No Free Lunch

I heard this line again today. This time on The CyberWire podcast:

«If it's free,
you're the product.»

I love that. Our society has gotten kind of bipolar. On the one hand, nobody wants to pay for anything, and on the other hand people get bent out of shape when they find out that companies like Google and Facebook may be monitoring their activities. We want the low prices of Walmart, and then complain when jobs are lost to China.

Wired Magazine reports that "On Thursday[February 7th, 2019], Germany’s Federal Cartel Office, the country’s antitrust regulator, ruled that Facebook was exploiting consumers by requiring them to agree to [extensive] data collection in order to have an account, and has prohibited the practice going forward." Facebook claims that it's adherence to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) absolves it of any antitrust violations.

The timing of this is downright spooky, in that on the Monday February 4th, 2019 episode of the Jordan Harbinger podcast, Mr. Harbinger discusses the real cost of the “everything is free” mentality with Jaron Lanier, an early Internet pioneer and author of Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. I'm not willing to go to the extent that Mr. Lanier suggests, however he makes a few good observations: he is able to stay up to date on all the latest trends without any social media accounts by having real relationships with other people; most people don't realize the degree that their information is being collected and monetized; and if the business model was subscription based, instead of advertising based, many of the negative aspects of social media would be removed.

From a security and liability perspective, it is best practice to only gather as much data as is necessary to provide the goods and services for which an organization is engaged. What has been happening however, is that organizations are developing services that they can't sell, so they offer them for free, and then recoup their costs and try to earn profit by selling advertising. For example, when Facebook came out, they were offering a solution to a problem I didn't know I had. Therefore, I would never have signed up if it required a financial obligation. But when I created my account, and noticed that I could use it to connect with friends and family that have otherwise slipped out of my life, I realized that the service had value. Where my initial observation was that Facebook was just a website, I now view it as a service not unlike a telephone. I gladly pay for my telephone (though I feel I pay too much), and I would gladly pay for Facebook today (as long as the price was in check). What I will not do, is pay twice: both financially and with data.

It would make an interesting study. If Facebook were to reveal the full extent of their data collection, and tell its subscribers how much that data is worth to them financially, how many subscribers would be willing to pay for a "datanonymous" version of the service? What's your privacy worth to you? Could Facebook continue to offer their current service in Germany if they also offer a subscription-based version that gathers no data?

Democrazy

Maybe it's time we re-think this whole "Democracy" thing. I am not proposing Communism (though in its pure form would be better than Democracy), and I am not proposing Anarchy (which in its pure form is better than Communism). However, it seems obvious to me after watching the turmoil surrounding the Arab Spring, the Brexit vote, the Trump victory, and numerous Canadian elections, that "Democracy", as it is currently implemented, is broken. It is time to move away from party politics and embrace direct representation.

I think it is time for "Democracy 2.0".

Before I go further, let me stress two things:

I am a layman. I have no political training whatsoever.

I don’t want to lead you. I have no political aspirations whatsoever.

What I do have is a desire to see mankind live in peace, and to see governments actually represent their people.

If you continue to do what you’ve always done, 

you will continue to see what you’ve always seen.

What’s wrong with the status-quo? When I reflect on the lack of direct representation in democracy, there is one thing that repeatedly jumps out at me: The Party Political Model. Under the party model, one person is appointed leader (or assumes leadership) of the party. This leader establishes the platform that the party rallies behind. The party then goes out into the country (or province), and places a candidate in each electoral district (or riding) that they can afford to. On Election Day, you (the people) then choose the party (and its leader) whose platform closest relates to your personal set of priorities. In Canada, this usually boils down to a decision between Liver & Onions or Onions & Liver. The local politician has very little say as to what issues are important, and is often bullied into voting the party line, especially on issues of significance. Your voice is heard only once every four years.

Based on photo by Arthur Chapman CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

In English, when one wants to say that something is out of order, one often says that “the cart is before the horse.” This is the current state of Democracy. As long as the leader of government is chosen before the members of government, the members will represent the leader before their constituents. This may have been needed at a time when most people had no way of knowing what a particular candidate’s opinion on the issues was. So, the party was trusted to assemble like-minded representatives. However, with the advent of the internet, and even more so Social Media, a constituent can know everything there is to know about a candidate. Fancy a life in politics? You had better keep your digital footprint clean.

Democracy 2.0 in Action

What would Democracy 2.0 look like? For starters, the size of the constituency would be based on the number of people an average representative can actually represent. I don’t know what that number is, that would require further research. But think of it this way, if a representative were to speak with a different constituent every half hour, seven hours a day, every week day for fifty weeks of the year, s/he could hear the opinions of 3,500 constituents. If the size of the constituency is 100,000 people, the opinions of those 3,500 constituents would reflect the entire population of the constituency 95% of the time with a 1.63 margin of error. (As an aside, the average population of Canadian federal ridings is 99,034.)

In Canada, we have a situation that doesn’t occur everywhere, but must be addressed in all countries where it does occur. Since the formation of Canada was the result of colonialization, we have an indigenous population. Our indigenous population is known as the “First Nations.” Due to the sleight of hand and wordsmithing skills of the colonial forces (not to mention military might), the First Nations are not represented equally in government. Under Democracy 2.0, each Nation of the First Nations would have a seat in government. We cannot undo the past, but we can fix the future.

So, now that we’ve nailed down the size of the constituency, let’s discuss candidates. All candidates that wish to represent a constituency must actually be from that constituency. Under the party model, it is not un-common for a party to move a candidate to a constituency where they cannot, or will not, field someone local. That person knows nothing about life in that area, and cannot possibly have a vested interest in the wellbeing of that community. If we remove the parties, we open the door to direct representation. The electorate focuses their decision making on choosing the candidate that best represents their beliefs and concerns.

You might ask: what about Leadership, and Opposition? How would that work? I would reply: ask yourself this: what do you expect the Opposition to do? Oppose. But what should they do when the law being debated has merit? Do you really want someone to sit in opposition to something they know to be right? Under Democracy 2.0, all members of the House of Representatives are members of the Government, and all members of the House of Representatives are members of the Opposition. Under Democracy 2.0, they are all expected to consider each bill or act (or whatever you call them in your context) under its own merit. Each representative can propose a bill for consideration by his or her peers, but there is no one person who is sitting in a position of authority over them. As such, there is no one person who influences their vote.

The role of Leader would be occupied by a member of the House of Representatives chosen by his or her peers. For this, I like the British term “Prime Minister.” This would be the first among equals, the Head of State. One must note however, that this position is external facing. As each representative is accountable to his or her constituency, this Prime Minister would be accountable to the House of Representatives, and would be expected to represent their beliefs and concerns on the world stage.

A Brave New World

The beauty of the Democracy 2.0 model is that it would scale really well. The same model could be applied to local governments, provincial (or state) governments, even to multilateral organizations like the United Nations. The challenge is making it a reality. The political machines that drive democratic implementations around the world are protectionist in nature, and are not likely to change from the inside. It would take a true statesman or stateswoman to give up power once granted the majority required to make Democracy 2.0 happen. But I can always dream.

The Culture of Poverty

From "The Devil's Miner"

I watched a report by Mathias Meier in the New York Times entitled "Embracing Child Labor". Bolivia, my birthplace, has made it legal for children to begin working at ten years of age.  I must say I am shocked and saddened. I am shocked that this has barely received any press in the developed world, and I am saddened to think of what this will mean for the future of these beautiful people.

I understand the logic of the proponents of child labour. The families are starving, the children are working already, let's make sure that they at least get a fair wage. In fairness, child labour happens to some degree all over the world. Even in North America, on family farms children are expected to perform duties before and after school that are critical to keeping the farm running. The same is true in many family run businesses in Bolivia, but this is not what we are talking about here. Here we are talking about children working at hard labour (mining, brick making, etc), and though it is not supposed to interfere with schooling, one would have to be quite naive to think that it doesn't.

In the above story, Dr. Jorge Domic, the director of Fundación La Paz (a development NGO), says that child labour is part of the Andean culture, and especially Bolivian culture. I beg to differ. Culture is not what a people do, it is who a people are. Culture is the characteristics of a people that distinguishes them from their neighbours. Being hard working and industrious can be seen as cultural. Keeping a segment of one's population poor due to lack of education is not cultural. Despite the promise of a socialist revolution, it is the rich in Bolivia that are profiting from this move, not the poor. Oh sure, the poor will get a few extra pennies, and that will make a difference, but it will be just enough to keep them poor. And by legalizing child labour, families who would have otherwise obeyed the law and endured the hardship of poverty, might be tempted by the newly legalized source of income.

According to the CIA World Factbook, 45% of Bolivians live on less that $2 per day. The Factbook also points out that:

"Bolivia's income inequality is the highest in Latin America and one of the highest in the world. Public education is of poor quality, and educational opportunities are among the most unevenly distributed in Latin America, with girls and indigenous and rural children less likely to be literate or to complete primary school."

So there's your problem. A third of the population is under the age of 15, you have a low quality system of public education, and the access to public education is not universal. Now you are going to compound the problem by making it OK for children to work for pay starting at ten years of age (and their "union" is pushing for that age to be lower still). I like how Alex Rosen put it in his article on this topic in "No Se Mancha":

"If this is Bolivia’s best answer, then perhaps they have asked the wrong question."

What is needed is a break in the cycle of generational poverty. This can only be accomplished by a high quality, universal, public education system. President Morales has done his people a huge disservice.

Company Culture vs. Freedom of Speech

Credit: Manymeez

Ontario's electricity distribution company, Hydro One, has fired an employee for interrupting a live interview with the now famous FHRITP taunt. For those of you who are not familiar with the FHRITP taunt, it equates less vulgarly to "have sexual intercourse with her". The language used is quite profane and the way it is delivered, in this case anyways, is one of encouraging the male being interviewed to not take the lady seriously, and to view her merely as a sex toy.

So now that I have given you the background, let's discuss Hydro One CEO Carmine Marcello's decision to fire the individual in question. Some people have pointed out that the individual in question was not, at the time of the incident, representing Hydro One; and in fact, even Marcello acknowledged that the Hydro One leadership didn't know that he was an employee when they first discussed it. This person was not wearing any Hydro One branding, so Hydro One's reputation was not at stake. For these reasons, may people feel that he is being unfairly punished for exercising his freedom of speech. Many people feel he shouldn't have been punished at all, while others feel that the punishment was too severe.

I submit to you that he is not being punished at all. He is merely experiencing the consequences for his actions. He had, and exercised, the right to say whatever he wanted wherever he wanted to say it. Good for him. Was the statement that he made worth losing his job over? ...his reputation? ...his pension? I kind of doubt it. It's not like he was protesting some great injustice. He was being a buffoon. He was wasting the fifteen minutes of fame to which we are supposedly all entitled.

What about Hydro One? While their former employee had the right to free speech, I would suggest that Hydro One has the right to determine what kind of person fits in its culture, and what kind does not. Somebody who is willing to use that kind of language on a public (and recorded) platform, would also use that kind of language in a private setting where, perhaps, a single female employee is surrounded by men. This is not a question of defending Hydro One's reputation. This is a question of showing the women who work for Hydro One that the statements of equality that they make are not mere rhetoric. It is a question of doing what is right, regardless of the fallout.

No doubt some left-wing labour lawyer is going to try to take Hydro One and Mr. Marcello to court over this dismissal. I hope that when the dust settles, a precedent is set that gives companies the courage to respond in a similar way in the future. Our mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters deserve more respect than morons such as this former Hydro One employee have demonstrated.

Well done Mr. Marcello and Hydro One! In my opinion, you have earned a healthy #EthicalCredit.