A Special Kind of Machine (weird side of something good)

 

            One kind of business that grew stronger and stronger in the last century and is super influential is the tech industries, no doubt. Computers, internet, so on. Its seems like a very different kind of business than the natural resource exploration that created some big oligarchs in the World. And technically it really is, but do these sectors relate?

            Well, let’s think about banks. The bank activity seems to be necessary in our economy – I personally can’t imagine us without banks. But it is obviously an activity where the greed temptation can be strong. But, are the biggest banks really super powerful agents? We must remember that their money is not only theirs. To grow a bank, you need people to put their money in it. And if they all decide to take it away, you break. So, big banks can be influential, but in my opinion  we should not think of the bigger banks as really independent agents. The people with more money to put there – and take away – still have most of the power. Specially when they possess mines of natural resources that people can’t just “take away”.

            But what does it have to do with big tech companies? Well, in this world of stock markets, big companies are not only industries, they are also like banks. People put money there – buy papers – and take away – sell papers. Maybe this is also a necessary thing in our modern economy, but, how much they are  going to make an effort to conduct their business in an independent way to help to create new and more interesting business relations, and how much they are going to take the easier path and flirt with the old people who always had the power, well, it’s their choice. What else can I say?

            Just remember, when you are thinking about the power that rich people actually have, that countries are richer than people, and oligarchs dominate countries, specially when they are not democratic. Also, they spread their money with the family. So, when you see a list of the richest people in the World, put it in perspective.

            Anyway, I am pretty sure that a lot of good people worked and work in and with these big tech companies, and social media and things like that are definitely a crucial – and in a lot of ways positive – part of our world, but this new world brings us new ethical considerations to think about.

It’s not a matter of proving some conspiracy or not. When someone asks permission to create a very new type of business – and a lot of things that appeared in the last few decades are very new – you check if it is creating opportunities to do wrong in ways that the people who wrote the laws couldn’t predict. You don’t necessarily have to wait for some real life bad deed to be proven to work on it. It is the business of law to do some preventions. I believe in freedom for business, but obviously there are limits. Ethical considerations, just like all types of business have.

Everybody that believies in freedom for business but also have a sense of justice, agrees that it is wrong to take advantage on an old lady, even if she does something by “free” agreement. Well, the big tech companies have enough mathematical brains to turn us all into old ladies.

Imagine if the owner of a super market knew that you always take the cream cheese from the left side of the second row, and that, when you are in a rush, you don’t look at the expiration date. So, he puts something in your way to belate you, and then place the cream cheese that expires tomorrow right there in your favourite place. Machines can do that kind of thing, in the “virtual” world.

I think this kind of analogy is good because, with imagination, you can transplant things from the virtual to “real” world and see if they look ugly. But I must say that my main concern is not with individual shopping transactions – although they make a difference – but with the power that these machines can have over the lives of individuals.

There are already a lot of people working freelance using apps. When you use a freelance work app, basicaly your boss is a robot. It is hard and getting harder to even find a person in the company to speak directly if you need. It is basicaly in the contract that you sign, that you have to accept praticaly anything. You can get banned from the platform without explanation, and it is beyond the reach of mere mortals to successfuly appeal about it.

I think nobody in the past ever imagined that someone intermediating freelance work could ever become so big and crucial to economy, or the tendency this tech world would have to monopoly, or near monopoly. If you don’t eat the same bread or don’t use the same bricks that your neighbour does, it is not even nearly close to the difference it makes if you use the same app, or the same two or three apps that everybody is using.  As I said, it is a new World.

So people working freelance with apps are not protected neither by labour legislation nor by old fashion market competition. And as we need more and more of a few companies to work, not only freelance apps, but payments apps and other things, suspended accounts can really become a terror. And it is very possible that soon it will be a terror not only for individuals and very small companies, but even to medium size firms.

They can say you don’t fit some profile, and they have no obligation to accept you back in, because they are just offering an account in an app, and as developers they are not obliged to accept everybody.

But is this fair? If the tendency of having few companies dominating some internet markets is real – because connection tools only really work when a lot of people is there – then they are not only selling something to individuals, but to society. I’m not a lawyer, but there has to be a way of making this clear.

Because they are promising social connection, so they should have an obligation to be really democratic, and being able to banish someone from the “scene” is too big power.

Also, in the World that we live, considering the possiblity of people with a lot of power using it politically is never an exageration.

Which takes us to the next topic, social media. Because banishing someone from a maistream social media is far from an innocent thing. Again, we as society bought those things with a promise of democracy. I’m not saying nobody should ever be suspended, like a terrorist or something, but there should be some law in it, a clear possibility of appeal. I am not even always against immediate erasing of content, there is indeed content that cause damage by the minute, but we should look to the other side of the coin.

If appealing is impossible, you are giving giant private companies the power of arbitrarily cutting people from possibilities of communication and even income. People should think about it, not think it is “okay” when it is someone they don’t like. We don’t know the future, it could be you and your friends tomorrow.

People only discuss if someone “deserved” it or not – when they discuss at all – but our usual justiceers don’t seem to be worried about any universal rules to prevent these companies from using their power – that they got from people – to turn democracy into something else. In fact, most people in the press seem to be calling for giant tech companies to vigilate more this or that – which in a lot of cases is necessary – but, without the other side – protection for individual rights – it just gives them all the power they can dream.

 Another thing that I think is worth mentioning is someone’s or something’s “success” in Internet. How do you know if something is a success? By the numbers, of course, number of followers, number of visualizations and so on. Is it possible for the social connection providers to control that? Technically, I’m afraid it is. Who is there inside their algorithms to check if they are totally honest? I can’t help but think that checking it is much harder than it would be for the big companies to “tweak” things a little.

But why would someone even do something like that, you may ask. Well, last century, when the music industry became strong, there were some shock when people found out about the “payola” thing. It means, when a recording company pays a radio station to play a song, but they don’t say they do, so everybody thinks it is playing a lot because everybody likes it. Like, “these are the hits of the week”. Yes, chosen by them, not the people. It’s a well known fact that it hapenned.

But why? They could have let people choose the hits, and still thrive as an industry. Their product was good. But the temptation to “control it a little” tends to be too strong for greedy people. Like reality shows, you probably know it’s not “totally spontaneous”, right?

Cultural power is power too. If you could tell the kids what all the other kids like, wouldn’t that be a temptation? So, what can we do? I do believe it must be ilegal and there may be a way to fight it, but for the moment, what I do is just not taking those numbers in too much consideration. I look for things I like, and I don’t care if the truth about algorithms make the Big Culture seem a little void, I have my own little culture.

In short, you have a new kind of technological power in the World, and this power is hold by people who are super computer-smart, sure, but also who need money like a giant bank. We have to be aware of this. As I said, we collectively bought those things with a promise of democracy, and it is wrong to give us the opposite.

It’s not only the individual who must look for social causes. Society must look for the cause of the individual too. Let’s not forget that these giant companies can raise the flag of any social cause they want at any given moment, but we must not be fooled into letting the fate of individuals be decided by the push of a button or a roll of a dice.

Brave Old Narrow World

 

A lot of times people pick one single aspect of human life, of human behavior, and consider that this single aspect is so much more important than the others, that all we have to do is focus on it, as if all the rest would follow naturally. To live in an ethical way, we should try to see as broad as we can, try to get the big picture, but people seem to disconsider things, and most of the time they do it in the way that is most convenient for them.

            Like a person that have a good job,  which is good, but he starts considering this value as something so superior to any other thing, that he will not listen to anyone that don’t have a good job, as if these people were unworthy, and he will not listen to any criticism that people may have to other aspects of his behavior, because he is doing what is most important, and nothing else matters all that much.

            Or people who focus too much on substance abuse. I mean, it is a problem, but it is not the whole World, and some people act as if it was the main thing that differentiates people. It can make people think that someone with a substance problem is always in an inferior position morally, and it may make people forget that some people are able to drink a bit without problems.

            Some of the people who think like that  are people who actually had problems with substance themselves, in the past. They have a right to give a special attention to the matter, but if they think that this aspect is a rule to measure the whole World, they are lacking empathy to see that different people have different problems.

            Of course, there are people who didn’t even have that problem, but for some reason think that substance use is the Great Rule to rank people from bad to good. Like a person who never even liked or wanted to smoke, and consider smoking an excellent parameter to see if someone is “lost” or “found”. Well, giving moral priority to something that don’t even require effort from you is pretty lame, in my humble opinion.

            Obviously, there are really bad things that people do. Murder, ploting to damage someone’s personal life, stealing, gossip and things like that. I am not saying here that we must not take a firm stand against the oldest problems of mankind, what I am saying is that, when we look at the good ideas we had for overcoming these problems and making a better World – ideas like having a healthy life, working, and so on – we should see it as a whole, so we see that nobody is perfect, and we should help each other.

            Because when you choose something that is not murder or back stabbing, something like drinking or not having a job at the moment, and focus all the moral in it, you will be morally ranking people who are not criminals, according to an arbitrary value, that you chose, maybe to make yourself look perfect.

            We can see this hapenning in small scales, like in families, where someone who has a good job thinks that this is all there is and accepts no criticism, and someone who doesn’t drink focus too much on it, and etcetera; and we can see this hapenning in larger scale, when people focus on “causes” that may be legitimate, but fail to see that the World is complex and there are more problems than just one, more ways to help mankind than just one.

            I am not saying it is wrong for a person to choose a line of work, to focus her efforts in something specific – we all do that, but to inform our World views we must look broader.

            Let’s take the cause of fight against racism. Obviously is a legit cause, racism is a real problem that must be confronted, but focusing too much in one thing can always lead you to the wrong path. Let’s say someone sees a community of a kind of brown color that suffers some prejudice. He wants to help, which is a good thing. But then he forms in his head a picture of the World that is based on this one fact – that people suffer prejudice in his neighbourhood – and decides that the World is a war of white – bad people – and brown – good people.

            So he criticizes the government of his country that has a white majority – and may well deserve to be criticized – but will not criticize a government of a country of people of color, or will criticize but not to the point of admiting that they may be the cause of a big problem. So he may protect a dictator who may be the cause of his brown neighbours having left that country, he may be protecting a man who is making hell in the life of the cousins of his brown neighbours.

            Or, on the other hand, someone who defends the idea that it is work that pushes the World ahead, that people must be free to build. I consider this a legit cause too, but again, looking at only one thing will lead you wrong. If you don’t pay attention to human relations, you will fail to see that the reward system – which is necessary – can create hierarchies of power, and this power can be used to harass people, to protect one’s own position, and may kill creativity and work against the freedom of building he is defending. If he admits that the quantifiable goals are not enough to neutralize the possible abuses of power, he will see that he needs to look at the human side of things too, work on that too.

            And as causes and ideologies are attractive to politicians, and therefore, there is money involved, the people who make propaganda out of everything can create interesting situations. Follow me in this reasoning:

            The “opressed-race friendly” guy may look at History and see only the bad deeds of “white” nations – there were plenty. But he may not see that there were other kingdoms too, in the World, and they were far from saints. Some powerful people of the “color” you protect did very bad things – and still do.

            I am not specialized in Economy, but I think this makes sense: commercial goods that people need are valuable, but commercial goods that the Industry need are even more. People can be hungry and dressing poorly and go to work anyway, but the Industry will not be so strong if it lacks it’s basic inputs.

            So, a rich farmer – not all farmers are that rich – can be more powerful than me and you, but he is not as powerful as the people who dominate the fertilizer’s market. A rich farmer is someone who plays the game and may benefit, but he doesn’t make the rules. Now, think about petroil, for instance. A lot of power in that.

            So as the “opressed-race friendly” guy fails to give the real importance to the bad deeds of some nations because of his color principles, he can be protecting the interests of the most powerful people in the World.

            Now, let’s look at our “quantitatively righteous” friend. He and his friends may advise a politician that they support to always be in good terms with the people who provide the basic inputs, no matter how disrespectful they are with human rights, even if these input people have a long term plan that is bad for the democracy of the country these quantitative people live in. Even if tomorrow those input nations may support a government, in the quantitative people’s country, that will stab their freedom and industry in the back. It’s a bad decision, based on short term goals. Because they failed to care for other aspects of Democracy that are not only about “freedom for business”.

            This is no conspiracy theory, it’s just possible economical tendencies that you can think for yourself if they make sense or not. So, as you see, these two guys I was talking about, altough they think of themselves as opposites, may end up working for exactly the same people, because they cultivated World views that are too narrow.

            Don’t take me wrong. Geez, man, I don’t want any kind of Third World War. But we should take a stand for our values. We can use our resources as people and as market to tell tyrannical governments some truths. The people they are oppressing inside their countries, politically and economically, could be our allies.

            We should be attentive to the possibility that tyrannical governments use all their power to make us economically and politically subservient, even maybe under false banners of racial and social justice. We have to be attentive to the bad intentions of others if we want to think about real peace.

            Anyway, there were times when the same people who were concerned about – and created the most fantastic tools for – the better productivity, were also concerned about the freedom of the human spirit from greed and petty concerns. Just as “decency” and “justice” were not two separate specialities. We still use what some of these people created, including their vocabulary, but separating everything into pieces and narrowing it more and more. Which ends leaving us not knowing exactly where we are going.

            Another thing that all this moral specialization does is that it makes it too easy for some people to fabricate heroes. There are no unanimities, but it is not so hard to know the niches that will be in favour and the niches that will be against certain causes. So, focusing completely in one cause, you can fabricate a hero for the large public you desire.

            I think we should always try to have a broader view on the aspects of the society we desire, of the world we desire. What are all the various elements that make up the righteousness of our dream. We can, and should, look at global issues, but, maybe paradoxically, I believe that it is looking to what happens in a smaller scale that give us the best understanding of the world. Looking at the small gives us the broader vision.

            Like thinking about what is our idea of a happy family. What is the simple happiness of an individual. We not only have a better understanding of the imperfection of the human being, and the complexity of human relations – and that all, in the end, is about human relations – but we also see the ultimate goals can’t be too complicated. The political causes should not be a goal in themselves, but tools to find the way for a more simple happiness, and, even more, to clear the way from everything that obstructs it.

            We had a lot of good ideas. Work, have a healthy life, protect nature, and so on. These are good ideas. But there has always been people who put these ideas in cans, then place them on a shelf and ask “which one will you serve?”

            I think it is a good idea to turn our backs to the shelf of cans, go get some fresh air and look for that more clear and simple vision that, back there in our beginnings, must have been the origin of our good ideas, and is where one day they shall all meet again.