ON BEING JEWISH

ON BEING JEWISH

Poet Gary Snyder quotes Ezra Pound. I resent Pound’s antisemitism but the Jews he knew were all focused on getting money and power (and still are).  It is written into the origin story:  Jacob fools Isaac to get his blessing with soup,  and Esau is left out.  What happened to the hunter?  His life is never mentioned again.  None of this is “true”,  it is a myth created to support the role of being traders.  Even Ishmael, Hagar’s child has a future (in the origin of Arabs),  but not Esau.  In another myth,  Jews go out of Egypt,  reject slavery to be an independent people,  and are supported by a special god.  No archeological history supports this,  and the narratives are contradictory.  A later collection of rules and regulations, supposedly given by god, is likely the creation of authoritarian priests governing the people.  And there is the story of warrior kings,  Joshua, Saul, and David who established a land protected for a time from outside powers, until Babylon and then Rome.  Jewish history is an authoritarian culture with no basis in democracy.  You can see this in the clothing of Hassids from eastern Europe, who still wear wool coats and full hats in the LA sun.  (The Jews of ancient Israel likely wore clothing more suitable to a desert climate.) Jews fit into an authoritarian belief system, and served as advisors in Moslem empires for centuries. Many were "Trumpers" because of his promise of support for Israel.  (But they did not fit with the Spanish who were busy rooting out Protestants, Muslims, and Jews.  

The laws and traditions that are currently practiced evolved over centuries,  with origins in the middle ages,  not biblical times.  This is a positive sign that the tradition continued to grow,  but not an indication of its evolution in modern times.  Jewish culture values reading and education,  but not inquiry into independent thinking.  The Protestant reform of Christianity/Catholicism  challenged the authority of the pope (setting up an alternative authority),  and made personal commitment to god an essential tenet.  Reform Judaism of the 19th century proposed a similar change.  How do you know when your “personal relationship to god” fits with tradition,  or is some personal aberration?  There is no absolute way to decide,  and modern Pentecostal churches often focus on economic success.  The same is probably true of Reform Judaism.

Being Jewish has three components:

Jews have a belief in the maternal chromosome inheritance:  you are Jewish if your mother is Jewish.  This appears in tradition beginning in the early Christian era,  perhaps as a way of differentiating converted Christian-Jews. Modern genetic research confirms that there is a significant concentration of certain mitochondrial genes,  but these vary in Jewish sub-communities. 

Adhering to a varied collection of rules and observances. These have altered over time,  and the commitment to strict Biblical interpretation is impossible even in the most orthodox traditions.  The validity of the Torah as a holy document is undermined by scholarship that shows it is a composite of multiple origins written much later than the events it describes.  And it was not codified and canonized until the Christian era.

The cultural history of identifying oneself as Jewish. There is not one Jewish history or culture since the Babylonian era.  The variation in Jewish cultures and traditions is evidence of its vitality and evolution,  but not consistency.  Ashkenazic and Sephardic traditions are examples.

Jewish values are challenged by the relationship between Israel and the rest of the Jewish world, especially American Jews.  Israel as the Jewish homeland has no historic basis since Roman times.  Herzl's  Zionist movement was an  answer to anti-semitism in Europe (which was not confined to Jews but to other “semites”, Arabs, as well). It is an historical fantasy in which  European Jews claim a territory which they have no historical connection to, and is not be based on any legal doctrine.  Sending European Jews to Israel after WW2 was a "convenient" solution to the uprooting and disruption of the Holocaust,  which failed to return the Jews to their homes in Europe, and totally disregarded the Arab inhabitants.  The US supported the formation of a Jewish state in the nascent UN in 1949 instead of a gradual approach to a bicameral one.   The result was a war which has continued for several generations. The US supports Israel in its survival against other interests in the middle east because of a strong political influence of Jews in the US.  The contemporary situation in Israel now poses a challenge for the American Jewish community.  Other American interests in the middle east are not aligned to Israel’s goals.  Israel has become an independent military and political entity,  which sometime does not adhering to American interests.  Israel is becoming increasingly authoritarian, the orthodox in Israel have argued for a religious authority over the country since their political ascendance.  This is a rejection of the “separation of church and state”  also currently being challenged in the US.

In this season of the Holy Days,  I am trying to reassess my Jewish identity.  I have Jewish genetics, I was born to a Jewish mother.  The Bible has come to be a collection of historical stories with inconsistent guidance for current life.  It is  not the word of god or any deity, but historical traditions only partly modernized, and strict adherence to it is foolish.  My support of Israel is waning,  though I understand the basis of it becoming a theocratic state, I do not respect systems of absolute authority and do not think it bodes well for the country.  The ideal of a refuge for Jews persecuted elsewhere, and a safe homeland forever, is not consistent with the current reality.

These views affect my cultural relationship to other Jews.  The ideal of Jews as leaders with wise decisions, financial wizards, also exploits others.   Our group identity is the victims of others resentment, so we defend ourselves against the unjustified prejudices.  We never see the connection of these two traditions.  I do not like the idea of defining myself as a victim in order to be defended by my tribal group.  This always includes the reverse prejudice of others that is the basis of this group cohesion.  I  realize that my identity as a Jew is separate from the rules and traditions,  the religious authority, and also the cultural community.  I have only my own beliefs and my genetic origins.  As in other aspects of my life,  it is difficult for me to join and feel supported in groups whose values are different.   

I am Jewish, isolated, and struggling to encourage the humanity that I value as a tradition.

THE TRAGEDY OF LAHAINA

The destruction of the city and major loss of life after the fire in Lahaina Maui has been a terrible shock for the residents, and the country as a whole.  Given the distance from the mainland U.S.,  and the lack of personal experience in Lahaina by many Americans,  the extensive news coverage suggests a larger significance for this small city.

The tragedy of Lahaina began long before the fire that ravaged the town in the last week.  The chain of volcanic island tips that comprise Hawaii was settled by Polynesian explorers by the year 1000, and first visited by Europeans in 1778, when Cook visited as part of his Pacific circumnavigation,  naming the place the "Sandwich Islands" after the Earl of Sandwich, (apparently disregarding the fact that it was already settled).  The Pacific whaling trade in the early to mid 1800s produced a major change in the islands.  The ships sailed from New England, but  20% of the crews were native Polynesians(estimated).  The discovery of kerosene as a lighting fuel in the 1840s saved many hundreds or thousands of whales and slowed the whaling industry.  Hawaii was internationally recognized as an independent kingdom in 1810, but North Americans arrived to "bring Christ to the natives" and lay claim to the lands for agricultural uses by mid century.  This process was slowed by the inaccessibility of the islands, and the limited areas available for agriculture, so not until 1893 did North American and European interests create a rebellion and to depose the leader.  They appealed for annexation to the US,  which was initially denied,  but eventually accepted in 1898.  (This process is similar to the annexation of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California,  but the land was taken from Polynesians, rather than Mexico.)

Hawaii is currently the 8th smallest,  and 11th least populous state.  But this is misleading.  The effective size of Hawaii is mostly the three main islands,  even smaller.  And the population almost entirely in Oahu.  At total population of 1.4 million,  the state has the population of San Diego.  The state agricultural office estimates that ag produces $2 billion per year, about 10% of the $20 billion in tourism.  1.6 million tourists visit the state annually,  roughly 330,000 per month.  This comes to about 1 tourist for every 3-5 residents every day,  but a ratio closer to 1:1in the major tourist areas.  These numbers indicate the peculiar place the islands have in American culture.

Hawaii has been a fantasy in the American imagination at least since after WW2, everyone's version of Bali Hai.  Bali Hai is an imaginary place,  and for most visitors, going to Hawaii is also a fantasy.  Its role as a major naval and missile base,  and an economic zone for Pacific development is ignored.  A few visitors may go to the Pearl Harbor memorial,  but the goal of the visit is the "Hawaiian Fantasy" which may involve surfing lessons, snorkeling a crater, hiking a tropical trail,  seeing the active volcanoes,  or watching a "hula" dance.  (It even involves playing golf for some, as there are many courses at major resorts.)  The demands and economic return of tourism far outweigh the other activities,  and the native Polynesian population has been dwindling for years.  The islands' population is 37% Asian,  25% white, 11% Hispanic,  10% Polynesian,  and the rest mixed.  It is not a Polynesian country except in some rural areas,  and it is not Anglo despite having the union jack as part of the state flag (!).  

Lahaina was once the capital of the Hawaiian kingdom,  but Honolulu has long since overtaken it as the major city.  We visited Lahaina over 10 years ago,  and it was already dominated by a tourist strip of bars, dive shops, and fast food restaurants typical of tourism throughout the US but with Hawaiian themes.  That has only increased in the interval,  and been accompanied by resort condo development around the city, so that haoles (non-native Whites) can have their dream home here.  Hawaii is an idyllic chain of Pacific islands with a unique culture that is honored in the fantasy,  not the reality which is a resort and condo development location.

How do you plan for infrastructure in a fantasy world?  How many firefighters do you need when the population is only a few hundred until it swells by thousands of tourists?  Maui reports 164000 population but many many more tourists much of the time.   A 2/1000 rate of firefighters this would require over three hundred, not including those to cover the additional demand of tourists.  There might be a basis for even more since resources from other states or islands would not be easy to access in emergencies.  Who is going to pay for this?  Newscasters are quick to report the lack of services, alarm system response, or other deficits,  but fail to realize that Maui is a fantasy resort island that main-landers come to to escape the worries of the world.  

This issue is not unique to Hawaii or Maui.  Everywhere that tourists go to enjoy the fantasy of being outside of their everyday lives has the same development issues and economics.  Some of these places are close enough to other major urban areas tto "borrow" on the necessary additional services in emergencies.  But even this is unpredictable, as the Paradise fire showed, in CA.  The world can be a dangerous place.  Tourism is not bad.  Visiting new places allows a person to expand appreciation of others and the world.  But economically, tourism does not address the basic needs of the local society,  and does not pay for them at the rate that would be needed in emergencies.  

Would people have died in Lahaina if there were less tourism?  It seems likely that the conditions of the fire would have been destructive and lethal.  But there would have been fewer places to burn,  fewer people to die,  and perhaps more avenues for escape and more planning of resources.   Maybe or maybe not.  We will never know.

INTELLIGENCE AND EVOLUTION

Natural selection is the basis of evolution,  a basic tenet of biology.  Natural selection occurs by genetic selection in mating individuals. This theory includes the evolution of the adaptive capacity of "intelligence".  Most investigations of "intelligence" explore how this feature of brain operations developed in the course of primate evolution.   The selection of genomes as "more fit" is not absolute but related to a specific environmental parameters,  and variations in genome are selected to optimize this "fit".  

With the development of more complex behaviors and language, an associated "culture" accompanies humans from generation to generation,  and with the development of writing and more advanced methods of information storage,  it is possible to store and transmit this "culture" for the forsee-able future. "Culture" is not transmitted in the genome,  and the Lamarkian theory that behavior contributes to natural selection is rejected in evolutionary theory.  This leaves the question of whether (and how) "cultural knowledge" contributes to adaptation, and evolution.   Several theories of "cultural evolution" involving "memes" have been proposed.  It is not clear if changes in memes are efficiently selected for adaptive value.  Questions might be raised about whether one economic system is more adaptive because it is more "productive".  Does maximizing "productivity" represent the highest level of adaptive capacity,  or are other variables involved which must also be included?  Is "religion" an adaptive cognitive survival skill?  Given the extensive mass killings, historically associated with religions,  it is unclear how this promotes adaptive survival.  Is the dominance of one religion explained by "survival of the fittest"?

Science would seem to be the area of culture most clearly associated with adaptive value,  and many scientific achievements have contributed to prolonging human life.  But the relationship of science to evolution is growing more complex, and several recent achievements raise troubling questions about how evolution is influenced by scientific achievements.  These include: 1) nuclear weapons and radiation, 2) gene modifications and CRISPR, 3) cloning of organisms,  and 4) AI repurposing of cognitive activity.

Discoveries in the nuclear structure of matter are a prominent achievement of 20th century physics.  Separate from this investigation of basic knowledge,  nuclear fission and fusion reactions can release large amounts of energy, and were studied for use in creating weapons.  These weapons exist, have been used, and are relatively widely distributed in the developed countries.  Their use threatens the genetic integrity of those exposed,  and these genetic effects including later development of various cancers is well documented.  The risk of the widespread uncontrolled use of these weapons is an evolutionary threat, so it makes  sense to manage the control of their use.  Whether this is the current situation is unclear, and no formal system for preventing their unrestricted use exists,  and evidence for individual leaders with a poor reputation for appreciation of consequences who have threatened the use of these weapons raises serious questions.

There is a long history of genetic modification of plants and animals by selective breeding to improve the value of plants for human consumption, and animals as domestic assistance or for food.   This distorts the evolutionary viability of these organisms,  and usually makes the animals dependent on human management for survival.  More subtle genetic modifications are occurring as animals adapt to human urban environments.  Two more dramatic interventions are cloning and CRISPR.  In cloning,  animals (or humans) are reproduced from selected genetic material.  This is the extreme of "eugenics", not breeding for ideal offspring,  but cloning yourself to be the offspring!  The assumption that the clone would be identical to the original person takes into account only the genetic component,  and the role of environmental programming cannot be predicted in the same way and is unlikely to reproduce the same personal configuration.  The danger of cloning is its disregard for recombinant genetic variation.  Cloning an individual is the ultimate narcissistic statement that indicates the person is ideal, and no modifications in their genome are needed.  Cloning of animals (or plants) sometimes occurs in Nature,  but for more complex animals it does not,  as adaptive selection is prevented.  Most troublesome is CRISPR.  The ability to modify plants and animals by introducing genetic material by non-sexual selection methods ENTIRELY BYPASSES EVOLUTION in favor of "scientific" presumptions of better adaptive value.  Its use has been proposed for correcting single locus genome abnormalities in human illnesses,  where somatic cells can be modified,  and also proposed for as yet unachievable interventions in embryos.  The medical application seems humanitarian and does not automatically alter evolution.  But the urge to find genetic material that enhances human capacities,  and insert this to produce "ideal" embryos is a lurking danger.  Here again, bypassing the evolutionary process produces unknown non-evolutionary consequences.

AI is the ability to combine and integrate human cultural production to produce new cultural "products".  Since all human culture bypasses evolutionary selection,  it is not clear how this particular modification poses risk other than more direct cultural interventions.  In a recent opinion, Karp  has compared the development of nuclear technology to AI. (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/25/opinion/karp-palantir-artificial-intelligence.html)  To understand the danger of AI,  one must understand that human cultural products are created by individuals.  Each person receives training from others about basic cultural memes and how to use them to participate in the social system in which he/she is embedded.  The evolutionary impact on culture depends on how cultural elements appeal to and manage the  motivations of individuals.  When this impact is mal-adaptive, the long term result is a contraction, or elimination of the culture.  Economic rewards,  sexual selection, and social support are all linked to appropriate performance of cultural behavior.  (The failure to consistently conform is usually considered "mental illness".) In more complex societies,  bureaucratic entities,  governments, corporations, etc, are given legal existence to have power to enforce and reward cultural performances.  These artificial entities may demand cultural behaviors that are mal-adaptive (that interfere with evolution).  When evolution is effective,  mal-adaptive behavior of these "artificial organisms" results is eventually selected out.   What makes robotics/AI so threatening is the possibility of creating entities that perform actions with a significant level of human intellectual capacity,  but are not regulated by human motivations. What then are they responsive to?  The current fear is that they are responsive to corporations that are not empathic to the needs of the larger society.  This is the (alleged) effect of social media corporations and other technological developments that have emerged in recent years.  But it is unclear if they are disregarding the larger society, or responding to conflicting influences  with different political interests.  (An intelligent governmental response in this country appears to be impossible due to the current technological ignorance of the political leadership.)  The danger of AI is that human intellectual capacities can be mimicked by computational devices that humans will be unable to discriminate from interacting with another human, and so will be unaware of being manipulated by some entity.  The evolutionary extreme would be humans  manipulated to "fall in love with" pornographic AI productions which distract them from human reproduction and materially alter the ability of evolution to influence natural selection.  (How much this already occurs in dating sites is unknown.)

So long as intelligence is closely linked with human motivations in individuals susceptible to social and sexual selection,   it is indirectly influenced by evolution,  including its "cultural" component.  Any intellectual activity that bypasses the evolutionary selection process threatens to alter evolutionary processes with unknown consequences!

MEDICINE AND ANTI-AGING

In an old Sunday Times magazine,(https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/magazine/17antiaging-t.html) Tom Dunkel wrote about a man and his doctor working together to slow or reverse the aging process and about other organizations promoting similar treatments.  He also included rebuttal from other doctors who reject this as "quackery".  Other more recent articles describe other approaches: (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/19/business/aging-protein-elevian.html)  (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/08/health/taurine-supplements-aging.html)

In the context of current healthcare debates, the cost  of  elder healthcare looms large, so reducing elder disability could be helpful.  The body changes and deteriorates with age,  which can be interpreted three ways:  1) the changes are programmed into the species to eliminate those who have reproduced to make room for the next generation.  2) the changes are failures of human design which impacts  current human longevity.  or 3) "Aging" is a disease like any other and needs investigations to cure or prevent it.   The first view means aging is part of the normal evolutionary cycle that humans should do nothing to interfere with.  The second and third views support  finding ways to arrest or prevent aging by stopping or reversing the biological factors that contribute to it.  While Dr Comite is quoted in the article as distinguishing between "optimal health during life" and preventing death,  the latter is the stronger motivation for engaging in these studies.  It is interesting that this article concentrates on examples of males trying to prevent aging, and the hormonal changes women naturally experience are not discussed.  Male aging seems to be a reality that men strive to hide.  Should men do this? Certainly some of the treatments are simply placebos,  but there is clear evidence that hormone supplements have impact on the body.   But are they  effective in preventing "aging" or promote "optimal health" without undesirable side effects?   Nature seems to reduce certain hormones with age to prevent certain effects,  while worsening others.  Which consequences are preferred?

Should people have the right to choose?  And should medicine be free to research the potential consequences and develop "antidotes" to prevent them?   In short, should our scientific community explore ways to prevent the changes of aging and "optimize health" for as long as possible in the population?  This is not simply a scientific question, despite the impression given by Dunkel in the article.  It is a moral issue illustrated by the following example:  if a plant is discovered in the Amazon tomorrow which conveys eternal (or prolonged) life should it be developed and distributed to everyone at whatever cost?  If there are really vampires in the world somewhere,  should we allow ourselves to be bitten so that we can enjoy eternal life (albeit in this case only in the dark)? By framing the question this way, " optimal health" becomes "escaping death",  and the finite-ness that gives meaning to human life is gone.   The moral answer for most of us,  even with our fear of death,  would be "no.  This is not a good thing to do."  But where is the line between the two,  when does "optimizing health" become "trying to live forever".   When does improving life become attempting to prevent death which ultimately changes the meaning of life?  The urge for immortality is seen in other scientific quests:  creating a computer "upload" of the mind, so the person's "mind" lives forever.  We humans have an intense desire to prevent the loss of our "self", so that it continues eternally.

ON READING AND LITERACY

 On the occasion of the NYT examining the current controversy over books (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/21/books/review/book-bans-humanities-ai.html) it might be useful to give some thought to reading as an activity.    Scott begins: "Everyone loves reading. In principle, anyway. Nobody is against it, right? Surely, in the midst of our many quarrels, we can agree that people should learn to read, should learn to enjoy it and should do a lot of it." This passage reflects the attitude of an educated, literate, urban intelligence, not the opinion of everyone, nor every American.  Literacy in America has evolved.  Though estimated at 80% of male adults in 1776,  this did not include slaves, or women whose rate was not documented.  Estimates claim 80% of adults by 1870 (though again women are not included), but only 20% of blacks were deemed literate in that survey.  This is reported to reach close to 100% by 1980's though it is unlikely that the estimates are correct.  Reading skills were emphasized in basic education during this period, but it is not an inherent human skill.

The evolution of speech is impossible to document precisely, but its presence is pervasive across human societies. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1364661300014947) Estimates suggest it developed 50 to 100 thousand years ago, but this does not include reading! The ability to combine auditory signals and visual signals requires brain pathways that are not instinctual and estimates suggest that the ability to write and read languages is roughly 6,000 to 10,000 years old, a relatively new capacity!  (Perhaps auditory speech and visual symbols, petroglyphs, etc were combined and selected images linked to concepts (in pictographic languages) or sounds (phonetic ones).  Some ancient scripts persist into contemporary forms as in Chinese, Egyptian to greek, etc; others do not have a known correspondence, as in Mayan.  The importance of written language is the ability to maintain and record records of actions, and transmit information and history across generations without relying on memory-mimetic skills.  The importance of this change is discussed in detail by Abram (THE SPELL OF THE SENSUOUS).  

Culture is transmitted orally as well as in written form, but great importance attaches to the written as in religious documents.  The "bible" is a canonization of previous manuscripts, as is the "Koran".  Once established as definitive, each becomes the basis for the culture of that religion; this decision was made by a group of "experts" around 2000 years ago for "bible", and 1500 years ago for the "Koran".   A similar role is assigned to texts in other cultures.  These written texts were not universally available to "readers" in these cultures on a personal basis,  only as scarce hand written documents, shared by many users.  Moveable type printing developed in 1455 with Gutenberg's printing of the bible.  Only in the last two centuries has the writing and printing of books of skills, biography, and literature (fantasy) been readily available.  So Scott's assumptions about the universality and importance of reading reflect very recent developments in human history.

Coming from an academic, intellectual background, the importance of literacy and reading are paramount.  And so recent issues raise serious concerns. The teaching of reading in the US has deteriorated.  Students do not read as well as previous generations. This is ascribed variously to poor teaching, teaching non-phonetic methods(in a language that is inconsistently phonetic!), and the expansion of audio-visual sources of information.  Each of these may play a role,  but their significance is masked by a broader issue.  Contemporary culture has a wide range of available sources of auditory-visual information.  And students are able to create this information with or without words to share with others.  The dominance the physical-object-book generating a visual-verbal experience is diminishing.  Almost everywhere in the country,  you can overhear a conversation, often among women, about how their grandchildren are not reading enough, and spending too much time on "social media".  Many of these same women were in the generation that was transformed by radio, movies, and television; but they do not recognize the impact of those media as clearly.  McLuhan did, the cultural prophet who stated that "the medium is the message", or at least influences it.

The paradox of this de-emphasis on reading is the recent focus on restricting what books are retained by libraries and read by young people.   Just when the general youth culture is more focused on audio-visual experience,  parents and politicians are concerned, obsessed really,  about the "danger" of reading this or that book.  The typical concern of the 50s-70s was about the child/teen reading books with passages describing sexual activities in explicit language.(as in https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-06-21/huntington-beach-will-seek-to-stop-children-from-accessing-library-books-deemed-obscene-or-pornographic)  This is rarely a current concern.  Instead,  the focus is on normative content.  What feelings about oneself and one's gender are appropriate to share with others?  What feelings, attitudes, and historical information are appropriate to share which do not conform to traditional cultural norms about the country?  Elders and politicians are emphasizing the role of written communication in transmitting history, at the time when youth are ignoring it most of the time. These two aren't a coincidence.  It seems that the erosion of emphasis on written communication for a decade or so has weakened the importance of normative history in the society,  and now those who viewed that history as their history,  are shocked that others now claim a different history for the United States.  Which books are allowed becomes the basis for certifying what is the "real history".  The goal is "a campaign to win the hearts and minds of America's youth", and the supposed future history of the country.  In a time when different news media report "the facts" of an event in incompatible terms,  and a candidate and followers claim they did not lose an election despite the calculations,  defining which books "tell the true story" and are allowed, and which do not, and are prohibited, takes on a new urgency.

The sad truth is that books or written texts do not have this intrinsic validity.  Just as there are many variations of religious texts, and even several variations of the "bible" and its translations, there are many books and papers that claim to document the "truth" of the country, and its origins and current norms.  Fighting for a particular version of this "truth" and eliminating the voice of others is a necessary step in political control.  And attacking political norms is a basic technique to undermine the establishment.   Books have been swept into the political maelstrom because their writing and authors have been. Fighting for your version of the culture and the reality of a society only assures that another person will challenge this and try to oppose your views.  This is, of course, not about books, or reading, but power politics at a time when cultural norms are in transition.

Is California different? California doubles down on inclusive education as red states ban books in classrooms          Is this the future? 

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-06-21/california-doubles-down-on-diverse-lessons-in-schools-as-book-bans-happen-across-u-s

FIXING THE INTERNET 3 Misinformation

The 2020 election and aftermath have intensified the conflicts over biased information.  People are concerned that distorted or false information have a negative impact on the integrity of the society itself  There are congressional hearings,  and innumerable articles in print media and online media,  and recently a documentary  SOCIAL DILEMMA, that review the situation.  (The film, a mixture of interview, narrative, and dramatization,  illustrates how easy it is to confuse the three!) It presents a dramatized family whose teen struggles with "internet addiction",  and imaginary characters representing the AI inside search engines.  There are focused interviews from previous employees of Google and other internet companies,  including Jarrod Lanier, who has written a book WHO OWNS THE FUTURE?  about this.   The interviewees as insiders make several important points, which clarify the problem and define it in a different way:  The model of the social media companies is selling you/users/your information to advertisers. Personal information is the commodity.  Facebook/Instagram collects this directly,  Google collects it by search activities, Twitter collects it by tweets and re-tweets.  The goal of all of these companies is increasing your screen time to get more of you to sell.  The more time you spend selecting on screen,  the more information about you they acquire.  Algorithms are designed to identify what is important to you, the user, and sell it.

The goal of advertisers is to sell their product to likely buyers as carefully as possible in selected users/groups.  The internet companies try to define groups with maximum value to advertisers using AI algorithms.  The core model is making money by selling user information and targeting ad/info to defined users.  This is a financial model, and cannot be reversed except by changing the financial incentives or penalties.  Lanier has proposed along with others,  that users/us share in the revenue of the use of information about ourselves.  This is one solution to the incentive model,  but hard to ensure the companies would do it equitably,  and it doesn't address several other issues.  California has instituted an "opt out" control by users,  which must be user initiated.  

When translated into the political arena, another kind of marketing emerges.  Russians, Chinese, and other information sources do not “hack” Facebook.  They pay to be advertisers hiding their identity,  or they create “bot” sites to spread information, as fake "personal sources".  Facebook and other site algorithms identify user preferences for these sources and feed users, and user/groups, the data users select.  Instead of targeted advertising for products or businesses,  they market/ target political influence.  This is not fundamentally different from other political advertising on television at election time,  but social media algorithm methods are more efficient at targeting viewers.  (This is a mixed benefit, since they do not always target "swing voters".)  The idea of “editorial control” concept borrowed from newspaper/TV media makes no sense because the management of distribution of this data by algorithm is precisely controlled.  Users select what they wish by clicking, and get what they want and more of the same.  THAT is the problem.  If users do not select certain media,  the AI quickly diminishes its presentation.  When users continue to select it,  it is expanded.  This is how the system is designed and the user plays a basic role in the outcome.  This is widely misunderstood in congress.  Introducing government control authorizes whatever group is in power to totally control the distribution of information of a very powerful medium.  This is the Liberal answer that reflects the persistence of the belief that the editorial control in newspapers and network TV "protected" viewers from "wrong information". Conservatives object to control fearing that their sources would be the first to be suppressed.  Both sides favor restricting expression of information, because the selective choice of information reinforces the other side's bias!

The problem for society is a secondary effect of the process. Targeting information and advertising to users means that subgroups self select to get more information supporting their views, differentiating themselves from other users/groups.  The algorithm  inherently separates information delivery by the selection of individuals, producing a division in "consensus reality".  Previous media, including newspapers and network TV, aggregated the public into a small number of large subgroups by editorial policy.  This is more fragmented in social media (and talk radio and blogs), and less obviously under anyone's control.

The French are attempting to address this by educating the user,  especially children and teens, to understand the selection process and protect themselves by critically evaluating messages. (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/13/technology/france-internet-literacy-school.html) The US has resisted this because exploiting children and teens economically has been pervasive for two generations.  Any effort to educate consumers to resist the promotional distortion of advertising undermines the economic premise of social media.  And some studies suggest that rational thinking does not reduce the divide.(https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/19/opinion/sunday/fake-news.html) Other factors play an important role in two recent books (The Misinformation Age How False Beliefs Spread, By Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall; Down to Earth Politics in the New Climatic Regime By Bruno Latour).  A study about the public opinion of the Trump tax cuts casts doubt on the publics' inability to understand the issues. (https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/fighting-fake-news-is-not-the-solution)  The user does have power to control the process.  My own strategy has been to use FACEBOOK, but  limit my feed by deleting ads and information that are not desirable.  This results in a highly focused, satisfactory experience for me, with limited marketing value, which makes me a user of little value to FACEBOOK.  During the last election, I got almost no political ads or promotions except re-posts by friends.   The user can interact with the algorithm to shape the experience,  that is how the algorithm is designed.  But the user must do this mindfully and intentionally to block undesired information.  This process does not address the biasing of information,  it just lets the user select his or her preferred bias.

This answers one issue of the internet: who controls what information I can receive?  But it does not answer what veracity that information carries?  Is it true or false?  This will be addressed in another musing of OBIRON.

WHATS THE MATTER WITH MEN?

Richard V. Reeves, a British American scholar of inequality and social mobility, and a self-described “conscientious objector in the culture wars,” would like to skip past the moralizing and analyze men in the state that he finds them: beset by bewildering changes that they cannot adapt to. His latest book, “Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It” argues that the rapid liberation of women and the labor-market shift toward brains and away from brawn have left men bereft of what the sociologist David Morgan calls “ontological security.” (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/01/30/whats-the-matter-with-men)  This analysis seems to forget many other features of "male insecurity" that have been documented in the past.  An example is the book DELIVERANCE (also made into a movie of the same name) in which a group of "urban" men go on a canoeing trip in the "wild" where each is trying to prove his manliness to the other.  The story culminates in outsiders committing homosexual rape on some of the group until one manages to kill the attacker with a crossbow (the true weapon of archaic manhood!).  Reeves doesn't emphasize homosexuality as a threat to modern males, perhaps because of the changing culture, but his British heritage includes strict laws prohibiting the behavior,  which persists anyway (perhaps learned by isolation in same sex boarding schools).   Homosexuality is an ambivalent dilemma of males seeking to define their "masculinity" in the absence of available women.  The transition from the 50s, which made short military haircuts the sign of masculinity, to the 60s when "independent males" let their hair grow long "like women" is highlighted in the movie EASY RIDER when the motorcycle guys with long hair and their buddy get attacked while camping out.

Earnest Hemingway provides a most interesting story of 20th century "manliness".  Most of his writing describes activities in the outdoors and military adventures.  He participated in a few as a journalist,  though biographies suggest that his involvement was more limited than the writing suggests.  He was famous for challenging others to fist fights in bars, etc, and wrote a book about the masculine courage of bullfighters.  But his mother dressed him as a girl until mid childhood,  his relationship to his father, who emphasized hunting and fishing, was conflicted, and the father eventually committed suicide.  Hemingway had difficulty maintaining relationships with women,  and was partly supported by his wives until his writing became successful.  FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS is a masterpiece of masculine wartime adventure,  but after writing it,  Hemingway's later years were mostly dissipated in fun adventures, before his own suicide. His books suggest a standard of masculinity he could not fulfill, as in "The short happy life of Francis Macomber".

In contrast,  a long history of successful powerful men not involved in specific "masculine activities" occurs in many cultures.  Leadership, cultural sophistication, financial acumen, and other skills result in successful men who are political figures, traders, etc.  The European/British tradition of martial "lords" remains a fantasy of that culture,  while the majority of their descendants have assimilated into bourgeois society and its roles.  In other words,  "macho males" have been transforming into more socially complex individuals for hundreds of years.  Why the sudden concern about the current changes?

Some of this is probably an American phenomenon.  We are a new country and culture,  whose settlement required significant physical capabilities.  The last state was incorporated in 1959, less than a century ago.  Much of the settlement of the western states still requires physically active jobs,  though less than in the last century.  The country is transitioning from a settlers' culture to an urban culture, to a mega-urban culture in some areas.  The role for men is changing and some men have more aptitude for the changes.  This leaves some men confused about how to fit into the society,  and changes the work tasks but does not "threaten masculinity".  Reeve's view that there are particular skills (hunting, exploration, etc) that are more significantly male is a typically upperclass British, not wrong, but culturally narrow.

Some of this may also be a result of #METOO culture.  The assumption that a woman without an escort is fair game for sexual advances is not a universal human cultural assumption.  It is not even a universal American cultural assumption.  The cultural value that respects the personal physical space of a woman continues to be present in much of America, including legal standards.  The increasing role of women outside the home in the workplace may contribute to an increase in attempts at exploitation.  But many instances of women exploited by famous or powerful men do not occur in the immediate workplace,  and suggest that these are characteristics of specific men, with specific attitudes about women, and should not be generalized to changes in all men.  And not being able to exploit women does not threaten "masculinity" any more than it threatens a woman's ability to be sexually attractive to others.

The more significant change in gender role is the expanding option of LGBT+, the possibility of choosing one's gender role in disregard of your genetic/anatomical basis.  These changes reject the notion of any absolute gender determination, and offer the option that the individual chooses their social-gender-presentation, and disregards the reproductive aspect.  This does not just threaten "masculinity" it challenges the definition of gender as a predetermined genetic-anatomical feature,  and substitutes social presentation as an alternative.  

Many features of modern society are in transition.  The role of men, women, and their gender identities are all being reassessed.  It is a mistake to make this a sign of problems in "masculinity"  though some men may experience it in that way.  And some women may experience a de-valuation of emphasizing "femininity" as well.  It is a characteristic of elders to sometimes see changes as problems,  and a characteristic of younger members of society to not anticipate  potential dangers in the changes.