Filter Bubble
05/03/2012 12:05
In commerce this info is gathered by “data companies like BlueKai and Acxiom, [which has] accumulated an average of 1,500 pieces of data on each person on its database—which includes 96 percent of Americans” (p. 7). Credit card companies have been profiling us based on what we buy for decades, now cellphones can report on where you go, too. This has some unpleasant implications in terms of direct marketing, and some possibly scary implications in terms of surveillance. But Pariser believes it also has a negative impact on social bonds and even on epistemology.
The filter bubble is Pariser’s name for the feedback loop of information that surrounds us, as even Google searches we believe to be unbiased are increasingly tailored to our personal profiles. Although he admits we’ve always selected media that appeals to our interests and preconceptions (hence the echo-chamber cable news channels), Pariser says the filter bubble is different in three ways. “First, you’re alone in it.” Each personal news feed or search is tailored specifically to you, so you’re no longer even part of a narrow affinity group. Second, it’s invisible. “Google’s agenda is opaque. Google doesn’t tell you who it thinks you are or why it’s showing you the results you’re seeing. You don’t know if its assumptions about you are right or wrong—and you might not even know it’s making assumptions about you in the first place” (p. 10). Finally, Pariser says while the viewers of politically slanted media are (presumably) aware there are a range of options and that they’ve chosen one of them, as the filter bubble gives us more and more seemingly objective positive reinforcement in our preferences and prejudices, we begin to believe the world is like us.
Because even web searches from commercial sites like Google are increasingly tailored to each user’s profile, Pariser says we are less likely to be exposed to a rich variety of ideas. Politically, this would tend to make us even more obnoxiously American than we already are. But he also claims that it will hinder creativity by promoting a more passive style of info gathering, and by narrowing what he calls “the solution horizon, the limit of the conceptual area that we’re operating in” (p. 95). It’s hard to be outside the box, Pariser believes, if the box is narrow and invisible. If innovation comes from the juxtaposition of unrelated ideas and from some type of creative cross-pollenization that happens when people expose themselves to unfamiliar stimuli, then we could be headed toward a generation of accountants. And this change has been noticed even by some techies: “The shift from exploration and discovery to the intent-based search of today was inconceivable,”Pariser quotes an unnamed Yahoo editor lamenting (p. 103).
Some of the comparisons Pariser makes between Google (which profiles you based on your click history) and Facebook (which profiles you based on what you share) are less heavy than his argument above. You might even call them trivial. But the point is still worth remembering, “If you’re not paying for something, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold” (p. 21). Overall, though, I think Pariser overstates the danger of the filter bubble because just like the techno-evangelists he criticizes, he overestimates the importance of the technology. The box isn’t invisible – the box is the commercial internet. Creative people have no trouble seeing that. The problem, which Pariser gets close to and then misses, is that we’re training a generation of people not to be creative. 36 hours a week the average American spends watching TV. Switch that to surfing the web and you’ve still got the same problem.
It’s a good book and a quick read. Pariser asks some provocative questions. But he doesn’t offer a lot of solutions. A government regulatory agency that supervises these data collectors does not sound like a good idea to me. The only people I want to have my personal info less than salesmen are bureaucrats. Pariser mentions the movie Minority Report – I’m thinking Enemy of the State. RFIDS cost about a nickel apiece, and it’s been nearly 15 years since I sat in a presentation by a semiconductor manufacturer’s rep (I think from National Semi) who talked about all the ways they were thinking of deploying them. So what are some ways of getting out of the filter bubble?
First, limit the amount of info you’re giving away. Assume you’re always being watched, and act accordingly. Don’t carry a smartphone everywhere. Use cash. Search on something other than Google. Use TOR or some other anonymizing web service. Get off Facebook. Remember that everything you post to any website you don’t personally own probably becomes someone else’s property, and that the stuff you post on your own site can be copied and saved by anybody. Forever. And from the network perspective, it’s never been easier for regular people to communicate, and it doesn’t have to be through the commercial web. WIMAX base stations are cheap, and can connect entire towns and cities into networks that don’t depend on the AT&Ts and Time Warner Cables of the world. Those networks won’t have Netflix or YouTube on them (or much porn, either), but if that’s all we’re really looking for, then it’s already too late.
Stephen King On Writing
04/04/2012 20:06
I skimmed this book really quickly a year or so ago in a writing class. It seemed interesting at the time, but I was a busy grad student and I didn’t have the time to really sit down and pay the attention it deserved. So I downloaded the audiobook from Audible a couple of weeks ago. It’s been a couple months since I’ve listened to a book on my commute -- lately it’s been mostly Dr. Who soundtrack music.
I didn’t read the fine print when I bought the audio, so I was pleasantly surprised when the reader turned out to be Stephen King himself. The autobiographical parts were much more interesting to me, hearing King tell the story, than they had been when I’d read/skimmed them. And it struck me that part of the job I need to do when I write about the past is to take advantage of the natural interest people seem to have in looking behind the curtains of life in different times and places. So I got to think about setting my scenes a bit.
Then I got to the part about writing. King begins with the idea that the communication between writer and reader is telepathy. Along the way he says he’s sitting in his sending place and the reader is sitting in his/her receiving place. He says, this could be your comfy chair, or your bed, or you could be in your car. And at this point, I had this fun (not eerie, but fun) feeling that he was talking to me! Then he said some additional things about rabbits and cages and rough comparisons that also seemed to be directly related to some things I’ve been thinking about the degree of detail to put into setting and historical context in the biography I’m working on. It was a cool moment.
On the way home, King had a lot more very sensible things to say about writing. People who want to write should get this audio and listen to it over and over, until it really sinks in. I’m going to.
Gotta get some chicks!
02/04/2012 09:59
A very nicely put together book, by Chelsea Green Publishing in White River Junction VT. I’ve been buying most everything in Kindle format lately, but this was only available the old-fashioned way. It took a little longer to read, but the layout and illustrations make the time sacrifice and extra cost worthwhile.
Ussery provides a wide range of information, from the basic (why don’t you need a rooster to get eggs from your hens?) to the fine points of different breeding techniques (the “old farmer’s method” and spiral matings seem like the most interesting, and the idea of creating crosses to reflect local conditions and your personal preferences seemed like an invitation to a fun and magical realm). The focus is on a holistic -- almost permaculture -- approach to homesteading that integrates the chickens in a bigger plant/animal farm picture. Joel Salatin is apparently a friend and neighbor of Ussery, and writes the forward for this book (which came out only a couple of days before his latest, which I’m reading now).
If you’re thinking of raising chickens (and we are), this is the place to start.
Course materials posted online
02/02/2012 18:59
Based on recent readings
01/29/2012 12:09
Here’s something I made for my class, based on the books I’ve been reading:
Still reading, but busy writing...
01/27/2012 20:24
I’m not able to take the time right now to review the last few books I’ve read, because I’m in the midst of a couple of writing projects. But I’d highly recommend a couple of them, and I think I’ll make my notes and comments public on Amazon’s Kindle notes aggregator, so here’s a quick list:
Matt Taibbi, Griftopia: Taibbi is the guy who invented the term “vampire squid” to describe Goldman Sachs. I agree with him 100% on Goldman, and I enjoyed this book. My favorite quote: “The insurmountable hurdle for so-called populist movements is having the nerve to attack the rich instead of the poor” (p. 31). The best part of the book: when he moves on from the mortgage crisis, which everyone pretty much knows about by now, to Goldman’s manipulation of the government to get control of commodity markets. The story of why gas prices went over $4.00 is still not understood, and while I was reading this I noticed oil was heading upwards of $115 per barrel. Supply? Demand? Or more speculation?
Neil Gaiman, Sandman Volume 4: Season of Mists: They say it’s about at volume 4 that Gaiman found his voice and really hit his stride. They are right. This is MYTH.
William Gibson, Distrust That Particular Flavor: A series of thoughtful essays. Gibson reminds us that the media mediates -- or hyper mediates -- and often stands between us and genuine experience. And that sci-fi is about the present, not the future. And that HG Wells was awfully smart and maybe merits a closer look.
Peter Ackroyd, London: A Biography: Recommended by Gibson (above). A great source for London enthusiasts, and an interesting model for anyone thinking of writing about a place.
Clive Finlayson: The Humans Who Went Extinct: There’s a lot of good stuff about H. sapiens in here, in addition to some interesting stuff about Neanderthals.
David J. Meltzer: First Peoples in a New World: He’s accused of being on the conservative side of the pre-Clovis arguments, but he does accept Monte Verde’s claims, and he provides a good glimpse of not only the recent discoveries of American archaeology, but of the evolution of the profession.
Matt Taibbi, Griftopia: Taibbi is the guy who invented the term “vampire squid” to describe Goldman Sachs. I agree with him 100% on Goldman, and I enjoyed this book. My favorite quote: “The insurmountable hurdle for so-called populist movements is having the nerve to attack the rich instead of the poor” (p. 31). The best part of the book: when he moves on from the mortgage crisis, which everyone pretty much knows about by now, to Goldman’s manipulation of the government to get control of commodity markets. The story of why gas prices went over $4.00 is still not understood, and while I was reading this I noticed oil was heading upwards of $115 per barrel. Supply? Demand? Or more speculation?
Neil Gaiman, Sandman Volume 4: Season of Mists: They say it’s about at volume 4 that Gaiman found his voice and really hit his stride. They are right. This is MYTH.
William Gibson, Distrust That Particular Flavor: A series of thoughtful essays. Gibson reminds us that the media mediates -- or hyper mediates -- and often stands between us and genuine experience. And that sci-fi is about the present, not the future. And that HG Wells was awfully smart and maybe merits a closer look.
Peter Ackroyd, London: A Biography: Recommended by Gibson (above). A great source for London enthusiasts, and an interesting model for anyone thinking of writing about a place.
Clive Finlayson: The Humans Who Went Extinct: There’s a lot of good stuff about H. sapiens in here, in addition to some interesting stuff about Neanderthals.
David J. Meltzer: First Peoples in a New World: He’s accused of being on the conservative side of the pre-Clovis arguments, but he does accept Monte Verde’s claims, and he provides a good glimpse of not only the recent discoveries of American archaeology, but of the evolution of the profession.
No God in Vegas
01/04/2012 18:05
This is subtitled, Signs you may already be an atheist. It’s funny, when it’s talking about belief. Also funny when Penn is reminiscing about sex — and there’s a lot of that, so you don’t necessarily want to have your kids read the whole thing. But definitely they should read some of it!
Here are some of the high points (in addition to the ones I noted in my blog a couple of days ago):
On atheism: “Where is the humility in being a theist? There is none” (Kindle Location 145). “I will never hit the level of blasphemy that’s required for someone to pray to god for their family’s pet dog to return home” (Kindle Locations 161-162). “The Bible is the fast track to atheism” (Kindle Location 801). “What’s a ‘hard-core atheist’?” “I don’t even believe that other people believe in god” (Kindle Locations 1059-1061). “You can’t respect someone’s right to not believe in something that’s going to give him or her eternal life. That’s not real respect, that’s callous disregard. That’s negligent eternal homicide” (Kindle Locations 1100-1101). “Is there a god?” can be answered, “I don’t know.” “Do you believe in god?” needs to be answered yes or no, even though you haven’t made up your mind for sure” (Kindle Locations 1338-1340). “Once you’ve condoned faith in general, you’ve condoned any crazy shit done because of faith…There is a world of safety in doubt. The respect for faith, the celebration of faith, is dangerous. It’s faith itself that’s wrong. I deny terrorists the moral right to have faith in a god that will reward them for killing people with airplanes. That means I have to deny Christians the moral right to a faith that Jesus Christ died for their sins. That means I have to deny the warm, fuzzy faith that there’s some positive conscious energy guiding the universe. That means I have to get pissed off when Luke Skywalker trusts “the force” (Kindle Locations 3505, 3519-3523).
On magic (or writing): “you take something easy and safe and make it look difficult and death-defying, you are a cheesy circus act. When you take something impossible and make it look easy, you’re an artist” (Kindle Locations 288-289). “When Penn & Teller give away magic tricks, it’s really hard work. We have to design magic that’s made to be exposed. We make the way we do it as beautiful as the trick. That’s a sneaky thing for us to do. It makes the audience think that the tricks we don’t give away are also beautiful, and that f##ks up their sh#t. When you’re looking for something beautiful and satisfying, it’s much harder to find the ugly truth. The big secret of magic is we are willing to work harder to accomplish something stupid than you can imagine” (Kindle Locations 929-933).
Just funny stuff I couldn’t resist: “Eskimos—or as I think they’re called, the Inuits, or maybe the correct term is now ‘Frozen-Ass Aboriginal North Americans,’ I don’t know—do not have twenty-something words for snow. That’s not true. But the Brits do have more than a hundred and fifty terms for male masturbation. If you’re in England and someone uses a verb and you don’t know what it means, it probably means jacking off.” (Kindle Locations 898-901). “Without god, even Glenn Beck isn’t all that crazy…Without cynicism, even Michael Moore isn’t all that . . . oh, never mind” (Kindle Location 2470-76).
