Is Big Data Dangerous?

I have been giving away personal data all my life. In 1959, when I first filled out a coupon in the back of a comic book, I started getting related offers in the mail. It is no surprise that computers make keeping these lists easier and that social networks collect the life details we share. “Big data” computer algorithms now connect the mass of breadcrumbs we leave behind, making assumptions about our habits and preferences.

For many years, marketers and advertisers have been collecting and using information about us and we have been cheerfully cooperating. Subscribe to Bride magazine and wedding service companies will know your intentions before your boyfriend does. Today, free apps on our cell phones offer us remarkable services and we eagerly install and use them. However, do not be surprised that, “If the app is free, you are the product.”

The Power of Choices

"Our common future is all about the power of choices. Some have the financial power to sit and raise an army of warriors. Some have the social power to stand and raise an army of voices."
~ David Satterlee

Is Social Psychology Best Left Unstudied?

Is love fair game for science? Or, is it a sacred mystery that we should not try too hard to understand?

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Is Social Psychology Best Left Unstudied?

The late U.S. Senator William Proxmire of Wisconsin criticized the work of two prominent social psychologists when he stated that, "Americans want to leave some things in life a mystery, and right at the top of things we don’t want to know is why a man and a woman fall in love." Are there some things in life best left unstudied?

Proxmire, pork, and passionate prudishness

With all due respect, Senator Proxmire was a windy old curmudgeon who bragged that he was fired from his first job for impertinence and was fondly eulogized as being a maverick. His personal integrity, however, was reflected by a record 10,252 consecutive roll call votes across twenty-two years of public service. Proxmire took pride in lampooning wasteful “pork barrel” government spending and was notorious for giving “Golden Fleece” awards to many pork appropriations (with the notable exception of dairy supports in his home state of Wisconsin). The quotation, above, refers to his very first Golden Fleece, which went for $84,000 given to the National Science Foundation in 1975 for the study of “Why a man and a woman fall in love.” He should be forgiven a little hyperbole.

Under the circumstances,

Essay: Setting limits

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Setting limits

From the book: Chum for Thought: Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters by David Satterlee

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Does Setting limits cause #isolation, loss of #intimacy, and even #alienation of #love?

Chum For Thought:
Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters

Women often feel at a disadvantage in relationships with men. Social pressures, openly or unrecognized, can give men a dominant role. How is a woman to feel self-respect, personal worth, independence, initiative, control, and security? The common answer, these days, is to “set limits.”

Setting defensive limits makes intuitive sense. “That which cannot touch you cannot harm you.” But, at what cost in isolation, loss of intimacy, and even alienation of love? In fact, the issue of boundaries and limits can affect the character of any relationship, not just those between men and women.

Kinds of Limits

Parents and teachers are urged to set firm, appropriate limits for young children as part of youths’ guided moral development. The goal is for children to

Essay: A rant on the use of violence

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A rant on the use of violence

From the book: Chum for Thought: Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters by David Satterlee

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Read or download this essay as a PDF file at: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4eNv8KtePyKU1RBYzBSZThWN3M/edit?usp=sharing


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Chum For Thought:
Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters

A rant on the use of violence

Although good fences may be said to “make good neighbors,” hatred, blood-feuds, violent lust for revenge, and terrorism do not make good neighbors. Terrorism is often considered to be the use of violence by disenfranchised (not yet victorious) organizations or individuals against non-combatants to coerce political, social, or economic change.

Similar violence by established authorities is often considered “counter-terrorism” and “collateral damage.” Similar violence by successful “freedom fighters” is often considered heroic. In any event, targeting civilians is generally considered bad sportsmanship and should be frowned upon and viewed as unworthy of true gentlemen.

Likewise, Westerners may prefer to discuss the “ignominious French-Algerian War,” while North Africans refer to the glorious “Algerian War of Independence.” In any event, this war ran from 1954-1962, after over 120 years of French “international support” (or “imperialist colonial occupation and subjugation.”) History records similar atrocities committed by, and against, both sides during this war, regardless of issues of just or unjust causes.

Because history tends to repeat itself, thoughtful men have carefully examined this paroxysm of French-Algerian violence to learn lessons so as to avoid confrontation (or to prevail) in the case of similar circumstances arising again. One hopes that the motive in examining past terrorism is not isolated to refining more-effective

Essay: Political orientation and the good will of strangers

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Political orientation and the good will of strangers

From the book: Chum for Thought: Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters by David Satterlee

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Chum For Thought:
Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters

Political orientation and the good will of strangers – A personal story

I got a lot of interesting reactions today, sitting with a “Christie Vilsack for Congress” sign while about ten thousand bicycle-across-Iowa folks peddled past my front yard in a small, rural town.

The term “RAGBRAI” stands for “[Des Moines] Register’s Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa.” This is not a competition. It’s just thousands of people out for up to seven days in our insane summer heat, enjoying the camaraderie of “the oldest, largest and longest bicycle touring event in the world.” Christie Vilsack is Iowa’s former First Lady and a Democrat running for the U.S. Congress in Iowa’s 4^th district. She is opposing Republican incumbent Steve King, an “outspoken conservative who is a nationwide favorite of tea party activists.” My little town of Dayton, Iowa (population 837) is half-way through today’s 84-mile segment.

Today was a microcosm of the liberal ideals of community, fellowship, and social involvement. My 1880’s “workman’s Victorian” house was right on the route, just after the downtown events that included food concessions, a live band, and a dunking tank. As the bicyclists accelerated down a 1-block incline and past me, in my wheelchair by the curb with a political sign, I still had plenty of interactions.

Also, because my house fronts Main Street with a shade-tree-packed double lot, dozens of riders at a time stopped to

Essay: Liberals blame external causes. Conservatives blame internal causes

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Liberals blame external causes. Conservatives blame internal causes

From the book: Chum for Thought: Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters by David Satterlee

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Chum For Thought:
Throwing Ideas into Dangerous Waters

Liberals blame external causes. Conservatives blame internal causes.

Among the many opinions about the differences between Conservatives and Liberals, some point to the difference of blaming internal or external causes. “If you were to ask people about the cause of someone’s problems and sufferings (such as homelessness), you will hear two very different explanations.”

If you are a conservative, they point out, you will blame internal causes such as a lack of work ethic, family or religious values, sense of shame, or some other personal weakness.

If you are a liberal, your explanation will likely focus on external causes such as lack of education, oppression, social injustice, or some other influence outside of their control.

The essential conservative point is that interior causes can and MUST be addressed individually. Every person bears an inescapable personal responsibility to

Science Fiction: Everyone Takes a Test

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Everyone Takes a Test

from the book: Life Will Get You in the End:
Short stories by David Satterlee

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Life Will Get You in the End:
Short Stories by David Satterlee

Science fiction. A planetary visitor becomes the object of crude hostility while having dinner at a local bar. Note: Contains a little crude dialogue. Our hero hesitates, but never blushes. He is up to the task, and we are proud of him.

Everyone Takes a Test

Althon was new to the colony planet. He had arrived at Spaceport Delta near Nuk d’Faln just after local sunrise. There was a muted bustle typical of a full-time operation in the diffuse pink-tinged amber light of dawn while the rest of the city was still yawning. 

Althon was booked with a tour group that was bound for the interior where they hoped to experience the region’s dramatic geography, exotic animals, and authentic primitive culture.

We can simply agree that the day’s cross-country travel by rail and cart was tedious, uncomfortable, and tiring. That night, the travelers arrived hungry. They were herded by the travel host into a large room – already occupied by locals who had evidently finished their evening meal and stayed for conversation and music… and to examine this next batch of tourists. The locals had rearranged themselves to accommodate the arriving group. Five musicians in a corner were playing lively tunes that allowed talkers to hear each other while pairs and quads danced at a moderate pace to a complicated rhythm.

A quiet man by nature, Althon took a seat at an empty table along a wall near the boundary between locals and visitors. He noticed that most people comfortably spoke a mix of local language and Commercial Common. Forms were passed around to determine what special foods and beverages they would expect. Althon left his blank.

A steward collected the forms and paused in front of Althon to

Poem: Social Capital

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Social Capital

Life Will Get You in the End:
Short Stories by David Satterlee

from the book: Life Will Get You in the End:
Short stories by David Satterlee

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Read or download this story as a PDF file at: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4eNv8KtePyKVXVsQ1BmUkRfUXM/edit?usp=sharing

A traveling sage, in the Mid-east in Biblical times, makes a choice between building buildings and building relationships. 

Social Capital

He came to us from far away

Across the barren land —

Lonely and forgotten from

His trek across the sand.

The well refreshed his very soul

And so he praised it much.

He thought of wonders he had seen

And knew that this was such.

He spoke of joining trust in plans

And building mighty towers.

But, we could little trust to him

This land, which was not ours.

We bid him leave, with heavy heart

And, “Do you know the way?”

And almost knew, though, as he left

That he’d be back some day.

His goal would be less strong to build,

But more to give a smile.

Now, who’d begrudge a gift like that?

It’s good once in a while.

 

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The Fondue Plot

from the book: Life Will Get You in the End:
Short stories by David Satterlee

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Life Will Get You in the End:
Short Stories by David Satterlee

An obvious pun. Would an author deliberately set out to write an entire story around an obvious pun? It can be done, but karma will getcha every time. 

The Fondue Plot

Sometimes you just can’t win. It seemed like such a simple thing. I would differentiate my protagonists and antagonists by simply assigning them names in alphabetical order. What could be more innocuous than “Acme” for the industrial company? Besides, in the cartoons featuring Wile E Coyote and the Roadrunner, Wile E (you just gotta  love a good pun) is always unpacking a kit that he ordered from Acme Corporation. So, yeah, that’s cool. And, hey, let’s name the Acme guy “Will E[dmonds]. Now we’re really having fun.

Now, wouldn’t it also be fun to name the security guy, “Warren Pease?” [War and Peace, get it? Bwa ha ha ha ha!] But, wouldn’t you know it…? According to Wikipedia, the name Warren Pease is already taken by the drummer for a Seattle crossover thrash band. They call their musical style “splattercore.” Well, I had already decided on the design of my lethal device and this was just too good a coincidence. ‘sorry Warren.

But now, I’ve got another problem. It turns out that there really is a