Curmudgeons Unite!

[gepr]

Re mismatched expectations with voting and representation versus liberal use of metaphor: If you agree that too much focus on metaphor *is* too much focus on the tool, then you should agree that a focus on digital voting is treating the symptom, not the cause. And that implies this effort of Jon's is at best premature, at worst harmful distraction.

Re ensemble studies: I agree but would take it a notch further. One of the flaws in most digital voting ideas is the homogenization of the tool set. Similar to the first-past-the-post issue, which leads to exploitability, is the embedding of fragility through critical infrastructure. We see this a lot with the Def Con red teaming ... or in old school terms, the hegemony of Windows. We see it in the immune system and work like Forrest's, as well as ecology. We also see it in Facebook and other social media's tendency to exacerbate extremism. Homogeneity causes fragility. One inference we can make is that the popular vote, in first-past-the-post systems, is already fragile under our diverse cumulative counting systems. Homogenize that counting system and you'll make it even more fragile. I.e. Jon's agenda increases exploitability and fragility.

Re refactoring "Isn't this what refactoring is about?": Refactoring (usually) increases fragility, because it homes in on a small set of aspects or use cases. It's akin to database normalization. My point was that the more cruft you insert between the voter and representative, the more *gamable* the system. The *diversity* (heterogeneity, uncertainty, variation, entropy) of the paths/aspects through the systems, however, does increase robustness. So, there's a qualitative difference between *what type* of technology you insert.

The different ensemble studies in absentee voting, vote integrity methods, etc. provide different exploits a gamer might choose. And if we implement Jon's agenda of *nationalizing*, unifying, a vote counting method, then we are (essentially) refactoring the process, normalizing the process, homing in on a single, homogenous, way of doing things. In either case, diverse tech or normalized tech, you increase exploitability. In the former, you lower fragility. In the latter, you increase fragility.

Re gamability of parliamentary systems: Yes, I agree. They can be gamed, but I think they're more robust against simple gaming tricks like what Trump/Bannon/Kushner/Russia pulled off in 2016, which consists primarily of exploiting our first-past-the-post Dem/Rep, Lib/Con, Us/Them dichotomies. The UK is a more interesting example with Brexit and the spoofing/lying they had to do to get that to happen. What I'd like to see Biden do is start an initiative to plug the holes Trump et al exploited. But I doubt it'll happen. We're hoodwinked into thinking about the tools and won't be able to think about the deeper issues those tools are meant to help with.

Re provoking violence: Agreed again. I'm a big fan of Frantz Fannon. But that's as far as I go toward political violence. If you *must* engage in it for some sort of catharsis, then we should all tolerate it as best we can. But if you engage in it simply because of the rush/giggles it provides, then you're part of the problem.


On 8/22/20 11:48 AM, Steve Smith wrote:

> I do agree on this, even though (because) I resemble that
> description...   "when you are a navel gazer, everything looks like lint"?
>
>
> Yes, this seems to be the "Hard Problem" of real-world "collective *",
> and in fact I don't think studying the maps is enough in the sense that
> I believe we need to *generate* a lot of these maps *in the real world*
> which is why I'm a fan of the seeming disorder, for example, in global
> (and even national) pandemic response.   It is the real-world
> realization of *ensemble studies* crossed with the ideal of  the
> "halting problem"?   The only (or reasonably efficient) way to answer
> the problem of "Life the Universe and Everything" is to let it play out,
> even if we understand in advance that the Eigenvalue is '42'.
>
> I agree with the general sentiment.  Patches on top of patches on top of
> patches does not yield a more robust system... at best, it circumvents
> the last or most egregious breach/abuse.     This is what refactoring is
> all about?   In a more general sense, what  paradigm shifts are all
> about.
> > Having recently (re)watched Turn; Washington's Spies and John Adams, and
> reading "Team of Rivals" (Goodwin's biography of Lincoln starting
> decades before his presidency and following his frienemies and
> coopetitors through the time) with Mary, I have a new appreciation for
> how hard those people worked *and* how flawed many of them were, and how
> flawed the processes involved.   It both makes me much more appreciative
> of the result and simultaneously understand how "Sacred" it isn't.   My
> friends in UK and OZ would all tell me that *their* Parliamentary System
> is/has-been gamed badly also.   But I find the accomodation of factions
> and "wandering" among various semi-stable (e.g Lagrange) points a step
> above.
>
> I believe that Trump's significant contribution has been to show us how
> gamed and gameable our current system has become.  He said he was going
> to "drain the swamps and eject the alligators", I claim he simply took
> control of the levies and gates, thus "managing the swamps", introduced
> his own nest of Crocodiles (who he seems not to even recognize when they
> get hauled out of the swamp and into court/prison) and then presided
> over the ever-more-toxic-miasmic-and-dangerous result as the Lord of the
> Flies that he is.
>
> I don't think any of this is actually a *good
> idea* and apparently most others feel the same, else we *would* see more
> of it?

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[jon zingale]

Glen,

It is a bit frustrating to see so many misattributions to my writing in your
posts. It is ok if you don't grok what I am saying, but please do not
misattribute. Many of your criticisms were already addressed in the writing.
For instance, I am not suggesting a homogenized replacement of the current
voting system. There are many other misattributions and really I don't have
the time to keep up with the libel. To the extent that you are disagreeing
with an abstracted model of me in your own mind, carry on.



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[gepr]

Hm. I'm not intentionally doing that. But if you're unwilling to address the concerns I'm trying to raise, then there's not much else I can do. Accusations of libel are a tad more serious than misattribution or strawman. Nice brinkmanship! >8^D

On 8/23/20 8:56 AM, jon zingale wrote:
> It is a bit frustrating to see so many misattributions to my writing in your
> posts. It is ok if you don't grok what I am saying, but please do not
> misattribute. Many of your criticisms were already addressed in the writing.
> For instance, I am not suggesting a homogenized replacement of the current
> voting system. There are many other misattributions and really I don't have
> the time to keep up with the libel. To the extent that you are disagreeing
> with an abstracted model of me in your own mind, carry on.

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[jon zingale]

Glen,

I can see that you are in a bad mood. Again, I have addressed these issues
in writing already. To take a play from your book: READ THE CODE!



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[gepr]

Sorry. Where is your code for this digital voting app? I missed the link.

On 8/23/20 9:10 AM, jon zingale wrote:
> I can see that you are in a bad mood. Again, I have addressed these issues
> in writing already. To take a play from your book: READ THE CODE!


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[jon zingale]

Glen (and hopefully not one of your bots >8^D),

The 'code' exists as the writings I have already produced. You are making
claims that are not in the writing. Since it has already been written once,
I don't really wish to re-write. Even this sidebar of bickering in-post is
lame. I am simply not suggesting things that you attribute to me, which I
find frustrating to see propagated over the forum. I feel that you are using
an image of me (or my writing) to push some thoughts you have that are
tangentially related to my posts. If that is the case, I suppose I can
adjust. But to those that respond to the image, I wish to disambiguate my
posts from it.



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[gepr]

OK. I suppose we have the option of taking on a burden of going through your old posts and finding where you address the following: That a digital voting app runs the risk of exacerbating the type of exploitation we saw in 2016.

I've done that and you have *not* addressed that objection, which is why I raised it. If you feel you have addressed it, I would sincerely appreciate some help finding where you did so. A simple restatement of how you mitigate that risk would be fine. There's no need for spelunking.

On 8/23/20 9:21 AM, jon zingale wrote:

> Glen (and hopefully not one of your bots >8^D),
>
> The 'code' exists as the writings I have already produced. You are making
> claims that are not in the writing. Since it has already been written once,
> I don't really wish to re-write. Even this sidebar of bickering in-post is
> lame. I am simply not suggesting things that you attribute to me, which I
> find frustrating to see propagated over the forum. I feel that you are using
> an image of me (or my writing) to push some thoughts you have that are
> tangentially related to my posts. If that is the case, I suppose I can
> adjust. But to those that respond to the image, I wish to disambiguate my
> posts from it.

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[jon zingale]

Thank you. Would you please restate what 'type of exploitation' we saw in
2016? I will think about it this week and hopefully find time to address it,
my Sunday is already pretty backed up.



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[gepr]

As I understand it, the attack was a successful use of "active measures". The objective was to find *extant* rifts in US society and exploit them. This resulted in a sophisticated data science driven attack on platforms via technology like Facebook. There are 2 layers to it: 1) the primary objective is to sow distrust in US institutions (including voting) and "career politicians" and 2) secondarily sow chaos simply to reduce the efficiency of US institutions (including the state department's attempts at diplomacy and our military's attempts at whatever it is they do).

As the exploits are ongoing, any digital voting *security* must address this type of exploit, either directly or dovetailed with other mitigating efforts.


On 8/23/20 9:58 AM, jon zingale wrote:
> Thank you. Would you please restate what 'type of exploitation' we saw in
> 2016? I will think about it this week and hopefully find time to address it,
> my Sunday is already pretty backed up.


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[jon zingale]

Included is a link to the "Undivided Attention" podcast where the guest is
Taiwan's Digital minister. She discusses the progress and successes that
Taiwan has made in producing *digital democracy* software, implementing
*radically open transparency* at the government level, and building search
engines whose underlying dynamics combat *political polarization*. Since the
discussions up until this point have been desperately lacking for working
examples, I hope to move the discussion out of the speculative with this
offering:
https://your-undivided-attention.simplecast.com/episodes/the-listening-society-yZ1PBlPF

A year or so ago, Nick and I were discussing what could be done to
incentivize individuals to engage others across their ideological/political
boundaries. While Nick was in favor of implementing a *richer* notion of
*moderator* into debate platforms, I aimed to change the underlying dynamics
of our suggestion engines. Suggestion engines today are known to facilitate
silo-ing by identifying others like one's self and offering the individual
more of the same, and a good deal of the literature supports the observation
that iterating on this process leads to dense delta-like concentrations of
what an individual tolerates or believes. An approach that I find actionable
is to extend the suggestion process to model individual tolerances, suggest
content at individual tolerance boundaries, and incentivize the extension of
those boundaries.

Tang explains that in Taiwan, they built suggestion engines that promote
content more when the content is agreed upon by individuals that typically
disagree. While I cannot speak to the efficacy of this approach, I am happy
to see similarly dynamical attempts to solve the problem. For those that sat
through the 3-hour anti-trust senate hearings, it is clear that without such
a sophisticated approach, the government will attempt to solve the problem
by demanding *case-by-case* that *such-and-such* result be *more fair*.
Additionally, for those of us in the tech business, it is clear that such
platforms are capable of what they do exactly because they are automated. To
hire 100,000 individuals to moderate Facebook is simply not a solution, and
to Nick's point, especially not a solution under the current
poverty-stricken conception of *moderation*. This means that solutions will
need to be implemented at a systems level and through studying the dynamics
which arise from a platform's actionable behaviors and policies. I am
thankful that some nations are taking the problem seriously enough to take
action and that soon we may have working examples of *digital democracy* at
scale.



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