NOW REPORTING FROM BALTIMORE. A private, non-commercial blog begun in support of the federal Meaningful Use REC initiative, and Health IT and Heathcare improvement more broadly. Moving now toward important broader STEM and societal/ethics topics. Formerly known as "The REC Blog."
NOTE: Comments are moderated, thanks to trolls and bots.
I'd say this is a must-watch. At once painfully funny and infuriating.
apropos of Barb McQuade'snew book I'm now deep into:
According to Mercier and Sperber, humans have developed the ability to reason in a way that helps us to resolve the problems that arise when we live in groups. As a result, we place high value on the ability to win arguments. And research shows that we actually feel physical pleasure when we process information that is consistent with our beliefs. Psychiatrist Jack Gorman and his daughter Sara Gorman, a public health specialist, have concluded, “It feels good to ‘stick to our guns’ even if we are wrong.”
When I worked as a prosecutor, I saw this phenomenon in action in the case of Dr. Farid Fata and others. Sometimes people refused to admit that they had been victims of fraud, even when the facts bore it out. They had become so convinced that their stockbroker or their doctor was looking out for their best interests that they could not believe they had been manipulated. People who fall for fraud scams often decline to report crimes to the police because of the shame they feel for having been duped. The Department of Justice website notes that when people become victims of fraud, their trust in their own judgment may be “shattered.”…
McQuade, Barbara. Attack from Within (pp. 115-116). Seven Stories Press. Kindle Edition.
See also some of my prior postings going to the cryptocurrency scams.
Zeke Faux's awesome book Number Go Up is particularly relevant to the John Oliver episode above..
OK, look, I’m just an ordinary heterosexual guy who appreciates an attractive woman as much as anybody. I have long thought that they don’t need to be painted up and adorned. An example I always use is Tammi, Coach Taylor‘s wife in “Friday Night Lights.“ During the episodes when she’s dealing with her new unplanned infant. No makeup, no nothing just incredible acting talent and attractiveness. I feel totally the same way about Kara Swisher. You just can’t improve on that. Those smarts, that perception, that humanity. And she looks just fine. This was a totally fun 30 minutes. Thank you.
Her rise in serious national media is absolutely no accident. Her forthcoming book (Feb 27th) will surely be killer.
"Her consistent scoops drove one CEO to accuse her of “listening in the heating ducts” and for Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg to once say: “It is a constant joke in the Valley when people write memos for them to say, ‘I hope Kara never sees this.’”...
Burn Bookis part memoir, part history and, most of all, a necessary recounting of tech’s most powerful players. This is the inside story we’ve all been waiting for of modern Silicon Valley and the biggest boom in wealth creation in the history of the world...
It’s only a slight exaggeration to say Swisher has interviewed everyone. Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Bob Iger, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Meg Whitman, Peter Thiel, and Mark Zuckerberg are just a few who Swisher made sweat—figuratively and, in one famous case, literally..." [Amazon blurb]
An urgent, comprehensive explanation of the ways disinformation is impacting democracy, and practical solutions that can be pursued to strengthen the public, media, and truth-based politics
MSNBC's legal expert breaks down the ways disinformation has become a tool to drive voters to extremes, disempower our legal structures, and consolidate power in the hands of the few.
"One of the most acute observers of our time shares . . . a compelling work about a challenge that—left unexamined and left unchecked—could undermine our democracy." —Eric H. Holder Jr, 82nd Attorney General of the United States
American society is more polarized than ever before. We are strategically being pushed apart by disinformation—the deliberate spreading of lies disguised as truth—and it comes at us from all sides: opportunists on the far right, Russian misinformed social media influencers, among others. It's endangering our democracy and causing havoc in our electoral system, schools, hospitals, workplaces, and in our Capitol. Advances in technology including rapid developments in artificial intelligence threaten to make the problems even worse by amplifying false claims and manufacturing credibility.
In Attack from Within, legal scholar and analyst Barbara McQuade, shows us how to identify the ways disinformation is seeping into all facets of our society and how we can fight against it. The book includes:
The authoritarian playbook: a brief history of disinformation from Mussolini and Hitler to Bolsonaro and Trump, chronicles the ways in which authoritarians have used disinformation to seize and retain power.
Disinformation tactics—like demonizing the other, seducing with nostalgia, silencing critics, muzzling the media, condemning the courts; stoking violence—and reasons why they work.
An explanation of why America is particularly vulnerable to disinformation and how it exploits our First Amendment Freedoms, sparks threats and violence, and destabilizes social structures.
Real, accessible solutions for countering disinformation and maintaining the rule of law such as making domestic terrorism a federal crime, increasing media literacy in schools, criminalizing doxxing, and much more.
Disinformation is designed to evoke a strong emotional response to push us toward more extreme views, unable to find common ground with others. The false claims that led to the breathtaking attack on our Capitol in 2020 may have been only a dress rehearsal. Attack from Within shows us how to prevent it from happening again, thus preserving our country’s hard-won democracy.
When you need it done right, send in a woman.
UPDATE: SPEAKING OF WOMEN
Got this for Christmas. Fabulous.
"In the years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, women in the workplace still found themselves relegated to secretarial positions or locked out of jobs entirely. This was especially true in the news business, a backwater of male chauvinism where a woman might be lucky to get a foothold on the “women’s pages.” But when a pioneering nonprofit called National Public Radio came along in the 1970s, and the door to serious journalism opened a crack, four remarkable women came along and blew it off the hinges.
Susan, Linda, Nina, and Cokieis journalist Lisa Napoli’s captivating account of these four women, their deep and enduring friendships, and the trail they blazed to becoming icons. They had radically different stories. Cokie Roberts was born into a political dynasty, roamed the halls of Congress as a child, and felt a tug toward public service. Susan Stamberg, who had lived in India with her husband who worked for the State Department, was the first woman to anchor a nightly news program and pressed for accommodations to balance work and home life. Linda Wertheimer, the daughter of shopkeepers in New Mexico, fought her way to a scholarship and a spot on-air. And Nina Totenberg, the network's legal affairs correspondent, invented a new way to cover the Supreme Court. Based on extensive interviews and calling on the author’s deep connections in news and public radio,Susan, Linda, Nina, and Cokiewill be as beguiling and sharp as its formidable subjects."
My wife and I have been NPR / PBS contributors for decades. This is a great fun read.
