Guns vs Cameras - which are "equalizers" that can prevent tragedy? Plus transparency news

The most recent mass-shooting tragedy sets into stark contrast two national misfortunes.  At surface, they seem similar -- crazed gunmen opening fire on citizens and lethal misbehavior by a minority of bad cops. But in several important ways, the trends are diametrically opposite.

First - random shooting sprees by deeply sick civilians seem to have no end in sight. Over half of the world's deadliest mass shootings that have occurred in the past 50 years were in the U.S., whose citizens are 20 times more likely to die of gun violence than those of other developed nations.  Limiting easy access to weaponry by psychopaths is one blatantly obvious path. So would be courageous investment in education and mental health...

... but the top Roseburg police official mentioned another option we should add to our list of responses. Said the local Sheriff regarding this shooter: 'You will never hear me mention his name.’  Indeed, soon after, the community at-large responded by adopting this approach. 

At last! I have only been proposing this for 20 years.  See my article on the Erastratos Effect: "Names that live in infamy. Killers want notoriety. Let's not give it to them."

But to be fair and honest, all of this will just nibble at the edges. In one of the most sad-but-clever satirical gambits, The Onion simply re-posts its gun violence article with updated locations and dates, each time this occurs, with the same title: "No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens." Go read it and laugh while you cry, knowing you will read it again and again, in the future....

== Commentary ==

If I may offer a few of my own spins on our most recent tragedy?

-- First, an extra bit of sadness for me, as Roseburg featured in my novel The Postman. If you know the topic of that book, ironies redouble.

-- Second: across all of these morbid tales, it's worth noting that in not a single case has the perpetrator been brought down by an armed civilian bystander... not once. Ever. Though that is precisely the incantation that the NRA uses, while promoting the Campbellian notion of a gun-lugging population. Voodoo, only surpassed by Supply Side "Economics."

In fact, many mass-shooters have been brought down by heroic  un-armed bystanders - like those three young Americans aboard that French train, a month or so ago - who bravely charge the lunatic, usually while he is changing clips. Of all the NRA's insane positions, their fierce opposition to limits on clip and magazine size is the most criminally culpable, without a single justification in defense of normal gun owners. Only... let me swivel and point out that they do not have a monopoly on craziness here.

-- Supporters of Gun Control share some blame! Dismissing their opponents as "gun nuts," they show no inclination to study the deep underpinnings of the "slippery slope" argument that motivates Second Amendment supporters to oppose even the most reasonable reforms.  This despite the fact that political victories are best won by peeling away moderate pragmatists on the opposing side.

If you take the time to dig deep, you'll find a possible way to get around this obstinacy - and peel off moderates - by offering a fair trade. (Especially since any fool can see that the 2nd Amendment - as currently worded - is by far the weakest in the Constitution. Some day the phrase "well-regulated militia" will be interpreted more strongly! Gun fans need to start negotiating now, for a better amendment.)

But someone has to drop simplistic sanctimony first -- getting practical. And you know it will not be them. See this laid out in detail... along with a pragmatic proposal to give all sides what they deeply need. 

In sharp contrast... the apparent wave of cop-on-black violence on our streets, while tragic, is not an acceleration of the problem, but a sign of good trends taking hold! Because the spread of cameras in the hands of civilians -- protected by recent declarations by the courts and the Obama Administration -- is now giving the poor and minorities... and good cops... at last the 'ammo' they need to start getting rid of bad ones. 

Cameras are proving to be the Great Equalizer that guns were supposed to be... but never were.  (See this forecast on p. 160 of The Transparent Society (1997) and in EARTH (1989).)

One of these trends - while tragic in each case - offers hope for the future. 

The other makes us all want to tear our hair out.

== What's your rating? ==

And... the transparency wars continue!

One to five stars for you? Of course this had to come. Launching soon:  Yelp for people: You will soon be able to rate anyone you have interacted with on this new app: with reviews and star ratings assigned to "your exes, your co-workers, the old guy who lives next door. You can’t opt out — once someone puts your name in the Peeple system, it’s there unless you violate the site’s terms of service. And you can’t delete bad or biased reviews — that would defeat the whole purpose," reads a review in the Washington Post. The launchers of Peeple say they will ban racist and sexist comments, as well as profanity and hateful comments. Yet, announcement of this app has raised a storm of protest on the internet, with potential legal woes down the road.

The good news? This will light a fire under creating real reputation mediation services, a potential billion dollar business – and don’t let anyone tell you that reputation companies already exist. Currently, they are jokes.

== Your data: Sold ==

Want an entertaining jeremiad? Then swing over to the latest from Gregory Maus:  How corporate data brokers sell your life, and why you should be concerned: 

“For nearly two years, media coverage of the NSA has been near-constant, over concerns about the extent of their data collection on people around the world. But, there’s an even larger behemoth in the shadows gathering information about you. Unlike the NSA, they are accountable to few laws, very little accountability, and no oversight, laughing off investigative inquiries at even the highest levels of government. This is a massive ecosystem, with an insatiable desire to learn every detail of your life and then sell it to those who would use it to persuade you. In effect, it’s a sprawling black market—and as one would expect with a black market, many of the purchasers of this information are criminals who are using it to steal the identities and valuables of many. We can only hope that they’re the worst of the buyers.”

Without any doubt, this is an industry meriting application of searing light and scrutiny.  For example: “MEDbase 200 was selling lists of rape victims for 7.9 cents per name, as well as similarly-priced lists of those suffering from HIV/AIDs, genetic diseases, addictive behavior (conveniently broken down into sub-categories like gambling, sex, alcohol, and drugs) and dementia. The listings were taken down soon after Dixon’s testimony.”

But… isn’t that the point? It was sufficient for such behaviors to be seen for them to be stopped.  To whatever degree they continue, it is precisely proportional to the degree they can get away with it, in secret.  Indeed, that is the only anodyne or answer. It is wholly necessary and wholly sufficient.  Well, almost wholly sufficient. What is not needed is panicky legislation to shut info flows down, with the best of privacy-protecting intentions.  Those selfsame laws will inevitably be used to shelter the very miscreants they are meant to stop.

We need to empower people (or their NGO pallidins) to see better, so they can perceive patterns of info abuse and bullying and apply deterrence upon those who would do such things with our information.

== Vanishing your data ==

And finally... Xerox PARC engineers have developed a chip that can explode into teensy little pieces as part of DARPA's Vanishing Programmable Resources project. Yes... explode.

Who’d want that?  Self-destruction of chips is central to the goal of securing data from thieves — criminal or national. Someday, this chip could be used to keep, say, encryption keys needed to access sensitive data. The self-destruction process can also be triggered not just by a laser, but also via radio signals or a physical switch.

Does this conflict with my goals as “Mr. Transparency”?  Nonsense.  Anyone who thinks that simply has not bothered to read or understand.  

Rep-coins, Legos, humor... and fear of "14"!

For your weekend pleasure... a light potpourri of tasty items.  For you smartypants types, that is.

For starters: Do you like great science fiction anthologies?  Hieroglyph: Stories and Visions for a Smarter Tomorrow is out at last, with stories gathered by Neal Stephenson, edited by Ed Finn and Kathryn Cramer. Project Hieroglyph is the keystone to a joint project to bright science fiction out of its current funk... the lazy obsession with doom, dystopia and nostalgia... and make it once again something that encouraged us all to feel that we can overcome.

Along similar lines... offering hopeful sci fi to youths... While books like The Hunger Games and Divergent have brought a whole new generation of young readers to science fiction, there’s not a lot of short, accessible stories for middle grade readers (usually considered ages 9-12). The Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide is meant to fill that gap. Their Kickstarter is currently live — and the anthology may have a story from Nancy Kress!  Oh, also one of my best ones, ever.

== An alternative to both Bicoin and fiat money ==

A Digital Currency Based on a Person's Reputation - J. Chris Anderson wants to create a new kind of digital coin that could replace government “fiat” money or nerd-crypto money like Bitcoin, by going to the most human fundamental — reputation.

I admit, I’ve toyed with that concept for a very long time. In both fiction and some of my patents, I have suggested ways that reputation management might move up from the stone and middle ages. In this case, Anderson’s Document Coin will rely on personal reputation to keep all transactions in order. And each unit of currency created using Document Coin could have different values in different situations. “‘For example, the coin my disco singer friend created and gave me at my barbeque might be what gets me past the rope at the club,’ Anderson says. A coin minted by tech pundit Tim O’Reilly might be highly prized in Silicon Valley circles, but of little interest to musicians. ‘It’s a bit like a combination of a social network with baseball trading.’”

Indeed, very interesting.  The article is rather vague on many points.  It appears as if the coin is based on only upon the original issuers reputation but --like a gold-backed currency -- something of real value.  The issuer's promise to let you into the club, for example. Or my promise to name a character after you in a book.

This makes the coin like an "ob" or an "obligation" from an Eric Frank Russell novel, in which person A owes person B a favor, but person B owes person C, so B hands the "ob" over to C and now person A must help C in some way.  If the coin system were truly massive, some farmer who is paid with a pile of these Ob-Reputation coins would let his computer find the folks out there who most want to be named in my book and who most want to attend a gig at the club, and the obs would finally come around, full circle and be paid in something tangible (or in fiat-money).

With sufficiently smart web computing, such a system might work, if the reputation mediation were VERY good so that I could issue naming rights as currency to pay any debt, even my gas bill, because the gas company would know that the circle will eventually close.

If it is something being tried in reality... that is the stuff of a sci fi era.

On the other hand… this may be the dawning of the Age of….

The DEA is now asking the Food and Drug Administration to remove marijuana from its list of the most dangerous and harmful drugs. And early tentative outcomes from Colorado’s legalization of MJ seem positive. An important trend, which is happening (so far) only in Blue States. The greatest benefit of all will be the undermining of the prohibition-driven underground economy in illegal cannabis. We need to get the same effect - though more carefully and with calibrated innovations - to wipe out illicit markets for other, far worse drugs. (See one reason: Pablo Escobar’s hippos are now running wild in Colombia.)

While any tapering of the insane Drug War is welcome, this glowing article may be overlooking the one problem that I forecast long ago. There is one unambiguously well-proved harmful effect of marijuana. It should be on our minds and on our lips, when we talk to our kids. Except in very controlled moderation… it is an antidote to ambition. In excess, it is harmful! Moreover... um... what was I saying again?  Pass those cookies over here.

== Fun Cinema ==

I liked the LEGO Movie. It seemed time to finally see it, since our son now works (for the summer) at Legoland. Many rave about the snappy dialogue, which I found amusing and above average… though not epochal. The visuals were cool and cute, of course, and the story diverting enough to hold onto all ages.

As many of you know, my own little obsession, in critically appraising cinema, has to do with whether the drama is tritely simplistic or somewhat original… e.g. featuring a villain whose motives are at least contextually understandable… or whether the story is just one more “idiot plot” - based on the tedious assumption that civilization is futile and our fellow citizens are sheep. Refreshingly, the LEGO Movie starts with the notion that - despite problems like excess conformity, and villainous conformity-promoters - people and society aren’t hopeless.

Yes, yes, the “be original” and “be suspicious of authority” (SoA) and “rejection of conformity” (RoC) messages are pretty darn common in mass media — so common that most of you probably never notice them and think you invented SoA, instead of growing up steeped in SoA and pro-eccentricity memes. Still, to see the Lego Company mock their own Instruction Manual Culture, in praise of free-form creativity, was kinda cool. And I always get a kick out of it when - as happens in every Spiderman flick - average citizens take on a vital and major plot-role in saving the day.

Just remember — everything is awesome!

== Items! ==

1. “An interesting development in the chess world of recent years is that human-computer teams, in which a grandmaster is aided by a program, have tended to be stronger than either humans or computers playing alone.”  -- Are Killer Robots the Next Black Swan?

2. See Humanity's cultural spread, illustrated in video mapping births and deaths, over centuries.

3. This is fun: Supernatural collective nouns: a clamor of clones, a clangor of robots, a yard-sale of androids...the Borg.

4. Ten scientific images that changed how we look at the world, including Earthrise.

5. Hilariously well-done urban rebel-art pasted into select spots on the London Underground. I am stodgy enough to dislike a few of these handsomely official-looking signs… those that might confuse a rider and make her miss a stop. But the rest are marvelous. Punishable, of course. But guerrilla art is about willingness to pay for it.

== on target humor ==

Dramamine — the miracle drug we all need! See why.

For insight into the science of humor, see HA! The Science of Why We Laugh and Why? by Scott Weems.

Okay, maybe its a guy thing... and these fellows had too much time on their hands.  But I'm proud of em!

Funny! What if movies had been made earlier, with different stars? Movies Reimagined for another time and place: Volume 1. If you enjoy that, try Volume 2 and Volume 3.

Assholes: The Theory: Philosopher (not-proctologist) Aaron James presents a theory of the asshole. “James proposes a theory of assholes (a person is an asshole when his sense of entitlement makes him immune to complaints from other people) that explains not only why assholes are a vital part of human society, but also how to recognize them and coexist with them.”

==The Fourteenth Year==

 Michael Nelson - one of the unsung heroes of our Internet Age - wrote to me with a story that riff’d off my article about the “Fourteenth Year”… my assertion that the last several centuries began exhibiting their true themes on 14 years after their calendar beginnings.

Said Mike: “I was talking to a Chinese-American woman. She asked, "Why is the world falling apart?" I said, "1914, 1814, 1714 etc." She told me that makes a lot of since to her. Apparently, to the Chinese, the number 14 is considered at least as unlucky as 13 is in Western cultures. In Chinese, the word for "fourteen" sound like the phrase "sure dead." Some Chinese buildings don't have a 14th floor, or fourth floors, for that matter.”

It’s called tetraphobia. And it shows that some take seriously my assertion that all changes with the 14th year.

But it can still be good changes! That was my point in The Postman.  

Whatever hits us, react with resilience!  Resourcefulness, agility and determination to work together, as citizens of the greatest experiment in history. Remember this, whether that glow on the horizon is a sunset... or a dawn.