by | September 19, 2020 · 11:01 pm

Are positive political discussions possible on Facebook?

Sometimes I wonder whether it’s possible to do anything good on social media, especially Facebook. So many discussions rapidly deteriorate into either name calling or reinforcing one’s own bias. Today I had a Facebook interchange I feel pretty good about. I’ll share it with you and I’d like to hear what you think.

The interaction started when I came across this post on my Newsfeed. It originated in the Science, Technology, and Society Discussion Group (Public) which I follow.

Here’s the post

 

The Other 98%

3h

Happening NOW:

Today is early voting in Virginia and Trump supporters are physically blocking the entrance to the polling site in Fairfax. Earlier this week, Trump’s HHS official told Trump supporters to arm themselves, stockpile ammo, and be ready to take the streets to terrorize Democrats. Apparently they heard the call. What’s your impression?

Photo Anthony Tilghman

Visit the Voting Information Center for election resources and official updates.

Get Voting Information

Note that the picture with the post is a still, not a video. It shows the crowd but not the entrance to the polling place. It was posted 3 hours before I saw it at about 6 pm Pacific Time. So back up 3 hours to when the post was made, that would be 3 pm Pacific and forward another 3 hours to be Virginia time. That means “Happening NOW:” would have been going on in Virginia at about 6 pm Virginia time. Did I get that right? I wasn’t worried about the actual time of the event until later in the story. Let’s go on with the Facebook posts.

As is my usual process, I checked the comments:

Heather Hulett
That’s illegal. Arrest them.

Yup, I would agree. My impression is: I wonder if I have the whole story. Next comment:

· Reply ·

1h

Lisa Maas Martin
Blocking someone from.voting is against the law. The police need to get involved.

Hmmm. Sounds bad. Next Comment:

 · Reply ·

58m

James Morales
This is increasingly looking like its going to be a bloody next few months

This certainly could get a liberal all riled up. I’m basically a pacifist and not looking forward to armed clashes over voting.  So I posted the next comment:

 · Reply ·

52m

Liza Loop
Has anyone fact-checked this post? Crowds obstructing voting is a real problem if it is true.

This seemed a reasonable question to me. There’s a lot of fake news on Facebook all across the political spectrum. Here’s the response on my newsfeed:

· Reply ·

25m

Cathy Fuller B Cat
Author
Liza Loop I understand you don’t know me. If you did you would know not to question anything I post. All of it has been verified! Look it up yourself!

Oh, snippy! Don’t mind if I do look it up. Next reply:

· Reply

· 22m

Cathy Fuller B Cat
Author
Liza Loop https://www.fox5dc.com/…/trump-supporters-protest…

safe_image.php.png

Good. I can use this. I’m going to look it up in a minute but first I want to answer Cathy:

 Reply ·

21m

Liza Loop
Cathy Fuller B Cat Great Cathy. Please don’t be insulted that I advocate fact checking. I do this for all posts, not just you. Thank you for the reference. What do you suggest those of us who are outraged by this do beyond voting?

Be calm, Liza. Be reasonable. But I do wonder why she would take the position that her public posts shouldn’t have been verified, especially a report from Fox News, that most reliable of sources (not). And I’m always searching for people who will be part of the solution, not simply those who stop after whipping us up about the problem. She did honor me with a reply (not everyone does):

Reply ·

20m

Cathy Fuller B Cat
Author
Liza Loop I wish I knew. They are following the lead of their leader. He gets away with things he shouldn’t so I guess they will follow suit. It’s really infuriating. Vote and speak out to all the wrong. Beyond that, I am at a loss.

And now we get to the part that worries me the most – An infuriated liberal who is speaking out inflammatory words (as is her constitutional right) without any idea how to improve the situation. Well, Cathy, I’m not at a loss. I do have ideas. Some of them are pretty Pollyanna but at least they are better than inciting a riot between right-wing, possibly armed, protesters and armed police, many of whom are likely to sympathize more with the protesters than the laws they are bound to enforce. So I post my Pollyanna advice:

· Reply ·

14m

I recommend listening, especially to those you seriously disagree with. Get them to tell you why they believe what they do. Ask them to elaborate, define, explain. Don’t argue or attempt to persuade. Try to find points of commonality. We all love our children and want a better world for them. We want comfort and security for ourselves. We just choose very different ways to get there. By listening you build trust and empathy. Without those two, all you have is confrontation which isn’t a very effective way to win hearts and minds or to change opinions. Listening is a tough assignment that requires patience and a tight rein on the fury many of us experience on hearing misguided arguments. If you listen to another you increase the likelihood the s/he will listen to her/himself. Sometimes that will begin the process of self-doubt and questioning entrenched beliefs. Keep in mind that underneath all that posturing and bluster is very deep fear. Your empathy is the first step to building the courage to face that fear and overcome it.

Having said my peace (or is that ‘piece’), I go back to the process of fact checking by actually reading the online Fox News article. It showed video of the protesters taken around 10 am, presumably Virginia time.  It showed them at the required distance from the entrance to the polls, a detail that was not in Cathy’s still picture. The commentary said:

Tilghman tells FOX 5 that the protesters first blocked the entrance to the polling site before officials forced them to move 40 feet away as required by law…Tilghman reported that election officials eventually moved voters waiting in line inside because of the protests.

So a law was broken when the protesters got too close to the polling place but was resolved peacefully when they moved back. Biden supporters may find it unpleasant to have a noisy, pro-Trump rally going on but that’s free speech, not a crime. I’m glad I checked. And I’m glad I didn’t join the Facebook chorus of ‘arrest them, call the police, there’s gonna’ be bloodshed.’ Yes, Cathy, you posted the truth but not the whole truth. And we can see how your approach is a similar kind of rabble rousing that we so deplore in the current President. As I replied to Cathy, “underneath all that posturing and bluster is very deep fear. Your empathy is the first step to building the courage to face that fear and overcome it.” Have I taken my own advice and been empathetic with Cathy’s fear. Apparently not, here’s what she posted back:

Reply

1h

Cathy Fuller B Cat

Author

Liza Loop

I have tried that for months. Years. It does not work here in my area. They will not cite their feelings on any issues other than guns and abortions. The most common response I get on social media is trump 2020 with flags galore or trump train 2020 with a matching gifs or memes. I am surrounded here by solid red with the exception of a few like minded friends. They won’t read even short articles. And even if they see a video or audio recording of him as proof, I am told that it’s fake news. Hopefully y’all that are in different areas have better luck than I’ve had around here. I have lived here most all my life but I never knew there were so many racists around me until trump. I am now surrounded by his racist cult. I fear it will only get worse after Nov. 4.

No response from Cathy, yet, but it’s getting late on the east coast, time for dinner here in California. Apple pie for me, I don’t like rhubarb. The Walbridge fire is still smoldering less than 2 miles from my house. It’s mostly out but we still have our hoses at ready. The forest near me is actually managed by the State of California so Trump’s accusations about who should have cleared the brush are not completely wrong. However, the smoke I’m smelling tonight is coming from a national forest northeast of me. The buck stops with Trump on that one. I don’t think any of us is all right or all wrong. And I do think Trump is dangerous, scary, crazy.

The real enemy is the fear and being “at a loss”. Fear makes us cling to ideologies, paralyzes our ability to generate creative new solutions, keeps us from trying new processes, leaves us “at a loss”. We start with fearing what may happen in the future and progress to fearing each other and opinions that diverge from our own. Cathy and I probably share many political positions in common, have similar aspirations for our children and grandchildren, would furnish ‘a better world’ with the same kind of tables and chairs. I feel good about our recent exchange on Facebook. She has voiced her fear and had some of her ideas validated. I’ve had an opportunity suggest some alternative approaches to political conflict. I’m hopeful our conversation will generate some thoughtful reflection among its readers…

Oops! I spoke too soon. This just in:

Cathy Fuller B Cat
Author
Liza Loop

I take offense to both of your comments. Who are you to question what I do? Maybe you’re not convinced of anything I say because I don’t care if you’re convinced. You are none of my concern.

Clearly I need more practice to get the ‘preaching’ out of my Facebook responses. I’m sorry I’ve offended you, Cathy. If I’m really none of your concern then you won’t mind what I say next. Facebook is a funny mixture of public and private utterances. When we share our posts we are issuing an invitation for agreement, contradiction, rational/logical arguments and rebuttals. We are exposing ourselves to judgment by random web surfers whose opinions may or may not be useful to us. In spite of Cathy’s response, I appreciate the opportunity her posts have given me to air my point of view. I hope some readers will find listening with compassion, as compared to lashing out in fear, to be a useful strategy as they pursue their political agendas. As I wind up this article the conversation is still going on with others chiming in. There is some chance it will generate a “positive political discussion”.  I won’t question what Cathy does any further. And I don’t think I’ll shut down my Facebook account just yet.

 

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by | September 18, 2020 · 6:01 pm

Siberian Friends still working for international children’s collaboration 33 years later

I thought you might like to see what my friends in Siberia are doing today. Not all Russians are trying to interfere with the US elections. Many, such as my friend, Edward Shornik, are promoting activities that help children around the world find a common bond by participating in events like the one announced below. I met Edward in 1987 when my son and I traveled with a group of US Citizen Diplomats  (20 youngsters, 20 adults) to Moscow, Novosibirsk and St. Petersburg. We met with families, visited sites of interest, planted trees and got to know each other. People asked us why Americans hated Soviets. We replied, “We came all the way here, spending our own money on this trip, to show you that not all Americans hate Soviets. No matter what propaganda our governments try to feed us, we are all just people who love our children and are only too happy to share our joys and sorrows with you.” I’m still in touch with the friends I met then and we are all working toward more peace and friendship in this troubled world we inhabit together. If you know any young artists, you might want to pass on this invitation to them.

Rotary club Novosibirsk-Initiative
www.novorotary.ru

The International Online Children and Youth Art Contest “Heroes in White” dedicated to the International Doctor’s Day

ART CONTEST RULES

1. General Provisions

The following rules determine the conditions, procedure, organization and conducting the International Online Art Contest " Heroes in White” - dedicated to the International Doctor's Day (hereinafter referred to as the Contest).
Participants, from 7 to 18 years old, are invited to take part in the Contest. The goals are to identify and stimulate young artists, fostering and understanding the importance of a doctor's work and the responsibilities.
Based on the results of the competition, a film will be created dedicated to the participants’ art work and the best ones will be sent for exhibition display at the medical institutions, in Russia and abroad.

2. Contest Objectives

The contest is designed to promote:

+  The development of children’s creative activity, abilities, needs and interestsIdentification and support talented youth,
+  Raising civil awareness among young generation, a sense of national pride and respect for doctors’ work.

3. Contest themes

* Medical treatment and our easy-going attitude
* If I were a doctor
* The life of a doctor
* Helping doctors
* The doctor of my dreams
* My hero doctor

4. Contest art work registration

Original works made in the techniques of “fine art” and “computer graphics” (graphic work, realism). One participant submits one art work for the contest. The works must be scanned and, with the application form (scroll down), sent to the e-mail: katiapichikova@mail.ru marked “International Art Contest 2020”.  A personal photo of the artist is also required.

5. Art contest procedure

The competition is conducted in absentia (remotely). Works must be submitted scanned via email, no later than October 25th, 2020.

A Jury panel will review submitted art works during October 26-30th. During the same time the voting for the Audience Award will take place. The online broadcast of the award ceremony will take place on November 1, 2020 at 1 PM GMT* (Greenwich Mean Time) – 4 PM Moscow time.

The jury selects the winners according to the following criteria:
– exact compliance with the chosen theme;
– the originality of the composition;
– correspondence of the creative level to the age of the contestant, independence;
– work execution culture;
– performance technique and artistic quality.

The art contest categories: winners will be judged in the following age groups:
7-10 years old
11-13 years old
14-15 years old
16-18 years old.

In each age group, plus in the the “digital graphics” category, there are three prizes, as well as the Public Choice Award (voting will take place on the contest instragram page).

All participants will receive an electronic certificate of participation on the letterhead of the Rotary club “Novosibirsk – Initiative” with the partners’ and sponsors’ logos.

President of the Rotary club “Novosibirsk-Initiative”
Fedeneva Julia

Art Contest Facilitator
Tashlykova Ekaterina

___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

Application form

FIRST NAME:
LAST NAME:
ROTARY CLUB AFFILIATION:
COUNTRY CITY
AGE
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR PARTICPATION

CONSENT

I (first and last name) authorize / do not authorize to post a photo or other personal information of my child (posting photos, videos and information about participation of my child in the international art – contest “Heroes in White”.
I allow to post them on the website: www.novorotary.ru, and on the page on Instagram contest page as well, and also in the video clip.
*(The Law on the Security of Personal Data on the Internet adopted on 01.01. 2010).

Please, indicate below the participant’s name, age and your data as his ’s the representative.

Underline “I AGREE” \ I DISAGREE

Signature

Date

Девиз Ротари – Ротари клуб “Новосибирск-Инициатива”
NOVOROTARY.RU
Девиз Ротари – Ротари клуб “Новосибирск-Инициатива”
Cлужение обществу – выше личных интересов Ротари это… …всемирная организация представителей делового мира и интеллигенции, верящих в важность оказания гуманита…

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by | March 24, 2020 · 10:43 am

Begin now to grow food just in case there’s a food shortage

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic many organizations are asking volunteers to help deliver food to people who cannot get to grocery stores. Helping to deliver food now is a worthy volunteer activity. However, if the pandemic continues long term we may find that food supplies may dwindle dangerously. We need to look ahead two possible problems: not enough food to distribute and not enough money to buy it.

 

 

Each one of us can grow food in pots and home gardens to supplement our commercial food sources. Tomatoes, beans, lettuce, radishes and herbs grow well in pots on your porch, balcony, patio, fire escape or garden plot. Potatoes may need a little more space. Growing food at home is a wonderful activity for both children and adults.

In addition to home food production, many schools already have substantial gardens and towns often have community gardens. Volunteers can keep these gardens productive while remaining the required 6 foot distancing between people. If your local school has a meal distribution program that brings parents and students to the campus, check with your school staff to see if you might also spend an hour in the garden.

(https://www.moneycrashers.com/how-to-save-money-with-a-hom…/)

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by | March 12, 2020 · 2:04 pm

UV-C Lamps Inspire Hope and Caution

While the world panics over the spread of the Covid-19 viral disease little attention is being paid in the news media to a known way to kill the virus on surfaces. Exposure to UV-C light damages the DNA of almost all living things, including the novel corona virus. Here’s what a quick but thoughtful internet search reveals.

Be Safe

Exposure of human skin to UV-C light will burn you and eventually promote skin cancer. It can’t be used directly on people and lamps that generate UV-C should only be used by careful and cautious members of the public. Here’s what a supplier to the heating and air conditioning industry says in their blog, UV-C Lamps: Playing it Safe

“Light in the Ultraviolet-C (UV-C) spectrum has proven effective in killing virtually all known microorganisms, making it the ideal solution for cleaning HVAC cooling coils and decontaminating the upper air in public spaces such as schools and hospitals.

The potency of UV lamps, however, means that care must be taken when servicing these systems. Unlike some hazards, exposure to ultraviolet light does not offer a natural avoidance response (e.g. squinting eyes in bright sunlight) or a physical cue that protection is necessary (e.g., heat radiating from a hot pan). Furthermore, the physiological effects of UV-C exposure are delayed and can appear up to six hours later.

While damage from UV-C is temporary, the HVAC/R industry takes steps to safeguard service personnel from avoidable ultraviolet exposure and the consequences of its short-term or chronic effects.”

With precautions noted, perhaps this disinfectant method could be used more widely, both in homes and in public spaces. Before we go further, let’s look at what UV-C light actually is.

UV-C Explained

Back in February of 2017 the blog, Noticias de Salud, carried and article entitled “Scientific Opinion assessing health risks associated with UV-C radiation from lamps concludes that further research is needed”.

“UV-C is ultraviolet radiation in the wavelength range of 280 to 100 nanometres. Most people have heard of the dangers of UV-A and UV-B exposure from the sun or from sunbeds. UV-C is also produced by the sun, but it is the shortest of the ultraviolet wavelengths and is almost entirely filtered out by the atmosphere before reaching the earth’s surface. The shorter the wavelength, the more impact ultraviolet radiation could have on human health.

Artificially-produced UV-C has been used successfully as a germicide and bactericide for decades. It can kill or disable micro-organisms like bacteria, viruses, mold and mildew, and doesn’t require the use of chemicals like chlorine. It is cheaper and more energy efficient than other methods of disinfection, using very little energy. Due to these advantages, UV-C is being used for an increasing range of applications, including for disinfecting air systems, wastewater treatment plants and air-conditioning systems. It is also used in food and beverage industrial processes and in hospitals to sterilise instruments, work surfaces and the air.

Although most appliances are sealed systems there is now increasing use of devices where consumers may be directly exposed to UV-C radiation.”

So, we now know what UV-C light is, that it does kill viruses and that direct exposure to it should be avoided by humans and animals. How can it be used to quell the raising panic over Covid-19?

UV-C in Hospitals and Commercial Spaces

A March 4, 2020 post from CHINADAILY.COM.CN suggests how the technique can be used in hospitals. This particular article doesn’t indicate whether such equipment is in broad use in that country or not.



 

 

For airplanes, an American company, Dimer UVC Innovations, has developed a robot to use for disinfecting passenger cabins.



 

 

 

 

According to IEEE SPECTRUM, a technical engineering publication, the GermFalcon has not actually been tested on the virus that causes COVID-19 but the company is willing to try it out for free on selected airlines.

Whether this device is actually in production and what it might cost an airline didn’t show up in my search.

Using UV-C in the Home

Clearly, products for home disinfection are on the market.

Google search for UV-C

Buyers should beware of several potential issues. First, only some UV lamps produce UV-C wavelength light. UV-A and UV-B and plain UV won’t do the trick. Second, while the lamp bases are relatively inexpensive they don’t always come with a bulb. It’s the bulbs that are costly. Thirdly, consumers need to understand the risks of exposure to UV-C. While the supplier may include instructions for safe use the pictures I saw show devices with minimal or no shielding. I suspect nothing you want to stay alive should stay in a room with such a device on – that means no pets, no children. I have no idea what UV-C does to plants.

People are beginning to purchase UV-C lamps as cases of COVID-19 are announced. Hopefully they will be effective in preventing its spread. In addition, we need to be sure we don’t create a secondary crisis of UV-C exposure.

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by | June 1, 2019 · 8:57 pm

Second Entry: March 18, 1961

June 1, 2019.

I wonder what I was having trouble doing.

 

I had a horse and a dog at this point. The cats had all died. So had the white mice and the parakeets. Animals were my refuge. I suspect I was angry at my mother and wanted to convince myself to be gentle with her.

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by | · 8:26 pm

First Entry: March 6, 1961. Going on 16.

 

June 1, 2019 –

Paragraph 1.  See introduction.

Paragraph 2. I remember so clearly the struggle I had not to become lazy and complacent. By any standards we were rich. I knew I had choices. I was enrolled in 4 advanced placement classes in an academically challenging private school. I didn’t know it then but I had mild dyslexia perhaps complicated by a pair of eyes that didn’t focus together (a condition called amblyopia, I was born with one crossed eye). I couldn’t catch a ball reliably. I read slowly. It would have been so easy to lie back and relax, become a “girly” girl like so many of my classmates were doing, Even so, learning was the game I was best at.

The very public conflicts my divorced parents had over money led me to my skeptical view of my potential earning power. My mother, who grew up sewing her own underwear on a chicken farm in upstate New York, had gotten into an extended custody battle over my brothers and me with my wealthy “Our Crowd” father 4 years ago. I still don’t know what details she kept from me but she made it perfectly clear that she went back to work because my bastard father cut her off, she was sacrificing for me and I was inadequately grateful. As you may read about later, my father was unsuccessful at disinheriting my adulthood self so, in complex ways, it turned out that my schooling really has not had much impact on my earning power or lifestyle.

It is significant that this early interest in the interaction among personal effort, job-related earning power and educational level has stayed so prominent in my mind that I am still writing about it. (See www.netaablog.wordpress.com)

Paragraph 3.  I had just read Voltaire’s Candide for the first time. My preoccupation with appropriate use of superlatives is still with me as well.

Paragraph 4.  I’m sure I hadn’t yet read Plato’s Republic so I expect the story of the cave was related to me by either parents or my older brother and his friends. I majored in philosophy in college and, to this day, consider myself a career “social philosopher”. Oh, the seeds we sew.

Paragraph 5.  The school that I had been attending since second grade was nondenominational but certainly Christian in orientation. We were required to study both the Old and New Testament of the Christian Bible and to attend morning chapel three days a week. I was familiar with Exodus 3:14. I had also been exposed to Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am”. But, looking back almost 60 years, I suspect my existential crisis was more closely related to my increasingly tumultuous relationship with my mother than either religion (which was strictly forbidden by both my atheist parents) or philosophical texts that I had heard about but not yet read. It’s ironic that gratitude is a hot topic among members of the “self-help” crowd today.

Paragraph 6.  I’m still haunted by what I called ’ostentation’ at 15. At that time people used to accuse me of being ‘conceited’, of thinking I was somehow better than everyone else. In some senses they were right. By any objective measure I had been gifted with more than my fair share of musical, mathematical and literary talent for which I could claim no intentional merit. I hadn’t earned those gifts and I knew it. My peers were missing the fact that much of my bravado was compensation for low self-esteem. Further, my parents brought up the concept of ‘noblesse oblige’ with some frequency. I had been born into privilege and I would carry an obligation to give back all my life. They also demanded that I “carry myself” like the aristocrat I was supposed to be. It was 30 years before I learned enough about body language to stop striding into a room as if I owned it with a haughty expression on my face. And you’re reading this because I’ve given up secrets.

 

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by | · 7:56 pm

Inside Liza: Reflections on Reflections – Introduction

I was born in 1945. I tried writing a diary when I was 7 and then again when I was 10. I thought it was what girls did but I couldn’t get into it. Maybe I was too busy living to reflect on what was happening or why. But by halfway through my 15th year the questioning had started in ernest. I’m sure I talked things over with my friends but that wasn’t enough. I know my mother wanted access to my inner life. We spent hours discussing current events, whether either of us would be able to shoot a neighbor breaking into our bomb shelter (actually, we didn’t have one), what had happened to our “beautiful relationship” (the one we had when I was a child who worshipped her and didn’t question her decisions), the meaning of life in general. By 15, sharing my inner life with my mother had begun to feel invasive. Besides, I already knew what she thought and I wanted more. So I got an extra spiral-bound notebook and began sharing with myself.

Today, June 1, 2019 (It happens to be my mother’s birthday, or would be if she was still alive) I’m going to begin Journaling 2.0 – Reflections on Reflections. I’ve kept all those old notebooks. Each time I return to them I’m amazed at how little I’ve changed. That doesn’t mean there’s been no change, but it’s clear that, at age 74, I’m the same person with many of the same unanswered questions. As you’ll see on the next page, I began with the sentence:

 

“Possibly if I write down my thoughts, the one’s worth thinking will not be forgotten.”

 

The years have taught me at least two things. First, that writing down thoughts in a private journal will not preserve them. I will die, the notebook is likely to be thrown out unread, my memory will go with me. That’s forgetting. But if I share what I’ve written, publish it, there’s some chance the wish embedded in my sentence could come true.

Second, there’s no a priori way to judge which thoughts will have value, “be worth thinking”, beyond the simple joy of having them. There’s a kind of natural selection for ideas as well as genes that happens over time. Genes are lost by being bred out of the gene pool. Thoughts just get forgotten. Publishing thoughts may be like the strategy in nature of an individual laying 10,000 eggs each season even though only 2 or 3 of them are likely to survive to produce the next generation. Perhaps I can push this metaphor a little further. Most of those eggs get eaten by other species. Their specific genes are digested, destroyed, not passed on. Still, the eggs have served a purpose. They have nurtured someone else. Maybe thoughts really are like eggs…

My juvenile notes are interesting to me, in part because I can compare them to what I think now as I read them. I’ve chosen a strategy make them interesting to you by adding my “mature” reaction to each journal entry. You might want to do the same and pass the result on. 

One more lesson I hadn’t learned at 15. There’s a certain value in simply amusing each other. My mother used to repeat, “Fools names and fools faces are always found in public places.” I interpreted this to mean I shouldn’t carve my initials in tree trunks or paint them on mountain tops. Those who did were fools. I also believed, on a deeper level, that I shouldn’t talk about myself. So I kept this journal secret. Experience has taught me otherwise. People enjoy stories, the more personal the better. So, dear reader, even if you find no profound ideas in the words that follow, I hope you enjoy the story. 

 

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by | April 16, 2018 · 8:04 pm

When educator logic fails learning styles are called “myths”

This post is a stub of a response to an article debunking learning styles that I found referenced on LinkedIn. The article claims that evidence supports the conclusion that learning styles are a myth and should not be used as guides for how to teach. I read the article and then the comments. I’ll add more details and references to this blog post in the next few days.

For now, it seems to me that all the commenters are falling victim to two logical errors. First, they are generalizing from a specific model of learning styles to the idea that learning styles probably don’t exist at all. Second, they are dismissing learning styles instead of asking whether there is another, more dominant factor, determining the results. Let’s look a little more closely.

There have been many different “learning styles” proposed. One of them is the auditory-visual-kenisthetic break down mentioned in the article. Another theory looks at field dependence/field independence. A third, J. P. Guilford’s Structure of Intellect proposes 128 different cognitive factors that interact to produce a complex learning style profile. I’m sure there are more.

What bothers me is not whether or not the learning style model presented is a useful tool for analyzing learners. Rather, I worry about researchers, teachers and journalists who are incapable of drawing valid conclusions from the evidence available to them.

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by | March 30, 2018 · 10:45 am

More Musings on Online Privacy

Have you seen this recent viral article on the information social media companies collect about you?

Are you ready?PrivacyArticlePic.jpg

Trust

In the one of the first replies to this article (no, I didn’t read them all) the writer asks “Do you really trust Google?” My answer is “yes, completely”. Google is a for profit information company and I trust it to collect every scrap of information about me and the rest of the world it can. I trust it to profit from this information in any way it can. A company, like a robot or an AI, has no human morality, no conscience, no moral compass. These characteristics have to come from the humans who control it — or abdicate that control.

“Trust” does not stand alone as a concept. To be meaningful it has to be accompanied by answers to the questions, trust whom? to do what? under what circumstances? And it is we humans who must supply those answers, thoughtfully.

Thoughts Left Out

What this article doesn’t say explicitly is that turning on the security controls doesn’t stop the tracking. The next step to privacy is to be very specific about what actions to take. For example, if I turn wi-fi off on my computer is it really offline or just not reporting to me? It isn’t in the interest of Google to tell us these things. The company’s advertisers (other profit-making companies) want us to expose ourselves so that they can entice us to buy their products. They don’t want us to control their access to information about us and they don’t want us to control our impulse to buy. Why would they make it easy for us to protect that information? Why would we “trust” them to do so?

I’ve been teaching since 1975 that the only way to stop a robot (or computer) is to detach it from its power source. That means, if it’s, say, solar powered, get inside it and snip the wires between the charger, the batteries and the cpu. This will also work if you want to stop a computer program designed to collect information that will result in giving it the ability to present images to us that will trigger behavior we might later regret. Asking a company to act against its self-interest seems unlikely to succeed. No matter how many apologies or assurances Facebook publishes, its survival depends on keeping your information flowing in. In the end, I don’t think greater privacy controls will solve the problem. Rather, we need to accept responsibility for responding to those oh-so-effective triggers.

What is Privacy?

The other thesis the article misses is that our whole concept/expectation of privacy has changed in the last 3 centuries. It used to be that “privacy” was the cultural practice of averting one’s eyes rather than today’s assumption that we ought to be able to prevent direct access to information. If you were a servant in an upperclass household, a clerk in a bank, or perhaps a resident in a multifamily, Native American longhouse, you saw a lot of things you never talked about. It’s only recently that a significant number of  humans have lived in conditions where information we now expect to be “private” was not readily available across a broad swath of neighbors, relatives, and tradespeople. The more I confront this topic the more convinced I become that we will find relief from our distress in cultural adaptation, not technical fixes.

Maybe some of today’s youngsters have got a better idea. Just take naked pictures of yourself and post them.

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Filed under Artificial Intelligence and Stupidity