We’re reading up on TRANSHUMANISM (Paul Graham Raven/Arc)

A recent Wired article led me to this piece by Paul Graham Raven reviewing a pair of books on transhumanism. The whole piece is worth reading for his incisive commentary on the books' contents, as well as his thoughts on transhumanism as a whole.

Here's an excerpt I found particularly interesting (italics his, bolding mine):

What is absent from this book, and from the transhumanism it defines, is community, society. Oh, there’s talk of the transhuman community, of course (when a transhumanist says “we", they don’t mean you unless you’re also a card-carrier), and society gets a few passing mentions, albeit usually as the source of restrictive regulatory practices and unjust laws impinging on the sovereignty of the individual. But transhumanist doctrine itself does not necessarily extend beyond the body of the transhumanist; so long as the transhumanist is permitted their transhumanity, then the rest of the world can go whistle. This is the shell-game of morphological freedom, wherein the transhumanist graciously concedes that they have no right to tell you what to do with your physicality or mind, just so long as you can’t stop them doing what they want to themselves. You look after yourself, I’ll look after me; what could be fairer than that?

In a world less structurally unfair than the one I currently find myself inhabiting, that principle might do just fine. But what it lacks, what transhumanism lacks, and what the Californian ideology which underpins transhumanism lacks, is any sense of responsibility for the consequences of your actions upon others. It’s not even that the questions are so new or hard to formulate; the social sciences are grappling hard with them as we speak, in an attempt to resolve the paradox of a world where transhumanists can talk blithely about “improving" and “extending" human capacities without addressing the questions of where the implied baseline is and who gets to police it, and where politicians can talk about market-enabled choice and “diverse healthcare outcomes" while framing disability or long-term illness as one of many ways that the feckless supposedly sponge off of the state. It’s as a part of this globally diffuse paradigm of me-first-why-not privilege that transhumanism starts to look less like an oddball cybercultural anomaly and more like yet another proxy front for oligarchy-as-usual. As James Bridle says, “technology is the reification and instrumentalisation of human desires"; nowhere is that more plain to see than transhumanism.

And the kicker, when it comes to the transhumanist imperative of expanding technologies to improve human life:

Well, I have good news: it turns out that technologies which extend, augment or otherwise improve human life are already here! You may have heard of some of them: clean water; urban sanitation; smokeless cooking facilities; free access to healthcare; a guaranteed minimum income; a good, free education.

The Airport Cases (Sarah Jeong)

The current state of litigation over President Donald Trump's travel ban executive order is a bit of a mess. There are a bunch of cases, and Washington v. Trump, the most famous one, is currently tied up in a knot of civil procedure so tight that I'm not even sure all the parties involved in the case know what's going on. 

Thankfully, Sarah Jeong is here to provide a public service and offer an eminently-readable summary of some of what's going on in her new email newsletter, "The Airport Cases," which just had its first issue. It's chock full of humor, knowledge, and color glossy diagrams with circles and arrows and paragraphs explaining each one.

FBI: Common scanning tools used to target state election systems (Steve Ragan/CSO)

In late June, early-July, the Arizona Secretary of State's office closed down the state's voter registration system after someone compromised valid credentials and used them to access the system.

Shortly after that incident, on July 12, someone exploited the Illinois Voter Registration System (IVRS). According to Ken Menzel, the general counsel for the Illinois board of elections, the attackers were able to exploit "a chink in the armor in one small data field in the online registration system."

Voter registration system attacks illustrate something important about voting security: attackers can still do national-scale damage by attacking less fortified local targets, without having to physically go hyper-local.

Individual legislators change the balance of power, both nationwide and statewide. Seemingly small decisions can have major impacts on regional economies and the moves of multinational corporations.

See the recent decision by Waitsburg, Washington's city council to block the construction of a Nestlé bottled water plant in their town. It's not clear what Nestlé will do as a result, but that one small decision

Now, imagine all of the different ways it's possible to mess with that election. What happens if an attacker finds a way to drop half of all voters from the rolls, or manages to delay or block delivery of vote-by-mail ballots?

We’re now in a world where it’s important for national governments to fund local governments' information security efforts, before something catastrophic happens.  Welcome to the future. 

The Trigger Warning Myth (Aaron R. Hanlon/The New Republic)

Rather, trigger warnings are, in practice, just one of a set of tools that professors use with varying degrees of formality to negotiate the give-and-take of classroom interactions. If you take away the media hysteria surrounding trigger warnings, you’re left with a mode of conversational priming that we all use: “You might want to sit down for this”; “I’m not sure how to say this, but…” It’s hardly anti-intellectual or emotionally damaging to anticipate that other people may react to traumatic material with negative emotions, particularly if they suffer from PTSD; it’s human to engage others with empathy. It’s also human to have emotional responses to life and literature, responses that may come before, but in no way preclude, a dispassionate analysis of a text or situation.

A well-considered counter to that Atlantic story.

Clinkle Implodes As Employees Quit In Protest Of CEO (Josh Constine/TechCrunch)

Founded at Stanford in 2011 by Duplan when he was just 19, Clinkle amassed a team of smart, driven students at the college despite refusing to show many a working prototype. Duplan’s co-founders Frank Li and Jason Riggs have both since parted ways with Clinkle.

Yet suddenly, the startup was the talk of the town when it managed to raise $25 million in seed funding in June 2013 from top investors including Peter Thiel, Andreessen Horowitz, Marc Benioff, Jim Bryer, Accel Ventures and Index Partners.

But rather than a traditional-priced seed round for equity, sources say Duplan structured the financing as convertible debt. One outcome of that was that Clinkle didn’t need to allow an investor on its board of directors, limiting oversight and keeping Duplan in firm control. The round was raised in small amounts from a large number of investors, which also kept anyone from dedicating more time to guiding Clinkle. Duplan secured another $5 million a few months later bringing Clinkle to over $30 million in funding.

A cautionary tale of woe from TechCrunch's Josh Constine. The story of Clinkle seems to be a crystal-clear example of what happens when someone takes all the wrong lessons from the tech giants of the past 40 years and then...fails miserably.

The founders of Facebook and Google all structured the ownership of their companies so that they could retain total control, even after going public. To me, that always seemed like a response to Steve Jobs's ouster at Apple (and less high-profile examples of the same behavior), which clearly worked out well for Page, Brin and Zuckerberg. On the flipside, we have Lucas Duplan, who structured his funding so that he could retain total control of the company, but didn't have a product, evidently couldn't keep a team together, and seems to have been missing some of the opportunities for advice and growth that come from bringing on more involved investors.

Now, Clinkle is circling the drain, and it seems the only question remaining for the company is how bad its outcome will be.

It's interesting to see this dovetail with Nellie Bowles's reporting on the teens of Silicon Valley. There's a group of young folk who have decided to come out to the Valley to try and strike it rich as startup employees or entrepreneurs, and they're being courted by venture capitalists and Valley luminaries out to harness the next Facebook, Google or Uber.

In the context of Clinkle, I found this quote from Kristina Varshavskaya (who left home in New Jersey when she was 17 to join her sister at Wanelo) particularly illuminating:

“I’ll either meet people who will fetishize it or will dismiss it. The fetish is kind of weird,” Varshavskaya says. “The group of young guys here. A lot of them are treated like gods and wizards and heroes, and all the venture capitalists are waiting for their next magic thing, but they’re not doing anything that special. They’re just really young. I include myself in that.”

How to pretend to be happy on the internet (Selena Larson/The Kernel)

You can’t be sad if you’re using the Crema filter on a good hair day, right? Right? If you type enough exclamation marks and happy-faced emojis, no one knows your heart is broken.

Real talk from my friend Selena about keeping a happy face on social media. It hits real close to home for me, since my presence on the web is such a public performance. Especially on Twitter, where the majority of my followers are people who I've never met, I'm acutely cautious about what I say. I'd hate to be That Guy who's a buzzkill on social media.

It's a version of myself, to be sure, but posting tweets, blog posts and other digital items is always an exercise in editing myself. And this, I think, is one of the persistent shortcomings of all social media platforms: I'll never be as real in my posts to Facebook as I am in a private conversation.

Haruki Murakami answers: Is the pen mightier than the sword?

I’m taken aback by how straightforward this question is. Is the pen mightier than the sword? I want to say of course it is, but nowadays it’s hard to say. Aside from terrorist attacks, you get backlash from the internet as well. You have to be mindful when you’re writing something.

I keep in mind to “not have the pen get too mighty” when I write. I choose my words so the least amount of people get hurt, but that’s also hard to achieve. No matter what is written, there is a chance of someone getting hurt or offending someone. Keeping all that in mind, I try as much as I can to write something that will not hurt anyone. This is a moral every writer should follow.

But at the same time, when you need to fight a battle, you also need to reserve energy to be able to fight. Something like what you use to tighten your stomach. But that’s only when you really need to. If you recklessly make the pen mightier than the sword, you’re putting yourself in danger. That’s my personal opinion. Some may think otherwise.

–Haruki Murakami, from "The Best of Haruki Murakami's Advice Column" on Vulture.

Words to write by. I didn't think I could be more of a fan of Murakami, and yet here I am.

One of the things that has always bugged me about people who rage against "political correctness" is that it smacks of callousness. Arguments over language choice, especially as it relates to marginalized groups, often have two sides: one arguing for the reduction of harm, and the other arguing for the ability to say whatever they want without consequence.

I just can't see the latter as anything other than an unwillingness to be good to other people because it's inconvenient. And that doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever.

Which Women in Tech? (Nicole Sanchez)

History has taught us that diversification efforts (ie: initiatives to correct systemic inequalities) unfold like this: White men “let” white women into the halls of power they created, and little changes for the rest of us. Such is the case in politics, in elite universities, and in corporate America.

This pattern is currently repeating itself in tech, with Silicon Valley luminaries and media applauding “change” and pointing to a handful of highly successful white, well-networked women as the vanguards. As such, all women working in this field are expected to rejoice over Sheryl Sandberg and Marissa Mayer and take advice from them on how to replicate their success.

But something that everyone paying attention to diversity in tech needs to understand is this: White women speaking for us as representatives of the “diversity in tech” movement must stop. White women are a small sliver of the available talent, but are currently used as the proxy for all diversity. What works for them is not what works for us.

Important stuff for everyone to think about when we discuss diversity in tech. Coupled with Amelia Greenhall's piece about Vivek Wadhwa, it was an important reminder to me that people like yours truly in positions of privilege have a responsibility to center the voices of people who don't.

How Men’s Rights Leader Paul Elam Turned Being A Deadbeat Dad Into A Moneymaking Movement (BuzzFeed)

What is clear is that Elam has amassed tens of thousands of followers — and lined his pockets with their donations to the for-profit AVFM, which are estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. (When asked how this money is spent, Elam told BuzzFeed News that A Voice for Men’s finances were “none of your fucking business.”)

Elam is equally tight-lipped about where his inspiration comes from. He likes to remind his followers that he knows the sacrifices men make thanks to his own experiences, which he speaks of often. But in telling his life story again and again, Elam has conveniently left much out.

Now, exclusive interviews with Elam’s ex-wives and daughter and newly uncovered court records shed light on a man who, they told BuzzFeed News, has depended on and emotionally abused the women in his own life.

If you read one story this weekend, make it this one. It's a stark, unflinching portrait of Paul Elam, a leader in the men's rights movement.

(All of that said, this article may not be for everyone, especially those people who are triggered by discussions of abuse and rape.)

The Truth of Names (MTG: Uncharted Realms)

Then the khan came to Alesha. She stood before him, snakes coiling in the pit of her stomach, and told how she had slain her first dragon. The khan nodded and asked her name.

"Alesha," she said, as loudly as she could. Just Alesha, her grandmother's name.

"Alesha!" the khan shouted, without a moment's pause.

And the whole gathered horde shouted "Alesha!" in reply. The warriors of the Mardu shouted her name.

The Magic: The Gathering universe now has its first officially acknowledged trans character: Alesha, Who Smiles at Death. Genuinely teared up a bit reading this story – it's great to see WotC representing a wider range of characters in its game these days. Here's to hoping that the inclusivity of Magic's storyline continues to grow from here on out.

Illinois Says Rule-Breaking Students Must Give Teachers Their Facebook Passwords (Motherboard)

School districts in Illinois are telling parents that a new law may require school officials to demand the social media passwords of students if they are suspected in cyberbullying cases or are otherwise suspected of breaking school rules.

The law, which went into effect on January 1, defines cyberbullying and makes harassment on Facebook, Twitter, or via other digital means a violation of the state's school code, even if the bullying happens outside of school hours.

A letter sent out to parents in the Triad Community Unit School District #2, a district located just over the Missouri-Illinois line near St. Louis, that was obtained by Motherboard says that school officials can demand students give them their passwords.

Does anyone still wonder why Snapchat, YikYak and other "disappearing" and "anonymous" message apps* are popular with The Kids? Stuff like this is why.

But there's a larger problem at work here, too: how can we help students who are being bullied through technological means, without giving administrators the power to be needlessly invasive?

* Scare quotes added for the purpose of noting that content shared through those apps is usually neither truly anonymous nor can it be guaranteed to disappear.

A Spy in the Machine: How a brutal government used cutting-edge spyware to hijack one activist's life (The Verge)

An investigation would later reveal that Moosa’s online life was hijacked for eight months. All signs pointed to Bahrain as the culprit, and FinFisher, a mysterious spyware for-hire tool, as the weapon of choice.

This investigation into the use of FinFisher by the Bahrain government (and others around the world) is an important read. It's a good example of what happens when you give oppressive governments the ability to buy powerful spyware tools.

While the company that makes FinFisher has denied selling it to Bahrain, this is a toolkit that makes it easy for wealthy actors to spy on people without having to home-brew the technical know how to do it. If that doesn't spook you a bit, well, I don't know what will.

An Old Fogey’s Analysis of a Teenager’s View on Social Media (danah boyd)

danah boyd on Medium:

Let me put this bluntly: teens’ use of social media is significantly shaped by race and class, geography and cultural background.

I've found boyd to be one of the most whip-smart writers on teens' use of social media, and this piece is a worthwhile read for anyone who read or shared the Medium post by a teenager about how he and his peers use social media. His is only one side of the story.