Oct 7, 2019 | Philosophy, Politics
From Yang2020 - Andrew Yang for President:- Create a Department of the Attention Economy that focuses specifically on smartphones, social media, gaming and chat apps and how to responsibly design and use them, including age restrictions and guidelines.
- Create a “best practices” design philosophy for the industry to minimize the antisocial impacts of these technologies on children who are using them....
Sounds pretty innocuous (and unnecessary as the market is far better at doing these things than a tax-payer subsidized committee of political appointees), until we get to the last point:- Direct the Department to investigate the regulation of certain companies and apps. Many of these companies essentially function as public utilities and news sources – we used to regulate broadcast networks, newspapers and phone companies. We need to do the same thing to Facebook, Twitter, Snap and other companies now that they are the primary ways people both receive information and communicate with each other.
So the New York Times, WaPo and WSJ are like the phone company? So much for the first amendment. And don't get too successful at what you do -- or if you are a "certain" company on Yang's crap list, you will become a "public utility" and lose your rights under Yang style "public interest" censorship. Yang's "Human-Centered Capitalism" sounds a lot of like old fashioned fascism mixed with socialist-style welfare schemes.Who is the public interest? "C'est Moi!" says Fuhrer Yang.For those "Yang Gang'ers" who welcome federal censorship under a Yang Presidency, ask yourself if you would like the President to have such powers under a Trump government?(Yang has removed from his site his previous call for a Federal Censor or "News Ombudsman" who will provide "penalties for persistent and destructive misstatements that undermine public discourse.") Aug 3, 2019 | Philosophy, Politics
https://youtu.be/LCRTNRyPclg"Jonathan Hoenig and I toured the UK a few weeks ago, lecturing in support of the new book on Ayn Rand's political philosophy, "A New Textbook of Americanism." Here is my lecture on individualism at Cambridge. Special thanks to Razi Ginzberg, head of the Ayn Rand Centre UK, for setting up this lecture tour; to Jonathan Hoenig for compiling this outstanding collection of essays; and, above all, to Ayn Rand for initiating a literary and philosophic renaissance. Enjoy" -- Andrew Bernstein Jul 31, 2019 | Politics
Amy Peikoff has a short blog post over at
Legalize Privacy or her theory of privacy.
You can check it out here.Jul 27, 2019 | Politics
Writes Amy Peikoff :What follows is an excerpted and annotated version of the FTC’s “Stipulated Order” representing its “Settlement” with Facebook. It’s dated July 24. I’m giving you the lowlights, as I see them, plus my “translations.”
Some nuggets from Amy's offhand analysis:“Defendant agrees that the Department of Justice shall have the same rights as the Commission to engage in compliance monitoring as provided by Part XV of the Decision and Order set forth in Attachment A, as well as the same right as the Associate Director for Enforcement for the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Commission provided under
Part VIII.B to approve the person(s) selected to conduct the Assessments described in Part VIII of the Decision and Order set forth in Attachment A, subject to any applicable law or regulation.” (page 4)
Translation: Anything the FTC can get or do as a result of this “settlement,” so can the DOJ. This becomes particularly relevant when you see some of the last paragraphs of the order, the ones which inspired the title of this blog post.
“If a User deletes an individual piece of Covered Information but does not delete his or her account, nothing in this paragraph shall be construed to require deletion or de-identification of metadata (e.g., logs of User activity) that may remain associated with the User’s account after the User has deleted such information.” (page 6)
Translation: All your metadata are belong to the DOJ, unless you delete your entire account in time. (And will that really work anyway, or is it already too late?) Deleting individual pieces of data is inadequate to protect your privacy.
Amy also writes that she is applying for non-profit status for an organization to fight this power-grab by the FTC and DOJ:"Would you like to help me do whatever is possible, using my unique theory of the proper legal protection of privacy, to fight this power-grab by the FTC and DOJ? If so, your donations are most welcome here. Make sure to add “FTC” in the optional comment field, and it will be earmarked appropriately. I’m in the process of applying for non-profit, 501 c(3) status, and so I’ll do everything possible to ensure your donation is tax-deductible, and will keep you posted about the status of the application."
Link: FTC-Facebook “Settlement”: All your data are belong to DOJ