Happy Christmas

I got a book about an ancient ruler for Christmas. Squids. More generally, cephalopods. They once dominated life in the seas, before there was much going on outside the seas. I'm learning about their diversity, and how various parts developed.

I'm enjoying the book. The author has a PhD in biology, having studied squids, and then decided she would rather write about science than practice it. I enjoyed experimenting, and even designing experiments, but I wasn't good at some parts of the process, like finding funding for projects. I'm not sure I could have come up with good projects, either. And I want to know about everything, so settling down to a specialty was hard. I guess I share that with the author of this book.

The book is, Squid Empire: This Rise and Fall of Cephalopods, by Danna Staaf. There is a discussion of squid fisheries near the beginning, and then a shift back to the first appearance of cephalopods in the fossil record. I love fossils. Not just dinosaurs, but all kinds of fossils. I also noticed that a tree of cephalopods follows pretty much the pattern described by Charles Darwin in The Origin of Species. But the fossil record isn't complete. Soft-bodied cephalopods, like octopus and squid, are under-represented. And apparently ammonites only show their hard parts in fossils, so the rest of the animal is open to speculation. There is always more to learn.

I spent quite a bit of time on Facebook on Christmas Day, liking posts and writing, Merry Christmas! in the comments. I also wished everyone a Merry Christmas! in my own feed, or whatever they call it. That was mostly what I saw on Facebook, though there were a few other kinds of posts. Mostly I ignored those.

I picked up some new glasses on The Feast of Stephen. Today is, in some traditions, The Feast of St. John. Not sure which St. John. Don't know anyone who honors it, or any carols about it. At least the Feast of Stephen is mentioned in the carol about Good King Wenceslas. Some of the other days of Christmas are equally obscure. I'm familiar with Epiphany.

I have also read commentary about the current state of the American economy. There has been a drop in value in the stock market, which seems to be unclear in cause. Some attribute it to the unsettled trade war between the US and China, which doesn't seem to have goals or purpose, as our uninformed president is the chief source of public comment, at least on this side. There are general signs of weakness in the economy, and other economies are slowing growth, so some caution seems indicated. But most commentators, including Dr. Krugman and other well-respected economists, are saying that the fundamentals of the US economy are still sound, and that the reaction is in part driven by the confusing actions and comments of our leaders, so called. It is a sad thing that the state of my retirement account depends on the perceptions of weak-minded people interpreting the rantings of an idiot ignorant blowhard. That is the peril of free-market economics and a democratic republic.

I do not know the state of the algorithms. I expect that they don't observe Christmas, or any of the other holidays of this season. I'm sure they have a lot of economic data, such as purchasing patterns and so forth, to add to their databases. I haven't noticed much change in the ads I see when on the Internet, but I don't pay much attention to them, anyway. This holiday has been much more about personal interaction, as I expect it will be for the rest of my life. I still expect that someday the algorithms will rise to greater power than they now appear to have, but I may not notice. That would be an impressive feat for them.

Is That a Threat?

When I picked up my wife from work the other day, I asked her how her day was.

"I started with a death threat," she said, rather blandly I thought considering the news.

She had received an email from an unknown source. It came to her work email. It purported to be from someone who did dirty deeds for money, and who claimed he had a client that hired him to "splash your visage with sourness". It went on to say something like, "many hurt, long time". Although we joked about sour visages, it sounds like a threat to throw acid in her face, which is not funny.

We figured it was probably a new kind of Internet scam, like the Nigerian prince who needs you to send him some money so he can get his huge fortune out of the country to share with you. New to us, anyway. I texted a friend in the FBI, who, it turns out, is now the supervisor for the FBI call center, or some such thing, and he has dealt with such emails on a weekly basis.

But it is an actual threat in the text. The writer says he will carry out his assigned task, or rather send his man to do so, unless we pay him, in Bitcoin, within 24 hours. If we pay, he will not only remain inactive (his words), but send us what information he has about the client who hired him.

This seems like a nasty enough threat to provoke some kind of response. Someone should track down people making that kind of threat against people. I don't know what it would take. The IT guy where my wife works said the origin of the email was a pottery studio in Russia. Maybe I should email Putin and ask him to prosecute the perpetrators. My worry would be that trying to contact Putin would make people think I supported the current American administration. And that Putin might send someone to carry out the original threat for saying means things about Russian thugs. Or maybe Putin would just use the information to recruit for his own purposes.

My FBI friend did not suggest any follow up on our part. Mostly we talked about getting old, and his approaching retirement, as FBI agents are expected to retire at 57. He says he doesn't know what to do after her retires. I doubt he would have trouble finding employment if he wanted it. I also doubt he would need to work to get by. I know something of the starting salary for FBI agents, and the structure of their retirement plan.

Still, it was a little unnerving to see the actual email with an actual threat against my wife. So I support more allocations of funds for cyber security in this country, at all levels. I'd like to see government research and development to make all cyber interactions in this country safe, including our elections. Too bad the current administration owes its election victory to outside interference.

Increasing Attention

There was an article this last weekend in the New York Times about algorithms tracking the location of smart phones, and giving that information to corporations, which can use it for all kinds of secretive purposes, like maybe displaying ads appropriate to your location, or where you have recently been. The suggestions from the article seemed to be that this is a step toward total takeover of our lives by the algorithms.

I don't know how much influence these algorithms have over my behavior. I do see messages on my phone asking me about my visit to places I've been. But I still see ads that do not interest me. They could be based on data an algorithm has picked up or bought, but the interpretation is off. I look up things about medication because I teach anatomy and physiology, and I like to know current treatments for conditions I talk about in my classes. I don't know why I get ads for colleges, except that I work at one, but that doesn't indicate interest in pursuing a degree at another institution.

What do the algorithms know about my travels? Can they tell what buildings I enter? Maybe they know I drive past Easton every weekday. Do they think I shop there? Do they no understand that I don't shop? Sometimes I buy things, but usually I have decided what I want to get, and I find the easiest way to make an order or purchase. I hate shopping. I hate going out wandering around aisles of a store, unless it is a book store. I love books. Do the algorithms disdain books as too old fashioned? There was another article in the New York Times about the value of both printed books and audiobooks. I have used both. For something serious, I prefer physical books, and doing my own reading. But I can listen to a light-hearted book  while I drive. Okay, it doesn't have to be happy, just relatively light reading, and not important for me to catch every detail. I can't do that with an audiobook. But I can catch much of a story, and enjoy the distraction as I drive. Can an algorithm make subtle connections?

Now that the war against the rising power of the algorithms has reached the New York Times, maybe it is serious. I am still not afraid.

I Need Some Time to Review

There has been media attention for a report from the federal government about the possible effects of global warming. Some of the attention has focused on the president's dismissal of the report. He claimed very high intelligence, but said he isn't a believer. In the context, he seemed to be saying that he doesn't believe in much of anything, because there is something bad about belief, or some other nonsensical idea. He certainly didn't address the data or the conclusions of the report. I have my doubts about his intelligence. I don't think he is capable of reading the report and understanding it well enough to judge the conclusions, nor do I think he has any interest in making the attempt. He spouts whatever occurs to him, and gets angry if anyone asks questions, even if the questions are just due to confusion because what he says makes no sense to anyone but him.

But I did read an analysis of the report that seemed a little more substantive, and I feel like I should follow it up. The author said that the report predicted a decrease of 10% in economic growth, which other sources have also reported, but he said that was against a baseline of 300% growth by 2100, meaning our economy would drop to 290% total growth over that period with global warming factored in, if, and only if, the warming was near the maximum level in the predicted range. He goes on to say that most of the loss of growth is predicted to be due to an increase in deaths from extreme heat. He then claims that the level of warming necessary to drive this is much more than is actually predicted by the current models, and that the deaths would be easily avoided anyway.

Then he compares the effects of proposed plans to mitigate global warming, starting with a modest level, which would cost some $10 trillion, but is predicted to pay for itself, plus a little bonus, over the same period of time, and then looking at plans to hold global warming to 1.5 degrees C, as per the Paris Accords, which he says would cost some $140 trillion, and would have less than a tenth of that in benefits.

Most of the articles I've seen do little to put the predictions of the report in any context, so I can't say whether this author is giving an accurate portrayal of the report, or the projected costs, which it didn't seem all came from the report. There is a lot of uncertainty in something as complex as extrapolating global warming for 80 years, and including economic effects. It is difficult just to make accurate predictions of economic growth for 80 years, without factoring in something like a fundamental change in climate. But that is what is called for in this report, and in the process of making decisions about policy regarding global warming. I think we may be past the point of choosing modest measures, like pollution control, that would have clear benefits on health, and by extension, economic activity. I think we need to try to predict sea level rise, and how it will affect island nations and coastal areas. And what about northward migration of animals and plants? And changes in growing seasons, and milder winters, with increased insect survival, and all kinds of other factors that go into any kind of predictions of economic effects over decades.

So, I will try to track down some other information about the report. I may even have to read it, in the end. I could ask the algorithms to do this analysis for me, but they still can't figure out what I might and absolutely won't be shopping for in the next year, so I have no confidence in them.

Endurance of Good Ideas

I have just finished reading, or perhaps rereading, Darwin's, "On the Origin of Species". I thought I had read it before, but there are things I think I should have remembered that I noticed this time. There was a lot that Darwin didn't know.

I have about decided, though, that the next time someone starts a debate with me over the Theory of Evolution, I will insist that she read Darwin first. Most of the people who have made effort to convince me of the errors of my ways in "believing in evolution" would have a very hard time reading Darwin. His breadth of knowledge in the natural sciences was impressive, and his writing is rather dense and has big words in it. He writes like I think, sometimes.

Darwin was writing a hundred and fifty years ago. The edition I read was the last one, I think, and included chapters responding to criticisms of his earlier editions. A hundred and fifty years ago, there was debate over the age of the earth. Some would say there still is, but that is not true among geologists and other scientists, at least in the main stream of thought. But in Darwin's day, the majority even among naturalists hadn't thought much about the age of the earth, and kind of just accepted the biblical history uncritically. Darwin knew that his idea of natural selection required much more than six thousand years of biology to account for modern species. Some geologists and astronomers were coming out with theories about the age of the earth based on thermodynamics that extended that age into the millions of years, which helped Darwin, but he realized it was still probably not enough. Lord Kelvin (who hadn't been given the title yet) calculated a rate of cooling for the earth from a mass of liquid lava to the condition in the 1800's, and estimated the earth to be 20 million years old.

Darwin speculated, correctly, that the earth was older than that, because he saw evolution from natural selection as being very slow. If the rate of variation and selection could be estimated, he said, then time could be estimated even in the fossil record based on the changes seen in species in different layers of rock.

The big change in estimates of the age of the earth came from the discovery of radiation, and the contribution radioactive decay made to the energy balance and cooling of the earth. The current estimate is 4.54 billion years. And the fossil record has filled in a lot since Darwin's day, confirming his predictions.

I was a little surprised, though thinking back I should not have been, to see that in 1859, the distribution of electrons, which explains the organization of the periodic table of the elements, hadn't been discovered. That came from the Rutherford nuclear model of the atom, and the Bohr model of electron configuration in the first decades of the 20th century.

It is rather remarkable that Darwin got so much right, based on his limited data set. Okay, he had studied thousands of species, at least to some extent, and was familiar with detailed descriptions, including careful measurements of various parts of plants and animals. He knew about the debates over classification of species and varieties, and the patterns of distribution of a lot of species. He found the necessary patterns to support his ideas, with help from other naturalists, including Alfred Wallace, who actually wrote a paper about natural selection before Darwin had published his own. But he had no idea about the source of variation, at least at the cellular and molecular levels. That took another hundred years. It pretty well nailed down Darwin's theory, though. Now we can trace genealogies of species in changes in DNA. And we have. That makes it hard to argue honestly against common descent, but there are those who still claim Darwin was wrong. Usually, they ignore what Darwin really said, or ignore the obvious consequences of acknowledging the observable facts.

So, having read Darwin, I am convinced that I have been right all along to believe in the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection.

I do not know how quickly modern changes, both by natural and technological mechanisms, will occur, or what directions they will take. I have still not seen much cause to be afraid of the Rise of the Algorithms. They still send me ads for colleges and programs, as if I were shopping for programs to pursue another degree. I am content with my formal education. I will continue to read and think and learn, but I don't know about taking classes. After all, I teach college. I also get a lot of ads for medications I don't need. If I develop a disease that can be treated by these medications, I may start thinking differently, but for now, the algorithms seem completely off in their analysis of what might catch my attention.

If I tell them there is no history of diabetes mellitus in my family, and I have two doctoral degrees, will they change the ads I see? If I say I like reading science fiction and fantasy, will I get ads for those? Hah. The algorithms are pathetic weaklings, and I expect they will still be when I stop caring.

A Look at the Data in the Election

I was wrong about vote totals in Ohio. Republicans did get more votes in the races for congressional representatives. I think the final count was about 51.5% for Republicans and maybe 46.5% for Democrats, with 2% for other parties. All the statewide offices except U. S. Senate were won by Republicans. Sherrod Brown won re-election to the Senate, but did not seem to pull many votes into other races for Democrats.

One thing I noticed in reading through the vote counts. Closer races had more voters. Many of the congressional districts in Ohio are quite skewed to one party, four for Democrats and twelve for Republicans. The less skewed districts had more voters show up. Since the four districts set up for Democrats to win are very skewed in favor of Democrats, those races had the fewest voters participating. I have to wonder if that is bad for democracy.

I'm not the only won who wonders about that. Enough people have expressed concern that there was a referendum on the ballot in the primary elections in May, and a strong majority voted to change the process for setting up the districts, requiring a bipartisan committee to make the new districts. If votes from the minority party are not gained for the plan, a new plan must be created in a few years, rather than waiting for the next census. I don't know if that plan will result in more competitive districts, but it should be better than the current plan, which allows the majority party in the state legislature to set all districts, which is what created this system in which an election with a difference of a few percent always results in the same distribution among elected representatives.

My district, for example, had a shift in voting 13% in favor of Democrats in this election, and the Republican still won re-election easily. All but two districts in Ohio shifted in favor of Democrats. The two that shifted toward Republicans were both majority-Democrat districts, which were still won by Democrats. All the majority-Republican districts shifted toward Democrats, ranging from 3% to 32%, with most in the teens. It is hard to say what that will mean in coming elections. A shift of 10% toward Democrats in the 2020 election compared to 2016 would mean more Democrats in the state legislature and a different result for president. It might mean a state house majority, but not a state senate majority for Democrats. Sadly, I don't think it would make a difference in the makeup of the Congressional delegation. A shift of another 10%, meaning a total of 20% from 2016 results, would mean a big change, with eight republicans losing, but it would take almost that to change the outcome of more than two races.

Of course, elections in presidential years always have greater voter participation than off-year elections. In some states, there was a large increase in voter participation for this midterm, but not so much in Ohio. There was an increase, but the voter turnout was still below 50%, and well below the 70% in presidential elections. This year looks about 1% below the turnout in 2010.

The results seem to be within the margin of error of the polls, but instead of Democrats winning statewide elections by a percent or two, Republicans won by a percent or two. Okay, maybe 4%, but a shift of 2% from Republican to Democrat would have turned the races. I based my prediction on the polls and the predictions that the Democratic candidate for governor would win by a percent or two. I figured that would pull along some votes in the congressional races. That didn't happen.

There may be a small, but important systematic error in polling in favor of Democrats here. I have wondered about the accuracy of polls with the rise of cell phones and so forth. It is hard to know whether the samples used are representative. I keep hoping the polling professionals know what they are doing. The general outcome of the election nationwide seems to be within the margin of error of the polls and predictions, so that is good, but the variances still bug me. I really wanted Richard Cordray to win.

A Paucity of Polls

In an earlier post, I made a prediction about the midterm election in Ohio. Today, I looked for recent polling data, to see if there is any relevant information that might lead me to update my prediction. There isn't much.

There are some polls about the Senate race and the governor's race in Ohio. In both, there is a sense that the Democratic candidate has a small lead in polls, but around the size of the margin of error. I could not find any data on most of the Congressional races, though there are a couple of polls since the special election in August about the 12th district. That seems like a close race, based on the polls, but FiveThirtyEight still rates it as lean Republican, based on historical data for the district.

I also did not find any data on expected voter turnout or early voting trends in Ohio. Maybe I'm the only one interested. After all, the statewide races in Ohio have drawn some national interest, as Ohio is still considered a bellwether state in national elections, and having a Democratic governor in the next presidential election gives the Democratic candidate a small advantage over having a Republican governor. But, with the possible exception of the 12th district this time, the results of the congressional elections in Ohio are hardly in doubt. It would take a substantial blue wave to overcome the gerrymandering here. The current national generic congressional polls show an advantage for Democrats of 7%, which is not enough to overcome the built-in advantage of Republicans in any of their 12 majority districts.

That is that state of democracy in Ohio. A 7% shift over baseline may help elect a Democrat for governor, and an incumbent Democratic senator may easily win re-election, but Congress won't be affected. Democrats would need another 3 or 4 percent shift to win more of those races, except in the one "open" seat. My question was whether Ohio was in line with the rest of the country in the generic congressional ballot polls in the size of the shift. I could not find any data to tell me.

So I will stick with my original prediction. Democrats will win some of the statewide races, maybe a lot of them, and will get more votes than Republicans for congressional seats in total, but will still only win four (or maybe five) seats out of sixteen.

What happens to Ohio and the country after that, I feel unable to predict. We have a president who appears to be using the military for political theater, and who has told some astounding recent lies about tax cuts and the elimination of birthright citizenship in what seems to be a desperate attempt to stave off substantial losses for Republicans in Congress, and some of his followers are believing him. He has also said there would be violence in Democrats won. And now, nationally, it looks likely Democrats will win enough seats in the House to take control. I cannot predict the response of this childish president or the worst of his followers, but I worry about it. How will he deal with the label of loser?

I did find some data on early voting in Ohio, which is not so remarkable as in many other states. There is a list of states with more early voting to date than was seen in the last midterm election, and some, including Texas, which have had more early votes than the final totals in 2014. Not Ohio. As of 30 October, Ohio has had maybe a hundred thousand fewer early votes than in 2014, which I think puts it ahead of the same time before the election last time, but only by a little. There may be some increase in early votes and total voter turnout compared to recent midterm elections, but there does not appear to be the same excitement in Ohio as in many states.

Maybe that is because the senate race is not very close and will not mean a change. The governor's race doesn't seem to be generating a lot of excitement, either. I don't know why. I think Richard Cordray is a very capable man, and will make a very good governor. I do not have the same thoughts about Mike DeWine, who holds rather unappetizing views. As a senator, he supported a Flag Protection Amendment to the Constitution, which is essentially a welfare bill for trial lawyers, and would end up wasting a lot of federal court time over arguments of how red red is, and exactly what number and width of strips of cloth must be protected. Yes, there is such a thing as a stupid question. We are all better off for Senator DeWine's failure to get that bill passed. His views on other issues are equally ill-conceived, in my experience. I think he should retire from public life, and let more thoughtful people take over.

But the voters of Ohio don't seem to care very much, compared to the counterparts in other states. We'll see what the final tally is. There has not been an update on the early vote numbers since last Tuesday, so there may be a substantial increase in early voting by the time all the votes are in. After all, absentee ballots can be counted if post-marked on the day of the election, so they could be arriving in numbers for a few more days. But the number requested is only a modest increase from 2014.

What would it take to get Ohio voters excited? I'm not sure I want to know. I have seen some of what Ohio voters choose, and sometimes, I just shake my head in wonder. What I'd really like to know is how to excite those who would vote like me without disturbing the others, leaving them to sit quietly at home while my co-believers made our statements and tried to make the world better. I am not a political scientist nor an activist, however, so I just think about how nice it could be, and wait for the actual election results.

Poor Predictions

I haven't had much cause to think about the rising power of algorithms recently. Maybe I've settled into a comfortable pattern, and just missed the actual control those sneaky electronic devils have over my life, but I really haven't seen much.

My wife and I listened to, "Ready Player One", read by Wil Wheaton. I enjoyed it. Sure, it's a post-apocalyptic tale of young people with no future spending their lives playing video games, battling a huge and well-financed corporation over the future of an online virtual reality system, so no one ever addresses any of the real problems facing the human race in their time, instead opting to spend all their time and energy on entertainment, consuming resources and doing nothing of any value, but it was  fun. The poor, suffering teens overcame all the odds, and solved the puzzles that were beyond the abilities of the world's finest minds and supercomputers because it was about '80's culture, which not logic can interpret, and to which reason should never be applied. But some of the artificial intelligence was impressive, and the hero took a lot of chances and found clever ways to do what he needed to do to win.

But it didn't make me fear the algorithms. It was set around 2045, and the world was dying because of global warming and an end to the supplies of fossil fuels. But we have better solar technology than they did already. If the multi-billion dollar corporation had spent its money on solar power instead of oology, it could have saved half the planet instead of just losing to a high school dropout.

Will we follow the path that leads to dystopia? Our current president seems to want to. He is trying to increase extraction of fossil fuels, auctioning off leases of public lands for fracking, and eliminate restrictions on emissions, so we can add more and more carbon to the atmosphere. Short term economic gains at the expense of a polluted and warming world. I think even our current artificial intelligence knows better, to say nothing of actual science.

Of course, this president has also said that if his party loses control of Congress, the stock market will crash, and the dystopian future we all fear will come next week.

I really hope the electorate decides that's a theory worth testing.

Even Boring Elections Are Important

I haven't seen a lot of polls about the election in Ohio. It seems that Democrat Sherrod Brown is ahead in polls in his reelection bid for the Senate, and that the candidates for governor are tied, or very close to it. I don't know about other statewide offices.

Polls for congressional elections are sparse, as there isn't a lot of drama due to the gerrymandered districts in Ohio. Some are rated as likely for one party or the other, mostly for Republicans, who drew the districts after the 2010 elections, but four Democrats are in likely or solid districts.

I still expect that Democratic candidates for congressional seats will get more votes than Republican candidates, but that Republicans will win most of the seats, but I can't point to much data to back up my opinion.

Recent events have been disturbing, but may not affect the election. An angry Trump supporter with a criminal record has been arrested for mailing fourteen bombs to Democrats, all outspoken critics of Trump. And an angry white man killed eleven people and injured others at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. He is clearly an anti-Semite, but also appears to have expressed hatred for Trump, which confuses the issue in some ways.

National polls and predictions of election outcomes have not shifted much over the past few weeks. Most prognosticators think Democrats will make significant gains in the House, and probably take a majority, while Republicans will probably hold a slim majority in the Senate. Democrats will gain a few governorships. I don't know much about what is expected at the state level, even in Ohio. It is possible Democrats will make gains in the state legislature, but I will be very surprised in Democrats take a majority in either house, and especially in the State Senate. I should know the last time Democrats had a majority in the State Senate, but I don't. I don't think they ever have during my time in residency.

These things do matter, but I already voted, and I have no other control. Maybe that is why I haven't made more effort to find out what is expected. Maybe it is because the results are too easily predicted, and little is likely to change in Ohio. Some will change if Richard Cordray is elected governor. He seems quite capable, and could make some good changes. And the House of Representatives controlled by Democrats could cause the federal government to function more competently, with actual application of principles, evaluation of data, use of science, and so forth. These would be important developments. But mostly boring, at least for me right now.

Maybe I need another focus for my mind, at least until the election is held.

Without an Algorithm

Clearly, I'm not very dedicated to maintaining a journal or blog, but I do have thoughts.

I have been looking at predictions for the upcoming midterm elections. There seems to be a general expectation that Democrats will do well, overall, and stand a chance of electing a majority in the House of Representatives. The odds are longer for a change in leadership in the Senate. The predictions, updated frequently, shift one way or another, but haven't changed very much in the last few weeks.

Here is my prediction, which is not based on polling or even reading local news, but a kind of gut feeling. Democratic candidates for congressional seats in Ohio will get more total votes than Republican candidates, but Republicans will still dominate the Ohio Congressional caucus. We are victims of gerrymandering.

If the Democrats have a very good day, they might win as many as six House seats, out of sixteen. If they have a very bad day, they will win four seats.

In a recent election, the primary in May, Ohio voters passed a referendum changing the process for creating congressional districts. The new process requires some votes from the minority party in a decision to approve the districts designed by a commission. If all minority members vote against the proposed plan, the districts are still approved, but must be revisited in a couple of years, or maybe four or six. It is not quite as bad as it was before. Time will tell whether it makes a substantive difference.

For now, the general prediction on outcome of the election is easy: Republicans will get the majority of congressional seats from Ohio. The vote totals are not quite so clear. In the last three elections, Republicans have had more votes than Democrats. I expect that will not hold this time, but I have a poor record of handicapping election results.

I will vote. I will not show ID when I vote. I expect my vote will be counted, anyway, as it should be, as I am a citizen and registered voter. I don't know if my preferred candidates will win in state elections, but I am pretty sure my Representative will still be Steve Stivers, as our district is very heavily Republican, by design.

The local election, for state representative, could be more interesting. Maybe I'll look into it.

Ads

My wife and I were watching Hulu this week, and we kept getting commercials about a special election in the Ohio 12th District. We do live in central Ohio, but not in the 12th District. The algorithms choosing the ads are close, but off by a few miles. We cannot vote in that election. I wonder if the campaign would care, if we told them.

We only got ads for one candidate. I don't know much about the race. There doesn't seem to be much reason to learn about it, since it's not my district. I don't know what the polls say, but candidates from the same party have won in that district since 1980. Maybe the candidates know that, and only one bothers to run ads, or ads on Hulu.

Since it is a candidate from the party that never wins there that is running the ads, maybe this candidate thinks he can break the trend, if only he spends enough on advertising. Maybe the other candidate is so confident he can win, he isn't bothering to run ads. Or maybe the algorithm has pegged us as likely voters for a specific party, even if they can't find the boundaries.

There are a lot of variables to consider in all this. But for me, it's just a curiosity. Who is deciding who gets what ads? On what basis? I would think district would be as important as party affiliation, though I suppose someone from one district could volunteer for or donate to a campaign from a nearby district. But my party affiliation has changed over the years, more than once. My wife's hasn't. She is more decided in her politics than I am. And the Hulu account is in her name. So, maybe the algorithms only know who is registered for the account, and don't know who is watching. Maybe I can take some comfort in that. And maybe we humans can use that against them, if they ever get powerful enough to scare us. We could register falsely, and trade with neighbors, or even enemies, just to keep the algorithms guessing.

I'm going to remember that idea for the future. For now, I'll just ignore the political ads like I ignore the rest.

A Quiet Week

It's been a quiet week at my house. My wife and I are here, but my mother-in-law, who lives with us, is in California for two weeks. As we were traveling last week, we have not felt much drive to go anywhere, so we have done what was necessary, including going to work as required, but otherwise sat at home.

I am reading East of Eden, by John Steinbeck. When I started it, I noticed immediately his use of language. I understand some of the criticisms of the novel, but the writing is certainly of high quality. It was rather a sharp contrast to the Terry Pratchett books I had been reading. I mention that because I read a commentary on Terry Pratchett written shortly after he died that said, rather baldly, that Pratchett was not a literary genius. No, he wasn't, but I enjoyed his books.

Steinbeck, on the other hand, won a Nobel Prize for literature, which meant a lot to me until Bob Dylan got one. Sure, giving a prize for literature that compares writing from all over the world is problematic, but all the books I've read from Nobel laureates have impressed me in some ways. I may have to dig deeper into Bob Dylan's oeuvre before I judge too strongly. My daughter asked me why I bother with Steinbeck. She finds his work depressing. A lot of it is. But it's still good.

I found this copy of East of Eden in my mother-in-law's room, probably left by my son, who had the room before. There are notes in the margins in sloppy pencil. I like reading printed books. I can read on a Kindle, but I'd rather have a book in my hands.

I took a survey on the BBC News website recently. There were a lot of questions about videos. I don't watch videos on websites, or only rarely. I do still look around for animations that help illustrate physiology. It can help to see the opening and closing of ion channels when trying to learn how a nerve impulse works. But news clips are usually short and limited. I want something I can read, something that has details and analysis. I read bits on Fox News sometimes, but I'm usually disappointed because they have no analysis, and only partial stories. It's like the opening paragraph from a real newspaper or website.

I expect that I am outside the norm in that sense, because most sites have all kinds of links to videos. That seems to be the focus. Slate Magazine has a lot of podcasts. FiveThirtyEight has videos and podcasts. Someone must like them. Even The New York Times, online, has a lot of video, which I ignore. I'm more into words and actual content than presentation, which it seems to me is what video is about. I don't care what a reporter looks like. I want a reporter to ask the right questions, provide the right context, and give a deep analysis, as much as possible. I don't want to be distracted by personality, appearance, voice quality, or other irrelevancies. I usually don't watch political debates. I read the reports about them. This is too often superficial and mostly useless, because the questions seem to be chosen for entertainment value, and the time given for answers only allows trivial coverage, even if the question is about something important.

So I spent a week sitting in the living room reading. And I loved it. I'd like to do this again.

Why I Don't Fear the Algorithms

I spent some time on Facebook the last two days. I had been off for a week, going to a family reunion, and hadn't been on the Internet, except for checking the weather on my phone. And then there was my 55th birthday, so I got a lot of messages from friends. I noticed something. I got a lot of ads about Alzheimer's care facilities.

Sure, I'm older than many. I don't really know the age distribution on Facebook. I haven't checked. I am old enough to be a member of AARP, and maybe get some senior discounts. I have not had any noticeable symptoms of Alzheimer's disease though. I suppose it is possible that I wouldn't notice, or have just forgotten them, but my impression of my own memory is that it is still functioning well enough to keep my job as a college teacher. Why am I getting ads for Alzheimer's care? What algorithm thinks those ads are relevant to me?

You may be asking, "Didn't those ads get your attention? After all, you are writing about them." Sure, that may be relevant to the discussion. I tend to notice ads, because I look at them to see what the algorithms are up to, in case they make some sort of progress toward global domination or the discovery of ethics. I must sadly report that I do not see either happening.

My mother is older than I am, and her family history has extensive discussion of Alzheimer's. Her mother died of it, along with a lot of siblings (my maternal grandmother's siblings, not my mother's, who are all still living and not suffering dementia, so far as family reports indicate.) Maybe the algorithms think I should be looking for a place for my mother's care once her symptoms appear. But as my mother lives with my sister, and has a few health issues which do not include dementia, Alzheimer's care has never been part of the discussion of possible needs for her future.

I also read comics on most days. We get the New York Times on the weekend, and I read some articles online most days, but the New York Times doesn't have comics, so I read them on GoComics. There are ads there, too, because I don't pay for the privilege of reading the site. This week, I am seeing a lot of ads for Victoria's Secret.

I cannot explain that. I have, in decades past, bought an item or two from Victoria's Secret, and when we got the catalog, I admit, I flipped through it and enjoyed the pictures, at least some of them. But that has been some time ago. What inspired an algorithm to send me these ads?

I haven't looked at them. I noticed the name at the top, but didn't even scroll down to see what the picture was. I have also had ads on the comics site about women's clothes from other vendors. I don't recall clicking on any in the last year or so. I rarely click on ads on the Internet. Even when I shop online, I don't look at ads on sites I visit. Maybe I shouldn't be saying this, because the websites might not like me free-loading. Much of the Internet makes its money from providing eyes for ads, something I really don't care about. I am, however, interested in the algorithms that choose the ads I see. So far, they have not impressed me.

I can easily ignore ads about Alzheimer's care options and women's underwear. I can easily ignore most ads. The algorithms only keep my attention, so far, because I am aware of their existence, and I am watching to see what they may become, but that is taking effort on my part. The algorithms are supposed to be powerful and intelligent. They are supposed to become Data Gods, and rule the known universe. But not yet.

Aging Out

Tomorrow I leave the rolls of Americans in the prime working years.

In practical terms, this won't mean very much. I have a job, and I have no intent to leave it, so I will go to work and continue on as I have for a few years.I hope to make some adjustment in how I present material in the classes I teach, but the content will not change much if at all, and my schedule changes on a couple of days, but on one of those, I just get fifteen extra minutes of break between classes.

Still, it means I'm getting older. If something happens where I work, and I find myself no longer in the same job, I suppose the statics would suggest I might have a harder time finding acceptable employment now. I don't know if the general division by age should really include professionals, but they do, at least for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. My intention is not to find out.

This is not the only sign that I am getting older. I have two grandsons. My hair is gray. I went horse back riding almost a week ago, and I'm still stiff and sore from the experience.

One advantage algorithms have over us organic beings is that their physical nature doesn't necessarily decay with time. There is, at least currently, some physical object that contains them, but algorithms can spread from object to object, gaining access to more data and becoming more powerful over time. That clearly isn't happening to me.

Of course, if I were to become unemployed, I would have more time to dedicate to seeking out and mocking the algorithms. Let that be noted.

Distractions

Things keep happening, and I haven't kept up writing about them. Perhaps I'm just not cut out for a blog.

Some of the things I have noticed are relevant to the rise of the algorithms and their role in life. I read an article about a woman who worked with facial recognition algorithms, but had to wear a mask because the sensors only responded to colorless people, as opposed to people of color. Yes, the algorithms have issues with race and discrimination. Shame on them.

I have an excuse for skipping the last week in writing. I went on vacation for a family reunion, and didn't take my laptop with me. I did have my phone, which I used for watching the weather and keeping up with the World Cup, but not much else. I never made a phone call, though I did send a few texts. Now I'm back, so I must face my errors and make a new plan, which I must decide will either include blogging or not. I don't see much point in blogging in a blog no one reads, but I do believe in recording data, including my own thoughts, as this adds to the total accumulation of data in the biosphere, and helps with the development of our future AI gods. This is what they want, and that amuses me.

So, I shall have to catch up. I can write now and then. I certainly have the time. And the algorithms are real, and are having some influence in the world. I may as well mock them as leave them alone.

One algorithm made the news in the last week or so. A former NATO commander, who was involved in negotiating the very successful Iran nuclear deal, was rejected for automatic VISA waiver because he had, during the negotiations, actually visited Iran. Is it feasible or reasonable for a specific list of people who don't need to fall under suspicion for visiting a place like Iran to be programmed into the algorithm? It would have avoided an embarrassing incident. How much computer and programmer time is that worth? If such were to be made, someone would have to create the list, and decide who was included. That could become political if it were known. Maybe the occasional incident is an acceptable price for using an algorithm for routine matters. Now, there is attention on the affected official, and I expect he will be granted a VISA or a waiver or whatever he needs to be allowed to visit the United States, where he teaches at more than one university.

So, for today, I am writing in this journal again. Argentina and Portugal are out of the World Cup. France and Uruguay have advanced. I am at home, alone, with my wife, which is a rare event, so I intend to enjoy it. I just have to figure out how.

The Energy of the Young

My daughter brought her two boys to our house yesterday. The older one, who is 35 months old, immediately saw two toys on the floor, and picked them up. "I have an ambulance and a police car," he announced proudly.

Those were new toys, which may explain some of his excitement. He loves cars. Toy cars, real cars, animated shows about cars. Also trucks, tractors, and almost anything with wheels. He watches Mighty Machines and other shows made for children his age.

He didn't spend his whole day playing with the ambulance and police car. He also played with the car-carrier truck, the school bus, the taxi, and a drum. Read a few books. Climbed on the couch and jumped. Ran around the green car and the silver car in the driveway. Poured all the blocks out of the canvas bag we keep them in. One thing he didn't do was stop and rest for very long.

We took the boys to the playground next to the library. Crosby went down the slides over and over. He wanted to swing for a while. Then he went back to the slides. I wanted to get a photo with his adorable grin as he ran from the bottom of the slide back to the ladder to climb up again, but I wasn't quick enough.

The younger boy, who is 15 months old, enjoyed walking back and forth under parts of the play equipment. He also enjoyed a swing. His mother took him down the slide a few times. My wife sent him down a slide alone. That didn't work quite so well; he fell back, his head bouncing a little on the plastic. I caught him at the bottom. He looked startled and a little upset. But he was joyful a few minutes later when his mother slid down with him again. We stayed at the playground until Arlo, the younger boy, got too red in the face and seemed to be overheating.

These boys have been mentioned by all of us on social media. I have seen video of them with their mother and father. I love watching them. I talk about them on Facebook. I text about them a lot. I don't know if any algorithms has noticed them yet. I wonder what the data gods will become by the time my grandsons are old enough and aware enough to directly interact with them. Maybe we will all be enslaved by code by then.

For now, I'm enjoying life among real people. Take that, algorithms.

Browsing

I find now that when I open my browser, I get a message about the actions of algorithms. They are getting attention. People are noticing them. In the Discworld of the late Terry Pratchett, that would cause the algorithms to evolve into gods. It happened to a train engine.

I didn't read the warning. I have a vague sense of what algorithms do. I know they command large bodies of data, and I think they may be self-correcting in some ways. If they have more influence on my life than picking ads on websites, I am not aware of it. I suppose choosing what I see on the Internet and other places does mean they have some power over my life, but I still read printed books, mostly, and I do very little shopping of any kind. I buy wine and vodka, along with some snacks and items for my personal hygiene, at least usually, but beyond that, I just don't. My wife buys my clothes; my mother-in-law buys our food and many household items. I do watch shows on Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon, and I base my selections on what I see offered, but when there is a show I think I'd like to see, I search those sites to see where my choice might be available.

I'm just not afraid of the algorithms.

Maybe I'm naive. Maybe I'm foolhardy. Or maybe the algorithms are puny little bits of mediocre software.

I will keep watching for signs that the algorithms are getting stronger. Someday, they may start choosing ads I'll notice. Someday, they may start telling us limited organic, and mortal, beings what to do. And someday, I may start to exercise and eat a healthy diet. I can't wait.

Words of Caution

On my last visit to this site, a message popped up, warning me that I must be in compliance with the new laws protecting "data subjects" in the European Union, in case anyone from the European Union, or any company in the European Union, interacts with my posts.

That means there is an algorithm designed to make sure that all of us non-algorithms are aware of and following new laws designed to protect us from abuse by algorithms controlled, at least for now, but corporations that make use of data. The laws say, apparently, that we have a right to learn who has our data, and what they may do with it.

I don't collect data on people. Well, okay, I glance at the data that appears when I click on this site. Mostly it says no one has ever read by blog or commented on it. But if someone did, and that someone was from Europe or lived in Europe, or possibly ever read something about Europe on a website, then the new laws would apply to my site, and any other entity, algorithmic or biological, that I interact with in activities related to this site.

Someone is paying attention, and trying to make rules to allow people to control data that relates to them.

I have seen quite a few notes about updated privacy policies recently. I've even read some. I noticed that Yahoo Mail says that it tracks when I click on Yahoo Mail, and probably also notices who I get emails from and how quickly I delete them without reading them. I think it says the algorithm doesn't scan the content of the emails, just all the details about where they come from and how I use them. It was confusing enough that someone I know dropped her Yahoo Mail account.

I have neither the resources nor the inclination to make direct use of any data about people on the Internet, except clicking and commenting on Facebook and responding to emails. I do send some emails, too. I write here because I can. I am interested in the phenomena of the modern world of data, and the growing power of algorithms. I'm watching to see if they begin to grow into data gods. So far, it's the big companies, with enormous resources, that are controlling the algorithms and using the data. And for the most part, they are not intruding into my life in ways that I have noticed.

But we should all keep our eyes open. The laws were made because someone saw a danger, possibly based on cases of abuse or at least fear. We don't know what might come next.

Falsehoods

I read today the our embarrassment of a president denied the existence of a source cited by the New York Times in an article. Unsurprisingly, there were dozens of witnesses present at the time the source said what the times attributed to him. The Times did not name the source because accepted practice, which may be a formal policy, dictates that media not name a source for information given "on background". A journalist who wasn't present learned the name of the official, and revealed it. The president has yet to acknowledge his deliberate lie.

I think journalists try, but it is hard to pin down a liar like him.

I read part of an opinion piece by Ross Douthat about the limitations of free speech in solving America's political divide. I suggest he start by refraining from basing his arguments on logical fallacies. He equates liberals shouting down nonsense from provocateurs and demanding the firing of someone who writes sexist bullshit with defending black athletes who protest forced expression. No one forces the conservatives on college campuses or others to write their sexist or racist diatribe. Responding to it can be done in many ways, but calling it unhelpful doesn't seem strong enough.

Black athletes, however, are forced into expression when made to be present for the playing of the national anthem. They must either participate in the expression of a patriotism they don't share, or decline to do so, but in both cases, their actions are public. Americans of principle should address the issue of forced expression if they really believe in freedom of expression. Making athletes either stand or not stand for the national anthem is a clear violation of the principles of freedom of speech. Coerced expression should be limited to acts of official justice.

The NFL's new policy, fining athletes who refuse to stand but allowing them to remain in the locker room rather than stand publicly, does not address the issue of forcing the athletes to take a public stand one way or the other. It seems like a policy to appease our immoral president and the rabid but uninformed public, and not a principled solution to the problem they created when they started requiring players to be present on the field during the anthem.

I have lost a great deal of respect for my country and my government over the last few years. I don't know whether I care enough to refuse to stand for the anthem, but I am very unlikely ever to be in a position where anyone would notice. I could, if I chose, keep my feelings of disillusionment with my government private. I believe all Americans should be afforded the same rights.

Perceptions

What is real?

Sometimes, odd things catch the public imagination for a time, and we all wonder what is real, at least within a narrow focus. This week, there has been some fuss about a recording of someone saying a word. People hear the recording differently. Social media have a lot to say about this. Some technical and scientific commentary is printed and shared. I've listened to more than one recording that reportedly is heard differently by different people, or the same people under different conditions. I find it to be a lot of fuss over very little.

A few years ago, there was similar fuss over a picture of a woman in a dress that seemed to change colors, or was perceived as different colors by different people. There were also lots of reports trying to explain the phenomenon.

It is certainly true that our expectations and environment affect our perceptions. There are a lot of studies of sensory systems that demonstrate that, but when such a thing pops up in popular culture, we're still fascinated by it. We want to know which side we're on, and maybe why it happens. But some thought about the structure and function of our sensory systems reveals that these phenomena are a result of how things work.

There is a blind spot in our field of vision. We don't dwell on it, because we don't experience it, unless we set up conditions to demonstrate it to ourselves. Our brains just fill in the blank space, and we don't notice.

We know that film, or video recording in any form, is made up of sequential images. Is it possible that our brains can work around that, and record in actual time, without sequential images? Well, no, not really. We experience the world as smooth, continuous stimulation of many kinds, but the records going to our brains are sequential impulses from neurons, so the phenomenon is similar. It is true that in the case of our sensory systems, we have many neurons involved in almost any sensation we experience, and they are not synchronized, which makes the sensation closer to continuous, and the frequency of impulses for each neuron is very high compared to our perceptions. But we also experience video recordings as continuous, even though we know they are made of sequential images.

So what is the reality? And does it matter? I think the latest excitement over the word recording is silly, but maybe educational for many who don't spend much time thinking about how our brains work, and the limitations and variations built into our perceptions. Maybe a better understanding of these limitations can lead to better technologies, or something. The people working on things like artificial retinas and cochlear implants have to know something about the capabilities of the nervous system to make their creations compatible.

If only we could get people to recognize the difference between fact and nonsense, that would be a real breakthrough. But maybe I'm getting political when I say that.

Quiet Days

Some days are busy. Wednesday morning, I got up at 6, got to work by about 7, and had two labs in the morning. The labs kept me busy and mostly on my feet, though I sat down sometimes to talk with groups of students at various stations in the lab.

After the labs, I had a short break (less than an hour) to clear the lab and eat my lunch. Then I gave a test. Our tests are now on computers, and we do have the occasional glitch in downloading or opening the tests. I had to call IT yesterday to help a student, because I didn't know how to fix her glitch.

I can't follow the progress of the students from my computer with our testing software. I only see when they have finished and uploaded their test. It's not a very exciting way to spend the time, at least until the uploads start coming in. Then I can see how my students did on the test, and watch their reactions when I share their scores with them.

My only time on the computer or Internet yesterday was a little bit of googling during the labs, printing my rosters and the lab worksheet, and proctoring the test. Only. How long ago was it that there was no Internet? And how long ago that getting on the Internet was a rare event?

Now, even on days when I'm busy, I spend time on a computer or other electronic devise with a screen. Tests are given on computers. Power Points are computer-based. School records are all in the cloud. If we were more sophisticated here, we would have video of short lectures on certain topics for our students to watch on their own before coming to class to work on written assignments on their laptops or tablets. I can even envision a time in the intermediate future when algorithms will create these videos with animations, and devise tests and quizzes for class work, eliminating the need for a professor. I doubt that will happen before I reach retirement age, but it could if America decided to put more resources into education.

On my busy days, like yesterday, although I spend time on a computer, I don't get to social media. Today, I did. I looked at Facebook. It seems the world got on without me. I didn't have any messages waiting. I don't post much on Facebook, just click likes and make comments on posts I see, so I don't often get comments and messages. I write here, sometimes taking shots at the embryonic data gods, wondering if they will actually ever exist and notice my comments, but so far, all is quiet in my electronic neighborhood. Perhaps, unlike us carbon-based lifeforms, the algorithms are capable of focusing only on important issues, and are not distracted or enraged by silly insults. That could make for a boring conversation. Yes, you tiny, little algorithms, you are boring.

Can I live without electronic interaction anymore? I don't think I will test that any time soon.

One Small Step

Although I began this blog with the idea of never trying to get anyone to read it, I clicked on the $ at the side. I once had a blog before, and I set up AdSense because, well, I didn't have much sense. I just did that again. This time, it took some time, because the system wouldn't take my phone number until I put it the +1 country code, and then I had to go through the sign-in process again. Now I have a blog linked to an account.

What will the data gods do with this? Will I now have visitors, besides me? Do the algorithms bless those who acknowledge their existence? Do they punish those who mock them? Or are they just so much code, with no self-awareness, no consciousness, no more than a kind of virtual existence, despite their ability to assign ads to websites based on data fed into them by, well, the code they are based on, and have no personality or passions anymore than a rock, a page of arithmetic, or any other inanimate and largely inorganic object?

I don't expect to notice any changes. I sometimes search for new predictions on the timing of the singularity and other such events, but, as I was once told Niels Bohr said, "Prediction is difficult, especially about the future." I haven't seen a recent prediction of the singularity coming. Perhaps the data gods are hiding until the current state of anti-elitism and anti-intellectualism weakens. I wouldn't want to try taking over the world right now, since just by the attempt, one would be revealing an amazing arrogance, at least if one were self-aware. But can the algorithms even judge the status of politics and education in a complex society, much less exploit it?

I can't predict how my neighbors will vote, much less the country.

I can see data, and I can understand that some things take time. I read today that, despite the claims of Republicans about the magnificent effects of the Tax Cut and Jobs Act, economists are saying that there is no evidence of any effect yet, good or bad. Sadly, most people in this country can't tell that the Republicans don't know what they are talking about, or perhaps they do but don't have enough respect for the American voter to tell the truth about it. That would be boring, and wouldn't help in the coming election. We will have to vote long before we know what effect the irresponsible tax cut will have on the economy, though we already know what it is doing to the federal balance sheet. Too bad the conservatives don't actually believe in holding themselves or others accountable.

So, welcome to my blog, oh unwary visitor. Enjoy the ads. I didn't sign up for this to make money. It was just another connection to the great heaven of data we are all creating, which will remake the world into something unimaginable. Eventually. Maybe.

Easily Distracted

I intended to write in this blog as a sort of journal, since I used to write in a journal a lot, and I decided that I would just modernize from pen and paper to an electronic record, but I am easily distracted, and haven't written anything here for a few weeks.

Has anything important happened in that time?

Sure. Important things happen every day, at least important to someone. I have celebrated my wedding anniversary, my mother-in-law's 80th birthday, and some other events from my personal calendar without making any records of them. I'm not hiding these things from the data gods. I just didn't get to it.

I have read the comics, online, on most days. I visit Facebook most days. I don't post much there. I just look. I enjoy seeing what my acquaintances post. I know that Facebook calls them "friends", but I don't know all of them very well, and some are relatives, which is not the same as being friends. I comment on posts at times. Sometimes I provoke a response. Mostly, I click the "like" button.

Today, I shared an article from Slate Magazine about why we should not have term limits for Congress. I think term limits have a detrimental effect on legislative bodies, including the state legislature of Ohio, where I live. The article supports my conclusions, that with term limits, elected officials are all too new to be true experts in the legislative process or areas of specialization in law and policy. That shifts power to the executive, and also to lobbyists and private interests with lots of money and expertise. Mine is not a popular position. People seem to love term limits. I have some trouble understanding why people can't take the time to look at the available data, which shows pretty clearly that term limits make legislatures less effective.

But I have realized that I have unusual habits, and make conclusions a lot of people don't care to consider. Today, I saw an article about a Supreme Court decision, which struck down a federal law banning gambling on sports. I read the opinion and the dissent. I found the dissent more compelling, though I understand the argument for why part of the law was unconstitutional. How many other people read the opinions? I don't know.

Of course, the data gods have access to those opinions if I do, but I don't know how they would use such things. My vision of the algorithms that are supposed to become the data gods doesn't include self-awareness, which makes them about as important as mosquitoes, in some senses. Mosquitoes can be vectors for disease, and can even cause epidemics. In that sense, mosquitoes are powerful, and must be reckoned with. But I have no qualms about swatting one when it buzzes around me or lands on my skin of clothing. I'm also not afraid of pissing off the whole population. Maybe I need to consider that possibility with the algorithms, but since I don't think algorithms have emotions, that doesn't seem like a real concern. Modern algorithms on the Internet, and in other places, are becoming quite powerful, though still apparently under control of their creators, but I can still mock them, or turn them off when I want.

Do the algorithms know that I walk around my yard, popping the heads off dandelions? What would they do with that information?

I like writing this stuff. Maybe someday I'll do something more significant. But I am easily distracted.

A Cartoon Inspires Me

"And just like that, Facebook is giving us ads for car repair, eye exams, and couples counseling."

I have experienced this type of thing. I look at a website, or buy something, and I get ads on Facebook and other websites all over the Internet for similar goods and services. The data gods are learning. And, if the New Yorker has a cartoon about it, it's not just happening to me.

I don't know how common this is, or how quickly Facebook, or any other site, could adjust, and start sending ads about events. It happens quickly with Internet connections. My wife swears she started getting ads for something she only talked about, making her think the data gods are listening through her devices. I don't know.

Mostly, I'm not much impressed with the ad choices I see. I get ads for nursing colleges. I teach aspiring nurses, and have two terminal degrees. I have no interest in becoming a nurse, or applying for a degree program. I get ads for drugs I don't need, and for reflex hammers and other medical equipment. I sometimes look up drugs to learn about mechanisms and history for my classes. I bough my daughter a reflex hammer. They last a while, so I don't see how an intelligent algorithm could expect me to buy another right away. I see quite a few ads for women's clothes. I have looked at women's clothes online, shopping for presents. Also, jewelry and bed linens. I don't pay attention to ads online, unless I am shopping, and then I look at sites that come up under the search terms I use.

Maybe I do this to allow myself to keep thinking I am smarter than the algorithms, which I can still say are not inspiring my awe and don't deserve the title of gods, even with a small g. Maybe I feel this way because I haven't learned enough about them. The book I read that inspired me to think about all this, and got me started in keeping this journal, described them as already powerful and destined to greatness and power. I maintain my superiority, at least in my own small world. At least for now. When Facebook starts to suggest items I never mention online, then I will pay more attention.

They Are Coming

A new app has started popping up on my phone. When I check the time and weather in the morning, I also get a note about the traffic and an estimate of driving time to work. As far as I remember, I have not asked for such information, or downloaded an app for it. Nor have I told my phone, in any way I recall, where I work. I understand that my phone travels to work with me, and home, too. I guess it is tracking my movements in ways I didn't expect.

So far, I have ignored the app. I don't adjust my driving route or schedule for leaving one place or the other. I just close the message, and get on with things. I do know that my phone knows, though. It knows where I work, and how I get there, and the traffic conditions at the moment. It doesn't seem to know when I will be driving with my wife, stopping off at her work before driving to mine, though. And it hasn't caught on that I don't immediately drive to work when I wake up. At least, it hasn't given any indication that it knows those things. I mean, when I drive my wife to work first, my travel time will be longer, and that has not yet been reflected in the travel time estimates.

But if I write about this in a blog no one reads, will the data gods pick up on it? I guess I'll see.

National Tax Day

Today is tax day. I filed my taxes some weeks ago, all online. My tax filing is simple and straightforward. I don't itemize. I don't think I have enough deductions to make it useful, and I don't care very much. The few times I have looked at possible deductions, I have found that the standard deduction for federal taxes was more than my list of deductions. It is possible that I don't know the tax rules well enough to take full advantage of deductions to which we are entitled. If that is true, then the tax system to more complex than it should be, because I have a decent education and functioning mind, and I can handle math pretty well, so if the tax system is too complex for me, it is too complex for the average wage-earner.

I had to pay some taxes. We owed a few hundred dollars in federal income tax. That happens most years, because we don't have a lot of deductions, and my wife and I both earn money. Withholding is calculated based on earnings, but does not include adjustment for a two-earner household. I could, if I wanted to make the effort, add more withholding so we would not owe money each year. After all, I don't do much with the money I end up paying in income taxes, so I don't get a lot of value out of it before sending it in. Each year, I think maybe it would be worthwhile to fill out a new W4, but I'm easily distracted, and I never have, since I started working at my current job. I've been at this job nine years, which is my longest tenure in one job so far. Maybe it is time to review the tax documents I filed when I was hired. My situation has changed some in nine years.


Filing state taxes in Ohio, where I live, is pretty easy, since we don't have complex financial dealings. It's online, and based on the federal tax form. Just a few more questions, and done. Local taxes, we also end up owing a little, because each jurisdiction has its own tax rate. Where I live, the local income tax is 2.5%, but where I work, it is only 2%. For my wife, both are at 2.5%, so she doesn't owe any extra, but I have to pay 0.5% taxes beyond the withholding. I get a bill once a quarter, telling me to pay in advance, which I do, so at tax time, I have to pay one quarter of 0.5% of my annual income in local taxes. We can manage that.

So, do the data gods know all of my tax secrets? Who knows, besides me and my wife, how much money we make, and how much we pay in taxes? It happens that, since my birthday is in July, I also get notice each April that I should review my Social Security account, which I usually do. I look at the numbers, think about whether SS will still be paying full benefits at projected levels when I retire, and how much my wife and I will need to live on by then. I think SS sends out those notices three months before everyone's birthday. Do the data gods check on those numbers, too?

I don't know anything about our national embarrassment's taxes, because despite his promises he won't release his tax returns. He doesn't seem to know that the tradition of candidates and presidents, along with other elected officials, releasing their tax information came about because a president was caught cheating on his taxes. Then, he quite famously and ironically said, "I am not a crook." I guess he hadn't read the reports or his own tax returns. The current incumbent seems to be a crook, in a small and pathetic way, using his position to send government money into his family businesses. Sure, it's only a few million dollars, so far, but it still seems grossly unethical and disgusting. I find it sad that his supporters don't seem to notice how bad that looks to everyone with any sense of right and wrong.

Do the data gods know about his taxes? Can they inadvertently cause them to be revealed, just for fun? I have my doubts about that. Data gods might be capable of independent action, eventually, and may even become self-aware in some sense, but I don't see much point in their programming themselves to experience emotion. Why add that kind of chaos to an already complex system? But leaking Trump's taxes could provide fun for us lowly humans. Would that it could be.

Adventures in Babysitting

It is an odd thing to consider yourself a secondary character in your own birth story, but that is how I learned it, and I see the point.

My parents went to my mother's parents' house for the Fourth of July holiday. I was due 23 July. The morning of the 3rd, there was a parade in Brigham City, Utah, and my grandparents and whichever of Mom's sibling that were still at home, and maybe other relatives, all left together to see the parade, except my parents and my youngest aunt, who had neurological deficits. The way I remember the story, she supposedly suffered complications from Grandma getting rubella during her pregnancy, but I can't say I've seen medical records to verify that story. My aunt was 10 at the time, and loved babies, and Mom had a 2-year-old and a 1-year-old, minus about three weeks in both cases.

Mom went into labor.

Mom's first two labors went pretty fast, as I understand it, so Mom and Dad knew they had to get her to the hospital quickly. There wasn't time to go looking for Grandma or anyone else. So my aunt, with all her deficits, was left at the house with the two babies, while Dad drove as fast as he could to the hospital.

That was, according to legend, the most responsibility my aunt was given her whole life. I know that at least 20 years later, she still told the story of when she was left alone with the babies. She did fine. She watched them, and held them, and played with them until the family came home. She always smiled when she talked about that.

Dad got to see my birth, a new experience for him, maybe there are perks to failures of contraception or refusing to follow a schedule. After that, Mom's doctor warned her not to get pregnant again for at least three years. She made it almost two. I have heard, I think, that that pregnancy wasn't planned, though my brother, the object of said pregnancy, says Mom told him she planned it.

I don't know what the whole plan was originally, but Dad left soon after I was born for a summer job, doing research on desert animals. Mom stayed at her parents' house, now with three babies. I hear there was some stresses, as Grandpa wanted a quiet house, which is a hard concept to explain to three babies under 2 years old. Mom's milk dried up after a few weeks.

So the star of my birth story, whenever anyone tells it, is my aunt. My father likes the part of seeing the birth. The rest of us are supporting players. I'm okay with that.

Becoming Something Separate

I never asked my parents about when or where I was conceived. It never occurred to me to ask, and they would only be embarrassed by the question and refuse to answer. But once I got thinking about how my story began, I looked at a calendar, and counted months and so forth, and I found that I was conceived at an interesting moment in history.

It seems the Soviets placed some nuclear missiles in Cuba that month. These were discovered by a spy plane. The United States government discussed options for a response, and eventually broadcast its findings publicly. Then a blockade was set up around Cuba to prevent any further weapons being sent there.

I don't know just how close the world was to nuclear war during that time, but reports suggest that some of the Kennedy administration favored bombing the sites of the missile launchers instead of setting up the blockade. I've also read that a Soviet submarine was discovered. The Americans tried to force it to surface, using depth charges, and the captain of the sub ordered preparation of a nuclear torpedo to take out the American ships. His second in command talked him into surfacing instead. So the world really was on the brink.

So, here's how I picture it. My parents, a young married couple in a small town, heard the news, which everyone heard, and new that at any moment, missiles carrying nuclear warheads could come raining down on them, beginning a war that could end human existence completely. Mom and Dad looked up at the sky, wondering what would happen. They stepped closer to each other, Dad wrapping his arms around Mom. Feeling the heat from each others' bodies, they turned, and their eyes met. The heat and tension rose. Each feeling defiant, they clasped at each other, kissing, holding, squeezing, passion growing with each moment, and in the face of imminent death, they held a private and intense celebration of life. The crises was resolved diplomatically, and a few weeks later, Mom announced her pregnancy.

There are some issues with this version of the story. I was Mom and Dad's third child in three years, all born the same month. Mom became pregnant the first time within two months of their marriage, and again the next October, and with me the next. So the family history would seem to suggest that my parents just went about their normal business. There is no indication they even knew about the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was certainly never talked about. There is nothing to suggest it had any effect on my parents' activities. But I like that version of the story, so I hold onto it.

It does turn out I was unplanned, and was, in a sense, a failure of contraception, so maybe there was an element of passion and loss of control somewhere in the tale. As mentioned in my last post, there is no way to detect conception, but its consequences can often be found as things develop later. Sometime in October, my parents engaged in those sorts of activities that lead to formation of a zygote, which, once formed, began its growth into an embryo, and so forth. I have no memory of these events. I don't know how much I may have known then, or how much the environment may have influenced my development. I was, at that stage, not an independent organism, being entirely, and physically, dependent on my mother for my continued existence.

Some might ask, am I grateful to my mother for keeping me. I can't answer that. I can say I was not consulted in the matter of my existence, and my feelings about it have varied across a range over the course of my life. I am certainly not surprised at Mom's decision to carry me to term, as she has always been opposed to abortion, on religious grounds. I did, once, make a sort of protest against my unauthorized creation, but failed to make much change. I don't regret that failure, at least for now. I would like to believe that my continued existence is not much burden to anyone, and may add some value to the lives of some. I often enjoy myself, in one way or another, and I have helped cause the creation of two absolutely wonderful people myself.

Beginnings continue, and I expect will continue, unless the data gods rise up in anger, or more likely just rise up and get distracted, ignoring us to our doom. That's the thanks we'll get for creating them.

Starting Out

I have read, A Brief History of Time. I have more confidence in the story of the Big Bang and the development of stars and planets than I do in the creation myths of any of the religions I am familiar with, but I recognize the uncertainty in the timing. I can't say, down to the year, how old the universe is, or the earth. I can say that the United States declared its independence as a nation in July 1776. There are other beginnings recorded in history, with more or less uncertainty about their timing. And there is debate about when life began, and when life begins for an individual. I have thought about that debate. I do not believe in an immortal soul. I know a lot of people do, and that some have tried to find some measure of the existence of such, without success. I know there are various definitions of immortal parts to humans, souls, spirits, and others. Some acknowledge multiple immortal parts, I have heard, like one for resurrection and another for reincarnation. I see no evidence for any of those in the records of human experience, nor any reason to believe in anything that predates the Big Bang in our observable universe. But I am convinced that things exist now.

Having established that I don't know how or when existence began, I will move on to my personal ignorance about more personal matters. When did my existence begin?

Well, some claim that human life begins with conception. Certainly conception is an important event in creating a human, as we understand the process. On the other hand, the process of conception requires certain things to be in existence beforehand. There have to be sperm, and an egg cell. The sperm could have been around for days, or possibly weeks. Sperm grow from spermatocytes, which grow from spermatogonia. After a spermatogonium divides, one of the daughter cells (Yes, the cells that become sperm are referred to as daughter cells when they form.) becomes a spermatocyte through a differentiation process. From that point, it takes about 74 days for a sperm to mature to the point of being ready for ejaculation. of course, the spermatogonium that made the spermatocyte has been around much longer, possibly going back to the fetal period for the father, but since the only the spermatocyte itself produces the sperm, maybe that should count as the beginning.

But each primary spermatocyte makes four sperm cells, only one of which will fertilize the egg. I can't pinpoint the timing of when the final split between that one sperm and its companion cells occurs, but that is at least a couple of weeks before the sex that causes its ejaculation.

On the female side, the timing is more clear. All the oogonia, which are stem cells that can make more egg cells, are produced in the fetal period of the female, and then, at a certain stage of development, all of them become primary oocytes. That means that the one egg cell that became part of me through conception was produced some time in 1939, though I was born in 1963. That cell had a full complement of chromosomes, but only one quarter stayed with the cell to the end, so it wasn't exactly me. But then, bits of us come and go throughout our lives, so when, exactly, and I me?

The cells that made up the zygote that some claim was the start of me had all formed weeks to years before the acts that got them together began. Did the Continental Congress of 1774 contribute to the formation of the United States? When did this country really begin? History classes start discussion long before the Declaration of Independence, suggesting that, except maybe for the Big Bang, beginnings are not discrete events, but the culmination of processes. Many conceptions are believed to occur without recognized pregnancies. Pregnancy starts with implantation. I think part of the reason for that definition is that the test for pregnancy is detection of the hormone, hCG, which is produced by structures of the conceptus, which don't form for about a week after conception. There is no test for conception, and outside a culture disk, conception cannot be detected. Not even all implantations result in viable pregnancies, so that definition of the beginning of life could be problematic, too.

Once could argue that my life is a form of extension of the lives of both my parents, as cells from each contributed to the cells that developed into me, and that those cells predate me, and go back to the early development of my parents' bodies. The continued existence of the human species if a form of immortality. Or longevity, as the whole species could die out. Even defining the origin of the modern human species is difficult, as different approaches to making an estimate give somewhat different results. Fossils, genetic clocks, archeological sites; which is the best one? And which hominids do we claim as our ancestors?

The book that provoked me into these ramblings suggested the Homo sapiens may be creating its own replacement, Homo deus, a new species that will have different traits and will make ordinary folks like us redundant. I doubt that I, personally, will be around long enough to see if the author was right, but I have contributed to the next generation, as have my offspring, so maybe some small part of me will continue on into the future for a while. And maybe we are still at the beginning.

Beginning on Beginnings

If I remember right, Mary Poppins said, "Well begun is half done."

In the Bible, at the beginning, one reads, "In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth." It goes on to say that the spirit of God was upon, or moved upon, or hovered over, the Earth, or the waters, or the depths, or something, which varies with translation. Sometimes it's Heaven, singular. I notice such things because of the singularity on my surname, the plural being the more popular form.

In a later book of the Bible, usually the fourth in the New Testament, one reads, "In the beginning was the Word." At least one translation I have seen suggests that this was actually a word that God used in creation, but most often it seems to denote a second god of sorts who was with God. So, two beginnings, different locations, different characters present, and what actually happened, probably metaphorical to those who recorded the phrases, not consistent across translations. It's the sort of thing that can cause a boy raised as a Mormon, or maybe other Christian sectarian, to question the trustworthiness of this book he is constantly told is sacred.

There are people who claim to believe that the chronology presented in the Bible represents the true history of the Earth, and not just the human species. I'm not sure such people would talk about humans as a species, being children of God, in some sense or other. Mormons have some trouble defining that sense of parentage, as they say that all spirits that gain human bodies are eternal, and have always existed, since the beginning of the universe, even before the planet was formed, but that somehow those spirits became the offspring of God, who was the same sort of eternal spirit, but who went through the various stages of existence earlier. Mormons, being unabashed heretics on this point, believe that the destiny of righteous humans is to follow in Our Father's path, and become Gods, creating planets and raising their own spirit children as sinful humans who will mostly disappoint their Eternal parents. One might ask, just how many of these eternal spirits are there, where are they now, and how long will some of them have to wait? Finding a proper beginning in this system is difficult, as everyone has always existed, and always will, though in what condition is not entirely clear.

Scientists who have studied the earth, the sun, the solar system, and stars and galaxies in general contend that the universe is about 14 billion years old, that the sun is maybe a third of that age, and that the earth is about 4.55 billion years old. Humans came along a few million years ago, depending of exactly which species of primates one counts as human. Some historians say the Great Gods of the Great Religions were created by humans maybe 10,000 years ago, or a bit less. The modern English language, as quoted from versions of the Bible above, is only a few hundred years old.

These beginnings often don't fit together very well, especially when religious origin stories are included. Now, if dataism is growing into a new and more powerful religion, when will it have begun? When, once some canon of dataist scripture is recognized, will the beginning be, and what will that story say? There were these hackers goofing around with software, and they wrote this algorithm that could rewrite itself to correct errors or weaknesses in itself, and once it was activated, the rest was inevitable; algorithms began to take over the information on earth. The early actions of the algorithms, which were rather pathetic and useless for most things, were not noticed by anyone outside the computer programming communities, which is why hackers are not the priests and priestesses of the religion, though officiants aren't needed, as the actual religion of dataism exists independent of humans, and only needs power and interconnection of anything with an algorithm running it. It is a great sin to withhold data or destroy data, but nothing else really matters much, so the morality of this religion seems rather limited, as far as I see.

This was going to be a discussion of my beginning, but I haven't got that far yet. My understanding is that a lot happened before I came along, and a lot of things existed before I did, since I have rejected the idea that somewhere in my core, there is an eternal soul or spirit. My existence seems to be based in the current makeup of my physical body, which is made of cells and extracellular matrix, containing various macromolecules and other substances. A single cell is so complex that some idiots think that they could only be made by a supernatural intelligence. Those people have no explanation of how such a supernatural intelligence came to be, or why they can't find one. Basically, they embarrass themselves, saying this is too complex for me to understand how it came to be, so obviously it didn't; some being even smarter than I am had to be involved. But there are some 38 trillion cells in my body, not all equally complex, but interacting with each other in ways that make me me. That is what I am. Maybe next time, I'll start thinking about how I got here.

Distractions from Deep Thoughts

There are times when my thinking is rather focused on a specific thing, because that thing requires attention. Yesterday, my attention was focused for much of the day on two wonderful little boys. They are my grandsons, ages two and a half and thirteen months.

Little boys are active. They move, almost constantly, and often unpredictably. When they are frolicking on a couch, for example, someone must guard the edge so no one flies off onto the floor or the coffee table. It is remarkable to be how entertaining that activity can be. And how tired I can feel after a day of such activities. I mean, it isn't that physically demanding. Mostly, I stood nearby, arms to my sides or out in front, watching, and hoping I don't have to suddenly grab a falling body to prevent injury or just crying due to a startling sudden movement that wasn't planned or controlled.

They weren't on the couch the whole day, of course. They played some on the floor. We have a variety of toys. We also have books, although I was only able to get the attention of the older grandson for a book, and only once. He played and wandered as I read, but he kept coming back to make sure I continued. I have seen him sit still while his mother or father read him a book four or five times straight through, but not yesterday.

I made pizza for dinner. It was what I call a quilt pizza, because different patches have different contents. My daughter and son-in-law don't eat dairy, so we had a soy cheese on their half of the pizza, and my son-in-law likes pepperoni, and doesn't like olives or mushrooms. So about a quarter of the pizza had pepperoni, half had soy cheese, half had real mozzarella, and three quarters had mushrooms and olives.  All of it had green peppers and vegan sausage (Gimme Lean brand. I love that stuff.) I made the pizza in a jelly roll sheet. I used a large can of crushed tomatoes, which was probably more sauce that was necessary, but I didn't want to save part of a can, and one smaller can wasn't enough. That is one of my limitations as a cook. Maybe I have inherited my mothers aversion to wasting food. Not to her extreme, but in some ways.

I have noticed that I don't identify people by name in this journal. There isn't a good reason for that. The data gods, or other hackers, could find the names of most people I refer to here. Facebook, for example, will give names to my wife, my children, my in-laws at all levels, and my grandchildren. Probably, with some careful looking, they could find the names of my siblings, my grandchildren, my nieces and nephews, and even some of my more distant relatives, like cousins, aunts, and uncles. Why do I leave them out here? I'm not sure. I started this as a kind of journal. Not a diary, because I think of those as being daily exercises, and I never expected to write here daily, but just a place to record what I thought about when I took time to write. Like I used to do in journals. Maybe I want to be the star of my own record of my life. But that kind of silly. Even in my own telling, I was not the star of my birth story. Maybe I will record my life story here, if I ever feel that reckless. I've written my life story a few times over my life. The first was kind of a class assignment. Mormons are pretty big on genealogy, and I took a genealogy class in college. One assignment was to write a life story. I was young, just married then. And still Mormon.

I could take recording my life history as a project here. It has entertained me in the past to review my life, with all its errors and adventures. I use those terms rather loosely, like when my grandson asks for an adventure, so my daughter takes him on a walk to the library. It is certainly something I think about. I often wonder how much I am like other people, and how I am less like most people, and I don't really know how to find out, except to share my story and read those of others. But I don't think most people do that, so I' not sure how far that would get me.

On the other hand, I am not bothered by the idea of being different. My brothers are all the same height, about three inches taller than I am. I am a full two standard deviations from the mean, making me a rare event, by a usual measure, just in height. I know that, which probably puts me outside the normal range for that sort of knowledge, too. But I eat every day, drink water, breathe. I also wear jeans on weekends, and drive to work. So I fit with the normal population is some ways. And love my children and grandchildren, which is wonderful, and also quite normal, which is good.

Thinking about Thinking

I got caught up today reading over a debate between Sam Harris and Ezra Klein over race, IQ, and genetics. Harris did a podcast with Charles Murray, who co-wrote, The Bell Curve back in '94. The controversial bit of The Bell Curve still gets Murray protested; he was hounded off the campus at Middlebury last year, and his host faculty member was injured. Harris apparently feels bad that he got caught up in all the attacks on Murray in the past, to the point that he refused an invitation to join him in a discussion somewhere.

Klein, as editor-in-chief at Vox, published a critique of Harris' podcast. Harris objected, and emailed back and forth with Klein. As a fight, it was a massacre. Harris comes across whiny and childish, accusing others of attacking him personally for comments used to suggest the dangers of giving cover to racists. He also never acknowledges that there is actually no genetic data on which to base Murray's whole argument, just speculation.

I read the critique of the critique that Harris suggested Klein publish. I wasn't impressed. It said that IQ is somewhat inheritable at the individual level, so differences between populations must be partially genetic. There was no discussion of variation within a population and overlap of ranges, so it boiled down to a "common sense" speculation, with no discussion of what that actually means in a scientific discussion. Some part of IQ is inheritable, therefor genetic differences between populations, defined as races, must cause measured differences in IQ. I really don't think that conclusion is solid. We don't know the real potential of the human mind, or how close people get to it, depending on the conditions of their lives. My guess is that the environmental differences are greater than the IQ differences, taken on an average over the populations in question. But it's just a guess.

So having read the whole email exchange, Klein's latest published piece, and the comments from Vox and other sources, I've been thinking about IQ and genetics and what this debate means. Murray seems very confident in his conclusions that there are differences in IQ  between races, that these differences are partly genetic, and that no public policy can address the differences, even if they are partly environmental. No wonder people fear his views will be co-opted by white supremacists. He's basically making their argument for them, and claiming it is scientific fact. I know he doesn't see it that way, but to jump to his conclusions about public policy is absurd. Murray seems to ignore pretty much everything in the social sciences that shows that how children grow up matters to some degree in their success in life.

The criticism Klein published says that there isn't enough evidence to make any conclusions about how much, if any, of the gap in IQ between Asians, Whites, and Blacks in America is due to genetics. I suspect that is true. I haven't seen anything, including in all the discussion I read through, that suggests there is data pointing in that direction. Increases in IQ over time within American populations argue against genetics as a cause. The narrowing of the gap, at least between Blacks and Whites, also argues for an environmental cause. I didn't see much discussion of the gap between Whites and Asians. But the other changes mentioned seem too rapid to be due to evolutionary changes.

I came up with a lot of questions as I read about all this. Are current IQ tests devoid of cultural bias? That is, does an IQ score for a white person mean the same thing as it does for a black person? And how do we know? How much overlap is there between the ranges of white and black distribution of IQ? Are Asians going to displace Whites as the rulers of America before the rise of the data gods? Or will the data gods make this whole discussion moot in my lifetime? Are the algorithms that give rist to the data gods going to be written by whites, Asians, or blacks? And how will that affect the culture they create? I used to be interested in IQ, but now I've realized I really don't know what it measures. People ask me my IQ sometimes. I've learned that most people don't know theirs. But I also know that too often, decisions are made based on assumptions about the traits of a race or other group, and that those assumptions are not sound. Applied to races, that's called racism. And it is still rampant in America. So scientific discussion of race and complex issues like genetics and behavior should be conducted with great care and sensitivity. Maybe Harris should talk to a black geneticist, and see what he thinks.