book review: Delete

a very thoughtful book about the role that remembering and forgetting have (supposedly) played throughout human history, and why we are for the first time at a point where remembering, not forgetting, has become the default.  the author finds this problematic for two main reasons.

the first has to do with power.  despite what is said, information is not power — it’s the ability to control and restrict access to information that is power.  Mayer-Schonberger worries about the extent to which we may, whether we know it or not, lose control over pertinent information about ourselves, including more troublesome features like our personal information, as well as our tastes and opinions that outside agents use to great extensive — and unending — dossiers about us.  we are not in a great position to control who has that information and what they do with it.

the second has to do with time.  Mayer-Schonberger sees forgetting — as frustrating as it may be — as a blessing in disguise in that it lets us freely reconstruct our memories — which are far from perfect — as we progress through our lives, choosing to focus on (and thus retain) certain memories and not others.  what happens when we have perfect (not now, but someday soon) recall, through digital technology, of all of our past decisions and events?  will we, like the few individuals who do have perfect memories, be frozen in indecision, constantly replaying the past and inept at acting in the present?

the author then takes a look at a number of possible solutions, from digital rights management to information abstinence and other suggestions, but decides that these are not “silver bullets” for confronting the problem that we face today.  however, he does not reject these, and in fact he hopes to see many of them in place.  his concerns are pragmatic and focused on where we are now, and he does not denigrate other suggestions (many from his peers) in self-promotion.

his ultimate solution is to use meta-data to place expiration dates on information that we store or share with ourselves, in addition to supporting programs in our technology (e.g., storage devices) and online tools (e.g., browsers) that automatically erase information about our searches after a time period — a period we may have some control over.  we could thus choose what types of queries we want google or amazon to remember indefinitely, and which ones to forget after some time.

overall, Mayer-Schonberer’s suggestions are very interesting ones, especially since they are rooted in the technology as we have it today, although there would need to be some pressure on companies to implement some of these changes to help people make the transition (he takes humans as they are, with imperfect knowledge and motivations, and that’s another strength of the book).  it’s  not entirely certain how all of these suggestions would play out — and how inconvenient it would all be.

in the case of putting a shelf-date on personal photos shared online — which is one of the cases he uses to illustrate the extent to which information online can come back to haunt us — it seems difficult to know how you would decide what expiration date to put on something like that.  plus, if you consciously put a date on a photo that could get you into some trouble — maybe you should think twice about sharing that photo.  indeed, in the case he uses — someone being denied a teaching certificate because of a questionable photo on myspace — a photo like that could be found at any point before the expiration date and the individual could still face unforeseen consequences — after all, that’s the point of the story: it was a seemingly harmless photo that the individual never thought could be used against her.

but again, the strength of the author’s position — and of the book overall — is that he is not out to establish THE plan for confronting these concerns; rather, he works within the existing frameworks to offer a novel solution that could help fill in some of the gaps and — in keeping with the concerns of the book — return to individuals some of that control over information and help shift the balance back to a society in which forgetting — and not remembering — is once again the default (even if just barely).

book review: From Gutenberg to the Global Information Infrastructure

this was a very disappointing book.  although it does contain some insightful discussions, so much of the book is devoted to discussing the potential definitions of the relevant terms (“digital,” “library,” “access”) while not really offering anything novel — she ends up going with an essentially intuitive understanding, and so, so much time has been wasted.

what disappointed me most was the promise of a real analysis of information infrastructure and “the social life of information” based on historical precedents.  after all, the title does suggest such a scope.  but this is lacking, apart from a few casual, generalized references.

moreover, what this book lacks in vantage is not made up for in vision.  it ends up being one of those books where the author discusses many of the problems we’re facing and offers, as a solution, a general discussion of what other people are doing (but no specs) or what other people imagine might happen, tying it all together with generalized thoughts and “we should think more about this” remarks.  don’t write a book about what you think we should do or what might be a solution!  do the work and report back if it seems to be working!  don’t use a book to talk about how we should talk about a problem!

while I don’t think she’s ever blatantly wrong, she is irredeemably boring, which, in a book with few other saving graces, is like being kicked when you’re down.

what’s the big idea?

over at Edge, this year’s big question, which will be weighed in on by a number of important thinkers — from evolutionary biologists to psychologists, from law professors to tech innovators — is, “How has the internet changed the way you think?”  for anyone unfamiliar with this website and its attempts to create forums (well, not technical forums) for cutting-edge ideas across various disciplines, I suggest you check it out.

I plan on concerning myself more this year (esp. as I start a Library and Information Science program) with questions about technology and the future of learning, literacy, techno-cultures, etc.  I also hope to enjoy some classic sci-fi and dystopian literature, just for kicks.

my immediate thoughts are that all of the innovations, esp. regarding networks and the organization — and availability — of information, are more good than bad, and the problems we face have to do not with complete upheavals of life, intelligence, values, or whatever, but with accustoming ourselves to doing things in new ways and coming up with creative solutions to new challenges, not with wallowing in our frustrations, imagining that once upon a time things were so much better (coincidentally looking a lot like what we think things should look like now), and ballyhooing our impending cultural demise.

anyway, to not get too far ahead of myself (haven’t read much yet), I’ll stop with a quote from Clay Shirky:

The beneficiaries of the system where making things public was a privileged activity, whether academics or politicians, reporters or doctors, will complain about the way the new abundance of public thought upends the old order, but those complaints are like keening at a wake; the change they fear is already in the past. The real action is elsewhere.

scientific truth in the age of Wikipedia

in February of last year, Seed magazine ran a brief article addressing the question of (concern about) scientific truth in the age of Wikipedia — that is, whether “the radical egalitarianism of the wiki undermine notions of scientific authority and consensus.”  obviously, as is pointed out, group consensus is not always the best way to arrive at objective truth.  some are concerned (indeed, outright frantic) over the extent to which this bottoms-up approach will undermine those hard-won facts of, say, scientific or historical research.

but the author of this article (T.J. Kelleher) argues that these fears are mostly unfounded, as “[i]t is not scientific rigor that is accommodating the wiki, but the wiki that is accommodating science.”  just think of areas of knowledge where no control test is possible (e.g., in historical research, where we are limited to the accident of history and the chances of discovery) or practical (e.g., large-scale scientific hypotheses about populations or, as the author proffers, the human impact on global warming).  here, consensus is often based on the best available knowledge and the most rigorous forms of analysis; often it comes down to what hypothesis best accounts for all of the data — and for this, consensus is key.

further, Clay Shirky — author of a book I’d like to read — argues that notions of authority and expertise are only “social facts,” and that works (and their writers) are considered authoritative only because everybody agrees that this is so.  and to be honest, when venturing into an area of knowledge with which I am not familiar, I will often reach out to recognizable landmarks and sources that I deem — from experience elsewhere and ongoing critique — to be authoritative (e.g., a particular author, a publisher, a university or institution affiliation, etc.).

when it comes to the scientific process, some believe that a source like Wikipedia will actually prove useful in its ability “to act as a chronicler and creator of repositories for science, to create a home for what we haven’t proved to be false and for what we think to be true.”  in other words, wikis can be beneficial to the notion of falsifiability — a key step in the scientific process.  thus bad ideas can easily set aside, and good ones can be continually refined, since the business of science, as some would argue, is more often than not establishing what is false, not necessarily what is true in some unchangeable sense.  to this end, as an MIT professor puts it, “the wiki model is ‘reasonably good’ at discerning, if not what is true, then what is false.”

one problem that remains, however, is the anonymity of the contribution and editing process.  not only is this a problem for managing the content of the site (are the contributors even qualified?), but it may also undermine the processes whereby we uphold notions of authority, “social fact” though it may be.  when someone stumbles across differing opinions or is left with an ambiguous answer to a query, how does that person go about seeking a more authoritative take on the problem?  if we cannot all become experts in the various fields of knowledge in which we might dabble — or into which we must wade (e.g., when seeking emergency medical information) — how do we learn where to invest that “capital” when it matters if knowledge production or maintenance is done anonymously?  you might feel slightly better about taking someone’s advice if they have widely acknowledge credentials and if their professional career depends on them being right.

some scientific organizations have sought to counter this problem by creating rival “wikis” that remove the veil of anonymity and involve an application and approval process that restricts an individual’s contribution to their certified field of knowledge.  and even here, the process of peer-review and consensus continues to play an important role.

personally, I don’t think that Wikipedia should be much of a threat to the scientific process or to fields of knowledge, provided that there is an understanding of where Wikipedia’s value lies.  if individuals turn to wikis for answers to every problem or as the end-all source of knowledge, unaware of how to go about verifying that knowledge and where to go for more in-depth understandings, I don’t blame Wikipedia — I’d blame any academic system that has failed to demonstrate how research is conducted.  many people in this country or woefully ignorant of the basic scientific process, not to mention principles of, say, historiography, but I don’t think that this is a new problem resulting from the development of more egalitarian forms of knowledge maintenance such as wikis.

also, I think that Wikipedia is a fairly reliable source — introductory source, that is — for many of the bodies of knowledge I’ve stumbled across.  and I am pretty sure that the rules have changed so that not just anyone, at any time, can make whatever change he or she would like with little to not policing.  so far I think that there has been substantial — and satisfactory — sifting to ensure fairly reliable information — often superior to (and far more practical than) traditional storehouses of knowledge such as encyclopedias.

a foreseenable failure

well, I can’t say that this is a surprise, but it’s still so disappointing.  a cynic like me could never have really believed that much would be accomplished at Copenhagen.  I take treehumper‘s view.  but there are a lot of people — people who give much more of themselves, if not all of themselves — who maybe, just maybe, hoped that something good would have come from all of this.  you know, “Hope,” “Change we can believe in,” and so on.  indeed, I think that this new failure further undermines Obama’s Nobel peace prize (it was premature anyway, but a failure to come out strong and lead the way to real change, not more phony promises and blackmail, on an issue of such global importance in terms of human life and the prevention of war, potentially…).  at least he promised to give the money to charity.

after a week and a half, enormous environmental and energy expenses, and who knows how much money spent, world leaders met in private (without those most informed or most motivated to make change) and managed to come out with a non-binding agreement to lower emissions to such an extent that would still allow world temperatures to rise by 2 degrees C according to the current research.  regardless of the specific merits of the cumulative studies, according to their own projections, they are only willing (not obligated) to make changes to such a degree that will still, as far as they’re concerned, still allow the world’s climate to change in devastating ways, especially in areas already threatened by water shortage and crop failure.  not to mention areas already exposed to rising water levels and threatened ways of life (disregarding all the polluted food sources around the world)…

the whole process was absurd.  oil execs were walking around freely, with privileged access, even, while people who have devoted their lives and who will be most affected (or representing those who will be most affected) were kept out if not arrested when (justifiably) protesting.  this was politics at its “best,” conducting a face-saving summit that wastes time and energy and does nothing to promote any real change.  as one Newsweek columnist wrote,

Negotiators dropped the pretense that a binding accord would be reached next year, and a White House official conceded that the paltry accord “is not sufficient to combat the threat of climate change.” The best chance of reining in emissions of greenhouse gases and avoiding dangerous climate change is to stamp a big green R.I.P. over the sprawling United Nations process that the Copenhagen talks were part of.

what’s most disappointing for me was the United States’ tactic of essentially blackmailing other countries by promising aid but only on our own terms — terms that are vague, non-binding, and definitely beneficial for U.S. lobbyists and interest groups (in the interest of interest).  those who will be most severely affected — who are already so affected! — do not have the clout or the means to lead the change on their own, and even if they did, many of them are the ones responsible for most of the waste anyway. I am starting to agree with those who say that we should stop seeing this as an issue of the wealthiest contributing to the financing of cleaner energy as a matter of goodwill or charity but as an issue of reparations and penalties for doing most of the polluting in the first place!

in a further matter of political disgrace, Democracy Now reports that Hilary Clinton went to the Philippines a few weeks ago for discussions, resulting in the removal of some of the most outspoken voices pulled from their team, resulting in the muffling of one of the more aggressive nations calling for real change.

to be honest, I can’t imagine the real pressures on world leaders in terms of interest groups and fighting political opponents who either don’t want to see real change or who want to use the proposed spending to attack the incumbent in some manner.  but it most be the worst here, where you have an entire half of the political spectrum (nearly) unwilling to commit to making necessary changes on behalf of humanity — indeed, most are even unwilling to admit that there’s a problem.  we still have climate change-deniers of every stripe, and the debates — led mostly by uninformed non-scientists — are a huge obstacle to the political process itself, along with churning up enough popular support to put any real pressure on officials.

and as far as climate change goes, I’m fairly confident, first, that most people who deny there is any change at all, especially man-made change, even know any of the relevant data, and second, that anyone crying “hoax” has never bothered to seek out the correct interpretation of the few pertinent lines in those hacked emails.  nor have they sought out what the authors themselves have to say.  it’s a pretty open-and-shut case that there is no “hoax” and that there was nothing awry with those email exchanges. this wonderful video provides a nice explanation (see also relevant articles in Scientific American, Discovery, or on scienceblogs.com):

overall, I have decent faith in scientific consensus, especially those arrived at across disciplines and from the far corners of the globe.  I cannot be responsible for learning all of the information and processes in each field, and that process of peer-review and gradual consensus or paradigm shift is responsible for separating the wheat from the chaff.  but even if I didn’t, I think the science and the data is pretty darn clear about whether or not there is a problem at hand.  I also believe that the case that this is a result of our actions is pretty clear, too, but the craziest thing is that it doesn’t matter in the end who’s doing it — we’re faced with the same problem and we need to act in the most responsible way possible, in the interest of humankind, our planet, and the species with which we share it.  our current sources of “unclean” energy are running out anyway, and we need to invest in clean sources for the sake of everyone, especially those who have to live with the results of our carelessness (I mean that precisely).  this cartoon gets it:

one potential silver lining, according to Newsweek, again, is that the frustration at this degree of failure may lead people to work together in smaller “clubs” or to dialogue regionally in order to make smaller-scale changes.  I, however, will remain both a skeptic and a cynic.  our climate woes — and our failure to act in spite of clear information and dire warnings — will prove to be one of the most regrettable (and tragically ironic) features of this, the information age.