Our Upcoming Digital World

Two converging sources led me to write this today.

The first is a duology (or dilogy, to be etymologically correct) by Daniel Suarez, titled Daemon and Freedom (TM). I first heard of Daemon from the Long Now Foundation blog, where the author talked about how the world is increasingly being run by computers. The online preview hooked me, and I've been searching for a copy ever since. I finally got my hands on both books two weeks ago. Michigan's copy of Daemon had been continuously checked out for a long time; I decided to get a copy of Freedom through ILLiad, thinking they would check it out from the Ann Arbor Public Library - I later found my copy came all the way from Yale. They were good reads, techno-thrillers that refuse to be put down. Saying the books are merely techno-thrillers grossly underestimates their scope - Suarez embedded political, economic, and philosophical viewpoints in the narrative - but here I will only address his description of technology and its impact on society.

The storyline of the novels follows a revolution, from a society very similar to our own to one where the digital world is (even more) deeply integrated into the fabric of everyone's lives. This integration is primarily through a computer problem (the titular Daemon, which controls everyone's private information. This consists mainly of three things: a person's unique ID (UID), their credit, and their role and competency in that role. A UID is just that - some name or series of characters which uniquely identifies a person. A person's credit is also a familiar concept: it is the digital currency of the society. Finally, a person's role and competency (or "level") stems from role playing game terminology; it describes what a person is good at, and how good they are at it. For example, the novel often shows articles by high level (say, level 12 or above) journalists.

Each piece of information stored by the Daemon is part of the overall system, but a larger view of the system is needed first. Each member of this new society wears specialized sunglasses, equipped with a head-up display (HUD) and powered by a wearable power source - in most cases, a battery belt. The HUD is a thin client to the Daemon - that is, it only provides access to the system but does not run the Daemon itself. Wireless Internet access is assumed, so the glasses are always connected to the Daemon. It transmits two sets of data to the Daemon: it's current location through GPS, and biometric data of its wearer. This biometric data - everything from fingerprints and iris scans to gait and breathing patterns - is stored together with a person's UID. DNA could presumably be stored as well, although it was not mentioned in the novels. This comprehensive profile of a person makes identity theft near impossible.

The GPS location, on the other hand, allows the Daemon to provide the user with information. Aside from data about people, the Daemon also stores information about objects. These could either be information about locations (think of a history of, for example, the Eiffel Tower) or information about real world objects. The latter is achieved through ubiquitous RFID tags. Pooling these databases together, a user can access information about everything in their surrounding.

A word about RFID tagged objects. In addition to giving information about an object's history (for example), the Daemon can perform other tasks with the help of embedded, integrated circuits in the object. One example is an ownership check: since the Daemon controls the economy (more on this later), it knows who an object belongs to. If an unauthorized person tries to use an object, the Daemon could automatically disable or even destroy the object. Since the Daemon is connected to most digital systems (more on how it did this later), objects could also be given "magical" properties. The books show a ring which will erase the wearer from security camera feeds: the Daemon associates the user and the ring, finds cameras pointed at the users location, and edits the video in real time to cover the user with the background.

Obviously, such an object could be misused - which is where a user's credit and role come into play. Together, these two pieces of information determine what someone is or is not allowed to do. While the idea of credits is easy to understand, role and level requires some explanation. As mentioned above, a person's role shows what the person is capable of doing. This may be production related - the knowledge to use a milling machine, for example - or skill based, such as the knowledge to write programs. The level is some measure of how much experience and how competent the person is with this ability. There is a third piece of data I have not mentioned - a person's reputation. This is again publicly viewable, and is simply an average of how others "rate" their interaction with this person. A low reputation would mean that the user frequently lies, or cheats, or is rude, while a high reputation means the user consistently does their job well. The creation and registration of objects with the Daemon often require several people to cooperate, and any one could refuse base on the others reputation. The Daemon itself performs checks on a person's credit and levels, to ensure that only responsible individuals could use powerful objects like the ring above.

Credit and reputation could be used in another way: to directly influence the society around you. For example, "news" within this society are simply pieces of media produced by users, then rated by other people. The initial rating of a piece of news depends on the reputation and level of the publisher. A person could also use their reputation to create "jobs" - things they want other people to do. Presumably, those who fulfill the requirements of the job - which might be something as simple as transcribing a minute of video - would gain credit or reputation or both.

For a society like the one described to survive, the stability and security of its infrastructure - that is, the Daemon - is crucial. In the novel, the Daemon first gained control as a virus botnet, gaining access to massive computing and storage capability. With this ability, it hacked into the financial and security systems worldwide, thereby forcing the world to accept its presence. The initial selection of people to receive HUD glasses were selected based on highly specific rules; once its members reached a critical mass, newcomers had to be interviewed by members - who are scanned with fMRI for honesty. It is also at this point the Daemon makes its source code publicly available, thus preventing minorities from taking over the system and also allowing the will of the majority to implement new procedures. Finally, the Daemon also executes the punishments in this society, including the removal of credits or in extreme cases, death (through the control of motorcycles with swords).

That concludes the description of Suarez's novel universe.

Before I talk about the second source of inspiration for this post, I want to point out which parts of the novel is science fiction and which parts are existing technology. The fictional aspects are surprisingly limited. The obvious ones include the sword wielding motorcycles, realistic and useful HUDs, fMRI lie detection (although this is a developing field), and (sadly) ubiquitous wireless internet access. Other things which sound fantastical are only fictional in degree: botnets do exist and could potentially harness the computing power to hack commercial networks. RFIDs are embedded in a lot of consumer products - including books, media players, and passports - and the devices needed to read RFIDs are cheap and easy to obtain. GPS is already a widespread technology, and in fact people already broadcast their location through services like Facebook Places, Twitter, and Foursquare. Finally, socially defined value systems are everywhere: Amazon ratings, news sites like Reddit and Digg, and on social networks like Facebook and MySpace. Of course, digital currency has been in use for the past half a century and drives most of today's financial markets. Finally, crowdsourcing is already available to people, through Amazon's Mechanical Turk service (the name of which is inspired by the original Turk, a fake AI).

My second inspiration likes with this later group. I watched a TED talk today by Seth Priebatsch on "The Game Layer on top of the World". Priebatsch is the founder of SCVNGR, an API which allows companies and individuals to build "challenges" at certain locations. These challenges earned the player points, which could be redeemed as coupons for those companies. Although I knew of all the services I mentioned above, it was only with the talk did I realize how near a future Suarez could be describing. Priebatsch's introduced his talk by saying today's social networks are disorganized, despite the potential of harnessing all the information a person puts online. The main difference between our present technology and that of Suarez's - aside from the science fiction elements already mentioned - is the transparency of information. By infecting global financial databases and forcing the system on people, the Daemon had the power to require the transparent broadcast of reputation and ratings. Without this central (and impersonal, unbiased, not-for-profit) force, there will always be concerns of monopoly and anti-trust for any company that gains control.

This was my original topic, by the way: that an open source, transparent program would solve the problems of a Randian utopia I talked about before. I believe that humanity will ultimately become the society described by Suarez, which inherently contains the values of production described by Rand, although policed in a very different form that what Rand envisioned. Technology has grown too quickly for society, especially our customs, to keep up: just look at the debates on net neutrality and digital copyright. Human right issues are related - the Daemon does not care whether you are Caucasian or African American, homosexual or heterosexual, Christian or atheist, but only your ability to give value to those around you.

I don't know what conditions would lead humanity to implement a change like that though.

Last thought: I mentioned that the Daemon's world was opt-in, that you have to decide to meet with interviewers. The current trend of ubiquitous computing is on smart phones, which I have yet to own one. In the novels, the people who stayed with the outside world were left with a dying economy; I wonder what world I will live in if I continue to refuse mobile technology.

HTML5 Canvas 3D

The WebGL standard is developing to allow 3D graphics on the web. Unfortunately, it is currently only available in developmental branches of major browsers. In the mean time, the HTML5 Canvas element provides support for 2D graphics... unless you have a backend library to render 3D scenes. Lookie what I did. You'll need a good browser... anything other than IE will do. Drag the display pane to rotate; use the mouse wheel to zoom in/out.

In other news, I've discovered that I remember close to nothing about 3D geometry.

Atlas Shrugged (cont.)

I had forgotten about these two points last time. Also, Faye has posted her thoughts on Atlas Shrugged.

Post Script 4: Sanction of the Victim

Although, as Faye suggested, that wealth is most often made collectively in the world at large, this is not true for special circumstances. In smaller groups, especially when the groups are not formed through mutual selection, there are often members who do most of the work and members who barely work at all. I am, of course, talking about school projects. If Atlas Shrugged had an effect on me, it is in my wondering whether I should have been more honest in group evaluations.

Post Script 5: On the Value of Human Life

At the end of the novel, the protagonists take over a torture facility to rescue John Galt. In one scene, Dagny confronts a guard by telling him that she was sent there by the head of state and making him choose between letting her in and obeying his boss' order to keep everyone out. When he couldn't make a decision, Dagny shoots him dead.

This scene, and the following ones, never satisfied me. Although I see the literary need to rescue Galt (and have no suggestion on how to otherwise achieve this), killing to achieve this seems entirely antithetical to the novel. Implied in the killing is that there is no life without thought and that being alive or dead makes no difference in that case. While this may be a valid philosophical position, putting it into action violates more than the value of life: our protagonists are also imposing their beliefs on others and making that choice of life and death for them. It is this latter imposure that I cannot stand. My philosophy leans toward what is said of Voltaire (but actually written by Evelyn Beatrice Hall): "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

New Windows Manager

Switched from Fluxbox to Openbox today, but everything is funtionally the same. The taskbar is pypanel. The readings in the back is from conky. The wallpaper is from a NASA POTD showing the sun's corona during an eclipse.

Atlas Shrugged

Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?

No, says the man in Washington; it belongs to the poor.
No, says the man in the Vatican; it belongs to God.
No, says the man in Moscow; it belongs to everyone.

I rejected those answers.

- Andrew Ryan, founder of the city of Rapture

The above quote is from BioShock, a first person shooter where the player stumbles upon the ruins of Rapture. The setting of the game borrows heavily from Ayn Rand's philosophy (as the similarity between the names Andrew Ryan and Ayn Rand suggests), especially from the philosophy espoused in her magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged. I myself finished the book last week, after my friend Faye prompted me to read one chapter. It was the original book I wanted to read of Rand's, before its unavailability from the library forced me to read The Fountainhead instead. I thought I would start my conversation with Faye by writing this post.

The basic premise of Atlas Shrugged asks one question: what if all the innovators of the world disappeared? Their choice to do so is rational in the setting of the book: the government (and the world in general) has evolved to the point where the work of any innovator is taken from them unfairly. As protest against this policy, the innovators collectively disappear, to show the world what will happen if they refuse to continue contributing their work without appropriate payment. As a consequence of their refusal to work, to "sanction the victim", the world collapses with no one producing anything of value. This is the meaning of the novel's title - those who carry civilization forward, the Atlas' of the world, becomes apathetic to those they are carrying. This is also why the novel was originally titled "The Strike".

Describing the precise moral dilemma that the book presents is difficult. I think the conflict reduces down to these two principles, both commonly accepted morals, which Rand suggests is in conflict:

1. Men are brothers in life, and must take care of each other. We must ensure that each person is treated fairly, and those more fortunate must contribute to help those less so.
2. Men are their own masters, and we must create our own destiny. No one else is in charge of our happiness, and we must work to maximize the value and desirability of our future.

In Atlas Shrugged, Rand sets these two morals in opposition. Within the novel, the government puts the needs of the majority over the right of the individual. To ensure that everyone in society is treated fairly, that those who have not risen to the top are given chances to do so, the government routinely limits the output of industries and commandeers its goods for those in need, with the force of the law at its side.

The problem is not that the able - and therefore the rich - are giving money to the poor, but that the poor are not giving value back. Ask yourself this question: if you are required, by law, to give money to pan-handlers who have nothing to offer you in return, would you? If you answered no, consider that this is exactly what taxes and social welfare amounts to. The novel exaggerates this to dystopian degrees, but the scenarios are qualitatively equivalent.

In protest against this philosophy of free-loading, the heroes of Atlas Shrugged retreat from the world to their own isolated village, where the rule of the land is laissez-faire capitalism. Everyone must earn their own living, and trade occurs because both parties want something the other has - in other words, if one person gives another money, it is because the second person has something the first wants. There is no government in the conventional sense: instead of taxes required by law, money is given voluntarily to protect the personal rights of individuals, including their right to property and right to physical well-being. That is the sole function of the government; there is no social welfare, and public utilities such as roads and water are privately owned, its existence prompted by its need. It is the rational self-interest which drives the exchange of money, not the law and its implied threat of physical force.

Rand's novel goes on to show that, without the productive capabilities of the heroes, the outside world collapses. The welfare state cannot help the poor, as there is nothing of value left to give to them. The government attempts to force the producers to return through torture but the producers, showing their willingness to die for the cause, proves that there is no way to force a person to think. The end of the novel suggests that the world has collapsed sufficiently for the producers to reemerge, to establish a society based on their own morals.

For me, the story raises the following questions, which I will address in turn:

1. Are the two principles mentioned above necessarily in conflict? Is the adherence to the first necessarily destructive?
2. In The Fountainhead, Rand suggests that a man's work (that is, his happiness) should be his only moral, other people's opinions of it be damned. And yet, here our heroes change their behavior because of other people. Are these two messages in conflict, or can they be reconciled?
3. Most importantly, how practical is the philosophy that Rand proposes? How should we evaluate its merits?

To answer the first question, I will first ask whether the first principle is necessarily destructive. I argue that, although it maybe not always cause the dystopia painted in the novel, it definitely does is not the most constructive of principles. Consider a decision theoretic viewpoint: if you can give your money to two people, one who will give you something in return and one who won't, rationality dictates that you should give the money to the person who will give you value; otherwise, you will incur an opportunity cost. The reason for this is that trade is not a zero-sum game. This comes directly from Adam Smith: the cost of each person manufacturing what they need is higher than specializing then trading, and therefore both people come out ahead by trading. In contrast, the second give-and-take scenario is zero-sum: what you give away is exactly what the other person receives. Therefore, although not necessarily destructive, the principle of giving is also not the most valuable one to follow.

This answer to the second part of the question also suggests an answer to the first. If we take our happiness to be our only moral, then the extra cost of giving to others compared to trading implies that we are not as valuable as we could be. Since giving reduces our productive capability in the long run, these two principles, if standing by themselves, are directly in conflict.

Here I need to make side notes to address two issues: that of people who absolutely need aid, and that emotion and/or friendship in the world described above.

First, the treatment of people who need aid. Some might object that there are two categories of the poor: those intentionally lazy who pan-handle because they don't want to work, and those truly incapable of work and therefore depends on the welfare of others to survive. Surely the latter group deserve help from people more able than them. That may be, but consider the implication of such a dichotomy. A careful reading of the above suggests that the measure of a person is always measured by their ability to produce (their value), not their ability to consume (their need). Saying someone depends on the generosity of other people implies they have nothing to trade. To put it crudely, someone who can only survive with the help of others is someone who has no worth as an individual, who cannot create anything of value at all. Surely the idea that some people are worthless is crueler than the idea that we must all act in rational self-interest. In fact, such a moral presupposes that everyone has something to offer, something of value to trade; this is the optimism inherent in the philosophy.

Second, the nature of friendship and love. In taking a utilitarian view of human relationships, it might be argued that non-material aspects of life are left out, such as friendship and love. Love is not about a person's value and what one can gain from it; it is precisely about ignoring personal flaws. Rand offers this answer in Atlas Shrugged, as said by the minor villain Lillian Rearden:

"If you loved your brother, you'd give him a job he didn't deserve, precisely because he didn't deserve it - that would be true love and kindness and brotherhood. Else what's love for? If a man deserves a job, there's no virtue in giving it to him. Virtue is the giving of the undeserved."

Is this the reason people love one another, because they do not deserve it? This ultimately reduces to the same pessimistic outlook by those who claim some people need alms, but I will offer another argument. Love and friendship may not be about the material/productive value of a person, but it is definitely about personal happiness. The suffering of an unappreciated friendship and of an unrequited love is obvious, and this stems from love and friendship also being trades: both people gain more from interacting with each other than from being alone. In the realm of relationships, this is the value that each person is offering.

The second question above compares the philosophy of The Fountainhead with that of Atlas Shrugged. Rand, speaking through Roark at his second trial, gives this description of the ideal man:

"[The egotist] is not concerned with [others] in any primary matter. Not in his aim, not in his motive, not in his thinking, not in his desires, not in the source of his energy... Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn't done for others."

The heroes of Atlas Shrugged are all Howard Roarks of their professions. Rand, in an early note for Atlas Shrugged, writes, "In The Fountainhead... the theme was Roark - not Roark's relation to the world. Now it will be the relation." Each of the innovators embody the same philosophy expounded by Roark, and yet their main act - to withdraw from the world - is driven solely by the action of others. Although this seems to directly conflict with Roark's morals, the differences are explainable.

The main source of this divergence is that Roark and the heroes of Atlas Shrugged lived in very different worlds. While both societies disapprove of the character's rugged individualism, there was no government directive against Roark's work in The Fountainhead. Roark could design buildings to the fullest of his ability, while Dagny, Rearden, and others were prohibited from producing by laws which limited their output. In other parts of the speech quoted above, Roark said, "We are approaching a world in which I cannot permit myself to live." That Roark did not withdraw from the world is therefore a matter of degree - he, like Dagny, believed that society can still be saved from collectivism. The implication is that should Roark find himself in "a world in which [he] cannot permit [him]self to live", he would have followed Galt's lead to go on strike.

Further more, one's refusal to carry the world is not the same as a rejection of one's work. While hiding from the government, all the innovators continue producing - their village is powered by the inventions of its resident engineers and entertained by the work of its artists. This is part of the message of Atlas Shrugged and echoes the philosophy of The Fountainhead, that the producers of the world can continue to produce without the looters, while the looters cannot live without the producers.

Finally, despite Roark's society being in a better state than Galt's, Roark himself briefly retreated from it - preferring to take the laborer's job of a quarry worker over letting others butcher his buildings. He returned when he found a client who appreciates his work, as Galt does when the world learns to appreciate his.

The meaning of Roark's life, as he explained to Wynand, is his work. True to his word, his work does not depend on others in any meaningful way, not in an obligation to support looters, nor to deliberately destroy them. In a world where his is actively prevented from producing - and therefore making his life meaningless - withdrawing from that world may be the only choice consistent with his philosophy.

The final question, perhaps the most important one, asks for an evaluation of the philosophy of Atlas Shrugged. Rand's ideal society Galt's Gulch, the village the heroes retreat to, where there is minimal government, each individual works to his fullest capacity, and there is an abundance of resources to be exploited. Although Rand would be horrified by this comparison, the above description evokes another ideal society: Thomas More's Utopia.

In many ways, More's Utopia is the polar opposite of Rand's ideal: there is no personal property, people request goods as they need them, slavery is pervasive (owned by the state), atheists are despised, and women hold a notably lower role than men. But the ultimate goal of both societies is the same: everyone knows their role in society (be it assigned or self-discovered) and works to their capacity. Utopia - which went on to inspire Marxism and communism - has obvious flaws: greedy dictates that some will request more goods than they need, which leads to a race until all state owned property is taken. The flaws of Rand's Galt's Gulch is less obvious.

Consider the equivalent of greed in Galt's Gulch. Since everyone is driven by rational self-interest, and since there is no government to provide social welfare, anyone who refuses to work will have no means to support themselves. Their rationality, therefore, requires them to produce value for trade, the cheapest and only method to acquire all the amenities for living. Because nothing is free, simply greed will not lead to the society's downfall.

There are, however, other forms of greed and sloth. Recall that property rights are maintained by essentially a privatized police force. What if the difference in wealth is large enough such that is it more profitable to rob than to produce? Even with the premise that everyone can produce value, that value may vary greatly between individuals; free capitalism means this variance will result in great economic inequity. When gaining wealth by force is quicker than trading what value one has, society quickly breaks down without the trust and freedom trade requires. Together with the always precarious assumption of general human rationality, Galt's Gulch will not survive for much longer than Utopia.

Both More's and Rand's ideal world can only be sustained by ignoring crucial parts of human nature. Both societies might survive if done in small scale, where everyone involved trusts everyone else completely. There are two ironies in this conclusion for Rand. First, just as the looters cannot force the innovators to produce ideas, the innovators cannot force the looters to be rational or to value property rights as much as they do. Second, and more insultingly, Rand believes in an objective reality, that things are what they are and that individuals are not to create their own reality but to perceive the true one. That Rand believes in the possibility of a society like Galt's Gulch is perhaps the grossest violation of this tenet of her philosophy.

What conclusions can we draw from Atlas Shrugged? As a continuation of The Fountainhead and as a work to demonstrate the relationship between innovators and the world, Atlas Shrugged achieves its purpose beautifully. As Rand's magnum opus, it deserves the attention is has received. Sadly, as a philosophical guide for future societies, there are still flaws to be resolved before Rand's ideal could be realized.

Post Script 1: Atlas Shrugged and the Bible

I think there is an insightful analogy of Atlas Shrugged an objectivist bible of sorts. This works in three senses:

• as the Bible holds the core tenets of Christianity, so does Atlas Shrugged hold the core tenets of objectivism
• both are fictional accounts which demonstrate how one's life is to be lived
• both offer assurance that such a life ultimately results in happiness.

A key difference, however, is that the Bible offers only faith as the proof of its correctness, while Atlas Shrugged (and objectivism) promotes reason - a standard with which objectivism itself could be judged. At least in theory; see Post Script 3.

Post Script 2: On Style

Between The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, I thought the former was better written. In Atlas Shrugged Rand gives away too much of people's thoughts - often punctuating their speech and/or the narration. By making her character's motivations explicit, their actions lose some of the power in demonstrating what they think. In fact, in earlier drafts of The Fountainhead, Rand had written, "Don't dialog thoughts - narrate them". Perhaps because I have selectively reread The Fountainhead multiple times, there were also sections of Atlas Shrugged where the descriptions and/or the characters' actions were predictable.

There is, however, something I thought Rand did superbly: she managed create, in a novel set in "modern" times, the elements of a fantasy. In particular, the three "princes" of the world - Francisco D'Anconia, Ragnar Danneskjold, and John Galt - have an air of breathlessness about them, like the ancient heroes who fantasy protagonists discover are still alive (Zedd of Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series - not coincidentally heavily philosophical and based on Rand's work - comes to mind, but many characters from the Dragon Raja series more closely approximates this). This made their eventual appearance highly anticipated and enjoyable.

Post Script 3: The Ayn Rand Cult

In Why People Believe Weird Things, Mike Shermer talks about an unlikely cult: objectivism. Being believers in reason, the higher echelons of this movement (those closest to Rand personally) somehow developed a creed which upholds that, among other statements:

• Ayn Rand, by virtue of her philosophical genius, is the supreme arbiter in any issue pertaining to what is rational, moral, or appropriate to man's life on earth
• The measure of one's virtue is intrinsically tied to the position one takes regarding Ayn Rand and her work
• It is best not to say most of these things explicitly; one must always maintain that one arrives at one's beliefs solely by reason.

A friend of mine, after learning that I enjoyed The Fountainhead, joked that I pronounce Ann Arbor as "Ayn Arbor". I replied that I liker her philosophy, not her person.

Some Shit

Synonyms for urine:	Synonyms for feces:
urine piss pee	feces poop crap shit dung droppings excrement manure

Climbing Terms

For future reference, if you climbed a route with one or more the first three, then you ____'ed the route.

Beta	Practice	Falling	Term
			On-Sight
Yes			Flash
Yes	Yes		Red Point (no pre-placed pro)
Yes	Yes		Pink Point (with pre-placed pro)
Yes	Yes	Yes	Hangdog