TrustNoRobot

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  • On science, subjectivity and pesticides..

    On science, subjectivity and pesticides..

    On science, subjectivity and pesticides..
    Do I trust or do I question? Am I cynical about government or do I think humans don’t organize in perhaps the best ways to support the greater good of humanity and trend to self-serving ends? Probably by the nature of these questions you can guess where I typically land. 🙂
    Recently I was researching pesticides and their impact and came across some amazing nuggets I wanted to share.
    The first is an article published in nature magazine a couple years ago detailing what is being called a repeatability crisis. Now I’m not a scientist, but I do believe I understand that one of the basic principles of scientific research is that a study should be able to be repeated. Pop open the pdf link below and prepare to have your mind blown.
    How can this be true? Nature magazine published that 70% of recent research can’t be replicated and that 52% scientist think it a crisis but only 31% think it actually an issue and that the rest think the results are ‘probably ok’. Worth a read to see why they say it is happening.. Wild, eh?
    I’m a child of technology and have benefited and rode the wave of tech to a comfortable life. I love the scientific method and what it has delivered to humanity. Polio and measles suck. The philosophy and ideology of science is pure.. but when human subjectivity slips in the back door all kinds of bad things can happen. Remember the ‘science’ that justified racial discrimination?
    The one thing the Nature article doesn’t really speak about but I think is a contributor to the problem is the speed of human content has been increasing at exponential rates. Fueled by the interconnection via the internet, every corner of discourse is filled and overfilled and human minds were simply not designed by evolution for this information processing. Even if we knew why we should consume, we just can’t keep up! So we augment (topic I’ll address in a future blog), but even with that we now see that our augmentation is learning to give us data/content we like to see and not what will challenge our world view. Call it subjective augmentation syndrome (SAS). Think politics and I think everyone can see how that works.
    Government funded research and private research all have elements of subjectivity that are very hard to unwind, BUT we are all impacted by this research as policy and products are shipped that have a direct impact on our lives, ecosystems and the food chain. Anyone that thinks Goverment and money don’t mix.. I find articles like this that pop EVERY single day!
    Now let me move on to glyphosate, a compound that many communities are using to stop weeds. We know who patented this (evil mega Corp that starts with an ‘M’). This is the compound that is in roundup and was tested and approved to be safe by the EPA. Look up the EPA position if your interested..
    However, others are more concerned..World Health Org release on glyphosate and cancer:
    Some other interesting pages that link to research that conflicts with the EPA assessment.
    Look at the link above to see the parts and research that is published on Honey.
    The USDA quietly dropped a plan to start testing food for residues of glyphosate in 2017. Internal agency documents obtained by U.S. Right to Know show the agency had planned to start testing over 300 samples of corn syrup for glyphosate in April 2017. But the agency killed the project before it started. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration began a limited testing program in 2016, but the effort was fraught with controversy and internal difficulties and the program was suspended in September 2016. Both agencies have programs that annually test foods for pesticide residues but both have routinely skipped testing for glyphosate.
     
    Before the suspension, one FDA chemist found alarming levels of glyphosate in many samples of U.S. honey, levels that were technically illegal because there have been no allowable levels established for honey by the EPA.
    WTF? Is the government looking after us? Or is self-serving interest running rampant? My own county is selling glyphosate to my neighbors and I trust them about as far as I can throw them! And by the way, we are part of an elegant food chain.. we screw with that and the risk is considerable.
    Now take a look at the aap press releases and links on glyphosate recommendations for children. Not sure I buy that everything is ok if they are saying to limit exposure to kids. I’m just a big kid at heart… I hate to think about what it is doing to the ecosystem if they think kids shouldn’t be around the stuff. Kids maybe are a bit more resilient than that bee that is pollinating for us every day, but maybe not.
    So where does this leave us? My conclusions..
    1. Scientific research always needs to be questioned. The results, conclusions and the funding. Scientists welcome that inspection and want to engage, we should fund competing research and restrict publication of research not repeated by unaffiliated organizations.
    2. We can’t believe in government to protect us. We are responsible for ourselves. Get involved and be heard. I’ve following the #yanggang recently and it sounds better than others in the public eye, but we need new ideas and systems to organize in the modern world.
    3. Our own knowledge is subjective and should be questioned at every corner. Start by taking a core belief you have today and kick it to the curb and spend a day believing the ‘other’ side. Thoughts are not reality… reality isn’t even reality! Spend the day believing in the unicorn or whatever you want. The world won’t end!
    I spent a fair bit of time on this blog on glyphosate but really I’m seeing waves of the same human condition of driving perceived ‘efficiency’ in every aspect of our ‘progress’. Between killer robots, self driving cars and artificial intelligence… is anyone asking ‘is this good for humans’? Either we wake up and slow down to have the right conversations or be prepared to make really bad decisions that cost lives and perhaps the future of humanity.
    Ok… so I’ll end on a positive. Take a look at all the communities around the US that are making changes to their approach to invasive weeds and how they are addressing the glyphosate issues. It is good to see that at least in some places are becoming educated in the crimes of industry on the people.. profit over people = bad.
    Good luck in the ongoing battle of subjectivity. It is a losing one for the human condition, but that is something that will bind us in the coming years more that ever as the machine/objective world drives to a future that doesn’t need as many inefficient humans to achieve the goal of ‘efficiency’ that they were programmed (by us!) to achieve.
    And so it goes..
    Humans-Above-Technology-Logo-B1
    The organization behind TrustNoRobot is now a non-profit! Our mission is to promote humans above technology. Our simple belief is that technology should work for humans and better their condition and never have a negative impact on humanity. Please find it in your heart to donate to this important cause.
  • Efficiency and killer robots

    Efficiency and killer robots

    ef¡fi¡cien¡cy

    /əˈfiSHənsē/

    noun: efficiency: the state or quality of being efficient.
    • plural noun: efficiencies
    • “to increase efficiencies and improve earnings”
    • Technical: the ratio of the useful work performed by a machine or in a process to the total energy expended or heat taken in.

    Humans have been on an efficiency quest since the first time we took a stick to hit a squirrel and eat it rather than run after it.   Every convenience that I have today comes from someone thinking they could do something faster, better or with less energy.   Everything from my car to the train to the powergrid and my lights in my house.

    Yes, I do get that the dream of flight and electricity started as something much grander than making $$.  Innovation comes from the creative genius and the desire to do something big and undone before, BUT shortly after the Wright brothers flew, someone started thinking about making cash on it.    On Jan. 1, 1914, the world’s first scheduled passenger airline service took off, operating between St. Petersburg and Tampa, Fla.   It folded fast but shortly followed by more.  This happened just a few years after the first flight! 

     

    The point; innovation and efficiency are connected.  Creatives chart the path and then automation and repeatable processes allow scale and efficiency to occur.  Look at our food processing and mass production.   At every level this truth plays out.
    So what?  So for the entire existence of humanity we have been on this path of improvement.  Yes it was slow in the early days but fueled now by scientific method and a worldwide network and interconnectivity, we are innovating and driving efficiency at at level that seems to be growing faster than Moore’s law (the principle that the speed and capability of computers can be expected to double every two years, as a result of increases in the number of transistors a microchip can contain.).

    Most would say that is a good thing as I have more comforts than ever before.  I get fresh squeezed orange juice and get berries in the middle of winter.

    BUT I think we are at a junction where these technologies are soon beyond our control.  The habit of our human condition to always push the edge and see what can be done has caused catastrophic situations in our past (look at the great depression or war technology in WWI or II).   We even have technology now that can destroy the place we live, like the entire world!  But the threat ahead is different…

    The threat we have ahead is the existential crisis of creating devices that not only replace jobs and are more efficient but that these devices will mature and evolve and repair themselves.  We are creating self sustaining higher than human performing devices that will put us out of jobs and take away key defining parts of our lives and perhaps our lives as well!

    We literally building killer gun wielding robots.  MUST WATCH!  Who the fuck thinks this is a good idea? Honestly, hasn’t anyone ever seen the Terminator?  They even reference it in the video.   It is like we are marching towards a future we all know is going to end like a bad scifi ending and like the programed sheep (with our precious human habit of innovation and efficiency) we march on.  NOW take what you just saw and apply the trajectory of airflight and commercial applications.  Does anyone think killer robots or anything else that will improve efficiency will go down any differently?

    Self driving cars are the same and so are the sexbots that are circling.  IT is going to keep getting stranger and stranger.

    By the way,  I’m super keen on all the tech to get people on Mars and beyond.  I am pretty sure Humanity’s only hope of survival at this point is start to spread out as quickly as possible and give us room to screw up in ways that don’t destroy the entire species.   I only hope there is time for us to expand before this catches up with us.

    As I’ve said before… I’m all for tech that makes sense, for a sensible approach of Humans Above Technology, not the other way around.

    Picture: An endoskeleton skull from the movie ‘Terminator Genisys.’  GABE GINSBERG/WIREIMAGE/GETTY IMAGES

     

     

    Humans Above Technology Inc. is a 501c non-profit entity that was formed to research the intersection of humanity and technology.  Help us fund research and raise awareness of the changes going on today in society, humanity and technology.

     

     

     

  • Bring on the covid19 sanitation drones

    Bring on the covid19 sanitation drones

    Here we go. The covid19 sanitation spraying drones have arrived. What they are spraying? Time will tell 🙂

    https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/mar/25/10-coronavirus-covid-busting-designs

  • Police robots are coming faster and faster

    Police robots are coming faster and faster

    Here we go. Latest robot on the streets asking people why they are out and what they are doing. Check out this article. Tunisia deploys police robot on lockdown patrol. They are called PGuard. Maybe not T100 or T9000, but still doesn’t instill a lot of confidence that they were created to ‘serve’ humans.

    From this BBC article “But several videos have since appeared on social media showing people being stopped by a PGuard. In one a man, who is asked if he knows there is an ongoing lockdown, explains that he wants to buy cigarettes.

    The robot replies: “OK buy your tobacco, but be quick and go home.””

    So smoke them while you have them. Time is coming when every aspect of our lives will be inspected, categorized and enforced by PGuard and it’s siblings.

  • An Early Human Blogs About The Dangers of Fire

    This blog is mainly about AI and how it is changing us and the world. The following post is a thought experiment of what a blog post, written by an early human circa 400,000 BCE, would say about the new hot technology of the day, fire.

    Fire. It’s going to kill us all.

    Have you seen this stuff? I mean, I know we all have seen it, after the skyboom god throws white lightning during the rain, and a tree burns.

    But people are making fire now, by twisting a stick on another stick and adding dry grass and twigs.

    This isn’t just unnatural, it’s insane.

    First, what happens if the fire spreads outside these so-called fire pits? The whole village is made of sticks! We will need a whole group of people to control the fires, and who is going to pay for these firefighters? Not me, I can assure you.

    And sure, cooking food sounds good, but what about the jobs this is going to cost the gatherers of the tribe? My grandfather collected nuts and seeds for twenty years and he weighed almost as much as the rock by the lake! Also, I heard cooked meat causes the cancer-god to dance in your stomach.

    And what about overcooked food? Wasting our delicious raw meat is inexcusable! Someone is going to have to watch the cooking food, and how are we going to find and train these cooks? Hire them from the dirty sandpeople on the other side of the ridge? I think not.

    Fire is going to change us in ways we can’t imagine, and in terrible ways we can. For instance, what if the sandpeople people find out ways to light us on fire? We will have to find ways to throw fire on them first.

    Yes, I have seen the young people frolicking by the campfire at night, but this must stop. In my day, we frolicked just fine in the mud pit. And yes, fire keeps us warm at night, but why not just migrate further South, away from those horrid sandpeople?

    I have also heard rumors that if fire gets hot enough, it can melt rocks. Who knows where this madness will lead?

    We must implore our tribe leaders to ban all fire research and use. We should also migrate South toward the attractive marshpeople.

    Also, someone took my brown mushrooms and I want them back.

  • Tony Stark explains AI

    Another year, another step closer to AI armageddon. Just watched a bit of Robert Downey Jr. hosting a new series on AI (https://youtu.be/UwsrzCVZAb8). Interesting stuff. Some of the best quotes from some of the experts driving towards greater AI.

    “Enter the matrix” as if that is a good thing.

    “Using my daughter to model a neural network” good idea?

    “Even today, in some sense we are cyborgs already” This rings true


    The speed of advancement is amazing. We are barrelling towards a future of optimization that is truly unprecedented.

    Of course, if it all freaks you out too much you can seek peace in the idea that we are all in the matrix and none of this is real anyway. https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/what-simulation-hypothesis-why-some-think-life-simulated-reality-ncna913926

  • Shame is Useless

    The Left in this country has got to stop trying to make people feel shame. The Right has got to stop trying make people feel shame.

    Shame isn’t useful. It doesn’t move the needle socially, if it ever did, and needs to be dismissed as an ancient emotional state, like “having the vapors.”

    I don’t believe most folks want others to feel shame out of a simple sense of projection (that they themselves feel shame). I believe many on the left and right think that shame is one of the emotions that keeps the guardrails on society. That shame can be used to make people act in the way they want them to.

    But:

    Shame is exactly like love in a relationship. It’s not an emotion that is all that meaningful to feel alone. If one person loves another but the second person feels no love, then love isn’t actually there. It’s a one way dead end.

    Shame only works if everyone in a society decides to feel shameful about an action. All it takes is one person to laugh instead of feeling shame, and the whole thing collapses.

    Shame is a tribal emotion, and no matter how many flags we buy from China, the US just isn’t a working tribe. If you have to do something more complicated than tailgating, the tribal model collapses.

    I know this is hard to accept, since so much is invested in the shame economy, so many people make their livings at the keyboard or pulpit wagging fingers. But shame will never bring us to a better world.

    If you tell someone to feel shame for getting an abortion or voting for Trump, they will feel lots of things, but I guarantee shame won’t be one of them.

    So if not shame, then what would make a better world with better people? Well, equally enforcing laws would work. And changing laws you don’t like.

    It will be hard but the future is a long, hard, painful slog. Buckle up.

    Text above from men who will never feel shame.

  • Social Media: The Undercover Drug of the 21st Century

    Social Media: The Undercover Drug of the 21st Century

    Yan Mastin

    At 20, I’ve discovered the fundamental truth that social media is a virtual rat race for the masses. This enlightenment has inspired me to delete all major social media off of my dated iPhone 5. After trying countless times to restrict my screen time and temporarily delete the various social media apps off of my phone, I have come to the realization I will always succumb to the social media addiction seemingly everyone my age suffers from if I don’t commit to a permanent eradication of the brain drug that is social media. 

    It has been about two months since I have deleted all social media apps off my phone. 

    The recognition of the symptoms of my social media habit is what has ultimately led me to this point. Starting and ending everyday lying in bed mindlessly scrolling through endless posts on a glowing piece of plastic. Letting the perpetual comparisons between my own life and the outward appearance of others online create a constant feeling of inadequacy and anxiety. The main reason, though, is the complete and utter waste of time that accompanies the habitual urge to give a shit about the carefully manicured façade put on by my pseudo-acquaintances.

    Living through the posts of so many others took away from my ability to live my own life. I was in a constant state of trying to make myself look cool on the internet instead of actually being a cool person in real life. True happiness would take a backseat to the display of happiness I would try and share on the internet. 

    If you’re a young person under the spell of social media like so many are, here are some more reasons to rid yourself of this damaging habit. 

    1.    Social media and tech executives in Silicon Valley are raising their own kids with major technology restrictions because many inside the industry are aware of the potentially damaging effects. Some Silicon Valley insiders have even claimed “Facebook, Snapchat, and Twitter are using ‘behavioral cocaine’ to turn people into addicts” per Business Insiders“Your Brain on Apps” series. (https://www.businessinsider.com/category/your-brain-on-apps)

    2.    Every second you spend on social media, your information is being analyzed by algorithms that determine what you’re most likely to purchase and this information will in turn, be sold. This data is stored and used to manipulate you. Is that what you want?! If you need any more push to press the little red X, go watch The Great Hack on Netflix. 

    3. There is a direct link between high social media usage and the increase of anxiety and depression. In a study that tested US adults ages 19 to 32, there was as significant increase in the odds of depression/ anxiety symptoms among high volume social media users. ( Shensa, A., Sidani, J. E., Dew, M. A., Escobar-Viera, C. G., & Primack, B. A. (2018). Social Media Use and Depression and Anxiety Symptoms: A Cluster Analysis. American journal of health behavior.)

    Now despite my obvious distaste for social media, I understand the benefits. From keeping up with old friends (although it’s a bad sign for your friendship if the only way you keep up is through social media) to creating a professional account for the advancement of your career, social media does have its uses. Just as opium can be extremely helpful for someone who recently underwent a major back surgery, it can just as easily leave you dead in a ditch with trackmarks on your arm.  

  • The big tent

    The big tent

     

    We live in the richest country in the world, and no one should be hungry, and no one should be homeless.
    A livable wage, affordable healthcare, affordable educational opportunities, and the ultra rich paying their fair share of taxes would all go a long way towards resolution as the general citizenry would then have opportunity to better themselves.
    Question; when did these simple and humanitarian concepts become associated with the far left???     Hell, it was the majority of the republican platform when Ike was president, and America had a robust and thriving middle class.
    What ever happened to the republican party that championed fiscal responsibility, family values, limited government, and a formidable military standing?
    I look at trump’s GOP, and I see a party that more resembles the taliban; they advocate forced patriotism, they’re anti-gay, they’re misogynistic, they want god in government, and their leaders seemingly refuse to recognize or accept any government mandated checks on their power…
    What I see clearly is that trump and his enablers have pushed the right so far in the direction of hate, intolerance, and totalitarianism that anything left of center now appears to be extreme, when in reality, it represents the diversity of our people. It speaks of equality, freedom of choice, and humanity; the very virtues on which America was founded, and grew into the greatest nation on the planet…
    Mark my words, old boy, this is a dark and tumultuous time for the American people, and history will, in our lifetime, reflect the truth regarding these events…

  • A humble suggestion on how to fix Soccer

    giphy-6

     

    Play me whilst you read!

    Readers of this blog will know that we are not fans of needless robot automation. However – there are times when using Robots effectively can bring about a much better outcome. This may be one of those times. The problem of trying to watch a soccer game have become to serious to ignore. What are those problems you ask? After years of analyzing Soccer from afar here are the 3 main problems with the sport as it stands today.

    1. Lets face it. Soccer is excruciatingly boring to watch. Scoring is so low, that you feel robbed if you go to the bathroom to pee and miss a goal. The rest of the ‘excitement’ is just players running up and down the field. Another reason Soccer can be boring is the constant stoppages in the game. There is really no good reason for the amount of stoppages. There are WAY too many fouls. Fouls slow the game down needlessly. Out of bounds should be the only foul. Offsides,  a completely needless foul, was invented specifically to reduce scoring (brilliant). Get rid of the fouls. Increase scoring. Make the game watchable.
    2. Officials have way to much power to influence the game. This results in unfair outcomes. Teams win or lose based on these dubious referee calls. The results: goals scored that shouldn’t have been, goals not scored that should have been, players sent off that should have stayed on and players staying on that should have been sent off.
    3. Flopping. Nothing else needs to be said. giphy-7

    So how can we fix the game? Here are 3 humble proposals that we feel will make the game much more tolerable to watch.

    First – How to make the game more exciting. The MAIN reason that there is so little excitement is the lack of scoring. The fix, in many ways, is very simple. You either get rid of the goalie, or make the net much larger.  Getting rid of the goalie seems like the most obvious solution – since the existence of a person on a soccer team that can pick up the ball seems odd in the first place. But I prefer making the goal the entire width of the field. Sure – there may be some accidental goals but who cares. It happens already!

    giphy-8

    Second – and this is where the Robots come in – we need Robot Umpires that don’t miss calls. We need fewer fouls and the ones that we are left with should be called only if there is an actual infraction. Red card should be burned. Robot Umpires will keep the game moving by not making bad calls that require a game stoppage.

    giphy-9

    Lastly – the issue of Flopping. Examples of this behavior is the best medicine so lets start there. If you have a weak stomach you may want to skip past this quickly.

    giphy-10giphy-11giphy-12giphy-13giphy-14

    Flopping is the saddest part of soccer. I literally can’t watch it. It makes me ill. Why do these guys embarrass themselves so much. One very obvious reason.  To draw a foul. Since every goal is so impactful, drawing a penalty yields a much bigger advantage in soccer than, say, free throws in basketball. There are even how-to video’s for kids to learn how to flop!

    What is the answer? Pretty simple – VERY high price has to be paid for flopping. It has been suggested that once you implement robot refs’ you could have them actually pull the arms and legs off the offending flopper and shoot the body parts into the stands with air cannons. A tough love approach perhaps, but it would clearly stop flopping. Perhaps a more humane approach to get this off the ground.

    Once you have the all seeing Robot Umps from above – the answer becomes pretty simple. All penalties in the box are subject to review. Robot umpires – who will mostly get it right to begin with have the ability to review and reject a penalty if its deemed a flop. There is already a yellow card assessed for flopping (its rarely called). I would be for giving the other team a penalty kick immediately if flopping is called.

    Imagine if there was a rule in baseball that stated getting hit by a pitch with the bases loaded means your team gets an automatic grand slam. Sure some guys would still try to hit the ball but you would also see a whole lot of guys leaning in to inside pitches or pretending balls that came near them actually hit them. You could try and hit a grand slam the traditional way but that is much more difficult then taking the gimme. That would be a stupid rule right? But that’s exactly what is happening in soccer.

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    The flopping has to stop. The game needs to be made less boring. Cant wait to hear from all our soccer playing anti-robot friends on our suggestion! Leave your message below.

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    The organization behind TrustNoRobot is now a non-profit! Our mission is to promote humans above technology. Our simple belief is that technology should work for humans and better their condition and never have a negative impact on humanity. Please find it in your heart to donate to this important cause.