News — At The Edge — 4/7

Aside from emergence of artificial super intelligence, the most dangerous dystopian outcome is authoritarian governments with unrestrained access to everyone’s personal data. This week’s articles — Putin’s power and absence of data privacy — show little sign of abating in any satisfactory way.

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Vladimir Putin, the Most Influential Man in the World —

“[Putin’s] one pole in the great global debate… between authoritarianism and democracy…[with] a coherent strategy to promote his authoritarian side…[and] able to humiliate…democratic rivals at will…[claiming] Western reformers nearly destroyed his country**…..**

[I]n the years ahead…authoritarians will have several key advantages in the war of ideas….

1. democracy is built on the idea that power should be dispersed across a system….Putin stands for the idea that authority should be centralized, with one leader…[and] authority flowing downward….[That democracy] is a fraud that allows the well-connected to plunder everyone else….
2. democracy’s ultimate loyalty is to an abstraction….But authoritarianism’s ultimate loyalty is to a person…. Neither Putin’s followers, nor Trump’s, nor Xi Jinping’s are bothered by the trampling of norms….
3. democracy is built on a faith…people know best how to run their own lives and…can be woven into a common fabric. Putinism, like Trumpism, is based on…as Machiavelli put it, ungrateful and deceitful, timid of danger and avid for profit…[and] any institution that claims to be objective and above the fray is a liar….[So] everything is public relations, and…people will believe whatever is in their interest to believe….
4. democracy is built on the idea that people who are nothing like you are still worthy of respect and…politics is about striking compromises…. Putinism is based on the idea that people who are unlike you are…undermining your way of life…[because] it’s a lot easier to sell us/them distinctions than tolerance….

Right now, the momentum is clearly in the authoritarian direction…because when you…ask who is the global leader of…democratic camp, you come up with no name at all.”

The Evolution of Mind Games_In biological evolution, natural selection is agnostic about what succeeds or fails. But being agnostic isn’t an option…_medium.com

Facebook Is Not the Problem. Lax Privacy Rules Are. —

“2010, Mark Zuckerberg… [believed] privacy was no longer a ‘social norm’….[Now] learned that privacy still matters to individuals and society….

What is needed is…comprehensive privacy laws…[but] neither this Congress nor [Trump]…has shown any interest in privacy….

[2012] Obama proposed a privacy bill of rights…giving people more control over their information, making data collection more transparent and putting limits on what business can do with the information they collect…[but] Congress showed little appetite for it.

But the European Union…General Data Protection Regulation…requires companies to seek consent before collecting sensitive personal information, to make the request understandable, and to give users an easy way to opt in to sharing such data, rather than forcing them to opt out if they don’t…be upfront about how they use personal data, and they cannot collect more information than they need [for]…services they are offering….

[Today] companies vacuum up as much data as they can by getting users to agree to long, impenetrable terms of service….[Facebook] Android app had been logging…phone call and text messages…for years [claiming] users had consented…[which] is positively Orwellian….

European regulation…[companies] have to notify customers within 72 hours if…breach of personal information….[Clearly] businesses will figure out how to live with and make money under tougher privacy rules.”

My Data Is My Property — Pay Me If You Use It_What’s Yours is Mine and What’s Mine is Mine_medium.com

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May you live long and prosper!Doc Huston