Etiquette



DP Etiquette

First rule: Don't be a jackass.

Other rules: Do not attack or insult people you disagree with. Engage with facts, logic and beliefs. Out of respect for others, please provide some sources for the facts and truths you rely on if you are asked for that. If emotion is getting out of hand, get it back in hand. To limit dehumanizing people, don't call people or whole groups of people disrespectful names, e.g., stupid, dumb or liar. Insulting people is counterproductive to rational discussion. Insult makes people angry and defensive. All points of view are welcome, right, center, left and elsewhere. Just disagree, but don't be belligerent or reject inconvenient facts, truths or defensible reasoning.

Monday, June 26, 2023

A plain and simple (or maybe not so simple) question…

One of our regular bloggers suggested paying people to vote.

Q: Should people be paid to vote?  Is that a good idea?  Make your pro/con arguments below.

Sunday, June 25, 2023

News bits: AI influence in elections increases; Poll data; Supreme Court corruption

The rise of the dark side: The NYT reports about the increasing presence of AI in political campaigns worldwide:

In Toronto, a candidate in this week’s mayoral election who vows to clear homeless encampments released a set of campaign promises illustrated by artificial intelligence, including fake dystopian images of people camped out on a downtown street and a fabricated image of tents set up in a park.

In Chicago, the runner-up in the mayoral vote in April complained that a Twitter account masquerading as a news outlet had used A.I. to clone his voice in a way that suggested he condoned police brutality.

What began a few months ago as a slow drip of fund-raising emails and promotional images composed by A.I. for political campaigns has turned into a steady stream of campaign materials created by the technology, rewriting the political playbook for democratic elections around the world.

Increasingly, political consultants, election researchers and lawmakers say setting up new guardrails, such as legislation reining in synthetically generated ads, should be an urgent priority. Existing defenses, such as social media rules and services that claim to detect A.I. content, have failed to do much to slow the tide.  
As the 2024 U.S. presidential race starts to heat up, some of the campaigns are already testing the technology. The Republican National Committee released a video with artificially generated images of doomsday scenarios after President Biden announced his re-election bid, while Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida posted fake images of former President Donald J. Trump with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former health official. The Democratic Party experimented with fund-raising messages drafted by artificial intelligence in the spring — and found that they were often more effective at encouraging engagement and donations than copy written entirely by humans.

The article goes on to point out that sophisticated AI content is appearing more frequently on social networks because those sources are unwilling or unable to police it. Weak, ineffective oversight of social media content allows unlabeled AI material to do irreversible damage. Explaining fakery, lies and slanders to millions of users after they see it is too little, too late, and from what I can tell, it's probably not even possible.

So, we all know what is going to happen in the good 'ole broken US of A with its broken government and a morally rotted major political party that depends heavily on deceit, irrational manipulation and brazen crackpot conspiracy blither for its power. Nothing to regulate AI is going to happen. 

For radical right Republicans and their radical candidates, their 2024 campaigns will be loaded with AI-generated images, voices and rhetoric designed to deceive, distract, demoralize, confuse and slander democrats, democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties. For both major parties, AI content will be better at fund raising, so both are disincentivized to regulate AI. We're in a race to the bottom. The two parties consolidate power and win, while the public interest and democracy lose.

And, there's this fun observation by Josh A. Goldstein, a research fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology: “If people can’t trust their eyes and ears, they may just say, ‘Who knows?’ This could foster a move from healthy skepticism that encourages good habits (like lateral reading and searching for reliable sources) to an unhealthy skepticism that it is impossible to know what is true.”

Hannah Arendt referring to the effects of
totalitarian propaganda decades before AI came on the scene
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The 2024 presidential Binden v. DJT election update: Poll data continues to indicate that the Repubs will nominate DJT. The Indictment has not hurt him yet. Playing the innocent, persecuted martyr seems to go over well with the MAGA cult. The Hill writes about polling data from April and June:


Although Biden has low approval, about 42% at present (about 43% among registered or likely voters) it seems likely he will be the Dem nominee unless something derails him or Newsome or Michelle Obama runs. These days, approval of a president below 50% seems to be the new normal.
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A WaPo opinion piece by Jennifer Rubin discussed a phone interview with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) regarding the corruption of the Supreme Court. Central to the opinion was analysis of Sam Alito's defense of his own blatant corruption in situations just like what Clarence Thomas claims are not corrupt. The weakness of Alito's defense of himself is arrogant and deeply insulting. Alito really thinks we are stupid. The opinion opines
The senator ticked off the problems with Alito’s argument: factual omissions (e.g., the standard for exempt gifts does not include transportation); Alito’s lame effort to turn an airplane into a “facility” to jam it into an exempt-gift category (“It doesn’t pass the laugh test,” Whitehouse said); Alito’s plea that he couldn’t possibly have known Singer had a financial stake ($2 billion) in the outcome of a case before the court (although it was widely reported in the media); and the insistence that yet another billionaire was a “friend,” which somehow absolved him from his obligation to report gifts of “hospitality.” And, Whitehouse argued, it strains credulity that Alito (like Justice Clarence Thomas) could be confused about reporting requirements when there is a Financial Disclosure Committee expressly set up to help judges navigate these issues.

All in all, the poorly reasoned argument amounted to what Whitehouse called “a painful exhibit for an actual ethics code.” A bill he co-authored with Judiciary Chairman Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), set to be marked up after July 4, would confirm that the code of ethics applicable to all judges applies to the high court, set up a process for screening ethics complaints and allow chief judges of the circuit to advise on how their circuits handle similar matters. This is “not remotely unconstitutional,” he noted. Whitehouse wryly remarked that the last thing the justices want is a comparison to circuit courts’ conduct. “The best way to show that a stick is crooked is to lay a straight stick alongside it,” he said.
Whitehouse has long maintained that the court’s unprincipled, outcome-oriented and partisan decision-making is very much linked to the ethics problems. “The ethics problem is not just relevant to expensive gifts and fancy vacations,” he told me. The ethics issues “don’t occur in a vacuum,” he said. They point to “a bigger enterprise whose purpose is to capture the court.”
It is good to see pro-corruption arguments side-by-side with facts that show the arguments to be false. Whitehouse makes a good argument that Supreme Court corruption does not occur in a vacuum, but reflects the bigger authoritarian radical right effort to capture the Supreme Court. An obvious question is whether the authoritarian effort already has captured the court. Look to me like it has.
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Defense against the dark arts in Australia: ABC News reports on a draft bill that would punish online misinformation, including accidental misinformation:
Online platforms spreading misinformation could face millions of dollars in penalties under new proposed government legislation that bolsters the power of Australia's media watchdog.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) would be armed with the ability to require digital platforms to keep certain records about matters regarding misinformation and disinformation and turn them over when requested.

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said this would "essentially mean that the regulator is able to look under the hood of what the platforms are doing and what measures they are taking to ensure compliance".

According to the draft bill, misinformation is defined as unintentionally false, misleading or deceptive content.
That bit about fining accidental misinformation seems a bit of an overreach, but in general something like this is what it will take to address deceit and misinformation online. Companies will not do it on their own. 

Saturday, June 24, 2023

Neuroscience bit: Getting closer to understanding the mind?

We're still trying to figure it out, but
maybe we're finally closing in on 
some serious understanding


Explanation in non-science language
A fascinating article in Sci Tech Daily discusses a proposed mechanism to explain how the brain-mind works. They call their proposed mechanism cytoelectric coupling. Translated into American, what they mean by that is that neurons in close proximity to each other in the brain, or in neural pathways, (and spinal cord and maybe some other brain cells too?), are linked by small electric fields. The coupling of cells gives rise to coordinated weak electrical field pulses in the brain. The weak field pulses apparently have little to do with neurons talking to each other via chemicals released into synapses, which is a different form of communication between neurons. What is happening is that structures in and near neurons change as nearby weak electrical fields pass through. The electrical fields manifest as waves of electricity that constantly pulse through at least parts of the brain where neurons are linked in neural pathways.

The big deal here is that although neuroscientists have been aware of weak electrical fields potentially affecting cells close to each other, there has never been proof that the fields cause specific changes in nearby neurons and those changes are a manifestation of the working of the conscious or sentient human mind. 

Before this paper, it was unknown if the weak electrical fields existed simply because small pulses of electricity travel through neurons to synapses where most or all the interneuron communicating was believed to happen. The bulk of what constitutes the working of the mind was believed to be in the chemicals traversing synapses between linked neurons. Until now, there was no basis to believe there was a cause and effect relationship between intracellular structure changes and the weak electric field pulses. 

Thus there are two different forms of communication between neurons, one at synapses and the other between precisely positioned neurons and their weak electrical fields. Presumably, both together are responsible for how the human mind thinks and perceives inputs from sensory organs and neurons.


Science language explanation
STD writes:
“Cytoelectric Coupling”: A Groundbreaking 
Hypothesis on How Our Brains Function

Brain waves act as carriers of information. A recently proposed “Cytoelectric Coupling” hypothesis suggests that these wavering electric fields contribute to the optimization of the brain network’s efficiency and robustness. They do this by influencing the physical configuration of the brain’s molecular framework. [translation: changing the structures in and around neurons]

In order to carry out its multifaceted functions, which include thought, the brain operates on various levels. Information like objectives or visuals is depicted through synchronized electrical activity among neuronal networks. Simultaneously, a combination of proteins and other biochemicals within and surrounding each neuron physically execute the mechanics required for participation in these networks.

“The information the brain is processing has a role in fine-tuning the network down to the molecular level,” said Earl K. Miller, Picower Professor in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT, who co-authored the paper in Progress in Neurobiology with Associate Professor Dimitris Pinotsis of MIT and City —University of London, and Professor Gene Fridman of Johns Hopkins.[1]

“The brain adapts to a changing world,” Pinotsis said. “Its proteins and molecules change too. They can have electric charges and need to catch up with neurons that process, store, and transmit information using electric signals. Interacting with the neurons’ electric fields seems necessary.”

A major focus of Miller’s lab is studying how higher-level cognitive functions such as working memory can rapidly, flexibly, and yet reliably emerge from the activity of millions of individual neurons. Neurons are capable of dynamically forming circuits by creating and removing connections, called synapses, as well as strengthening or weakening those junctions. But, that merely forms a “roadmap” around which information could flow, Miller said.

The specific neural circuits that collectively represent one thought or another, Miller has found, are coordinated by rhythmic activity, more colloquially known as “brain waves” of different frequencies.

Fast “gamma” rhythms help transmit images from our vision (e.g. a muffin), while slower “beta” waves might carry our deeper thoughts about that image, (e.g. “too many calories”). Properly timed, bursts of these waves can carry predictions, enable writing in, holding onto, and reading out information in working memory, Miller’s lab has shown.

If the brain carries information in electric fields and those electric fields are capable of configuring neurons and other elements in the brain that form a network, then the brain is likely to use this capability. The brain can use fields to ensure the network does what it is supposed to do, the authors suggest.

“Cytoelectric Coupling connects information at the meso‐ and macroscopic level down to the microscopic level of proteins that are the molecular basis of memory,” the authors wrote in the paper.

The article lays out the logic inspiring Cytoelectic Coupling. “We’re offering a hypothesis that anybody can test,” Miller said.

Q: Is this very cool brain-mind stuff or what?


Footnote: 
We propose and present converging evidence for the Cytoelectric Coupling Hypothesis: Electric fields generated by neurons are causal down to the level of the cytoskeleton. This could be achieved via electrodiffusion and mechanotransduction and exchanges between electrical, potential and chemical energy. Ephaptic coupling organizes neural activity, forming neural ensembles at the macroscale level. This information propagates to the neuron level, affecting spiking, and down to molecular level to stabilize the cytoskeleton, “tuning” it to process information more efficiently.
Translation into non-science: 
Electric fields generated by neurons are causal down to the level of the cytoskeleton = electric fields cause specific changes in structures in neurons and that is part of what constitutes thinking and the human mind

Ephaptic coupling = the spreading of impulses along and across adjacent axons such that action potential propagating along one axon fires up an adjacent axon, i.e., a lot of stuff goes on outside of synapses; the electrical fields, if strong enough and/or positioned precisely, are able to influence the electrical excitability of neighboring neurons near-instantaneously (near speed of light)

Neural ensembles = neural pathways; a population of nervous system cells (or cultured neurons) involved in a particular neural computation



Ephaptic coupling between neurons  
in an olfactory bulb (smell sensor)



Acknowledgement: Thanks to Larry Motuz for bringing the STD paper to my attention.

Should Biden Pardon Trump?

THE DAILY DEBATE

Should Biden Pardon Trump?

Author of the article

A Pardon For Trump Would Be A Betrayal Of Biden's Base

President Biden: Pardon Trump. It's What's Best For The Nation




https://www.newsweek.com/

Nevertheless, there is a strong argument for President Biden to pardon Trump. Centrists are understandably frustrated and dismayed by the divisive political atmosphere in the country, and some have proposed a pardon for the federal documents case as a way of putting the nation on the path toward healing. Biden ran in 2020 as a uniter, and some claim that this would solidify his claim to that title. They also argue that a pardon would blunt the preposterous "weaponization of the federal government" claim. Others believe President Biden could bring the country together and win over independents by showing Donald Trump mercy.

All of those arguments are logical. But they are wrong. If Biden pardoned Trump, it would backfire against the President and Democrats, confuse independents, lower morale in the Department of Justice, and not win over a single MAGA Republican.

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-pardon-betrayal-bidens-base-opinion-1808746

Former President Donald Trump is facing the historic circumstance of campaigning for a presidential election while under a Justice Department indictment. It has many on the Right calling foul, seeing it as evidence of a politicized justice system that's trying to win the presidential election for President Joe Biden by imprisoning his opponent.

Whether or not you agree with this sentiment, many of your fellow Americans do. And there's an easy way to diffuse this allegation: President Biden could immediately and preemptively pardon former President Trump. He should absolutely do this, as soon as possible.

Recent polling suggests that a significant chunk of Americans concur. A Harvard-Harris survey found that 53 percent of Americans would support a presidential pardon for Trump. Even more unexpected is that nearly a third of Democratic voters favored a pardon as well.

By pardoning Donald Trump, President Biden would demonstrate a commitment to moving forward and fostering national healing. Avoiding a highly divisive trial would allow the country to shift its focus away from the controversies surrounding the former president and toward addressing pressing issues.

https://www.newsweek.com/president-biden-pardon-trump-its-whats-best-nation-opinion-1808745

          What Snowy has to say about this:

Sure, Pardon Trump, IF he agrees not to run for President. Otherwise, no!       

WHAT SAY YOU??