job in invigorating the Democratic base; McCain seemed unwilling to communicate with the Republican hardcore. It is unlikely the temporary increase in the youth vote will last - the world wide trend is against it. But the black community have seen the civil war finally end in Virginia, and that is permanent.

Any bridge building Mr Obama manages will be of his own making, not a melanin driven ability. There is no reason why he should not make an excellent U.S. President, and his campaign was certainly impressive - if tightly controlled and very high spending. But I don't think it will take long for America's enemies to work out that his skin colour and wider cultural experience does not drive his very American mind.

Trust me

2008-10-31T01:00:00.007Z

One of the early promises of the 80's computing revolution was the true dawn of Artificial Intelligence. By the end of the century, so scientists said, Japanese robots would be helping old women cross the road.

AI suffered a sort of semantic breakdown, as it turned out that no one knew what intelligence was, and therefore whether it made sense to say it was artificial or not. Philosophers such as John Searls with his Chinese Room problem started to question the validity of AI as a concept.

Maybe the AI community underestimated how hard it would be to simulate even the "unthinking" parts of the brain - just vision and walking are still challenging today. But while many strands of AI have been abandoned, the brute force computations that computers have always excelled at have been improving. Hence we do have good expert systems.

I was listening to how an expert system has been developed that differentiates between genuine and fraudulent works of art by examining brush strokes in detail. While the system was able to discover some fakes that had previously passed as genuine, it also mistakenly endorsed some known fakes. Oddly, these endorsed fakes still found a value in the art market, which recognised the "authenticity" of the fraud. The fact that a fraudster does not know the original artist's PIN number is not the issue.

This leads to the modern day problem of identity and attribution. This is best seen in politics, where candidates reveal less and less about policies ahead of taking power, prefering to play what-if games. They need to persuade their electorate to trust that they would make the "right" decision in any given event, only going by previous (and possibly unrelated) decisions.

It won't be that long before an expert system will claim to accurately extrapolate what decision a leader might make based on their previous decisions, as well as other leaders in similar positions and circumstances in the past. I use the word "claim" because with all predictions, they only matter if people take them seriously. This will lead to more assiduous recording of all speeches and decisions by anyone remotely in the public eye - if that is possible. Then it can be fed into the system and matched with patterns, rules, and learning.

Somehow, a person's identity comprises of the sum of all their communications and interactions. The brain already deals with this in its own way - and creates appropriate trust models necessary for survival. We have always rightly distrusted politicians who want to set a year zero on their personal histories, which usually starts after they smoked pot or slept with their relatives. To see what Barack Obama will do in Iraq, it may be necessary to look at his behaviour in nursery. Just to seed the model with some data, you understand.

Apart from projections, a decision actually taken could be judged to be atypical, or even fraudulent. After all, if you sell yourself on a set of given behaviours, then why can't you be criticized for making a bad impression of yourself?

Artists do of course break out of their oeuvre occasionally, sometimes to great applause, sometimes not. But politicians, who want to avoid the accusation of not being "real", tend to follow the same track for their whole career. This makes them very good targets for modelling. I'll leave out any pun about being painted into a corner.

Short

2008-10-12T11:05:00.003+01:00

Even its name, "global financial crisis", has only been settled on recently. Sometimes its the "global financial system in crises", or the "recession/depression".

It is clear to anyone after countless articles and interviews that no one in the financial community (let alone politics) knows what is going on, how it happened, or what will happen next. Increased coverage just underline how the community all see different events as being the cause for different outcomes. One day the problem is short selling, then it isn't, and so on. Its as if a comet had presaged an alien invasion.

The simplest reason that accounts for no one being able to describe things is just that they don't understand them. Which seems obvious. No one completely understands the economic system, perhaps because this is the first time in living memory there has been any need to.

For some reason, experts and lay people insist that the economy is now more complex, apparently because of mobile phones and the Internet.

Is it really? I can't see what major elements of economics (people, goods, services, value, money) have altered. The fact that I can buy shares from my yacht, and look at their performance on a web page wouldn't appear to change these basics. Certainly events follow more quickly. But while there are now more exotic ways to do the same things, people need banking today for much the same reasons as they did 100 years ago.

The crisis is also grandly referred to as "global", as if before this month, the economy was a local phenomenon. Given that the most basic consumer objects owned in the West come from Asia, this really seems ridiculous.

There doesn't appear to be one good agreed concept or idea to help people simplify the economy in their heads. Contrast this situation with, say, evolution, where Mr Darwin's ideas are available and explicable to more or less anyone. Or, if you prefer, consider gravity, or the Prisoner's dilemma.

This is one case where the Crowds do not appear to have much Wisdom. Without the basic mental tools, more comment just generates more heat without the light. It may be that it will be a few decades before enough is understood for this period to be properly documented without being sold short.

The highest priority is The War on Terror

2008-10-01T23:12:00.005+01:00

Come and have a good time

2008-09-08T00:19:00.004+01:00

Nations have often resorted to ad men when they want to improve their image - either to encourage tourism or inward investment. For example, Spain wanted to portray that it was no longer a dirt poor country run by a dictator, but a stylish democracy. Barcelona topped that by holding the Olympics with Catalan elan. Freed from Soviet domination, the Baltic states successfully increased their appeal as cheap places for stag parties for richer Europeans. Many Arabian countries have world class hotels, but don't want to be known for past beheading policies. Britain went though similar campaigns in the 80's, to try and reverse the "sick man of Europe" image gained from striking public workers.

Israel, finding its image somewhat negative, also wants to rebrand itself. But unlike the other cases, their problems are not in the past. I'm sure Israeli beaches are very nice, clean and safe, and the tech savvy companies and Nobel prize scientists are all real. But the land stealing security fence, the unending violence towards Palestinians and threats to poorly defended neighbours are all very real too.

Even the Chinese government is clearly heading, at their own pace, towards an improved relationship with its citizens - and the Olympics seemed like an honest portrait of a fast changing empire.

Too many Israelis simply think that everyone is wrong except them. Even when their old friends the South Africans stopped racist rule, they still stick with the old antagonisms. Ultimately it's up to them to take the appropriate road, but their current attitude is broadly unmoving. Being bad is one thing, but being unrepentant is worse.

"We don’t want to ignore it but to contain it", says a brand-minded
Israeli. "There are 800 foreign correspondents here, all focused on the conflict. We would like them to zoom out and look at other things too. Branding is about the real Israel."

The real Israel does little to stop its security forces killing children. For that reason alone, many journalists will not be taking up the kind offers to enjoy the beach.

Sorted

2008-08-11T01:39:00.007+01:00

I don't think I remember meeting more than one or two Americans who admitted voting for Bush the first time around. That's fair enough; the travelling Americans I see are likely to be more liberal minded (for a start, they have passports). What was odd in the last presidential election, is that many Democrats said they didn't even know any Republican voters.

This conundrum is explained by The Big Sort, whose premise is that Americans are choosing to move in order to live with others who share their views on life. Indeed, they will move out of one county and into another to be near the right flavour of church. This behaviour is apparently accelerating to create large echo chambers of similar thinking - and in American political terms large areas that are entirely red, or entirely blue. This is quite different from only a few decades ago.

Evangelical, small government, anti-abortion, rural, Republican go together to form one side of the tracks, with less religious, interventionist, pro-choice, urban Democrats make the other side. Politics of place and belief. Race is a divisional issue too, but the Big Sort is above and beyond that.

And the internet is gladly helping people to keep the separate together. Similar peer groups can meet in person, or in virtual space. Indeed it's now easier than ever to get to boundless sources of information that will never tell you anything you don't want to know.

While all this is understandable, as a Londoner (and I think for many city dwellers), some of this is odd. I don't know the political or spiritual leanings of my neighbours. And even if I thought I did, very few people's views all slot into one tidy party manifesto. As long as they belong to a similar class and are convivial, most English people don't care much about their neighbours beliefs. But inevitably trends in the US will find some reflection worldwide.

How much does the Big Sort matter?

The (fairly small) thinking part of the far right like to state that "kinship" groups are a natural societal boundary, so would find favour with Big Sort behaviour. One obvious problem with this is that kinship groups are a fixture from human evolution. Yet man uses his big brain to think beyond that. For example, it would be difficult to build a moon mission with just your extended family, and maybe a few mates from down the road.

Trying to devolve towards self similar groups probably does promote social cohesion. But it surely would arrest human progress as a result. The way Harry Lime put it in The Third man, peace and love will get you as far as the cuckoo clock. This is probably not an option for the Western world.

Contract

2008-08-03T01:08:00.004+01:00

It is one of the safest ways to identify someone. Wait for them outside their home. Wait for them to come back alone. Then say their name. When they turn around, you can shoot them. You are already on a West London street, so just find the nearest tube and get to Heathrow. And hope there are no delays.

Almost immediately after the TV celebrity Jill Dando was shot, even the police were assuming it was a professional hit. Some think it was a Serb terrorist, others that her job presenting Crimewatch may have annoyed the criminal underworld.

Contract killings on working Londoners are probably not that infrequent. Even the plainest of people try to take financial short cuts, and believe urban anonymity can save them from retribution. The police surely can't relish opening such a can of worms. Hiding in the deadly assaults on ordinary members of the public each year will be a few of these cases.

Seeing Barry George released this weekend was a sickening reminder of how happy the media played along with the fantasy that an intellectually challenged social misfit could suddenly make the transition to stealth assassin. But the police had found the perfect loner to stitch up. Who cared if this loser did some time?

The attitude towards this form of "community policing" has changed since the arrest eight years ago. Putting weirdos behind bars is no longer seen as a quick win, given the amount of violent knife offenders at large (and given prison overcrowding). And of course, there is a War on Terror to be fought. The apparent vagueness as to whether an armed unit had been rifling through Barry's apartment or not - and contaminating the forensic evidence - now looks deeply unprofessional with CSI on TV most week nights.

The pressure applied by sections of the media to find the defiler of the pure Ms Dando certainly led to the police becoming snow blind, as Barry's barrister has suggested. And failing under media pressure is one thing several parts of the British establishment do a little too regularly.

Oh, and naturally no apology is forthcoming from the men in blue.

25 words

2008-07-20T14:09:00.002+01:00

A late entry into this simple "25 words" project:

The early blackberries I just picked above the fence were technically my neighbours, but morality is more fluid at the margins - and I like blackberries.

City of Blades

2008-07-20T03:08:00.003+01:00

I was somewhat bemused to hear that the police unit responding to my minor burglary call had been diverted to deal with a stabbing. After all, it was 3am on Monday morning. The police later apologised and explained that they have very few resources and cannot deal with any peaks whatsoever.

While the current cycle of teenage knife crime seems to be climbing frighteningly beyond the statistical curve, one remembers that certain security departments are very well funded indeed.

Yes, the "war on terror" may have faded into the background somewhat - but it is still swallowing a large amount of police time. For our safety, the forces of law and order follow a handful of dodgy bearded brown people on the pretext that what happened in London 3 years ago in July was the continuation of the world wide Muslim conspiracy. As time passes however, we are left with the images of a few lonely men with elevated passions and rucksacks full of death, but no guidance from any shadowy Svengali of terror.

A blog mate pointed out a post by the usually hilarious Charlie Brooker. In it, he suggests that anyone doubting the official version of the events around September 11th 2001 is a conspiraloon. With over 1700 comments, a record for this forum, it is clear that the public do not wholly agree with Mr Brooker. Scepticism regarding the behaviour of the Coalition of the Willing is broadening beyond those whose only interest is demolition explosives.

The sharp end of this is that the number of people willing to see street violence spiral out of control in order to support the enthusiastic hassling of extreme elements is probably shrinking. "Nothings happened, so we must be doing the right thing" is not an argument you can use forever.

Conflating the bobby on the beat and internal security may be unfair, but it won't be too long before a few reckless politicians realise they can grab the zeitgeist by telling us what we already suspect. Especially as the elected leaders that forged the whole terror business, and kept it going, are declining in number.

Not cricket

2008-06-29T13:15:00.004+01:00

English politicians talk about Zimbabwe much like ex drug addicts talk about their friends who fail rehab. They know their perspective might be flawed, but guilt keeps them involved. Recently, the BBC has featured many black Africans denouncing Mugabe and his self election. This feels better. (Actually asking Africans about Africa is a fairly novel approach, but I'm sure it won't last.)

Mugabe is in fact repeating himself. In the 1980's, his army killed upwards of 20,000 civilians just to destroy Joshua Nkomo and his tribal influence and thus maintain a one party state. He has never been much of a democrat.

You would think that this fairly obvious historical pattern would be picked up on, but the media seem not to dwell on it. In fact, until the attacks on white farmers, Zimbabwe was held up as a shining example of economic prosperity. In short, given a few years, outsiders will forget about the mass murder of Africans if the economy is healthy and Communists are controlled. This is the secret that the continents dictators have used for years.

Nobody dares look too closely at Morgan Tsvangirai in case a simple "regime change" scenario may look less than fantastic. I'm sure he is a great guy, but I'm certain that if he needs the West to help him topple Mugabe then things will be bad for a long time.

There are no shortage of other great initiatives being suggested. "Why doesn't South Africa just turn off the power supply?" is as daft as it is ugly. Perhaps the French should have considered doing that to Britain when they lost the Olympic bid to London. Refusing Mugabe "access to his money" and "access to medical care" sound sharper, but depend on the dictators lack of foresight.

If Mugabe had simply done the usual trick of delaying an election forever, the West would have taken far longer to focus. As it is, we have our noses up against the glass but can't figure out whether to break it or not.

Sadly there are probably many people in the area who are hoping for the West, perhaps even Britain, to help them. Maybe when they see that our idea of help is to take away Mugabe's knighthood and stop the cricket team from coming over, they may figure out that they are better off doing the job themselves.

Just ask for it

2008-06-06T00:49:00.008+01:00

One question that concerns the current crop of Internet companies, is how to make money. Astonishingly, many of the most well loved "web 2.0" style social networks have neither a business plan, or any immediate reason to exist. The answer usually given is to start advertising. This is supposed to be the classic way to turn visiting popularity into revenue. But even before financial conditions got rougher, most insiders reckon advertising on the web is failing to deliver.

It appears that the American Democratic President in waiting, Barack Obama, has now created another very effective model - if you need money, just ask for it.

If Hilary Clinton had raised $55 million in one month without hosting a fund raising event, many would be looking for some type of misconduct. However, Mr Obama raised vast sums regularly throughout his recent campaign, and no one thought anything of it. Perhaps because blacks have no stereotypical affinity to money and business, his astounding fundraising skills are ignored by the media.

Months ago I saw a video of Obama giving a talk - to Google. In fact he hit the red hot button issue of network neutrality - something that will determine how and if Internet companies can stay in business over the next decade. A deeper examination of Obama and the amazing money machine points out what a good match he is with Silicon valley. There, a young guy with little experience but a strong sense of direction is a wholly positive thing. From then on, the recognition that social networks are the best way to grow a campaign and raise money seems to have cemented this relationship. As is often stated, Obama raises money not from a handful of rich power brokers but from many small donations. Americans voted with their wallets to empower the verbally resplendent Senator for Illinois.

The relationship between political expression, social networks and fundraising may be self sustaining over the long term. Just as a direct charitable appeal is the most efficient way to convert concern to action, single issue politics can clearly do the same - while clawing some power away from central government.

Soft targets

2008-05-19T01:11:00.002+01:00

"Representatives from more than 100 countries are to meet to discuss outlawing the use of cluster bombs. " Not attending are US and China, and other nations that produce and store them. The Pope does support the cause - though its not clear how the Holy See effects munition deployment policy.

Even years after combat is over, the bomblets from cluster bombs can still main and kill hapless civilians. This of course makes the weapon seem particularly callous. But beyond tacit agreement between warring parties, I'm not sure that it is useful to go through a catalogue of weapons and say "this one is good", but "that one is really beyond the pail". Designed correctly, all weapons are dangerous. Maybe the problem is the war they are used in?

Trite, I know. Maybe there are so many small conflicts that are really beyond the judgemental worlds control, that even superficial fixes seem worth making. But that's much like asking armed robbers to please not use shotguns, because of the terrible noise they make when they go off.

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament was flawed in a similar way. Instead of focusing on the problems that capitalism and communism were (and still are) producing, members protested that they didn't want to die in a nuclear war. Well, I wouldn't like to be hacked by a machete either.

We now accept that communism was a much bigger blight than any war could achieve. And the West is slowly accepting that results of unfettered capitalism are keeping vast numbers of humans in poverty. Continuing to reconcile real problems is lengthy, boring and sometimes futile but gesture politics is truly callous.

Crime and Punishment

2008-05-03T20:54:00.004+01:00

"We cannot and should not pasteurise the streets of this city. They will always be full of life and excitement, but they can be safer, and they will be."

That is a very sound statement, but Mr Johnson, the new Mayor of London, has a brand new crime manifesto. If the voters were specifically concerned with crime, they had a real ex-policeman to choose from. But Brian Paddick came a distant third.

For a Conservative, talking about crime is code for a respect for private possessions, the right to hold accumulated wealth and defence from the unruly. In short, the speaker has no socialist leanings. This posturing is irrelevant in modern London, where we all walk pass the stinking rich and the homeless everyday. A Londoner accepts extreme socialism and extreme capitalism without blinking.

Serious crime in any big city defies prediction and often understanding. It certainly cannot be legislated for by a Mayor. The number of sociopaths attracted to a city dwarfs the size of any organised policing system. Indeed, it probably subsumes any policing system.

What there is left to talk about is anti-social behaviour and marginal crimes. And there is a never ending conversation about how to deal with these. Whatever initiatives the Mayor adds to the list I somehow doubt they will stop some ruffian nicking your bike, picking your pocket or puking on your tube train. And you will be rightly riled when it happens.

Measuring the quality of city life by how long you can go without being touched by crime is pointless. In the same way that measuring happiness by the number of consumer goods you have doesn't really work. Society only advances when large numbers of people live and work close to each other in relative freedom. And so does crime.

Fixing broken lights, cleaning up graffiti (unless its by Banksy of course) and creeping gentrification is how most cities successfully improve themselves. Mr Johnson does have other plans that he will hopefully spend his time on as opposed to confusing the Metropolitan Police any further.

Amateurs

2008-04-11T01:48:00.004+01:00

Truth is quite a separate thing from opinion. To calculate 24 plus 36, would you ask 100 people for their answers and take the average? We have all heard multiple diverging descriptions of a single event enough times to realise that even with the truth in plain sight, people report things wrongly or are hopelessly prejudicial. Sadly, you have to be trained to observe accurately. Opinion, however, is cheap to produce and cannot be countered.

A very worthwhile new documentary entitled The Truth According To Wikipedia brings up some interesting points about the wisdom of crowds, and the quality of information. One accusation levelled at that the founders of the webs Encyclopedia is that they are libertarians. And its true that the ageing hippies responsible for the current state of the internet are probably the digital equivalent of a survivalist state militia who hate authority, formality and control.

The author Andrew Keen gets a reasonable amount of time in the film to expound his 'elitist' views. For him, experts are more right than amateurs and the blogosphere weakens quality media. The opposite view may lightly be characterised by the Zulu term ubuntu - all information lacks meaning in isolation and all views should be equally respected. As facts have to be placed in a useful human context - there is lots of "truth" that won't help anyone live - there should be value to local truth as well as just absolute truth. It may be Einsteins universe, but we live in Newtons world.

Not all of the films polemic hits Wikipedia accurately. Where an aggregate medium excels is in the collection of knowledge. While no amount of opinions can somehow coalesce into truth, capturing the knowledge of millions creates a dynamic picture of any topic. In most situations you don't actually require the sharply focused truth, just a helpful sketch. And the chaotic democracy of Wikipedia is actually held together by some fairly sensible sentinels - whose access looks suspiciously hierarchical. Another saving grace is that a vandals attention span is mercifully short.

Keen's point is more relevant when examining how (western) society is fragmenting into millions of personal self interested bubbles. He refers to digital narcissism when talking about internet culture. Even if the bubbles collaborate on occasion with other bubbles they know, its hard to build up knowledge if everyone starts from their own position. Equal access to information leads to all information being equal. So importance on the internet is just popularity, and thus quality loses meaning.

The combination of pure democracy and anonymity seems to have very specific strengths and weaknesses. Wikipedia may represent both of sides. Whether the web can assert quality or just increase fracture should become apparent in the next few years. At the moment, it could be Lord of the Flies.

Zombie

2008-03-19T02:38:00.003Z

While watching the credits roll for "There will be Blood" in the comfortable Curzon Soho, I noticed that the film was based on a book by Upton Sinclair.

Then I remembered why this Upton Sinclair bloke sounded familiar. He featured in a strange novel called "U.S.!" by Chris Bachelder ( the author of the brilliant "Bear vs Shark"). In the book, Upton Sinclair is an old school "muck raking" socialist who believes that with just a bit more persuading, America will become socialist. He is continually assassinated, and resurrected. The technicalities of resurrection are not discussed - this is just something that happens. After reading it, I confirmed that Sinclair was indeed a real (but properly dead) politician of the American left.

What is particularly odd is how reasonable the whole thing seems. Despite the massive conceit, the book engineers itself in such a way as to make socialism in the USA the only truly unlikely idea. I can believe in Zombies, but not state control of the economy.

And indeed this is probably intended. There is still a trace left of an anti-capitalist message in "There will be Blood", yet one does not really notice it. Its as if the oil economy, which is the driver for every character in the film, somehow is just a backdrop. It is now very hard for our western minds to conceive of any system other than free market capitalism. Even an imminent banking collapse seems not to disturb this.

It probably requires a logical impossibility, or at the very least a large shock, to test our belief in capitalism sufficiently to question it effectively. An atomic bomb was needed to check Japanese belief in the infallibility of the Emperor. A lengthy depression combined with a minor environmental disaster may cause not just a change of heart, but a violent swing away from what we have now.

Markets are as old as crossroads, but normally the price of anything is related to its value. The logic that ties the value of your house to a pyramid scheme of faulty loans, promises, consumer spending, credit debt and fractional-reserve banking is one that most people are willing to ignore while things are good. When confronted with the truth we are forced to take either the blue pill or the red pill. But the economy may only be working now because we have chosen to swallow the blue pill for such a long time.

Dusk till Dawn

2008-02-24T03:18:00.003Z

Before long, your DNA data will be held on a database, and you will have given it willingly. But the database will belong to a private company, and you will be paid good money for it. But that's the near future.

For now, it looks as if the police have done everyone a favour by bringing up the issue of compulsory DNA collection before it could be silently introduced without debate. By shining a light on the issue before the necessary spin could be readied, the Home Office have been forced to deny interest in the idea.

The fact that being arrested (not convicted) is sufficient to have your DNA recorded, and that it is near impossible to remove the record is a legal blemish being tackled by a number of human rights lawyers. Interestingly, serving police officers must give a DNA sample, but this is removed from records as soon as they retire. The upshot has been the human rights argument that either everyone's DNA should be recorded - or no ones should be.

But it maybe dangerous to play this bluff, because circumstances can quickly change. We have already seen how one terrorist incident has led to the removal of hundreds of liberties and long held values throughout the world. Had the wheels spun quicker, we would all have been walking around with biometric identity cards by now.

If it was simply about solving crimes, then most people would agree that a DNA database addresses the symptoms not the cause. Clearly a nationwide dusk till dawn curfew will abruptly reduce crime. In fact I can think of all manner of liberty denying ideas that I hope will never be implemented in peace time. The current administration, however, have few qualms about borrowing the tactics from police states if there are votes in it, or quotas are satisfied. More to the point, they are upfront with the moral challenge - if you are innocent, you have nothing to hide.

While identity may be an issue with a lot of bloggers, it isn't to the public at large. Which is where privately held databases holding your DNA come in. They will effectively become brokers to interested parties. Researchers, insurance agents, and a lot of other people would like to peruse a large sample of geolocated human DNA. How would it work? You sign up, you get swabbed, and you get paid. Your DNA is public - but whose DNA belongs to who is not released; it is public, yet anonymous. If the police arrest you, but can't find the DNA they are looking for in the database(s) you registered with, you are in the clear. People with no hereditary diseases will join exclusive databases for insurance perks - the same way safe drivers do today.

Naturally criminals will not sign up - so the position will be the exact opposite of how it is now. Again, liberty will be successfully brokered by the private sector. Because whatever people feel about trust, convenience and money are always the number one concerns.

Old battles on new fronts

2008-02-10T13:18:00.000Z

There were a lot of "demos" back in 70's London. A demonstration would usually involve thousands of people, with crudely daubed placards marching down Park Lane, maybe meeting in Trafalgur square. With plenty of aggressive unions, fashionable terrorists, spiralling inflation, less than frank government and the likelihood of thermonuclear destruction, people had a choice of issues to protest about.

A demonstration is only as good as its media coverage. But the "new media" path to finding and covering current events is a bit different - what follows is an example from this morning.

After noticing an interesting remark on Twitter , I was directed to a site that carried live feed from mobile phone cameras. I was surprised to see a live demonstration, outside the Scientology building close to where I work in Blackfriars. Indeed I've mentioned the cult and their occupation of a historic building previously. Shaky footage of casually dressed twenty somethings, complete with placards, confirmed that this was indeed an old style demo.

The self anonymisation of the protesters was interesting. Many were wearing masks, scarves and hoodies. While this was partly to get in the mood, the inevitable presence of filming observers and plentiful CCTV cameras provided another reason to cover up. The police presence appeared to be visible but restrained. The video mentioned 300 or so protestors.

The other interesting feature was the "back channel". While the live streaming video was coming through on the site, instant message style text comments from other web viewers was published below the images. This is a fairly common concept today, underlining that very little media need be passive. It would be quite reasonable to assume some of the protestors would see some of these comments; indeed there were comments directed to that end.

The nature of the protest was interesting. How do you protest against Scientology? It is a fairly daft venture even for a cult, but seems to have quite a bit of money behind it. The protesters did not seem well practiced in throwing live insults, and indeed the back channel tried to give hints and inspiration. They were also unsure whether they should "present" what was happening, or just point the camera. Many on the back channel wondered when the BBC would cover the protest. The main direction of complaint centred around the cult's secretive nature, the fact that it isn't free, and their habit of stifling complaint by litigation. There is also the distinct feeling that the movement seems to escape government scrutiny.

While the guiding hand of main stream media was evident in what occured, it has been the case that from seeing the link to writing this entry I have not turned on the radio, the TV or visited a recognised news website. I do still feel the need to see events reflected somewhere - the need for official blessing is strong. But it seems less fanciful to imagine that before long what was the source of news, slowly morphs to the lesser position of archive.

Do-gooders

2008-01-24T03:42:00.000Z

If Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) sounds like an oxymoron, then maybe you believe that no company will ever do anything "good" unless it is legally obliged to do so. However, many modern organisations are often prepared to do good things without being forced to, usually in a philanthropic manner (Bill Gates comes to mind).

This can be seen as a relatively new idea, or the old Victorian concept of charity, depending on your point of view. The Economist mentioned in its lengthy special report that the goal of CSR is often to mitigate against social disasters (e.g. sorry about polluting the atmosphere, but we now grow nice trees) or to show a worthy side while recruiting naïve graduates. It is sometimes just boardroom waffle.

Obviously the flip side is that the more a company does to behave, the less government has to do. This allows a minister to pass the buck to large corporations when things go wrong. If kids are fat, it's the fault of fast food producers. If roads are smelly, blame car manufacturers and so on. Either way, the state gives way to the private sector.

Can this principle work elsewhere? Can a company push against government regulation in other areas because it is can take responsibility for itself?

When I was dropped off a block away from the entrance of Glasgow airport a week ago, it took me a few minutes to remember that it suffered from an attack by terrorist doctors, in the middle of last year. To stop any more car bombers, three foot steel barriers now protect the entrance to the terminal buildings. That should be sufficient to foil any further terrorists planning to do exactly the same thing again. Lets hope they are deeply unimaginative.

As yet another plane was delayed for no clear reason, it was easy to see how the airline industry has become beholden to forces other than economics. Clearly airport authorities feel that safety is more important than flying planes. But this is probably only because they have been told to see things that way. Few customers entirely agree with the current balance.

It is fairly obvious that running an airline smoothly is more important to society than following government inspired fear regulations. It might be that CSR should inform airlines that it is to everyones benefit to run what is already an environmentally harmful industry as efficiently as possible. It might be that I trust an airline to judge security concerns more than I trust government because they are not trying to justify illegal wars.

Usually companies fight regulation quietly with lobbyists. But it might be better for them to try and make the process more transparent. As we have seen recently, handing politicians unattributable amounts of money in lieu of services just gets them in trouble. Better to stop the backhanders to government and try airing the unpleasant issues in public as well as the nice ones.