Kyle Roth

A system is something that is composed of parts that have interrelations between them. Each system has purposes, and those purposes may have nothing to do with stated goals. For example, if a government says it wants to protect the environment but allocates few resources to that goal, its purpose is not to protect the environment, but something else. A university may have the purpose of teaching students, while the components of the university have different goals: the student is trying to get good grades, the professor is trying to produce good research, and the administrator is trying to balance the budget.

the trends permalink politics: There is now more money in politics, and less individual involvement. There are more total associations, but they look more like the AARP and Greenpeace, instead of unions, churches, bridge clubs, rotary. religion: Attendance has definitely gone down in the last 40 years, even if the number of people who profess stays nearly the same. (This has changed since the book was published on January 1, 2000.) The 60s and 70s saw people make their religion more private, more personal, making people less concerned with the communal support of a shared faith. Fundamentalist religion (including evangelical) results in more service and giving, but primarily within the church community. So as the mainline middle falls out, religion is becoming a less helpful societal lubricant overall, despite the fact that religiosity has generally meant more volunteerism and giving.

I will present this paper in the FATE (fairness, accountability, transparency, ethics) reading group tomorrow (2023-10-25). You can view the slides I’ll use here. There are unresolved tensions in the algorithmic ethics world. Here are two examples: Is inclusion always good? Gebru: “you can’t have ethical A.I. that’s not inclusive… [a]nd whoever is creating the technology is setting the standards” Nelson: “… I struggle to understand why we want to make black communities more cognizant in facial recognition systems that are disproportionately used for surveillance.” academic activism O’Neil: why is there a lack of academic efforts to inform policymakers and regulators? PERVADE: Academics have been doing this work for a while but it is underfunded, marginalized, and at odds with a US political apparatus generally favorable towards Silicon Valley. Ethics manifestos or value statements mask these tensions behind a business ethics lens.

The main text below is my summary of the points in the book, and I’ve put my commentary in sidenotes. If you want a Marxist, postmodern response to these ideas from the devil himself, check out Jordan Peterson & the meaning of life by Philosophy Tube. Reason and moral purpose come from Athens and Jerusalem, and without those things the West would not be where it is today. Socialism means taking handouts from the nanny state, and while our society continues to function with capitalism bearing the weight of socialist programs, it’s in the process of crumbling. People on the left like to blame institutions and systems for current woes, when in reality this is the freest, most egalitarian society that has ever existed. That’s why we see the conflict over political divides strengthening in America. The West is losing its attachment to reason and moral purpose, instead shifting to intersectionality, hedonism, and scientific materialism. Happiness is built on a sense of moral purpose, and is achieved by maximizing individuals’ ability to pursue that happiness. Scientific materialism and atheism are problematic because they take away that moral purpose.

You can view this episode here, and you can download a transcript I made with whisper-medium here. I accept responsibility for errors in the transcript, alongside OpenAI, all people whose voices exist on the web, and the rest of humanity. :) writing technology permalink DYT: You know, it took humans like centuries to perfect the technology of a dictionary and it took hundreds, thousands of people, probably like millions of hours to actually get to the point where you can easily look up a word.