Thursday, February 19, 2015

Wealth and the Big Conundrum

We’re doomed to repeat the history we can’t understand. And, in our case, the education necessary for understanding the connection between past history and future events is slipping away. With college unaffordable by more of our young people, and even high school difficult when both parents are working two jobs, the middle class is becoming nearly extinct. One question worth asking is, are the richest of us any safer or more comfortable having created a tangible barrier between them and the rest of us? The answer, in my mind, is that the growing gap between rich and poor creates an increasing probability of a revolution.

Follow this logic and look back to see the historical precedents:

At the end of World War II, returning veterans were offered inexpensive home ownership and low-cost college education as the “reward” for fighting battles. It built the middle class, and the middle class built up the economy. One unintended consequence of a vibrant economy was increasing the speed of the growth of technology; new tools coming at a faster and faster rate of development. Look back fifty years ago and you’ll see a life that, by today’s standards, was unlivable. Only a society with a thriving middle class can do that.

Now, with the middle class bordering on extinction, and families increasingly financially crushed, the level of political unrest is growing. Our politicians are almost universally hated. Yes, it’s probably true that most are stupid, dishonest and inept, but that’s beside the point. The voters are too ignorant to be able to make judgments about who would lead us best. Elections are the worst form of reality television. No wonder the majority of Americans don’t bother to vote. Politicians take notice: with money being the most important factor governing the outcome of elections, what will happen eventually is that instead of voting, citizens will begin rioting in the streets for all the things that politicians should have been getting for them: Education without ridiculous indebtedness. A viable future with an affordable home and a good-paying job.

I fear an armed revolution, too close now and getting closer. Every day, things in America look a little more like the Middle East.

Has this happened before? Yes, and often. A few examples: Ancient Rome’s “bread and circuses” sapped the vibrancy of the empire, and it fell. Preceding the Magna Carta, the gap between the royals and the serfs grew so wide that the king was threatened with overthrow. The French Revolution was the result of the monarchy’s treatment of the poor. The Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Spring of Nations, Springtime of the Peoples or the Year of Revolution, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe that resulted from monarchs who were crushing their own middle class citizens. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in European history. In 1917, the Czar of Russia was overthrown. In every one of these eras, the gap between the richest and the poorest was at its peak.

Do we have the will to correct our current situation without resorting to violence? Ask someone you know who is wealthy: What would you sacrifice to maintain a portion of your wealth and keep your head on your neck?

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Tech and the Big Conundrum

Most people in the United States have been victims of identity theft and very few even know it. What people are even less aware of is that the problem is an unintended consequence of the very people who are supposed to protect us. And, even more infuriating is that many other countries, such as Germany and France, aren’t suffering.

When your identity is stolen, you are, in effect, cloned, and your evil twin can ruin your credit, steal your house and your bank account, get you hunted by the IRS and Homeland Security, and… even worse. Recovery from identity theft is impossible and the problems will follow you well past your death. Your family will inherit the problems you suffered.

So then, how is identity theft a problem started by the United States government? Remember the NSA? Well, they aren’t the brightest bulbs in the box, and even worse, they think they are. When they decreed that no encryption technology on your computer and cell phone could be strong enough to keep your data from being viewed by them, it also meant that any hacker on Earth can know all about you. When the NSA makes a mistake or can’t do their peeping Tom on your devices, they still earn a salary and live to start another day. But hackers only eat when they’re successful. Since they’re better motivated than any intelligence service hacker, they either succeed or they starve. Survival of the fittest. And, they’re as smart or smarter than any NSA hackers are.

Technology has become ever-more-complex at an accelerating rate. The mantra, “Be the first to make your product obsolete, or your competition will make you obsolete,” is something I hear every day in Silicon Valley. Testing cycles used to be a full year. Now, they are shorter than a week, and in most cases the develop-and-test-before-release cycles for tech companies have become shortened so much that most testing is now done by consumers after the software is being sold. The bugs hackers can exploit are called “zero-day” flaws, and every piece of software you buy to make your life easier has a multitude of them. The “zero-day” flaws make the hacker’s life a blissful dream.

What can be done? Sadly, as long as the NSA keeps data encryption non-existent, not much. We could pressure the President to get real about the problem, but from what I’ve seen, he’ll never agree. We could stop using tech, but that won’t help, because banks, doctors and other essential  corporations we depend on are victims of the tech thefts. Even if you never use a cell phone or a computer, you’ve still probably got a dozen or so religious fundamentalists in third-world countries walking around with a passport that has you name on it. Making security air tight won’t happen unless we change the way we behave. Won’t happen ever.

Unwinding the roots of this problem won’t happen. Curing it is impossible. Tech will continue to get more complex. Politicians will remain ignorant of the problem even when confronted by it.
Welcome to your worst nightmare.