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vol 95, issue 97

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Russell Standish

Re: Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)

On Sun, May 08, 2011 at 06:17:04PM -0500, Vladimyr Burachynsky wrote:
>
>
> It is an old joke , but the more people in the room the dumber it gets.
>

Having grown up on a sheep farm, I can say this definitely applies to
sheep. An individual sheep is quite difficult to control, and I have a
lot of respect for its intelligence. Sheep in mobs, on the other hand,
are gobsmackingly stupid, and it only requires a man and his dog to
control a mob of a hundred animals...

--

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Professor of Mathematics [hidden email]
University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Vladimyr Burachynsky

Re: Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)

Perhaps Gullibility is an advantage in small societies but it strikes me as
very hard to explain in one as large as ours.
Gulibility and conformity have been stumbling blocks with regards to
evolution at least for me.
I can understand that Human Beings directed sheep evolution for our benefit
but our own seems so alike

Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD

[hidden email]

Sky Drive Site
http://cid-14a5cdb09aee4237.photos.live.com/self.aspx/CSA/Braiding%20Simulat
ions/ExperStruct.wmv

120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd.
Winnipeg,Manitoba, R2J3R2
Canada
(204) 2548321 Land
(204) 8016064 Cell

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf
Of Russell Standish
Sent: May-08-11 7:26 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's
Fruits)

On Sun, May 08, 2011 at 06:17:04PM -0500, Vladimyr Burachynsky wrote:
>
>
> It is an old joke , but the more people in the room the dumber it gets.
>

Having grown up on a sheep farm, I can say this definitely applies to sheep.
An individual sheep is quite difficult to control, and I have a lot of
respect for its intelligence. Sheep in mobs, on the other hand, are
gobsmackingly stupid, and it only requires a man and his dog to control a
mob of a hundred animals...

--

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Professor of Mathematics [hidden email]
University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives,
unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Hussein Abbass

Re: Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)

In reply to this post by Vladimyr Burachynsky

Before I propose a model, let me share my feeling of the whole exercise.

For some reason, I am not sure why do we see this as a new problem. I would argue that any political system by definition must have a mechanism for hiding information. An autocratic society will have the hidden information centralized in a very small group. A democratic society, by definition, is a distributed hidden information system.

Any definition of democracy in a constitution is not a functioning definition of democracy, simply it is too idealistic to function. Any functioning definition of democracy can’t be constitutionallized, no one would have the guts to propose it. Even if someone does, politics understand that decisions in an idealistic democratic society rely on frequencies, and high frequency is always controlled by the simple minded people – we have many of them, they are the most successful political tool after all! So no one of them would agree on a functioning definition of democracy; it is too complicated and non-idealistic, Utopia is the ultimate aim for dreamers and the majority are.

If I understood the problem correctly, it boils down in my mind to two conditions defining sufficient conditions for obfuscation to emerge in a democratic society. Although we really need to define what type of democracy we are talking about here, let us - for simplicity - assume that democracy as we all think of it, is one – a big assumption indeed!

The two sufficient conditions are localization and isolation. I can get lots of inspiration easily from areas such as control of virus spread and the communication literature. But let me give you an example where we can create perfect obfuscation. Imagine a social system as a social network

(1) Localization: Here, localization will simply be achieved through a social value. Imagine in one society that confrontation is not perceived as a good attitude. Imagine we are modelling Obfuscation in a Faculty. We can imagine the consequence of this social value of avoiding confrontation; discussions will tend to be done within small groups – maybe of size 2 - most of the time. Issues are solved that way, so large group discussions are not needed and confrontation is nicely avoided. Is not this how universities are structured anyhow! This simple behaviour will localize information.

(2) Isolation: the trick now is how to get these groups to stop communicating to one another. We know from virus spread, idea spread, etc, that we can spread the virus very quickly in a network from a single initially infected node. To isolate ideas in a social system, we need a powerful social value! Here, let us call it trust or confidentiality or anything similar. The objective is to promote everything as important and we all need to trust each other in keeping a secret. Confidentiality would stop members of a group to discuss the topic with other group members. It is a shield to protect the spread even when groups overlap!

The previous two conditions will create obfuscation. Localization will cause information to be discussed locally, while isolation will reduce the probability that information will travel across the network.

Ok, so far, we defined two sufficient conditions for obfuscation to emerge. Can we take this one step further to create a dictator who appears to be a democratic decision maker in a democratic society?

My answer is yes, this is an old piece of news or political trick! The previous setup is perfect for that. We just need this dictator to be the head of the Faculty. If we wish to have an invisible dictator, the head of the Faculty can simply be a useless figure! Obviously, it can be a small group of size 2-5 as well, but they need to be fully and directly connected to each other and almost connected to everyone else.

Let me put this in a simple story. Prof. Clever is the dean of Faculty of Idiots. Prof Clever would like to be a dictator in a democratic society. He appoints 3 other Professors to form a strategy committee. He believes in separating strategy from execution, thanks to all the wonderful literature in management on that topic. Prof. Clever cancelled most Faculty public meetings and created many committees. These committees seek people opinion to have a truly democratic environment. He told the people we are a civilized society. We should not confront each other in public. Issues can be solved smoothly in a better environment and within a small group. Public meetings are now to simply give presentations that no controversial issue is discussed; their information content is 0 to anyone attending them. But they demonstrate democracy and support the members of the Faculty of Idiots’ right for dissemination of information. Prof. Clever promotes good values. Important values that Prof. Clever is promoting are trust and confidentiality. In meetings, people need to trust each other to facilitate exchange of information. But this requires confidentiality; otherwise problems will emerge. Obviously, meetings are called by management, members of the meetings are engineered by management, the whole social network is well-engineered such that different type of information do not get crossed from one sub-graph to another. The faculty of Idiots is the happiest faculty on earth. No public confrontation means no fights, a well-engineered civilized society. Small group meetings are dominated with Prof. Clever or simply take place to tick a box in a report. There is only one person in the Faculty of Idiots who knows everything, Prof. Clever. No one else knows more than anyone else to the extent that everyone simply knows nothing. But everyone is happy, everyone feels important because he/she is trusted and everyone feels they are well-informed of the task they are performing! Prof. Clever eliminated competition, no leader can emerge in this social system that he does not approve. Prof. Clever is the nice guy that everyone loves and respect. He listens, he is socially friendly, and after all is indeed Clever!

So!!!!! we can get obfuscation to emerge. There are so many old political tools to do so; take political propaganda as a powerful one among many others! There are many different variations to do it, not just the above model.

The harder question for me is, how can we undo it if it is engineered as above?

Why is it hard to break it? Because the two principles representing the sufficient conditions for its emergence rely on social values! Any attempt to break it, will be met with resistance in a part of the population and will be called unethical, if not illegal! It is a robust self-regulating strategy.

Another hard question is how can we get the social network to recognize obfuscation in the previous setup? If they can’t recognise it, they can’t do anything about it!

Finally, notice what I defined above as obfuscation and framed it as a bad thing is indeed a form of democracy!!!!!!!!!!

Cheers

Hussein

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Vladimyr Burachynsky
Sent: Monday, 9 May 2011 9:17 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)

Eric and Mohammed,

I don’t think anyone can be Off base at this point in sketching out a scenario. But you might be trying to tackle Goliath in the first round!

Firstly I assume human beings are not very bright, They seem to use extremely simple rules of self satisfaction, though the emotions might be more complicated.

It is not widely accepted but dogs can figure things out as quickly as humans on occasion and there is no wearisome Narrative.

I look at it from the point of view that agents are simple but Stupid . This gave me a headache until I realized that many human beings actually do not know why they did something in particular, then and only then do they invent the Narrative. They are not actually attempting to deceive anyone but simply wish to convince me that they did something for a Good reason. They avoid acknowledging the fact that they did not think.They then drop into the socially acceptable lexicon to explain everything. Often I have remarked that the act of speaking out loud convinces others as well as most importantly the speaker himself.. So the speaker is lying to himself first and then accepts this as his story and probably could pass a lie detector test afterwards.

The fact that narratives are spun is a red herring. They did not know how they made the decision. That frightened the hell out of me in complex engineering projects. I had no way to anticipate human error of this sort. People actually can construct insane scenarios to motivate themselves and then totally forget them. This form of misperception is internal to the brain. I have watched audiences fall for magicians tricks so completely that I have been stunned into disbelief. Yet it is so repeatable. I have seen some references to hidden Blind spots in reason explored by neurologists. Generally I think Biology was too cheap and lazy to give us a completely functional brain. I will be the first to admit to having difficulty with my brain at times.

To cope we have a pervasive belief that we are intelligent in spite of many serious flaws. As a scientist I consider determining the extent of thinking important. I am forced by language to say what I Think for lack of an alternative. I repeat the phrase for more than half a century but still do not understand what it actually means, nor do the philosophers directly address the act. Seems they were more preoccupied by passion in contradiction.

We say Man is a learning animal which implies it progresses somewhat. But I suspect culturally we have found many insidious means to prevent learning. Why ? Is it unconscious. Somewhat like the vexed mother fed up answering questions about the color of the sky and butterflies and moths. Ignorant people are easier to control, suggests history but why?

Let’s build something Stupid (Whimsical and arrogant)rather than Intelligent. If we have no idea what one is how can we answer what the opposite actually entails. An agent should have more than one choice of action and some of those should be utterly insane.

Your institutional Review boards you describe sound as nasty as a Byzantine Palace Intrigue. So let’s start much simpler. For the present the agent should not know what is in his best interest , that is only to be determined by which emotion dominates at any moment. He can make up stories afterwards. I often consider the role of Historians that of making reasonable explanations out of stupid events. The conspiracy theorist will hate this if it bears out.

As for the gains first we waste time looking for reasons where there are none. Next we can find some way of warning individuals not to encourage group think. With near to 7 Billion on this planet maybe it is time to alert ourselves to the flaws in our own brains.; Fear, Gullibility, Conformity, short sighted self interest emotional reasoning. In the early stages I would limit the agents to simply responding and not have them try to become operators of other agents, but that seems to be the goal. Jochen forwarded an interesting article to the group on the ecology of the mind, I have yet to study the material but it looks intriguing .

It is an old joke , but the more people in the room the dumber it gets.

Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD

[hidden email]

120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd.

Winnipeg,Manitoba, R2J3R2

Canada

(204) 2548321 Land

(204) 8016064 Cell

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of ERIC P. CHARLES
Sent: May-08-11 4:00 PM
To: Mohammed El-Beltagy
Cc: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)

I think I know what you are talking about, but I'm not sure what the best way to model it would be, or what we would gain from the modeling exercise. Are you talking about something like this?

Institutional review boards (IRBs) oversee research that involves human participants. This body was formed due to laxness/nastiness on the part of biomedical researchers. It was later extended due to (perceived) laxness/nastiness on the part of social science researchers. At first, all they did was to declare studies ethically alright, or not. Later, they were taken over by a number of outside forces, including university's "risk-management" departments. Their main function is now to try to avoid lawsuits, with secondary functions of promoting arbitrary bureaucratic rules and arbitrary whims of committee members. Giving a "pass or fail" on ethics is, at best, a tertiary goal. To make things worse, the lawyers and bureaucracy have actually done a lot to undermine the semblance of ethical stricture they produce.

If this is the type of thing you are talking about, it seems an oddly complex thing to try to model, mostly because it is extremely open-ended. You need 1) agents with different agendas, 2) the ability to assess and usurp rules created by other agents, 3) the ability to force other agents to adopt your rules. Note, also, that in this particular case, the corruption is accomplished by stacking contradictory rules on top of each other. Thus you need 4) an ability to implement contradictory rules, or at least choose between so-called rules. The bigger challenge seems to be figuring out a way to accomplish such a model without in some essential way, pre-programing the outcome (for example, in the way you set agent agendas and allow agents to form new rules).

What variables would be manipulated in the modeling space? What is to be discovered beyond "agents programmed to be self-interested act in their own best interest"? I'm also not sure what this has to do with agents that "actively obfuscate the participatory nature of the democratic decision." So... maybe I'm completely off base. Can you give a concrete example?

Eric

On Sun, May 8, 2011 06:56 AM, Mohammed El-Beltagy <[hidden email]> wrote:

Eric,

Thats an interesting way of looking at it. As complex game of information hiding.

I was thinking along the line of of having a schema for rule creation. The schema here is like a constitution, and players can generate new rules based on that schema to promote their self interest. For rules to become "laws" they have to be the choice on the majority (or subject to some other social choice mechanism), this system allows for group formation and coalition building to get the new rules passed into laws. The interesting bit is how the drive for self interest amongst some of those groups and their coalitions can give rise to rules renders the original schema and/or the social choice mechanism ineffective. By "ineffective", I mean that they yield results and behavior that run counter to the purpose for which they were originally designed.

What do you think?

Cheers,

Mohammed

On Sun, May 8, 2011 at 2:44 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES <[hidden email]> wrote:

I can't see that this posted, sorry if it is a duplicate --------

Mohammed,
Being totally unqualified to help you with this problem... it seems interesting to me because most models I know of this sort (social systems models) are about information acquisition and deployment. That is, the modeled critters try to find out stuff, and then they do actions dependent upon what they find. If we are modeling active obfuscation, then we would be doing the opposite - we would be modeling an information-hiding game. Of course, there is lots of game theory work on information hiding in two critter encounters (I'm thinking evolutionary-game-theory-looking-at-deception). I haven't seen anything, though, looking at distributed information hiding.

The idea that you could create a system full of autonomous agents in which information ends up hidden, but no particular individuals have done the hiding, is kind of cool. Seems like the type of thing encryption guys could get into (or already are into, or have already moved past).

Eric

On Fri, May 6, 2011 10:05 PM, Mohammed El-Beltagy <[hidden email]> wrote:

I have a question I would like to pose to the group in that regard:

Can we model/simulate how in a democracy that is inherently open (as

stated in the constitution: for the people, by the people etc..) there

emerges "decision masking  structures" emerge that actively obfuscate

the participatory nature of the democratic decision making for their

ends?

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Eric Charles

Re: Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)

In reply to this post by Russell Standish

Vladimyr,
I agree with you that my situation was too complex, that was part of my point (i.e., that if that is what Mohammed is thinking about, it is awfully complex). But he wants to model systems with rules, in which rules made for purpose A can be corrupted so they do not serve A, and rather serve some other agent's goal B. I'm not sure what the simplest simulation would be that allow such phenomenon. Still seems like it would need to be oddly complicated.

Such ideas connect strongly with the notion of "exaptation" in evolutionary biology, and with simulation work on the evolution of deceptive signaling. Alas, I'm not sure they connect strongly to your notion of modeling emotion, or my notion of modeling distributed information hiding.

Eric

P.S. While I agree with you about the nature of most people, I try to never to underestimate people's amazing ability to make very simple situaitons into very complicated situations, especially when in groups. Take the US tax code for example.....

On Sun, May 8, 2011 08:35 PM, "Vladimyr Burachynsky" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Perhaps Gullibility is an advantage in small societies but it strikes me as
very hard to explain  in one as large as ours.
Gulibility and conformity have been stumbling blocks with regards to
evolution at least for me.
I can understand that Human Beings directed sheep evolution for our benefit
but our own seems so alike

Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD

[hidden email]

Sky Drive Site 
http://cid-14a5cdb09aee4237.photos.live.com/self.aspx/CSA/Braiding%20Simulat
ions/ExperStruct.wmv

120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd.
Winnipeg,Manitoba, R2J3R2
Canada 
 (204) 2548321 Land
(204) 8016064  Cell

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf
Of Russell Standish
Sent: May-08-11 7:26 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's
Fruits)

On Sun, May 08, 2011 at 06:17:04PM -0500, Vladimyr Burachynsky wrote:
>  
> 
> It is an old joke , but the more people in the room the dumber it gets.
> 

Having grown up on a sheep farm, I can say this definitely applies to sheep.
An individual sheep is quite difficult to control, and I have a lot of
respect for its intelligence. Sheep in mobs, on the other hand, are
gobsmackingly stupid, and it only requires a man and his dog to control a
mob of a hundred animals...

-- 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof Russell Standish                  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Professor of Mathematics      [hidden email]
University of New South Wales          http://www.hpcoders.com.au
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives,
unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Eric Charles

Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601

Eric Charles

Re: Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)

In reply to this post by Vladimyr Burachynsky

Hussein,
I love the example!

I don't think the idea here is to look at anything novel, but to look at a well known problem from the point of view of complexity / agent based modeling. This combining the accusation that we do not talk about complexity enough, and the relatively mundane observation that rule-based social systems get corrupted fairly reliably. Presumably a well made model would begin to answer your question: Which parameters at which values would resist such corruption, or perhaps even reverse it.

P.S. Being on a mid-sized college campus, the solution to the Dr. Clever problem is to get people to talk to each other... a lot... beer helps. As I tell my friends, the soul of the campus is won or lost by the social committee.

Eric

Chair, Faculty Senate Social Committee ;- )

On Sun, May 8, 2011 09:36 PM, "Hussein Abbass" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Before I propose a model, let me share my feeling of the whole exercise.

For some reason, I am not sure why do we see this as a new problem. I would argue that any political system by definition must have a mechanism for hiding information. An autocratic society will have the hidden information centralized in a very small group. A democratic society, by definition, is a distributed hidden information system.

Any definition of democracy in a constitution is not a functioning definition of democracy, simply it is too idealistic to function. Any functioning definition of democracy can’t be constitutionallized, no one would have the guts to propose it. Even if someone does, politics understand that decisions in an idealistic democratic society rely on frequencies, and high frequency is always controlled by the simple minded people – we have many of them, they are the most successful political tool after all! So no one of them would agree on a functioning definition of democracy; it is too complicated and non-idealistic, Utopia is the ultimate aim for dreamers and the majority are.

If I understood the problem correctly, it boils down in my mind to two conditions defining sufficient conditions for obfuscation to emerge in a democratic society. Although we really need to define what type of democracy we are talking about here, let us - for simplicity - assume that democracy as we all think of it, is one – a big assumption indeed!

The two sufficient conditions are localization and isolation. I can get lots of inspiration easily from areas such as control of virus spread and the communication literature. But let me give you an example where we can create perfect obfuscation. Imagine a social system as a social network

(1)   Localization: Here, localization will simply be achieved through a social value. Imagine in one society that confrontation is not perceived as a good attitude. Imagine we are modelling Obfuscation in a Faculty. We can imagine the consequence of this social value of avoiding confrontation; discussions will tend to be done within small groups – maybe of size 2 - most of the time. Issues are solved that way, so large group discussions are not needed and confrontation is nicely avoided. Is not this how universities are structured anyhow! This simple behaviour will localize information.

(2)   Isolation: the trick now is how to get these groups to stop communicating to one another. We know from virus spread, idea spread, etc, that we can spread the virus very quickly in a network from a single initially infected node. To isolate ideas in a social system, we need a powerful social value! Here, let us call it trust or confidentiality or anything similar. The objective is to promote everything as important and we all need to trust each other in keeping a secret. Confidentiality would stop members of a group to discuss the topic with other group members. It is a shield to protect the spread even when groups overlap!

The previous two conditions will create obfuscation. Localization will cause information to be discussed locally, while isolation will reduce the probability that information will travel across the network.

Ok, so far, we defined two sufficient conditions for obfuscation to emerge. Can we take this one step further to create a dictator who appears to be a democratic decision maker in a democratic society?

My answer is yes, this is an old piece of news or political trick! The previous setup is perfect for that. We just need this dictator to be the head of the Faculty. If we wish to have an invisible dictator, the head of the Faculty can simply be a useless figure! Obviously, it can be a small group of size 2-5 as well, but they need to be fully and directly connected to each other and almost connected to everyone else.

Let me put this in a simple story. Prof. Clever is the dean of Faculty of Idiots. Prof Clever would like to be a dictator in a democratic society. He appoints 3 other Professors to form a strategy committee. He believes in separating strategy from execution, thanks to all the wonderful literature in management on that topic. Prof. Clever cancelled most Faculty public meetings and created many committees. These committees seek people opinion to have a truly democratic environment. He told the people we are a civilized society. We should not confront each other in public. Issues can be solved smoothly in a better environment and within a small group. Public meetings are now to simply give presentations that no controversial issue is discussed; their information content is 0 to anyone attending them. But they demonstrate democracy and support the members of the Faculty of Idiots’ right for dissemination of information. Prof. Clever promotes good values. Important values that Prof. Clever is promoting are trust and confidentiality. In meetings, people need to trust each other to facilitate exchange of information. But this requires confidentiality; otherwise problems will emerge. Obviously, meetings are called by management, members of the meetings are engineered by management, the whole social network is well-engineered such that different type of information do not get crossed from one sub-graph to another. The faculty of Idiots is the happiest faculty on earth. No public confrontation means no fights, a well-engineered civilized society. Small group meetings are dominated with Prof. Clever or simply take place to tick a box in a report. There is only one person in the Faculty of Idiots who knows everything, Prof. Clever. No one else knows more than anyone else to the extent that everyone simply knows nothing. But everyone is happy, everyone feels important because he/she is trusted and everyone feels they are well-informed of the task they are performing! Prof. Clever eliminated competition, no leader can emerge in this social system that he does not approve. Prof. Clever is the nice guy that everyone loves and respect. He listens, he is socially friendly, and after all is indeed Clever!

So!!!!! we can get obfuscation to emerge. There are so many old political tools to do so; take political propaganda as a powerful one among many others! There are many different variations to do it, not just the above model.

The harder question for me is, how can we undo it if it is engineered as above?

Why is it hard to break it? Because the two principles representing the sufficient conditions for its emergence rely on social values! Any attempt to break it, will be met with resistance in a part of the population and will be called unethical, if not illegal! It is a robust self-regulating strategy.

Another hard question is how can we get the social network to recognize obfuscation in the previous setup? If they can’t recognise it, they can’t do anything about it!

Finally, notice what I defined above as obfuscation and framed it as a bad thing is indeed a form of democracy!!!!!!!!!!

Cheers

Hussein

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Vladimyr Burachynsky
Sent: Monday, 9 May 2011 9:17 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)

Eric and Mohammed,

I don’t think anyone can be Off base at this point in sketching out a scenario. But you might be trying to tackle Goliath in the first round!

Firstly I assume human beings are not very bright, They seem to use extremely simple rules of self satisfaction, though the emotions might be more complicated.

It is not widely accepted but dogs can figure things out as quickly as humans on occasion and there is no wearisome Narrative.

I look at it from the point of view that agents are simple but Stupid . This gave me a headache until I realized that many human beings actually do not know why they did something in particular, then and only then do they invent the Narrative. They are not actually attempting to deceive anyone but simply wish to convince me that they did something for a Good reason. They avoid acknowledging the fact that they did not think.They then drop into the socially acceptable lexicon to explain everything. Often I have remarked that the act of speaking out loud convinces others as well as most importantly the speaker himself.. So the speaker is lying to himself first and then accepts this as his story and probably could pass a lie detector test afterwards.

The fact that narratives are spun is a red herring. They did not know how they made the decision. That frightened the hell out of me in complex engineering projects. I had no way to anticipate human error of this sort. People actually can construct insane scenarios to motivate themselves and then totally forget them. This form of misperception is internal to the brain. I have watched audiences fall for magicians tricks so completely that I have been stunned into disbelief. Yet it is so repeatable. I have seen some references to hidden Blind spots in reason explored by neurologists. Generally I think Biology was too cheap and lazy to give us a completely functional brain. I will be the first to admit to having difficulty with my brain at times.

To cope we have a pervasive belief that we are intelligent in spite of many serious flaws. As a scientist I consider determining the extent of thinking important. I am forced by language to say what I Think for lack of an alternative. I repeat the phrase for more than half a century but still do not understand what it actually means, nor do the philosophers directly address the act. Seems they were more preoccupied by passion in contradiction.

We say Man is a learning animal which implies it progresses somewhat. But I suspect culturally we have found many insidious means to prevent learning. Why ? Is it unconscious. Somewhat like the vexed mother fed up answering questions about the color of the sky and butterflies and moths. Ignorant people are easier to control, suggests history but why?

Let’s build something Stupid (Whimsical and arrogant)rather than Intelligent. If we have no idea what one is how can we answer what the opposite actually entails. An agent should have more than one choice of action and some of those should be utterly insane.

Your institutional Review boards you describe sound as nasty as a Byzantine Palace Intrigue. So let’s start much simpler. For the present the agent should not know what is in his best interest , that is only to be determined by which emotion dominates at any moment. He can make up stories afterwards. I often consider the role of Historians that of making reasonable explanations out of stupid events. The conspiracy theorist will hate this if it bears out.

As for the gains first we waste time looking for reasons where there are none. Next we can find some way of warning individuals not to encourage group think. With near to 7 Billion on this planet maybe it is time to alert ourselves to the flaws in our own brains.; Fear, Gullibility, Conformity, short sighted self interest emotional reasoning. In the early stages I would limit the agents to simply responding and not have them try to become operators of other agents, but that seems to be the goal. Jochen forwarded an interesting article to the group on the ecology of the mind, I have yet to study the material but it looks intriguing .

It is an old joke , but the more people in the room the dumber it gets.

Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD

vburach@...

120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd.

Winnipeg,Manitoba, R2J3R2

Canada

(204) 2548321 Land

(204) 8016064 Cell

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of ERIC P. CHARLES
Sent: May-08-11 4:00 PM
To: Mohammed El-Beltagy
Cc: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)

I think I know what you are talking about, but I'm not sure what the best way to model it would be, or what we would gain from the modeling exercise. Are you talking about something like this?

Institutional review boards (IRBs) oversee research that involves human participants. This body was formed due to laxness/nastiness on the part of biomedical researchers. It was later extended due to (perceived) laxness/nastiness on the part of social science researchers. At first, all they did was to declare studies ethically alright, or not. Later, they were taken over by a number of outside forces, including university's "risk-management" departments. Their main function is now to try to avoid lawsuits, with secondary functions of promoting arbitrary bureaucratic rules and arbitrary whims of committee members. Giving a "pass or fail" on ethics is, at best, a tertiary goal. To make things worse, the lawyers and bureaucracy have actually done a lot to undermine the semblance of ethical stricture they produce.

If this is the type of thing you are talking about, it seems an oddly complex thing to try to model, mostly because it is extremely open-ended. You need 1) agents with different agendas, 2) the ability to assess and usurp rules created by other agents, 3) the ability to force other agents to adopt your rules. Note, also, that in this particular case, the corruption is accomplished by stacking contradictory rules on top of each other. Thus you need 4) an ability to implement contradictory rules, or at least choose between so-called rules. The bigger challenge seems to be figuring out a way to accomplish such a model without in some essential way, pre-programing the outcome (for example, in the way you set agent agendas and allow agents to form new rules).

What variables would be manipulated in the modeling space? What is to be discovered beyond "agents programmed to be self-interested act in their own best interest"? I'm also not sure what this has to do with agents that "actively obfuscate the participatory nature of the democratic decision." So... maybe I'm completely off base. Can you give a concrete example?

Eric

On Sun, May 8, 2011 06:56 AM, Mohammed El-Beltagy <mohammed@...> wrote:

Eric,

Thats an interesting way of looking at it. As complex game of information hiding.

I was thinking along the line of of having a schema for rule creation. The schema here is like a constitution, and players can generate new rules based on that schema to promote their self interest. For rules to become "laws" they have to be the choice on the majority (or subject to some other social choice mechanism), this system allows for group formation and coalition building to get the new rules passed into laws. The interesting bit is how the drive for self interest amongst some of those groups and their coalitions can give rise to rules renders the original schema and/or the social choice mechanism ineffective. By "ineffective", I mean that they yield results and behavior that run counter to the purpose for which they were  originally designed.

What do you think?

Cheers,

Mohammed

On Sun, May 8, 2011 at 2:44 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES <[hidden email]> wrote:

I can't see that this posted, sorry if it is a duplicate --------

Mohammed,
Being totally unqualified to help you with this problem... it seems interesting to me because most models I know of this sort (social systems models) are about information acquisition and deployment. That is, the modeled critters try to find out stuff, and then they do actions dependent upon what they find. If we are modeling active obfuscation, then we would be doing the opposite - we would be modeling an information-hiding game. Of course, there is lots of game theory work on information hiding in two critter encounters (I'm thinking evolutionary-game-theory-looking-at-deception). I haven't seen anything, though, looking at distributed information hiding.

The idea that you could create a system full of autonomous agents in which information ends up hidden, but no particular individuals have done the hiding, is kind of cool. Seems like the type of thing encryption guys could get into (or already are into, or have already moved past).

Eric

On Fri, May 6, 2011 10:05 PM, Mohammed El-Beltagy <[hidden email]> wrote:

I have a question I would like to pose to the group in that regard:

Can we model/simulate how in a democracy that is inherently open (as

stated in the constitution: for the people, by the people etc..) there

emerges "decision masking structures" emerge that actively obfuscate

the participatory nature of the democratic decision making for their

ends?
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Eric Charles

Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601

Vladimyr Burachynsky

Re: Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)

In reply to this post by Hussein Abbass

Hussein And Eric

You definitely have more than a few salient points.

My difficulty is with the programming. Typically when I have such a nasty problem I break it down into simple steps, test them each and combine them before trying anything as complex as modelling the corruption of Democracy.

I propose a stupid agent and hope if many of them interact they will produce something we recognize.

WE seem to think Emotion is too complex but , perhaps there is another angle. I have thought that the mind itself is some form of unruly collective. So each agent is a single emotion and we try and force them to cohabit the same skull. Seems to suggest that thinking is a form of emotional suppression rather than an actual outcome. Perhaps this why it has been so difficult to describe.

In a sense the agent becomes a superagent of simple one purpose agents. Each perhaps has a hand hovering over the Kill Switch threatening the others into submission. ( That seems to clear up why externally humans threaten each other so often since it is perhaps fundamental to our own internal dialogues)

I myself have met a number of Prof. Clever simulacrum. The fact that he is universal is in itself instructive. The most shocking realization I have had is that regardless of the differences in Political theory Prof. Clever`s seem to propagate without hindrance. I had a mother that operated much like Prof. Clever but by the age of 7 or 8 I found ways to let Prof.Clever strangle herself on his own rules. So Prof. Clever is not actually intelligent but only cunning.

If you test a Prof.Clever too hard they always resort to threat ,intimidation and force. So they are themselves unaware of how to conduct the strategy with efficiency.

I agree that you have points but we are yet relatively unsophisticated in cobbling anything of merit together. Perhaps others have a model of a simple situation which could test the agents and then allow us to move toward a mob.

My preference is the Sinking Ship or the Free Influenza vaccine line ups. I leave corruption to the next level of programming. Unless you have hidden cards to play sooner

If we took a half dozen agents and chained them together each with his own value system and agenda and there by treated them as one.

I still think Gullibility has an important role leading to easy corruption.

I can see some problems when leaders discover just how stupid mankind is with regard to democracy, Canada just had an uncontested federal election and I doubt everyone is happy.

Perhaps the Peloton might serve as a model.

If this is going to work I can imagine many sharp rebukes.

Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD

[hidden email]

120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd.

Winnipeg,Manitoba, R2J3R2

Canada

(204) 2548321 Land

(204) 8016064 Cell

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Hussein Abbass
Sent: May-08-11 8:36 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)

Before I propose a model, let me share my feeling of the whole exercise.

The harder question for me is, how can we undo it if it is engineered as above?

Another hard question is how can we get the social network to recognize obfuscation in the previous setup? If they can’t recognise it, they can’t do anything about it!

Finally, notice what I defined above as obfuscation and framed it as a bad thing is indeed a form of democracy!!!!!!!!!!

Cheers

Hussein

Eric and Mohammed,

I don’t think anyone can be Off base at this point in sketching out a scenario. But you might be trying to tackle Goliath in the first round!

Firstly I assume human beings are not very bright, They seem to use extremely simple rules of self satisfaction, though the emotions might be more complicated.

It is not widely accepted but dogs can figure things out as quickly as humans on occasion and there is no wearisome Narrative.

It is an old joke , but the more people in the room the dumber it gets.

Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD

[hidden email]

120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd.

Winnipeg,Manitoba, R2J3R2

Canada

(204) 2548321 Land

(204) 8016064 Cell

Eric,

Thats an interesting way of looking at it. As complex game of information hiding.

What do you think?

Cheers,

Mohammed

On Sun, May 8, 2011 at 2:44 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES <[hidden email]> wrote:

I can't see that this posted, sorry if it is a duplicate --------

I have a question I would like to pose to the group in that regard:

Can we model/simulate how in a democracy that is inherently open (as

stated in the constitution: for the people, by the people etc..) there

emerges "decision masking  structures" emerge that actively obfuscate

the participatory nature of the democratic decision making for their

ends?

glen ep ropella

Re: Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)

In reply to this post by Hussein Abbass

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As with any M&S project, one must start with the use cases. If you
don't start with your use cases, then you'll end up wandering around,
mixing things up and forgetting what you're doing. As they say "if you
don't know where you're going, you'll never get there."

Hussein's "story" implies a use case, except it's got too many
mechanistic details. You want the use case to be phenomenal, not
mechanistic. So, the second (implied) story works better: "How can we
undo it?" What would you _do_ with this model? Can you perform any
experiments ("in vitro" upon a room full of participants - or "in vivo"
on an actual government) against which to validate? If so, what would
those experiments look like and what data would they generate?

Those are the questions you have to ask first, before you get all
mechanical on each other. ;-) Worst case, if you don't ask these
questions _first_, you'll inscribe your conclusions into the model.
You'll create a model that's nothing more than a justificationist
tautology. You'll probably _still_ commit inscription error even if you
do start with the use cases, depending on the complicatedness of the
experiments or type of validation; but your inscription be easier to
spot and correct as you go along.

Hussein Abbass wrote circa 11-05-08 06:36 PM:

> Let me put this in a simple story. Prof. Clever is the dean of
> Faculty of Idiots. Prof Clever would like to be a dictator in a
> democratic society. He appoints 3 other Professors to form a strategy
> committee. He believes in separating strategy from execution, thanks
> to all the wonderful literature in management on that topic. Prof.
> Clever cancelled most Faculty public meetings and created many
> committees. These committees seek people opinion to have a truly
> democratic environment. He told the people we are a civilized
> society. We should not confront each other in public. Issues can be
> solved smoothly in a better environment and within a small group.
> Public meetings are now to simply give presentations that no
> controversial issue is discussed; their information content is 0 to
> anyone attending them. But they demonstrate democracy and support the
> members of the Faculty of Idiotsâ€™ right for dissemination of
> information. Prof. Clever promotes good values. Important values that
> Prof. Clever is promoting are trust and confidentiality. In meetings,
> people need to trust each other to facilitate exchange of
> information. But this requires confidentiality; otherwise problems
> will emerge. Obviously, meetings are called by management, members of
> the meetings are engineered by management, the whole social network
> is well-engineered such that different type of information do not get
> crossed from one sub-graph to another. The faculty of Idiots is the
> happiest faculty on earth. No public confrontation means no fights, a
> well-engineered civilized society. Small group meetings are dominated
> with Prof. Clever or simply take place to tick a box in a report.
> There is only one person in the Faculty of Idiots who knows
> everything, Prof. Clever. No one else knows more than anyone else to
> the extent that everyone simply knows nothing. But everyone is happy,
> everyone feels important because he/she is trusted and everyone feels
> they are well-informed of the task they are performing! Prof. Clever
> eliminated competition, no leader can emerge in this social system
> that he does not approve. Prof. Clever is the nice guy that everyone
> loves and respect. He listens, he is socially friendly, and after all
> is indeed Clever!
>
> [...]
>
> The harder question for me is, how can we undo it if it is engineered
> as above?

- --
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com

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Siddharth-3

Re: Terrorosity and it's Fruits

In reply to this post by Vladimyr Burachynsky

epilogue :
http://www.guernicamag.com/blog/2652/noam_chomsky_my_reaction_to_os/

(- no fake quotes here!)

On Sat, May 7, 2011 at 8:30 AM, Vladimyr Burachynsky <[hidden email]> wrote:

I urge the angry to ask why. Too often storming away from a table is exactly why we never break ground.

As to the topic of Complexity , this is one component you never inquired of, Why do sensible people become IDIOTS. How does society create idiots out of men?

That was my reason to join long ago. The fact that IDIOTS are convinced that they are correct Fascinates me.
How can any of us trust the words coming out of our mouths, if we were to discover we have been blindly lead by a Narrative into a cul de sac of Idiocy.

The story of binLaden was writen long ago Tolstoy. The short story, Hadji Murat, describes much of the same atmosphere.

The killing was easy , the understanding is difficult.

It takes no great skill to kill, any brute can do it, it is a much greater challenge to keep something alive.

How do we model stupifaction of real people?

Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD

[hidden email]

120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd.
Winnipeg,Manitoba, R2J3R2

Canada
(204) 2548321 Land
(204) 8016064 Cell

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Douglas Roberts
Sent: May-06-11 7:37 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Terrorosity and it's Fruits

Salaam Mohammed,

Speaking as an American, I'm afraid that I can assert with a fair degree of accuracy that percentage-wise, very few Americans are aware of the historical/current events vis-a-vis US interactions with mid-eastern political entities that you so accurately denote below. For reasons that I fail to comprehend, we have truly become a nation of idiots. Nearly as discouraging, if I may suggest, is the clear emergence of multiple nations of Islamic idiots which seem to comprise the majority of mid eastern countries these days. Perhaps the real issue here is that we are a planet of idiots.

Several evolutions later the answer to all of this become apparent, I'm sure, if biological life is still possible on this planet then.

Best,

--Doug
On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 5:33 PM, Mohammed El-Beltagy <[hidden email]> wrote:

Thanks Steve and Peggy, you give me more praise than I deserve.

I naturally see terrorism as abhorrent and I regret that Russel read
my few lines as an attempt to be an apologists for those who attack
the US and Israel. I am against any form of violence being exercised
against any human being, and that also happens to includes
Palestinians, Iraqis, and Afghans.

I just wonder how many Americans aware of the following:
1. The US supported and trained Bin Laden and a host of other groups
with unsavory ideologies during the cold war.
2. The US supported and continues to support dictators in the middle
east. They have been propping up Mubark for 30 years.
3. Official civilian deaths in Iraq are now in excess of 100K. Many
Iraqi refuges in Cairo tell me that life was MUCH better under
Saddam!!!
4. The US actively supports Saudi Arabia and does not seem to mind
their proselytizing Wahhabism in the middle east and South East Asia.
That ideology justifies and absolute rule of the Saudi Royal
family.... hence cheep oil.. but also the side effect of terrorism.

I agree with Peggy that it would be wrong to lay the blame fully on
any one country (I would also add religion,and race). But, to say that
it is down to some group of human beings who are simply evil and
hateful is equally mindless. They US played a significant part in this
monster creation. To my mind, the processes of monster creation is
still active. That worries me. That must stop.

Cheers,

Mohammed

On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 10:28 PM, Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Mohammed -
>
> I want to second Peggy's thanks for your thoughts and would like to add the
> following to hers:
>
> I agree with Peggy on most points. Terrorism is always horrific (it is
> designed to be so) and we should seek to avoid provoking it and prevent it's
> occurrence and mitigate it's effects as best we can.   The apprehension (by
> death) of Osama bin Laden was perhaps a neccesary act but as your poem (and
> Peggy's response) suggests, we should use this moment to reflect on our own
> part in having created the monster we finally destroyed, and in how we are
> surely continuing to create the conditions that lead to all this in the
> first place.
>
> Where I might diverge from Peggy's description is in the implication that we
> are "becoming" more predatory. I do believe that in our greed and fear we
> continue to develop more *leverage* for ourselves, economic, military, even
> popular culture.   And thereby we become more *capable predators* than
> ever. But I think the fundamental problem is that we have always been
> predatory...
>
> By *we*, I am not sure if I mean "the United States of America", "the West",
> "Industrialized Nations", "All Nations", "all of Humanity" even "Primates"
> or "Sentient Creatures" or what...   certainly the last US administration
> was more hawkish and empire driven than we have seen in a while and arguably
> it was in anticipation and in reaction to that more predatory posture that
> the 9/11 attacks happened, but Bush and Co. were standing on the shoulders
> of giants. They did not invent predation, they merely amped it up, cashed
> in on it. As sick as it sounds, they may have done us a favor by exposing
> our own nature to us in such a blunt manner.
>
> The US is a product of the Imperial Powers in Europe during the age of
> discovery, colonization and empire.   With the whole north American
> continent (and it's indigenous peoples) to conquer, and several european
> powers (Britain, Spain, France) to try to expel, we did not focus on the
> rest of the world so much until the 20th century, with WWI and WWII giving
> us the excuse or the reason to establish a global military and industrial
> presence. The cold war was either a continuation or a result of that.
>
> The industrialized world's thirst for petroleum caused us to meddle a great
> deal in the middle east and north Africa...   and we, who became the
> mightiest economic and military power amongst the industrialized world,
> became dominant players in that meddling.   Our predatory behaviour in this
> regard is more like that of the Hudson Bay Company or the East India Company
> than the conquistadors of Spain in the new world gathering gold and souls or
> the European Crusaders retaking their "holy lands".   But it is predatory
> nonetheless, and every one of us depends on that predation for our high
> standard of living.
>
> We have allowed, no encouraged, and I fear even supported overtly and
> covertly via our intelligence and military resources, the expansion of a
> global network of industries and businesses as their own empire.   Petroleum
> is the obvious commodity, but we have done the same with other natural
> resources (minerals, precious metals and gems, timber, even agriculture and
> human labor).
>
> What can we do? Can the Lion lay down with the Lamb? Is there in fact a
> Lamb, or just Cats of many sizes and stripe? My world is split into two
> very distinct camps: 1) Those who believe it is our right, our destiny, a
> necessity to be not just predators, but at the pinnacle of the predatory
> chain; and 2) those who have no overt wish to be a predator nor to suffer
> predation in their name but seem unaware of their place, their role in the
> chain.
>
> What I don't see enough of is the latter group understanding that they (WE)
> directly benefit (and suffer) from that predation and it is incumbent on us
> to find better ways of living in this world.   I was a vegetarian for 17
> years roughly because I did not wish to be part of the system of animal
> cruelty and abuse that our meat industry had become (was by it's very
> nature?). I was raised among simple people who mostly ate meat from animals
> that they hunted or raised and slaughtered themselves.   Those cruel
> realities were something I accepted but never became numb to, which made the
> awareness of the meat industry that much more poignant. If killing,
> gutting, dismembering and then eating an animal seems cruel, then doesn't
> hiring that out to people who have become so numbed to the process (or were
> self-selected for that numbness or even morbid fascination) that they don't
> notice nor care about the suffering, compound the cruelty?   I found few
> amongst my vegetarian and non-vegetarian friends who understood my stance.
> To most of the former, any killing of an animal was unthinkable (though cute
> ones even moreso than the ugly), and to most of the latter, it was a simple
> matter of "don't-ask, don't tell"... with only a few seeming to revel in the
> predation directly and virtually none looking at the situation as a
> "system".
>
> And I find our global situation today to be quite similar... those who revel
> in predation in the world, and those who prefer to hire it out and whine
> when they accidentally notice what they've hired out. When we go all "shock
> and awe" on a relatively innocent population or we destroy whole ecosystems
> with a "minor" error in judgement or execution of our petroleum extraction
> and transport. We know who to hate when they get caught red handed, but
> meanwhile we buy their products, we take profits from investing in their
> "corporations" or "commodities", and we enjoy the fruits of their predation
> but don't think much past that, or know what else to do.
>
> Me too. Sadly, me too.   I have my "tricks for reducing my carbon
> footprint", of "organic, macrobiotic consumption", etc. and I try to speak
> out against the most egregious acts of my leaders and the
> military-industrial complex which I support through my taxes and my
> consumerism... but I don't really do much to change the fundamental
> problems. I may worry and I may posture but mostly I just continue to help
> feed the dysfunctional feedback loop.
>
> I know this may sound like self-flagellation and perhaps it is, but it is
> these pivotal moments of reflection (9/12/2001 or this week for example) are
> the times when we have a chance to look a little deeper into the mirrors
> held up by such events.
>
> I also have hope that more and more awareness is rising amongst us,
> including those who might be in a position to make important changes and
> that the rest of us are ready to follow or to pitch in as needed if a better
> way is found/discovered/recognized/created, if another basin of attraction
> can be tumbled into. Is there a kinder, gentler basin or attraction to
> wander in than the predatory one we inhabit now? The middle east seems to
> be in just such a bifurcation moment where many are finally able to pitch in
> or at least cooperate with the changes and maybe find new stable,
> life-affirming orbits. They had to be ready for it for it to happen and to
> play along.   Are we?
>
>
> Thanks again to Mohammed for his poem and Peggy's response and to all the
> rest here who are using this moment to reflect rather than react, and maybe
> to look for hopeful alternatives to our clearly hopeless chasing of our own
> tails in the exploitative, consumerist cycles we are in.
>
> - Steve
>
> In response to Mohammed Beltagy's few lines of poetry related to Osama Bin
> Laden's death:
> Thank you for submitting those.
>
> Though this situation is/was one fraught with fear, anger, retaliation, and,
> as you mention, hatred, we as a country responded in such a way that had me
> choking a bit on the size of the response and lack of control of the
> response, and also our unwillingness, our continued unwillingness to face
> some of the responsibility for the anger and hatred that engendered the
> original 9/11 attack. And though I do not believe that terrorist attacks of
> that nature are necessarily the result of any nation's specific actions --
> and are more often an irrational result of an acumulation of anger, hatred
> for a sumtotal of causes and events over a long history, still, it is always
> wise to take a look at one's own actions to see how they might have elicited
> any tiny part of an action. We have become a country that seems to use war,
> rather than alternative actions, as a way to convince ourselves we are
> addressing our problems. I find our own international actions have become
> extremely warlike and predatorial in nature, rather than thoughtful,
> scientific responses to overwhelming environmental and resource problems.
> And though I do not condone or support in any way a terrorist action, I
> think we need to face that we too are looked on, often, as predatorial,
> warring peoples by some other countries, and this does not help our
> international presence, or our own national pocketbooks/budget, or even help
> us move toward good answers to international problems.
>
> so thanks.
> Peggy Miller
>
>
>
> --
> Peggy Miller, owner/OEO
> Highland Winds
> wix.com/peggymiller/highlandwinds
> Shop is at 1520 S. 7th St. W. (Just west of Russell)
> Art, Photography, Herbs and Writings
> <a href="tel:406-541-7577" target="_blank">406-541-7577 (home/office/shop)
> Shop Hours: Wed-Thurs 3-7 pm
>                    Fri-Sat: 8:30-12:30 am
>
>
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>
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>

--
http://perfectionatic.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/#!/perfectionatic

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Steve Smith

Chomsky was: Terrorosity and it's Fruits

Siddarth -

http://www.guernicamag.com/blog/2652/noam_chomsky_my_reaction_to_os/

Noam Chomsky... I love that man's clarity and directness. I can only imagine the conversations in the White House whenever he speaks up...

Bush/Cheney: "Can't we just disappear him? I *am* the decider, and that is what I decide!"
Obama: "Shit, he's right... shit... did he really have to say that? shit."
Clinton/Clinton/Gore: "He's a really bright man, I wish he would just come over to our side!"

I've wondered for decades if a man like Chomsky could ever have a role in a US administration (aside from the inconvenient academic gadfly I presume most administrations dismiss him as).

Imagine what the US's posture in the world might look like if the sitting president always had someone as clear and direct as Noam Chomsky sitting next to her.   Imagine if every evening they sat down to review the day's events and Noam did that quiet, level, clear, (almost?) non-blaming analysis of the (clearly intentional?) fuckups going on in our government *every day*!

I hope that after Obama is out of office that his memoirs will include what he was thinking every time Chomsky quietly pointed out his (and other's) glaring errors in action.

In reviewing his Wikipedia entry, I found reference to him being the 8th most cited author of all time and *most* cited living author.   It does not bear directly onto the "Mapping Scientific Output" symposium tomorrow at the Hilton but onto a much larger domain of "Mapping the Contemporary Evolution of Human Knowledge" perhaps.

- Steve

PS. I'm sure there are those here who do not hold Chomsky in as high of esteem as I do (it started when I first studied his work in Linguistics), and while I'm not interested in the (usually right-wing?) ad hominem attacks I'm already too familiar with, I *would* appreciate any useful criticism of the man and his political opinions.   He is one purveyor of "inconvenient truths" to a great many people.

epilogue :
http://www.guernicamag.com/blog/2652/noam_chomsky_my_reaction_to_os/

(- no fake quotes here!)

...

The killing was easy , the understanding is difficult.

It takes no great skill to kill, any brute can do it, it is a much greater challenge to keep something alive.

How do we model stupifaction of real people?

Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD

Steve Smith

Re: Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)

In reply to this post by glen ep ropella

Looking all the way back to Mohammed's original question which was nicely concise:

Can we model/simulate how in a democracy that is inherently open (as

stated in the constitution: for the people, by the people etc..) there

emerges "decision masking  structures" emerge that actively obfuscate

the participatory nature of the democratic decision making for their

ends?

I challenge us (at Glen's urging) to come up with Use Case Scenarios that would help move us toward even the simplest of toy models. So far, our brainstorming has yield some very interesting ideas/observations:

We've already begun discussing possible parts of a model:

1) Hussein has proposed at least part of a model, which I believe is an attempt to model specific agents who are actively seeking to cause Isolation and Localization for their own purposes.

2) Ivan has proposed ( I think?) that we consider modeling simple motivations (emotions) of (at least) two classes of Agents (Prof. Clevers and Gullibles)? He also has proposed (I think?) building on top of models of unconscious narration generation and fitting (like overfitting a model to data?).

3) Eric has outlined an intuitive set of features for an Agent Model:

You need 1) agents with different agendas, 2) the ability to assess and usurp rules created by other agents, 3) the ability to force other agents to adopt your rules. Note, also, that in this particular case, the corruption is accomplished by stacking contradictory rules on top of each other. Thus you need 4) an ability to implement contradictory rules, or at least choose between so-called rules.

4) Mohammed contributed (along with the original question) the idea that an intermediate mechanism of "Information Hiding" might be at play.

5) Jan Hauser (lost to the list but included in one of my missives) contributed the possibility that Ken Arrow's Impossibility Theorem may have a play here. From Wikipedia:

In social choice theory, Arrow’s impossibility theorem, the General Possibility Theorem, or Arrow’s paradox, states that, when voters have three or more distinct alternatives (options), no voting system can convert the ranked preferences of individuals into a community-wide (complete and transitive) ranking while also meeting a certain set of criteria. These criteria are called unrestricted domain, non-dictatorship, Pareto efficiency, and independence of irrelevant alternatives.

I'm not sure it is responsive to Mohammed's original question as stated, but may be very important in a more general question implied.

I may have missed some other contributions in this discussion so far, but I hope this summary helps if some of us are interested in actually pulling a simple model or partial answer together.

I'm all for idle speculation, I spend most of my waking hours (and some of my sleeping ones) in that state, but I heard here what felt like some momentum.

Glen seems the most formal of us in his approach to model building, perhaps he can continue to lead us out of the morass we often find ourselves in (I can only think of the mythical character of Sambo (apologies for the use of a possibly inappropriate racial slur from the late 19th century) arranging for Tigers chasing eachother around a tree until they turn to butter).

Carry on!
- Steve

Glen -

I think your point is well articulated. And I think if we are trying to build (or even discover) such a model, your arguments for starting with use cases are valid.

But I think Hussein's "Story" contains his belief about the mechanisms of how a particular institutional dynamic works. I believe Hussein already *has* a model of this phenomenon and he just (tried to?) explain it to us through the basic requirements: (Isolation and Localization) and an anecdotal explanation of mechanisms that could give rise to them.

Unfortunately, I don't hear us proposing to build a model we can use (much less verify) and therefore I don't see us building use cases anytime soon. Who would use this model?

I suggest (without negative judgment) that this is why a lot of our (FRIAM) discussions fit this description to a tee:
then you'll end up wandering around,
mixing things up and forgetting what you're doing.  As they say "if you
don't know where you're going, you'll never get there."
Among those of us who have been roughly discussing this, I'd like to raise your challenge and ask the question... what do we want to do with such a model if we can build it (or discover it)?

Provide it to powerful decision makers so they can make better decisions (or make decisions that support their power positions)?

Provide it to working bureaucrats in the system so that they can better understand the systems they are charged with tending to and perhaps improve the workings of the systems (or to better protect their positions within the systems)?

Provide it to Journalists so that they can more effectively penetrate the information hiding (or what nefarious purpose might *they* use this for)?

Provide it to the unwashed masses (people like ourselves included) so that we can understand their plight in the context of the system(s) that are doing this to/with/on them?

Use it ourselves to inform and fuel our (often idle?) speculations?

My list is pretty "from the hip" but is roughly intended to be the precursor question to building the use case scenarios that Glen is reminding us that we need to focus and avoid common pitfalls.

I guess I would propose we at least consider an escalation or elaborating model building exercise, meeting the presumed needs of the above in reverse order. What do *we* want to understand and exercise with this model? What would the average (well informed, educated?) citizen of the world want/need? How would it work for a motivated Journalists? Bureaucrats? Policy Makers?

Now it is starting to sound overwhelming. Let's go back to idle speculation <grin>.

- Steve
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Hash: SHA1


As with any M&S project, one must start with the use cases.  If you
don't start with your use cases, then you'll end up wandering around,
mixing things up and forgetting what you're doing.  As they say "if you
don't know where you're going, you'll never get there."

Hussein's "story" implies a use case, except it's got too many
mechanistic details.  You want the use case to be phenomenal, not
mechanistic.  So, the second (implied) story works better: "How can we
undo it?"  What would you _do_ with this model?  Can you perform any
experiments ("in vitro" upon a room full of participants - or "in vivo"
on an actual government) against which to validate?  If so, what would
those experiments look like and what data would they generate?

Those are the questions you have to ask first, before you get all
mechanical on each other. ;-)  Worst case, if you don't ask these
questions _first_, you'll inscribe your conclusions into the model.
You'll create a model that's nothing more than a justificationist
tautology.  You'll probably _still_ commit inscription error even if you
do start with the use cases, depending on the complicatedness of the
experiments or type of validation; but your inscription be easier to
spot and correct as you go along.


Hussein Abbass wrote circa 11-05-08 06:36 PM:
Let me put this in a simple story. Prof. Clever is the dean of
Faculty of Idiots. Prof Clever would like to be a dictator in a
democratic society. He appoints 3 other Professors to form a strategy
committee. He believes in separating strategy from execution, thanks
to all the wonderful literature in management on that topic. Prof.
Clever cancelled most Faculty public meetings and created many
committees. These committees seek people opinion to have a truly
democratic environment. He told the people we are a civilized
society. We should not confront each other in public. Issues can be
solved smoothly in a better environment and within a small group.
Public meetings are now to simply give presentations that no
controversial issue is discussed; their information content is 0 to
anyone attending them. But they demonstrate democracy and support the
members of the Faculty of Idiotsâ€™ right for dissemination of
information. Prof. Clever promotes good values. Important values that
Prof. Clever is promoting are trust and confidentiality. In meetings,
people need to trust each other to facilitate exchange of
information. But this requires confidentiality; otherwise problems
will emerge. Obviously, meetings are called by management, members of
the meetings are engineered by management, the whole social network
is well-engineered such that different type of information do not get
crossed from one sub-graph to another. The faculty of Idiots is the
happiest faculty on earth. No public confrontation means no fights, a
well-engineered civilized society. Small group meetings are dominated
with Prof. Clever or simply take place to tick a box in a report.
There is only one person in the Faculty of Idiots who knows
everything, Prof. Clever. No one else knows more than anyone else to
the extent that everyone simply knows nothing. But everyone is happy,
everyone feels important because he/she is trusted and everyone feels
they are well-informed of the task they are performing! Prof. Clever
eliminated competition, no leader can emerge in this social system
that he does not approve. Prof. Clever is the nice guy that everyone
loves and respect. He listens, he is socially friendly, and after all
is indeed Clever!

[...]

The harder question for me is, how can we undo it if it is engineered
as above?
- -- 
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com

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============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Pamela McCorduck

Re: Chomsky was: Terrorosity and it's Fruits

In reply to this post by Steve Smith

Steve, to reply to your question about Chomsky. In 1970, I went to a meeting of the AAAS where Chomsky spoke. I was very eager to hear him, because, as you might remember, he was one of the leading, if not loudest, critics of the Vietnam War, and I agreed with that criticism.

After he'd spoken, somebody from the audience asked: But Professor Chomsky--don't you take money from the Defense Department in the form of contracts or grants? Isn't that somewhat hypocritical?

Professor Chomsky squirmed only a little, and then dismissed his questioner with a what-do-I-care? answer. I was much younger then, and hadn't often run into that kind of cynicism. Sad to say, I have since. He may have been right with everything else he ever said or did (though I don't think so) but that raised my skepticism about the man to the utmost, and I've never got over it.

On May 9, 2011, at 2:43 PM, Steve Smith wrote:

Siddarth -

http://www.guernicamag.com/blog/2652/noam_chomsky_my_reaction_to_os/

Noam Chomsky... I love that man's clarity and directness.   I can only imagine the conversations in the White House whenever he speaks up...

Bush/Cheney: "Can't we just disappear him? I *am* the decider, and that is what I decide!"
Obama: "Shit, he's right... shit...   did he really have to say that? shit."
Clinton/Clinton/Gore: "He's a really bright man, I wish he would just come over to our side!"

I've wondered for decades if a man like Chomsky could ever have a role in a US administration (aside from the inconvenient academic gadfly I presume most administrations dismiss him as).

Imagine what the US's posture in the world might look like if the sitting president always had someone as clear and direct as Noam Chomsky sitting next to her.   Imagine if every evening they sat down to review the day's events and Noam did that quiet, level, clear, (almost?) non-blaming analysis of the (clearly intentional?) fuckups going on in our government *every day*!

I hope that after Obama is out of office that his memoirs will include what he was thinking every time Chomsky quietly pointed out his (and other's) glaring errors in action.

In reviewing his Wikipedia entry, I found reference to him being the 8th most cited author of all time and *most* cited living author.   It does not bear directly onto the "Mapping Scientific Output" symposium tomorrow at the Hilton but onto a much larger domain of "Mapping the Contemporary Evolution of Human Knowledge" perhaps.

- Steve

PS. I'm sure there are those here who do not hold Chomsky in as high of esteem as I do (it started when I first studied his work in Linguistics), and while I'm not interested in the (usually right-wing?) ad hominem attacks I'm already too familiar with, I *would* appreciate any useful criticism of the man and his political opinions.   He is one purveyor of "inconvenient truths" to a great many people.

epilogue :
http://www.guernicamag.com/blog/2652/noam_chomsky_my_reaction_to_os/

(- no fake quotes here!)

...

The killing was easy , the understanding is difficult.

It takes no great skill to kill, any brute can do it, it is a much greater challenge to keep something alive.

How do we model stupifaction of real people?

Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

"Her passage through her early years was a negotiation between her unruliness and society's tamings."

			Molly Peacock

Vladimyr Burachynsky

Re: Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)

In reply to this post by Steve Smith

The outline Steve has provided is very helpful. Much of Eric’s ideas governing a group of agents is what I imagine happens within a single agent. The Narrative then is constructed to eliminate the memory of discord. The winning subagent ( perhaps Hussein’s Dr.Clever) rewrites the experience to mollify other internals (maintaining his rank). I think this can be extended to explain Mohammed’s view of obfuscation.

If my view is correct what we see as atrocious behaviour between people seems also to occur within individuals. These crimes are simply exported to the real world. Threat and fear seem important for internal decisions and so it is natural to assume they would continue to be employed externally.

Gullibility is like an open window letting in Narratives that can distort all the internal workings of the individual. So intelligent individuals always need to be unguard against gullibility.

Which seems always to appeal to particular emotions.

Pamela’s dismay with Chomsky suggests, that she assumes that his criticism of US policy should be reflected by a particular world view. I think Chomsky may be an honest observer but in his dispassionate honesty he is less than a good drinking partner. Honesty and collegiality are not necessarily linked.

Vlad,

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: May-09-11 2:17 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)

Looking all the way back to Mohammed's original question which was nicely concise:

Can we model/simulate how in a democracy that is inherently open (as

stated in the constitution: for the people, by the people etc..) there

emerges "decision masking  structures" emerge that actively obfuscate

the participatory nature of the democratic decision making for their

ends?

You need 1) agents with different agendas, 2) the ability to assess and usurp rules created by other agents, 3) the ability to force other agents to adopt your rules. Note, also, that in this particular case, the corruption is accomplished by stacking contradictory rules on top of each other. Thus you need 4) an ability to implement contradictory rules, or at least choose between so-called rules.

In social choice theory, Arrow’s impossibility theorem, the General Possibility Theorem, or Arrow’s paradox, states that, when voters have three or more distinct alternatives (options), no voting system can convert the ranked preferences of individuals into a community-wide (complete and transitive) ranking while also meeting a certain set of criteria. These criteria are called unrestricted domain, non-dictatorship, Pareto efficiency, and independence of irrelevant alternatives.

Glen -

I think your point is well articulated. And I think if we are trying to build (or even discover) such a model, your arguments for starting with use cases are valid.

But I think Hussein's "Story" contains his belief about the mechanisms of how a particular institutional dynamic works. I believe Hussein already *has* a model of this phenomenon and he just (tried to?) explain it to us through the basic requirements: (Isolation and Localization) and an anecdotal explanation of mechanisms that could give rise to them.

Unfortunately, I don't hear us proposing to build a model we can use (much less verify) and therefore I don't see us building use cases anytime soon. Who would use this model?

I suggest (without negative judgment) that this is why a lot of our (FRIAM) discussions fit this description to a tee:

then you'll end up wandering around,

mixing things up and forgetting what you're doing.  As they say "if you

don't know where you're going, you'll never get there."

Among those of us who have been roughly discussing this, I'd like to raise your challenge and ask the question... what do we want to do with such a model if we can build it (or discover it)?

Provide it to powerful decision makers so they can make better decisions (or make decisions that support their power positions)?
Provide it to working bureaucrats in the system so that they can better understand the systems they are charged with tending to and perhaps improve the workings of the systems (or to better protect their positions within the systems)?
Provide it to Journalists so that they can more effectively penetrate the information hiding (or what nefarious purpose might *they* use this for)?
Provide it to the unwashed masses (people like ourselves included) so that we can understand their plight in the context of the system(s) that are doing this to/with/on them?
Use it ourselves to inform and fuel our (often idle?) speculations?

My list is pretty "from the hip" but is roughly intended to be the precursor question to building the use case scenarios that Glen is reminding us that we need to focus and avoid common pitfalls.

I guess I would propose we at least consider an escalation or elaborating model building exercise, meeting the presumed needs of the above in reverse order. What do *we* want to understand and exercise with this model? What would the average (well informed, educated?) citizen of the world want/need? How would it work for a motivated Journalists? Bureaucrats? Policy Makers?

Now it is starting to sound overwhelming. Let's go back to idle speculation <grin>.

- Steve

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

Hash: SHA1

As with any M&S project, one must start with the use cases.  If you

don't start with your use cases, then you'll end up wandering around,

mixing things up and forgetting what you're doing.  As they say "if you

don't know where you're going, you'll never get there."

Hussein's "story" implies a use case, except it's got too many

mechanistic details.  You want the use case to be phenomenal, not

mechanistic.  So, the second (implied) story works better: "How can we

undo it?"  What would you _do_ with this model?  Can you perform any

experiments ("in vitro" upon a room full of participants - or "in vivo"

on an actual government) against which to validate?  If so, what would

those experiments look like and what data would they generate?

Those are the questions you have to ask first, before you get all

mechanical on each other. ;-)  Worst case, if you don't ask these

questions _first_, you'll inscribe your conclusions into the model.

You'll create a model that's nothing more than a justificationist

tautology.  You'll probably _still_ commit inscription error even if you

do start with the use cases, depending on the complicatedness of the

experiments or type of validation; but your inscription be easier to

spot and correct as you go along.

Hussein Abbass wrote circa 11-05-08 06:36 PM:

Let me put this in a simple story. Prof. Clever is the dean of

Faculty of Idiots. Prof Clever would like to be a dictator in a

democratic society. He appoints 3 other Professors to form a strategy

committee. He believes in separating strategy from execution, thanks

to all the wonderful literature in management on that topic. Prof.

Clever cancelled most Faculty public meetings and created many

committees. These committees seek people opinion to have a truly

democratic environment. He told the people we are a civilized

society. We should not confront each other in public. Issues can be

solved smoothly in a better environment and within a small group.

Public meetings are now to simply give presentations that no

controversial issue is discussed; their information content is 0 to

anyone attending them. But they demonstrate democracy and support the

members of the Faculty of Idiotsâ€™ right for dissemination of

information. Prof. Clever promotes good values. Important values that

Prof. Clever is promoting are trust and confidentiality. In meetings,

people need to trust each other to facilitate exchange of

information. But this requires confidentiality; otherwise problems

will emerge. Obviously, meetings are called by management, members of

the meetings are engineered by management, the whole social network

is well-engineered such that different type of information do not get

crossed from one sub-graph to another. The faculty of Idiots is the

happiest faculty on earth. No public confrontation means no fights, a

well-engineered civilized society. Small group meetings are dominated

with Prof. Clever or simply take place to tick a box in a report.

There is only one person in the Faculty of Idiots who knows

everything, Prof. Clever. No one else knows more than anyone else to

the extent that everyone simply knows nothing. But everyone is happy,

everyone feels important because he/she is trusted and everyone feels

they are well-informed of the task they are performing! Prof. Clever

eliminated competition, no leader can emerge in this social system

that he does not approve. Prof. Clever is the nice guy that everyone

loves and respect. He listens, he is socially friendly, and after all

is indeed Clever!

[...]

The harder question for me is, how can we undo it if it is engineered

as above?

- --

glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com

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=lr0D

-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

============================================================

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Steve Smith

Re: Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)

Vlad (what internal narrative of mine has me repeatedly saluting you as Ivan?) -

I understand your point about Narrative better now with this post.

As I understand your point, the obfuscation in a group is like the narrative in an individual. Some collective set of actions occurs over time which we may or may not have complete knowledge of but which are presumably in the interest of one or two general sets of goals (political agendas, war on terror, etc.) which are themselves characterized as narratives. These actions as observed (usually through reporting by others) taken as a whole yield some consonance and some dissonance. The narrative-keepers (political parties, etc.) then craft a new narrative which matches the impedance of those observables with their own preferred (evolving) narratives. This may include denying or treating as disinformation some of the observables (see Creationism v. Evolution).

Mohammed's original question assumes that "decision masking structures" emerge. I think (as I mentioned once before) that this modeling problem is a meta-modeling problem. We are, in fact, modeling how people model things intuitively and how those models play together in the context of a (more) formal model (system of rules or laws).

The rabbit hole gets deeper. Once again, I appeal to those with more formal theories of modeling to keep us from falling down it too fast.

- Steve

The outline Steve has provided is very helpful. Much of Eric’s ideas governing a group of agents is what I imagine happens within a single agent. The Narrative then is constructed to eliminate the memory of discord. The winning subagent ( perhaps Hussein’s Dr.Clever) rewrites the experience to mollify other internals (maintaining his rank). I think this can be extended to explain Mohammed’s view of obfuscation.

If my view is correct what we see as atrocious behaviour between people seems also to occur within individuals. These crimes are simply exported to the real world. Threat and fear seem important for internal decisions and so it is natural to assume they would continue to be employed externally.

Gullibility is like an open window letting in Narratives that can distort all the internal workings of the individual. So intelligent individuals always need to be unguard against gullibility.

Which seems always to appeal to particular emotions.

Pamela’s dismay with Chomsky suggests, that she assumes that his criticism of US policy should be reflected by a particular world view. I think Chomsky may be an honest observer but in his dispassionate honesty he is less than a good drinking partner. Honesty and collegiality are not necessarily linked.

Vlad,

From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: May-09-11 2:17 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)

Looking all the way back to Mohammed's original question which was nicely concise:
Can we model/simulate how in a democracy that is inherently open (as
stated in the constitution: for the people, by the people etc..) there
emerges "decision masking  structures" emerge that actively obfuscate
the participatory nature of the democratic decision making for their
ends?
I challenge us (at Glen's urging) to come up with Use Case Scenarios that would help move us toward even the simplest of toy models. So far, our brainstorming has yield some very interesting ideas/observations:

We've already begun discussing possible parts of a model:

1) Hussein has proposed at least part of a model, which I believe is an attempt to model specific agents who are actively seeking to cause Isolation and Localization for their own purposes.

2) Ivan has proposed ( I think?) that we consider modeling simple motivations (emotions) of (at least) two classes of Agents (Prof. Clevers and Gullibles)? He also has proposed (I think?) building on top of models of unconscious narration generation and fitting (like overfitting a model to data?).

3) Eric has outlined an intuitive set of features for an Agent Model:

You need 1) agents with different agendas, 2) the ability to assess and usurp rules created by other agents, 3) the ability to force other agents to adopt your rules. Note, also, that in this particular case, the corruption is accomplished by stacking contradictory rules on top of each other. Thus you need 4) an ability to implement contradictory rules, or at least choose between so-called rules.

4) Mohammed contributed (along with the original question) the idea that an intermediate mechanism of "Information Hiding" might be at play.

5) Jan Hauser (lost to the list but included in one of my missives) contributed the possibility that Ken Arrow's Impossibility Theorem may have a play here. From Wikipedia:

In social choice theory, Arrow’s impossibility theorem, the General Possibility Theorem, or Arrow’s paradox, states that, when voters have three or more distinct alternatives (options), no voting system can convert the ranked preferences of individuals into a community-wide (complete and transitive) ranking while also meeting a certain set of criteria. These criteria are called unrestricted domain, non-dictatorship, Pareto efficiency, and independence of irrelevant alternatives.

I'm not sure it is responsive to Mohammed's original question as stated, but may be very important in a more general question implied.

I may have missed some other contributions in this discussion so far, but I hope this summary helps if some of us are interested in actually pulling a simple model or partial answer together.

I'm all for idle speculation, I spend most of my waking hours (and some of my sleeping ones) in that state, but I heard here what felt like some momentum.

Glen seems the most formal of us in his approach to model building, perhaps he can continue to lead us out of the morass we often find ourselves in (I can only think of the mythical character of Sambo (apologies for the use of a possibly inappropriate racial slur from the late 19th century) arranging for Tigers chasing eachother around a tree until they turn to butter).

Carry on!
- Steve

Glen -

I think your point is well articulated. And I think if we are trying to build (or even discover) such a model, your arguments for starting with use cases are valid.

But I think Hussein's "Story" contains his belief about the mechanisms of how a particular institutional dynamic works. I believe Hussein already *has* a model of this phenomenon and he just (tried to?) explain it to us through the basic requirements: (Isolation and Localization) and an anecdotal explanation of mechanisms that could give rise to them.

Unfortunately, I don't hear us proposing to build a model we can use (much less verify) and therefore I don't see us building use cases anytime soon. Who would use this model?

I suggest (without negative judgment) that this is why a lot of our (FRIAM) discussions fit this description to a tee:
then you'll end up wandering around,
mixing things up and forgetting what you're doing.  As they say "if you
don't know where you're going, you'll never get there."
Among those of us who have been roughly discussing this, I'd like to raise your challenge and ask the question... what do we want to do with such a model if we can build it (or discover it)?

Provide it to powerful decision makers so they can make better decisions (or make decisions that support their power positions)?

Provide it to working bureaucrats in the system so that they can better understand the systems they are charged with tending to and perhaps improve the workings of the systems (or to better protect their positions within the systems)?

Provide it to Journalists so that they can more effectively penetrate the information hiding (or what nefarious purpose might *they* use this for)?

Provide it to the unwashed masses (people like ourselves included) so that we can understand their plight in the context of the system(s) that are doing this to/with/on them?

Use it ourselves to inform and fuel our (often idle?) speculations?

My list is pretty "from the hip" but is roughly intended to be the precursor question to building the use case scenarios that Glen is reminding us that we need to focus and avoid common pitfalls.

I guess I would propose we at least consider an escalation or elaborating model building exercise, meeting the presumed needs of the above in reverse order. What do *we* want to understand and exercise with this model? What would the average (well informed, educated?) citizen of the world want/need? How would it work for a motivated Journalists? Bureaucrats? Policy Makers?

Now it is starting to sound overwhelming. Let's go back to idle speculation <grin>.

- Steve
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As with any M&S project, one must start with the use cases.  If you
don't start with your use cases, then you'll end up wandering around,
mixing things up and forgetting what you're doing.  As they say "if you
don't know where you're going, you'll never get there."
 
Hussein's "story" implies a use case, except it's got too many
mechanistic details.  You want the use case to be phenomenal, not
mechanistic.  So, the second (implied) story works better: "How can we
undo it?"  What would you _do_ with this model?  Can you perform any
experiments ("in vitro" upon a room full of participants - or "in vivo"
on an actual government) against which to validate?  If so, what would
those experiments look like and what data would they generate?
 
Those are the questions you have to ask first, before you get all
mechanical on each other. ;-)  Worst case, if you don't ask these
questions _first_, you'll inscribe your conclusions into the model.
You'll create a model that's nothing more than a justificationist
tautology.  You'll probably _still_ commit inscription error even if you
do start with the use cases, depending on the complicatedness of the
experiments or type of validation; but your inscription be easier to
spot and correct as you go along.
 
 
Hussein Abbass wrote circa 11-05-08 06:36 PM:
Let me put this in a simple story. Prof. Clever is the dean of
Faculty of Idiots. Prof Clever would like to be a dictator in a
democratic society. He appoints 3 other Professors to form a strategy
committee. He believes in separating strategy from execution, thanks
to all the wonderful literature in management on that topic. Prof.
Clever cancelled most Faculty public meetings and created many
committees. These committees seek people opinion to have a truly
democratic environment. He told the people we are a civilized
society. We should not confront each other in public. Issues can be
solved smoothly in a better environment and within a small group.
Public meetings are now to simply give presentations that no
controversial issue is discussed; their information content is 0 to
anyone attending them. But they demonstrate democracy and support the
members of the Faculty of Idiotsâ€™ right for dissemination of
information. Prof. Clever promotes good values. Important values that
Prof. Clever is promoting are trust and confidentiality. In meetings,
people need to trust each other to facilitate exchange of
information. But this requires confidentiality; otherwise problems
will emerge. Obviously, meetings are called by management, members of
the meetings are engineered by management, the whole social network
is well-engineered such that different type of information do not get
crossed from one sub-graph to another. The faculty of Idiots is the
happiest faculty on earth. No public confrontation means no fights, a
well-engineered civilized society. Small group meetings are dominated
with Prof. Clever or simply take place to tick a box in a report.
There is only one person in the Faculty of Idiots who knows
everything, Prof. Clever. No one else knows more than anyone else to
the extent that everyone simply knows nothing. But everyone is happy,
everyone feels important because he/she is trusted and everyone feels
they are well-informed of the task they are performing! Prof. Clever
eliminated competition, no leader can emerge in this social system
that he does not approve. Prof. Clever is the nice guy that everyone
loves and respect. He listens, he is socially friendly, and after all
is indeed Clever!
 
[...]
 
The harder question for me is, how can we undo it if it is engineered
as above?
 
- -- 
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com
 
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glen ep ropella

Re: Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)

In reply to this post by Steve Smith

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Steve Smith wrote circa 11-05-09 12:16 PM:
> I challenge us (at Glen's urging) to come up with /Use Case Scenarios/

I _hate_ that word: "scenarios". It's jargonal and off-putting to me,
which perhaps relates to the accusation that I have more formal methods
at hand. ;-)

I think it's best to focus on what/how we could measure what we care
about. To model is very closely related to "to measure" ... and in my
formality, if you can't measure something, you can't model it. So, the
real question goes back to those of us who were stimulated by Mohammed's
question.

We'll have to formulate some measures for openness, participation, and
obfuscation. Now, before Vlad hits me again with his argument that
circumscription begets conclusion, I can mitigate it by saying that the
measures should be parallax. There have to be _enough_ variation in the
measures so that the interested parties can champion at least one of
them as their own. For example, when I brought up the initiative
process, that is a form of participation. If we included that mechanism
in our democracy, I'd be forced to say that it is participatory, even if
Obama had inherited the throne, all the legislators were cronies, and
the court were kangaroo. But the initiative process isn't the only
participatory mechanism. And a measure that ... measures that type of
participation would be fundamentally different from a measure of
"representativeness" of, say, the electoral system, the parliamentary
system, etc.

Similarly, we should come up with a suite of measures for openness.
Obama's execution of bin Laden, interviews on 60 minutes, and keeping
the pictures secret is a good example. We should pick measures that
evaluate Obama's disclosure as "closed" and some as "open".

In the end, what we have is a opportunity for abduction. We have at
least 3 predicates (open/closed, [non]participatory, and
transparent/opaque). Ideally, we have several predicates in each category.

The number of solutions that satisfy those predicates should be infinite
and explorable. We should then be able to come up with several
mechanisms, including the families implied by the stories outlined by
Eric, Mohammed, Hussein, and Vlad. In the end, a model capable of
instantiating even _some_ of those satisficing mechanisms should help us
be more open-minded about how obfuscation arises in democracy.

- --
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com

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glen ep ropella

Re: Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)

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glen e. p. ropella wrote circa 11-05-09 02:12 PM:
> Similarly, we should come up with a suite of measures for openness.
> Obama's execution of bin Laden, interviews on 60 minutes, and keeping
> the pictures secret is a good example. We should pick measures that
> evaluate Obama's disclosure as "closed" and some as "open".

I just had the thought that FOIA responses might be one measure of openness:

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a788007182
http://www.flickr.com/photos/xepera/5705434466/in/photostream

I'm sure others could be derived from places like the OECD:
http://www.oecd.org/

Of course, if we wanted to capture the co-evolution of obfuscation for
individual _privacy_ in response to intrusive devices like credit card
databases or traffic cameras, we'd have to examine something like the
rates of "spoofed" registration/login data or light scattering license
plate covers in relation to the rates of usage for the intrusive tech.

I'm sure the EFF and white hacker sites could help there:
http://www.eff.org/

- --
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com

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