What Prevents Truthfulness & Where Falsehood Leads to

                  Veritas nimis saepe laborat, extinguitur numquam

    

               

What Prevents Truthfulness & Where     Falsehood Leads to

                     

In a market economy, where the criteria of commercial profit are dominating, little is done to effectively restrict the glorification of violence and cultivation of cynical egoism. Most of the media, focusing on the primitive demand of the majority of the public audience and simultaneously reproducing this kind of demand, continue to support patterns of banality as well as multiply and disseminate television shows saturated with vulgarism and blockbusters of an aggressive nature.

          This is one of the major reasons for the marginalisation of moral and ethical values. This also leads to the belittling of the principles of spiritual personal growth and to the degradation of the leitmotifs and goals of self-development of people (first of all, of the younger generation).... Read more: https://www.amazon.com/HOW-GET-RID-SHACKLES-TOTALITARIANISM-ebook/dp/B0C9543B4L/ref=sr_1_1?crid=19WW1TG75ZU79&keywords=HOW+TO+GET+RID+OF+THE+SHACKLES+OF+TOTALITARIANISM&qid=1687700500&s=books&sprefix=how+to+get+rid+of+the+shackles+of+totalitarianism%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C181&sr=1-1

          

Karl Raimund Popper The Open Society and Its Enemies:  Hadrian  This is a deeply contradictory book, which is at times wise, measured, and methodological, and yet at other times deeply flawed and irritating. This was a book incubated during the Second World War, an epistemological look at the origins of totalitarianism. He claims that the enemies of the 'open society', or an egalitarian liberal democracy, have in common a historical philosophy he defines as 'historicism', an attempt to codify historical laws or phenomenon, but not an a basis consistent with the scientific method. This historicism leads to a grand universal reform of society, and often the end of individual freedoms along with individual responsibility, and an attempt to return to the early 'tribalist' societies which characterized humanity at the very beginning of its existence, with the demands of the group over the individual, and perhaps one leader who makes unilateral decisions. This idea is at least plausible. He reaches back to the very beginnings of Western philosophical history, by placing it on Plato. He combines Plato's theory of ideal forms with The Republic, noting that Plato says that change is generally bad, and applies that to his theories of philosopher-kings who control and manipulate society. Sir Popper is not gentle. If Plato agrees with a bit of political philosophy, it is Ur-totalitarian and a predecessor to Hitler. If Plato disagrees with something, he secretly agrees with it, and Popper investigates his motives - a spurious thing to do with historical analysis, especially from texts over two thousand years old. Popper offers Socrates up as a 'democratic' contrast to Plato, but this brings up the old question of whether Plato has accurately represented Socrates in his writings. Then Popper devotes barely a chapter in the second volume to his successor, Aristotle, treating him with unfettered contempt. Aristotle to him is a second-rate logician and a pedant. And then he skips over the Middle Ages. No Montaigne here, of course, nor Vico, whose cyclic worlds would be a fine target for his theory of 'historicism', but not even any Hobbes or Machiavelli. Nothing on Absolutism. After that, we see the direction where Popper takes after Plato - his next barrage is against Hegel. This section is equally vicious, especially against his philosophy of history and the Organic Theory of the State, which he sees as a justification for Prussian nationalism. (He also takes a more justified spray of poison at Fichte). He liberally cites Schopenhauer's criticism of the Idealists, who calls Hegel a 'clumsy and stupid charlatan', and Fichte a 'windbag'. And after this endless torrent of bile, Popper turns to Marx, and is more sympathetic and forgiving of him. He grants that Marx had a keen gift for observational and institutional analysis, as well as a necessary balancing his intellectual activities with moral activism. He respects Marx for inventing a new means of historical analysis, and he also respects the Labor Theory of Value and the Theory of Capitalist Accumulation and Competition but disagrees with the results of his concepts. For example, Popper sincerely questions whether violent revolution is inevitable, nor will it take place on a worldwide scale, and whether it could be instituted democratically. He notes that some of Marx's Ten Points for the early communist party have been reestablished in some Western democracies Not the expulsion of all emigrants, or the confiscation of all property by the state, of course, but free education, and government control or maintenance of transportation. Marxism has evolved since the 19th century, of course, and in some sectors attempts to address the criticisms with are leveraged against it. Our interpretations of Plato and Hegel have changed, and these old men are not yet dead. In his closing chapter, 'Has History Meaning?', Popper attempts to set out his own historical beliefs, which are a sort of existentialism. History has no meaning, so we must find one for ourselves. When Popper is not attacking others, he is more intellectually honest, and this part is a bit more valid and useful than the rest. So what does Popper think about the future of liberal democracy? Yes, but bear in mind he is more in favor as a social democracy as created by Franklin Delano Roosevelt than the sheer greed of 'unrestrained capitalism' of the nineteenth century. He respects and tolerates almost all principles of religious faith, but hates when they are apologetic for the crimes of those in power. In one lightning passage, he cites a priest who calls himself a Christian who says that it is acceptable to be poor and starving, to waste away of disease, to slave to death in a factory for twelve hours a day and paid pennies, all for the unknown promise of a greater reward. This is pure exploitation and lies manipulated by the rich and powerful, and Popper is right in saying so. Popper's aims for discovering the most efficient and most beneficial uses of government. Not 'who should rule', but 'how does government cause the least harm'? This, of course, after the atrocities of the early 20th century. He advocates a more 'piecemeal reform', in contrast to the 'universal reform' of the totalitarians, and advocacy of the scientific method, in attempts to find those programs which are most efficient and beneficial to the population. This, too, is valid, especially with the multiplicity of democratic states in the modern era. These democracies can learn from each other and implement peaceful reforms, while taking in mind the differences between their social and institutional structures, as well as the specific needs of their population. Popper also stresses the importance of exactness in terms and clarity in definition. Of course this is admirable stuff, but Popper, in his immense ambition, does not always adhere to this standard. He at least offers a disclaimer early on that this is largely a personal opinion, and not at all like the later scientific analysis he later extols. Furthermore, the tempting appeal of such 'tribalism', as Popper describes it, does not always come from a prominent intellectual's advocacy of it, but when there is a crisis of government and social stability, such totalitarian followers lie and promise to bring stability and prosperity by disemboweling liberty. Plato was raised during the bloody Peloponnesian War and the reign of the Thirty Tyrants. Hegel witnessed Napoleon's attempt to build a transnational empire in Europe. And Marx, of course, witnessed the untold suffering of the lower classes during the Industrial Revolution, and was an avid chronicler of it. Perhaps not Plato but in human nature itself. Supposing that I held fast with Popper's premises, I'd ask to see what he'd think of the history of Eastern Philosophy, especially with the Legalist school of Han Fei, Shen Buhai and Shang Yang, whose philosophy and works openly advocated a strong charismatic leader, and supported the first emperor, Qin Shi Huang. So what remains of this vast analysis? First, it is difficult to predict the future, and even very brilliant thinkers get it wrong. Second, if you dare to do so, it is all right to make extrapolations based on past trends, but do not always assume that these trends, nor the causal factors which contributed to them are constant. Third, it is necessary to be critical, even brutal of the 'Great Men' of history, but you must be consistent and honest in order to do so. This is a book which can be eloquent and forceful, even if at times it is deeply wrong. For that, it is worth a read if you care about political philosophy https://monoskop.org/images/4/42/Popper_Karl_The_Open_Society_and_its_Enemies_The_Spell_of_Plato_Vol_1_1st_ed.pdf

Senator Mark Warner: The 21st century’s wars will be fought with misinformation

With the 2020 election on the horizon, one of Washington’s best minds on regulating tech shares his fears about social media manipulation and discusses Congress’s failure to tackle election security and interference.

Senator Mark Warner has proved himself to be a sort of braintrust on tech issues in the Senate. Through his questioning of tech execs in hearings and the oft-cited white papers produced by his office, the Virginia Democrat has arguably raised the Senate’s game in understanding and dealing with Big Tech.

After all, Warner and tech go way back. As a telecom guy in the 1980s, he was among the first to see the importance of wireless networks. He made his millions brokering wireless spectrum deals around FCC auctions. As a venture capital guy in the ’90s, he helped build the internet pioneer America Online. And as a governor in the 2000s, he brought 700 miles of broadband cable network to rural Virginia.

Government oversight of tech companies is one thing, but in this election year Warner is also thinking about the various ways technology is being used to threaten democracy itself. We spoke shortly after the Donald Trump impeachment trial and the ill-fated Iowa caucuses. It was a good time to talk about election interference, misinformation, cybersecurity threats, and the government’s ability and willingness to deal with such problems.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Fast Company: Some news outlets portrayed the Iowa caucus app meltdown as part of a failed attempt by the Democratic party to push their tech and data game forward. Was that your conclusion?

Mark Warner: I think it was a huge screwup. Do we really want to trust either political party to run an election totally independently, as opposed to having election professionals [run it]? We have no information that outside sources were involved.

I think it was purely a non-tested app that was put into place. But then you saw the level and volume of [social media] traffic afterwards and all the conspiracy theories [about the legitimacy of the results]. One of the things I’m still trying to get from our intel community is how much of this conspiracy theory was being manipulated by foreign bots. I don’t have that answer yet. I hope to have it soon. But it goes to the heart of why this area is so important. The bad guys don’t have to come in and change totals if they simply lessen American’s belief in the integrity of our voting process. Or, they give people reasons not to vote, as they were so successful in doing in 2016.

THE BAD GUYS DON’T HAVE TO COME IN AND CHANGE TOTALS IF THEY SIMPLY LESSEN AMERICAN’S BELIEF IN THE INTEGRITY OF OUR VOTING PROCESS.”

SENATOR MARK WARNER

FC: Do you think that the Department of Homeland Security is interacting with state election officials and offering the kind of oversight and advice they should be?

MW: Chris Krebs [the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in DHS] has done a very good job. Most all state election systems now have what they call an Einstein (cybersecurity certification) program, which is a basic protection unit. I think we are better protected from hacking into actual voting machines or actual election night results. But we could do better.

There were a number of secretaries of state who in the first year after 2016 didn’t believe the problem was real. I’m really proud of our [Senate Intelligence] committee because we kept it bipartisan and we’ve laid [the problem] out—both the election interference, and the Russian social media use. I don’t think there’s an election official around that doesn’t realize these threats are real.

But I think the White House has been grossly irresponsible for not being willing to echo these messages. I think it’s an embarrassment that Mitch McConnell has not allowed any of these election security bills to come to the floor of the Senate. I think it’s an embarrassment that the White House continues to fight tooth and nail against any kind of low-hanging fruit like [bills mandating] paper ballot backups and post-election audits. I’m still very worried that three large [election equipment] companies control 90% of all the voter files in the country. It doesn’t have to be the government, but there’s no kind of independent industry standard on safety and security.

FC: When you think about people trying to contaminate the accuracy or the legitimacy of the election, do you think that we have more to worry about from foreign actors, or from domestic actors who may have learned some of the foreign actors’ tricks?

MW: I think it’s a bit of both. There are these domestic right-wing extremist groups, but a network that comes out of Russia—frankly, comes out of Germany almost as much as Russia—reinforces those messages. So there’s a real collaboration there. There’s some of that on the left, but it doesn’t seem to be as pervasive. China’s efforts, which are getting much more sophisticated, are more about trying to manipulate the Chinese diaspora. There’s not that kind of nation-state infrastructure to support some of this on the left. Although ironically, some of the Russian activity does promote some of the leftist theories, some of the “Bernie Sanders is getting screwed” theories. Because again, it undermines everybody’s faith in the process.

FC: Are you worried about deepfakes in this election cycle?

IT UNDERMINES EVERYBODY’S FAITH IN THE PROCESS.”

SENATOR MARK WARNER

MW: The irony is that there hasn’t been a need for sophisticated deepfakes to have this kind of interference. Just look at the two things with Pelosi—the one with the slurring of her speech, or the more recent video where they’ve made it appear that she was tearing up Trump’s State of the Union speech at inappropriate times during the speech. So instead of showing her standing up and applauding the Tuskegee Airmen, the video makes it look like she’s tearing up the speech while he’s talking about the Tuskegee Airmen.

These are pretty low-tech examples of deepfakes. If there’s this much ability to spread [misinformation] with such low tech, think about what we may see in the coming months with more sophisticated deepfake technology. You even have some of the president’s family sending out some of those doctored videos. I believe there is still a willingness from this administration to invite this kind of mischief.

FC: Are there other areas of vulnerability you’re concerned about for 2020?

MW: One of the areas that I’m particularly worried about is messing with upstream voter registration files. If you simply move 10,000 or 20,000 people in Miami Dade County from one set of precincts to another, and they show up to the right precinct but were listed in a different precinct, you’d have chaos on election day. I’m not sure how often the registrars go back and rescreen their voter file to make sure people are still where they say they are.

One area I want to give the Trump administration some credit for is they’ve allowed our cyber capabilities to go a bit more on offense. For many years, whether you were talking about Russian interference or Chinese intellectual property thefts, we were kind of a punching bag. They could attack us with a great deal of impunity. Now we have good capabilities here, too. So we’ve struck back a little bit, and 2018 was much safer. But we had plenty of evidence that Russia was going to spend most of their efforts on 2020, not 2018.

That’s all on the election integrity side. Where we haven’t made much progress at all is with social media manipulation, whether it’s the spreading of false theories or the targeting that was geared at African Americans to suppress their vote in 2016.

FC: We’ve just come off a big impeachment trial that revolved around the credibility of our elections, with Trump asking a foreign power to help him get reelected. As you were sitting there during the State of the Union on the eve of his acquittal in the Senate, is there anything you can share with us about what you were thinking?

MW: In America, we’ve lived through plenty of political disputes in our history and plenty of political divisions. But I think there were rules both written and unwritten about some level of ethical behavior that I think this president has thrown out the window. While a lot of my Republican colleagues privately express chagrin at that, so far they’ve not been willing to speak up. I’m so worried about this kind of asymmetric attack from foreign entities, whether they’re for Trump or not for Trump. If Russia was trying to help a certain candidate, and the candidate didn’t want that help and that leaks out, that could be devastating to somebody’s chances. [Warner proved prescient here. Reports of that very thing happening to Bernie Sanders emerged days later on February 21.]

If you add up what the Russians spent in our election in 2016, what they spent in the Brexit vote a year or so before, and what they spent in the French presidential elections . . . it’s less than the cost of one new F-35 airplane. In a world where the U.S. is spending $748 billion on defense, for $35 million or $50 million you can do this kind of damage. I sometimes worry that maybe we’re fighting the last century’s wars when conflict in the 21st century is going to be a lot more around cyber misinformation and disinformation, where your dollar can go a long way. And if you don’t have a united opposition against that kind of behavior, it can do a lot of damage.

FC: Do you think Congress is up to the task of delivering a tough consumer data privacy bill anytime soon?

MW: We haven’t so far and it’s one more example of where America is ceding its historic technology leadership. On privacy, obviously the Europeans have moved with GDPR. California’s moved with their own version of privacy law. The Brits, the Australians, and the French are moving on content regulation. I think the only thing that’s holding up privacy legislation is how much federal preemption there ought to be. But I think there are ways to work through that.

I do think that some of the social media companies may be waking up to the fact that their ability to delay a pretty ineffective Congress may come back and bite them. Because when Congress [is ready to pass regulation], the bar’s going to be raised so much that I think there will be a much stricter set of regulations than what might’ve happened if we’d actually passed something this year or the year before.

I’ve been looking at what I think are the issues around pro-competition, around more disclosure around dark patterns. I’ve got a half dozen bills—all of them bipartisan—that look at data portability, [data value] evaluation, and dark patterns. I’ve been working on some of the election security stuff around Facebook. We are looking at some Section 230 reforms. My hope is that you have a privacy bill that we could then add a number of these other things to, because I think the world is moving fast enough that privacy legislation is necessary but not sufficient.

FC: You’re referencing Section 230 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which protects tech companies from being liable for what users post on their platforms and how they moderate content. To focus on the Section 230 reforms for a moment, are you contemplating a partial change to the language of the law that would make tech platforms legally liable for a very specific kind of toxic content? Or are you talking about a broader lifting of tech’s immunity under the law?

MW: Maybe Section 230 made some sense in the late ’90s when [tech platforms] were startup ventures. But when 65% of Americans get some or all their news from Facebook and Google and that news is being curated to you, the idea that [tech companies] should bear no responsibility at all about the content you’re receiving is one of the reasons why I think there’s broad-based interest in reexamining this.

I THINK THERE’S A GROWING SENSITIVITY THAT THE STATUS QUO IS NOT WORKING.”

SENATOR MARK WARNER

I think there’s a growing sensitivity that the status quo is not working. It’s pretty outrageous that we’re three and a half years after the 2016 campaign, when the whole political world went from being techno-optimists to having a more realistic view of these platform companies, and we still haven’t passed a single piece of legislation.

I’ve found some of Facebook’s arguments on protecting free speech to be not very compelling. I think Facebook is much more comparable to a cable news network than it is to a broadcasting station that does protect First Amendment speech. And the way I’ve been thinking about it is that it’s less about the ability to say stupid stuff or racist stuff—because there may be some First Amendment rights on some of that activity—but more about the amplification issue. You may have a right to say a stupid thing, but does that right extend to guaranteeing a social media company will promote it a million times or 100 million times without any restriction?

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This story is part of our Hacking Democracy series, which examines the ways in which technology is eroding our elections and democratic institutions—and what’s been done to fix them. Read more here.

Geneva: Evolving Censorship Evasion

Join us and learn about our fight against internet censorship around the world.

Automating Evasion

Researchers and censoring regimes have long engaged in a cat-and-mouse game, leading to increasingly sophisticated Internet-scale censorship techniques and methods to evade them. In this work, we take a drastic departure from the previously manual evade/detect cycle by developing techniques to automate the discovery of censorship evasion strategies.

Our Approach

We developed Geneva (Genetic Evasion), a novel experimental genetic algorithm that evolves packet-manipulation-based censorship evasion strategies against nation-state level censors. Geneva re-derived virtually all previously published evasion strategies, and has discovered new ways of circumventing censorship in China, India, Iran, and Kazakhstan.

How it works

Geneva runs exclusively on one side of the connection: it does not require a proxy, bridge, or assistance from outside the censoring regime. It defeats censorship by modifying network traffic on the fly (by injecting traffic, modifying packets, etc) in such a way that censoring middleboxes are unable to interfere with forbidden connections, but without otherwise affecting the flow. Since Geneva works at the network layer, it can be used with any application; with Geneva running in the background, any web browser can become a censorship evasion tool. Geneva cannot be used to circumvent blocking of IP addresses.

Geneva composes four basic packet-level actions (drop, duplicate, fragment, tamper) together to represent censorship evasion strategies. By running directly against real censors, Geneva’s genetic algorithm evolves strategies that evade the censor.

Real World Deployments

Geneva has been deployed against real-world censors in China, India, Iran, and Kazahkstan. It has discovered dozens of strategies to defeat censorship, and found previously unknown bugs in censors.

Note that Geneva is a research prototype, and does not offer anonymization, encryption, or other protection from censors. Understand the risks in your country before trying to run Geneva.

All of these strategies and Geneva’s strategy engine and are open source: check them out on our Github page.

Learn more about how we designed and built Geneva here.

Who We Are

This project is done by students in Breakerspace, a lab at the University of Maryland dedicated to scaling-up undergraduate research in computer and network security.

This work is supported by the Open Technology Fund and the National Science Foundation.

Contact Us

Interested in working with us, learning more, getting Geneva running in your country, or incorporating some of Geneva’s strategies into your tool?

The easiest way to reach us is by email.

• Dave: dml (at) cs.umd.edu (PGP key here)
• Kevin: kbock (at) terpmail.umd.edu (PGP key here)

https://geneva.cs.umd.edu/

 Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence 

by Dr. Anna Lembke

This book is about pleasure. It’s also about pain. Most important, it’s about how to find the delicate balance between the two, and why now more than ever finding balance is essential. We’re living in a time of unprecedented access to high-reward, high-dopamine stimuli: drugs, food, news, gambling, shopping, gaming, texting, sexting, Facebooking, Instagramming, YouTubing, tweeting… The increased numbers, variety, and potency is staggering. The smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for a wired generation. As such we’ve all become vulnerable to compulsive overconsumption.
 
In Dopamine Nation, Dr. Anna Lembke, psychiatrist and author, explores the exciting new scientific discoveries that explain why the relentless pursuit of pleasure leads to pain…and what to do about it. Condensing complex neuroscience into easy-to-understand metaphors, Lembke illustrates how finding contentment and connectedness means keeping dopamine in check. The lived experiences of her patients are the gripping fabric of her narrative. Their riveting stories of suffering and redemption give us all hope for managing our consumption and transforming our lives. In essence, Dopamine Nation shows that the secret to finding balance is combining the science of desire with the wisdom of recovery.: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/55723020-dopamine-nation

Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread

by Cailin O'Connor , James Owen Weatherall  

https://www.amazon.com/Misinformation-Age-False-Beliefs-Spread/dp/0300251858

Truth under Attack

By Andrea Gawrylewski on September 29, 2022

Truths should be stubborn things, right? Not in today’s society. A set of polls conducted this summer revealed about 70 percent of Republican voters still believe that Joe Biden did not win the 2020 presidential election, despite extensive bipartisan investigations into voter fraud that validated the trustworthiness of the election. Online, the YouTube suggestion algorithm has been shown to steer viewers toward more extreme or far-fetched videos, spreading conspiracy theories and fringe beliefs. And users on other platforms such as TikTok and Twitter deliberately disseminate misinformation about lifesaving vaccines.

Lies, extremism and the manipulation of reality seem to be common themes in today’s current events. Because all untruths are antithetical to science, we hope this issue will serve in some measure as an antidote to the poison of manipulated facts and other forms of mendacity. Never has it been more important to understand the science of how we humans  determine what is true.

For starters, our perception is inherently subjective. We may believe that we are open-minded creatures, but most people latch on to ideas that seem to validate their own preconceived beliefs—even if this behavior prevents them from seeing new solutions. Such ingrained implicit bias has served us well in the course of evolution, but in the modern era, it more often leads us astray.

Indeed, humans famously make, and commit to, decisions even when they don’t have all the facts, and in some cases, those leaps to conclusions make some accept conspiracy theories and other misinformation. Good news: the practice of questioning your deepest-held beliefs, especially in light of strong evidence, can strengthen your objectivity and critical thinking skills.

Nowhere are our failings at objective reasoning more exploitable than on social media, used globally by billions. Facebook and other platforms enable the spread of misinformation that sows social unrest—in particular, meme culture has been shown to propagate lies and increase division. Platform algorithms that take advantage of our psychological vulnerabilities trap us in echo chambers. In the end, users become the unwitting vectors of these threats.

Civic life suffers because of these malevolent forces. Turmoil, anxiety and a sense that society is in jeopardy lead to the kind of polarization that makes winning an argument more important than understanding opponents’ viewpoints. We are stuck in what philosopher Kathleen Higgins describes as the post-truth era, where there is no longer an expectation that politicians or pundits will be honest. Rejection of expertise and sound data has even led the highest court in the land to

issue rulings that endanger human health.

Although the human mind comes equipped with built-in obstacles to objective thinking, we shouldn’t give in to ignorance and bias. Psychologist Douglas T. Kenrick and his co-authors offer simple interventions that can make us more open-minded, scientific thinkers. In fact, scientists can look to philosophy to aid in some self-examination about how much, in the hands of subjective creatures, the tools of science can ultimately discover.

The common theme in many of these seemingly abysmal examinations of the state of our societal affairs is a heartening bright spot. By just being aware of how we perceive information, we can protect ourselves from disinformation and hogwash. We don’t have to always agree, but at least we’ll be anchored in what is real and what is not.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/truth-under-attack/