The Web Difference

The Web effect on politics?:

Apologies for misquoting, misstating, misrepresenting, and missing completely.

DW – a photographer is coming to shoot us because we are typical- (or good-) looking

DW shows us the Mike Gravel Helter Skelter X youtube video
He’s running for President as a libertarian, and today we are talking about whether the web makes a difference to politics.

We have a panel of experts, as well as a bunch of readings.

DW doesn’t have a grand thesis, but wants to go through the Dean campaign stuff.

First thing he’d like to look at is Jim Moore’s rise of the superpower. JM was running the show from VT in the last few months of Dean’s campaign, and it was definitely on his mind when he wrote this.

What does he mean?

He’s talking about a movement. He focused on policy initiatives and people reacting to certain things going on in the world. He mentioned people speaking out against the US government.

DW: The Second Superpower is a lefty progressive politics. How is it different from the first superpower (the US)?

To: Instead of armies or economic superpowers, it’s sort of a collection of people that get things done not through force but through collective effort.

DW: there have been such things before, such as nuclear disarmament movement. So what does he think is new about this?

Aa: There’s no real leader of it

Co: It’s like a school of fish or ants

DW: emergent democracy. What is that?

To: clustering and coping

DW: those are two examples of emergence, but what is the emergence they are talking about?

Co: new emergence is more direct, not as filtered

DW peculiar role of individuals in this. In the second superpower, individuals play a greater role. Back to emergence, which is a key term. If you’re looking at insects, there’s a problem because you can’t figure out how termites can bring about these beautiful nets. Their brains are smaller than the amount of brain we lose in a sneeze, yet they do this. But if u give them a simple rule, such as chew what’s in front of you, and spit to the left, and if you cant spit to the left spit up. This algorithm
Rise of unexpected phenomena out of a group that looks like chaos on the ground
The emergence of incredible complexity out of simple rules. You can’t predict what will happen because the interactions are too complex on first sighting.
You have much richer interactions in this new second superpower than simply the act of voting and it leads to structures. You don’t need a queen of the termites’ nest. It will happen not by magic but what happens through interaction. Ordered, coherent, w/o top down control.

Mi: didn’t see it the reading that way. There are some leaders.

Meg: Yes, but there aren’t three people in charge

KB: use of term second superpower is a false characterization. It’s a tool in the toolbox for everyone to use.

To: difference between the two articles. Moore sees the movement itself as leadership, and Johnson sees a need for more leadership. They are disagreeing about interpretation/looking at different aspects.

DW: Moore says Second superpower should be the balance to US.

KB: Second superpower would not exist if 1st superpower fell. They aren’t two separate things because very different

DW agrees

KB: difference in autonomy. 2nd depends on 1st.

DW this turns 2nd into a movement. Political parties are not a lot like movements. they’re move like corporations . They will change their product to stay in business. Moore gives as examples global warming, Kyoto, land mind movement (had Princess Dianna, but not a pres or a ceo)

Aa: I still have trouble with this… the power to do what? The iraq war? Bush getting elected?

Co – ability to set the gloabal agenda, what will be discussed and whats on peoples mind

KP– might think what they are talking about is what everyone is talking about but not true

Dw – lets say what moore says is true, what would happen

To – he says to think about the world bank, which could work closely with world organizations to get them on their on their side. Lobby the UN, American red cross, to try to get their policies implemented

DW: thinks toms aiming low. Why would lobbying work? What else?

Tom – I was being realistic. UN and world bank would become part of the movement, and eventually push peace, his ultimate goal

DW: I assume moore was thinking: he’s a left wingist progressive politics guy, work on Dean, really unhappy w one super power left in the world and many of their policies. Hoping there will be a distributed group of people that will have the same heft as the ones w the power. This distributed force in the world will consist of the best of the web, thus fulfilling the ideal of democracy beyond simply voting. Countervailing the force of the pursuit of power.
Less interested as a functioning political org as much as how a distributed group of ppl might take up politics

ToTtrippi – intro to his Dean campaign book. What did u think of it?

Ju: Didn’t know about Dean campaign, reminded me of obama.

To: – maybe a little self indulgent.

DW: makes sense for him to open w that given the circumstances

To – maybe not the truth

DW – I was involved in the campaign, and friends w trippi. A lot of controversy about his role in the loss. Many people thought he failed to mobilize ppl on the ground in iowa. But I can verify that he knew they were going to <s>win</s>lose. Is he describing Moores 2nd superpower?
A campaign run by the people.

Ri : just because people were enthusiastic doesn’t mean it’s a campaign run by the ppl.

DW: unclear what he means by campaign run by the ppl. He has a few examples, but not many and very repetitive.

KP – how is this diff from traditional web difference but w better technology. Is this fundamentally different?

DW: I believe it is. Give some examples?

KP – movement based around a particular idea.

DW: what I thought was different. When he describes elsewhere how dean campaign became an internet campaign, it was about how to raise the money, needed 100 mil, but might be possible to raise a little bit of money from a lot of ppl (long-tail) instead of doing sequential big events, so started thinking about the internet. Obscure governor raised tens of millions of dollars. Kerry campaign raised a boatload of money over the internet, but turned off other side of the dean vehicle. Doesn’t agree w term campaign by the people. (except maybe yellow bat example from the blog). If that’s what run by the people means then its not interesting.

Something else was going on: the campaign wanted it to be a peoples campaign w the recognition that the traditional way mitigates against that (extremely top down). Organizing foot soldiers. Extremely hierarchical, top down.

Reagn introduces the message of the day – very controlled, hierarchical
But can’t just reverse it. Because 680k ppl are too much for dean to listen to
So had the idea instead to enable the grassroots to talk amongst themselves and that works. Want to allow supporters to find each other. Techniques included use of meetup.com, monthly real world mtgs, coordinated and encouraged by online activity. Drive ppl from web to face to face. And by inventing social networking software. Open source software to enable people to register, say where they are, what there interests are, so they can organize locally w each other, allowed thousand of groups to pop up, i.e. special interests (environment), howards for howard, etc.
And also put in a blog. Enthusiastic supporter dropped into the campaign and seemed unfiltered and uncorporatized. Evident in the blog and they allowed and encouraged talking about what mattered to people and allowed to argue.
Lack of control changed the campaign.
Not to say that people were running the campaign. Policies came top down but did try to create enthusiastic supporters of a relatively unknown candidate
Example: Campaign would get supporters to write to undecided democrats in iowa. Campaign consciously didn’t provide a template. Didn’t want ppl writing campaign sales literature. DW housed a writing party, and some of the stuff was horrible.

Agreement, disagreement?

KP: is that all different from a traditional structure of a campaign? Seems like a new and interesting way to build buzz about your candidate. Its not actually different, and even it were, its not that important

DW: it is shockingly diff from the normal way that campaigns are run, which are always all about control. Marketing campaign where u win by having a tightly controlled message that you spread.

One of the criticisms of Dean was not enough top down. Young foreigners coming into Iowa turned ppl off.

Ni: points out that the Dean website/blog became a mouthpiece after he started to fall apart.

DW – yes. Not entirely obvious why he was unable to cope

Aa – internet makes is easier to exploit make viral campaign gaffes, so can encourage campaigns to be more vanilla

DW: trippi went on to work for Edwards. “ I feel pretty” youtube clip. Edwards combing his hair before an interview. Edwards got asked bout it. Said he was human and had a moment of vanity. Trippi did a clip to “hair” from hair w a bunch of weird hair and asking, do u care about hair or about important issues
Is web making a difference at a natl level?

CK: the aesthetic of the campaign. Maybe not the policies. Works for obama bc his policy is not so standard. I.e. “yes we can” video – hiphop

Se – huckabee and clinton used it quite a bit. huckabee for his humor (chuck Norris). Hillary’s youtube campaign to make it a personal conversation – she does better in smaller settings. She’s sitting on couch; obama’s at a speech.

Da – interent has affected the campaign from without because everyone has to be on message at all times or the internet will kill them, ie b Clinton might’ve had trouble. Need even greater message discipline.

Me – humanizes, endorsements from people from way back when (hillary)

KB – humanizing and message discipline are different ends of something u have to weigh. Also, campaigning on the internet is ridiculously cheap on the internet. So the effect lends towards closer to perfect information for the votes because there’s more of it out there. Allows people to gain more support and fundraise in ways in which they couldn’t before. (ron paul)

To – you’re always on the record

Do – control over image lost for better or for worse.

Da – allows you to fight back to sound clips. Ie obama speech. Forces media to discuss it in a more nuanced way as well because now people have access to the entire speech and millions have seen it.

DW- political campaigns and marketing have been similar – keep it simple to reach as many people as possible, so diff to get a campaign to be more specific. Specificity costs votes, so tend towards simplicity, bumper sticker slogans. Web tends towards more complication. So the web allows propagation of sounds bites but also allows for more info. One more example: when hillary announced on her website that she was running, on a couch (cheaper than to buy a half hour of tv time but I also assume that she didn’t want to hand over to the networks which 15 seconds to play over and over)

Mi – I think message discipline is lost, but image control is not lost.

Ri – can put more stuff out, didn’t have as much control over image then, and harder to respond. Still a back and forth, but u get more control over your image in that sense

Ch/H– dilution of image as well – obama girl, yes we can, both help, but took down myspace site

Ju – shift, two front war vs mass media and individuals on internet

Se – people realize that hard to trust either front, so more interested in the candidates actual material – enhances control

Ch/H– the identity of the candidates is also encompassed by who supports them (yes we can video v lame hillary video)

DW – on one hand, in marketing, try to show your demographic driving the car, but fan w cam phone dilutes (person that leaked hair video). Perhaps control over image is the wrong question.
Question I want to raise – enabling trusting supporters to trust one another that is not a bunch of points relating up but more like a movement where we’ll all know eachother. Campaigns are out in myspace doing this stuff.

Ri – we just take it for granted at this point. We would be really surprised if a candidate didn’t have a forum, etc.

DW – the fact that people take it for granted is remarkable

What was on the board:

Aesthetics – hiphop, humor, personal, conversational, web meme, humanizes
Policy – not so much
Message discipline – net amplifies
More info for voters – fight against sound bites
Minor candidates can uyn
Control over image lost (for better or worse), lost, diluted, enhanced, shifting

Dan Gillmor has a great post that talks about what the future of political debates could look like.

Forward: From Wikipedia; The chattering classes is a generally derogatory^[1] term often used by conservative propagandists and political commentators to refer to a politically active, socially concerned and highly educated elite section of the “metropolitan middle class“^[1], especially those with political, media, and academic connections. It is currently applied to persons with alleged leftist leanings, but its initial use by British right wing polemicist Frank Johnson, appeared to include a wider range of pundits.^[1]

Today, we’re talking about Morality on the Web! 

Professor Weinberger [DW]

-persuades us all to do the reading for tomorrow: it should be very interesting.
-warns us all that he’s going to be ruthless about managing class discussion time today.  No stop offs for (My note: “Are we all in the Matrix” conversations.  We are all in the Matrix, by the way.  But that’s for another time and another place.  Matter of fact, we ARE in another time and in another place.  I am the Walrus.)

DW draws a knife and a corkscrew and asks us which of these technologies is more moral.

                Well, one student replies, we don’t normally ascribe morality to inanimate objects.

DW. asks the same question about a condom and a flamethrower.  Which is more moral? 

DW. asks the same question about a virus that kills only a racial minority.

                Student: “Making the virus would be immoral, but the virus itself would still be an inanimate object.”

                                DW.:  How does morality get into the design process if the object itself is inanimate?

Student A: It’s alright to talk about the morality of design but not the morality of the object itself. 

Student B: Designing the virus would set a chain of causal events into action that would eventually kill a racial minority.  That’s wrong.

Student C: Right, but if the virus leads to something positive, like using it to find a cure to a disease, the virus has a positive effect.  Thus, it’s not the inanimate object, but what it’s designed and used for that determines the sum-total morality of the instrument. 

DW.: We’re fairly happy with looking at technology as a system, from the intentionality of design all the way out to its intended impact.

Student D: Still it’s necessary to cut down negative uses at the initial design stage.  When you create that virus, you can legally prevent its use for negative things.

DW.: We want to be able to have discussions about whether particular technology is worth creating in moral terms by looking at these things as systems. 

General principles of Morality: Don’t Steal, Don’t Kill. 

DW. But each of these principles is kind of flexible. There are hypos in which each of these things is kind of justified.

                DW. Philosophers’ Source of general principles of Morality:

                Utilitarianism: Maximizing happiness or value.  

                DW. Should we maximize happiness in all cases?

                                Student A: No, same minority of people can get shafted. 

Student B: Right, we want to protect the minority because the minority can be you (Rawls’ Veil of Ignorance)

Student C: Utilitarianism doesn’t distinguish between different KINDS of good.  Apples and Oranges.  Can you give out enough candy bars to outweigh the fact that you’re torturing somebody? 

DW.’s phone rings.  His ring tone is a cash register chinging.  Cha-Ching.

DW.: What if we make up the case where the math makes it so that a happiness-monster, a group of people who are DEEPLY happy about some unfair situation?

Student: Well  if we derive a GREAT DEAL of happiness from protecting all citizens from unfair situations, that is, if you can place happiness and value into processes (Rule Utilitarianism), you can maintain utilitarianism as a method to protect justice and fairness. 

                Student: Is there any other conceivable basis for morality other than utilitarianism?

Schemes that aren’t Consequentialist:

Religious: A particular authority on these issues has told us that something is right and wrong

Human Rights: Morality comes from the essence of being human.  We have value as individuals because we are individuals

Human Dignity: utilitarianism is only valuable because it increases human dignity. 

DW.: We come into moral discussions with a sense of what’s right and wrong, and we’ll throw out principles (principles to apply to murky moral questions upon which we don’t have answers yet)  if they don’t match our moral intuitions.  We throw out utilitarianism if it leads to raping children. 

DW’s MAJOR QUESTION: Do our moral intuitions derive from general principles? 

DW. When we talk about whether or not it’s right to download music, do we resort to general principles or not? 

DW. We generally look at examples and analogize. (Professor Palfrey: Well lawyers’ reason by analogy a lot more than the Average Joe)

Student: Well, maybe we’re not making moral decisions when we download music.  We know it’s wrong and we do it.

DW.: There’s a terrible danger to intuitionism:

                There’s no process

                Anything can be justified. 

                Subjective principles

                Cultural, Historical principles

                                White man’s burden and Slavery

                Whatever you think is right is right->There’s no more morality

DW. Are lion’s immoral when they hunt cute things? 

                Student: they don’t have free will

So what are the requirements for a creature to be moral or not? (What distinguishes humans from the knife/screwdriver?)

Student: Free Will (BUT do we have free will?  Is there a difference between trained monkey and EVERY individual human?)

                                                Some element of control over actions

Student: But what if I only follow my moral intuitions when I’m not aware of a scheme?  Can a lion be moral if it acts morally on instinct (like, is a lion that’s nice and only takes life when it needs to more moral a lion who tortures its prey)?

Some Comedian once said that the only thing he learned from the Lion King is not to trust his shady uncle

                                                DW.: Free will is probably not enough to justify labeling something as moral. 

DW.: General hypothesis: Our moral scheme is undergirded by our intuitions about what’s right and wrong.                 

We use examples and analogize to import a sense of sympathy into our moral decisions.

When we talk about the moral realm, to be moral means to recognize that we share a world with others (if someone doesn’t recognize that there are other people with their own vested interests in what happens, that person is a lion or a psychopath [OR BOTH!  LION PSYCHOPATHS.  GREAT IDEA FOR A MOVIE]). 

Utilitarianism works as a moral scheme because we recognize that we’re in a shared world with valid, competing interests

The Architecture of Morality: Morality is composed of the basic assumption that we are creatures who share a world with others who also care about what happens to them

                                                So what’s at the heart of the Web’s architecture?

                                                LINKS!

One interesting thing about the web is that it’s a linked structure.  Links are useful to point to other pages—other points of view.  The web’s architecture is consonant with the architecture of morality.  At some level of its architecture, there’s a recognition that there are other vested interests in what goes on.  There’s an assumption that we share.

Student Hypo: Does the NYTimes become more a part of the moral environment when it started to acknowledge, through its links, the existence of other points of view and vested interests?  (It did so originally through articles that reflect on other people, but do the links make it more moral)?

DW.: Yes.  Here, the NY Times here expanded its sympathy.  It became a greater moral entity (by moral, DW. means the NY times became better morally by expanding its “sympathy,” acknowledging the views of others.) 

Student Hypo: Doesn’t the linked architecture just reflect our current moral interactions?

DW.: Well, the web gives us a new domain in which we are able to expand our sympathies by linking to others

This is what a more fully, more sympathetic media would look like.  The web gives us a greater tool to expand our sympathies.  Taken on it’s own, it’s just stuff.  It’s still inanimate and a tool.  But once more, the definition of “Morality” we’re working with here is “The capacity to be moral” (Things are only what they are in cultural context.  The web was designed for a reason.  It’s not just some THING.  It’s a thing that has a purpose and a cultural purpose.  The web allows us to enact moral and immoral actions more thoroughly).  So DW.’s claim that the Web’s architecture makes it a more moral medium than television and radio really means that the Web allows us to enact or moral or immoral actions more thoroughly.

Student Counter args: The web enhances dehumanization (flaming in comment sections), and acts as an echo chamber

DW.  Yes. So, the question is if the Web’s architecture  oddly reflects the architecture of morality itself, does that necessarily have any effect on how we use the Web? Does it make any difference at all?

Kevin Parker mentions that Koalas are lazy after class.  I agree.  Koalas should get jobs. 

This story raises one interesting concern about the media relying on citizen journalists to provide them with pictures and video of news events – the possibility of people sending intentional spoofs. This time, someone inserted the Grim Reaper into the background of a picture of a marathon and then sent it to Sky News. News organizations have rightly recognized that inviting the public in can be a valuable tool, but as more and more get on the citizen journalist bandwagon (CBS just launched their version) , they have to be aware that not everyone is trying to be helpful.

This article in the Times today is pretty interesting. An author (and management professor) is using computer algorithms to generate books from information publicly available online. The web also changes the way the books are sold – many are printed only when a customer orders a copy on Amazon. At least one customer has complained the books aren’t that great – so maybe this isn’t that big a change for right now. But this seems like it could be a big deal as the algorithms improve.

While the US music industry is exploring the option of imposing additional charges on broadband users, Europe is now discussing a totally new approach: banning errant users from using the web.

This approach still requires ISPs to be copyright cops by monitoring breaches of copyright and disconnecting recalcitrant privates. Of course this proposal has been met with vehement objection because of alleged breach of civil rights. It is interesting to see how the music industry in US is recognizing the immense difficulty of ISPs being copyright cops, while Europe (France is advancing this proposal) is still keen to place the burden of upholding copyright on ISPs.

Here is an interesting follow-up to last week’s discussion. An article notes how the expectation that the internet will democratize the nature of news and give room to alternative voices is not really being fulfilled. Instead, a study shows that the news agenda on online newspapers is narrowing; that many sites simply package news produced elsewhere; and that a few stories (war on Iraq and Presidential campaign) occupy 1/4 of total news.

Seems to suggest that online news sites are simply changing their model in peripheral ways (changing presentation of news by providing links to other sites, incorporating blogs and comments into websites etc) and they are ultimately catering to the demands of majority of readers. The power law distribution in the offline world appears to be replicated on the web. The article also notes that there is an another impact of accessing news online: it is increasing difficult for readers to find what they want without being distracted by ads.

Though online software has been gaining momentum for a while now, Google has stepped up its efforts with its recent deal with Salesforce. I expect this will be a web difference, to the extent it is not one already. Software applications, and the documents created within them, will increasingly be saved, stored, and accessed remotely via the Web. Why host a program or document on your own computer or server when you can outsource it to a more secure server? That said, unlike most of the writers covering this news story, I do not expect this Web difference to demarcate the battle line between Google and the software companies. Rather, I expect the software companies, to the extent they have not done so already, will follow Google’s lead by making forays into online software.

The New York Times has an article today about how people who are Google-ing their names are reaching out to other people who also have their name.

I found this article very interesting. About a month ago, I received an e-mail from someone who had Googled my name. The story is that this person was formerly married to someone who had the same first name as me, and gained my last name through marriage. (For those of you who know my name in real life, you will recognize that neither my first nor my last name are particularly common, and together, my name is very rare.) He decided to write me to share the coincidences with my name, and, intrigued, I wrote him back. (Is this creepy??) He tells me he works in Iraq as a contractor, and also has a computer science background (it is obvious from a Google search of my name that I was a math and cs person). We’ve sent a few e-mails back and forth now.

It’s an interesting idea. What makes us think we have a connection to someone just because we have the same name? And what makes us immediately trust them?

Apparently the Clintons have decided to yield even more transparency after releasing their tax returns for the past 7 years. Now the Clinton campaign has unleashed a new technique for web fundraising. When you contribute online for the Pennsylvania primary, you can choose where you would like the money to go. The website, “MyPA” shows the campaigns’ progression in meeting goals for each category. The Clinton camp has been innovative; in the past there has been a musical contest, a chance to watch a debate with Bill and a chance to roll on the trail with Chelsea. Time will tell if this innovation can surpass Obama’s new million in a minute campaign, began by independent supporters.