Hans Rosling RIP

Last month Hans Rosling, the man who made statistics sing and dance, died in Sweden.  I've posted some of his TED talks here at the Flophouse.   Not only was a great speaker but his way of presenting data made it accessible to anyone.  And I adored the way he put statistics in perspective - what Braudel called the longue durée.  Using statistics from the 19th century to the present, he showed how things evolved in the hope of correcting misconceptions about the world we live in now.  It was a worthy goal and I think he succeeded beautifully. 

In 2015 Rosling gave a presentation in Singapore.  Like all his other presentations, it is brilliant and funny.  "Numbers are boring," he said, "People are interesting."  Amen to that.

TED Talk: Why Privacy Matters

Speaking of Orwell, here is an outstanding Ted talk by Glenn Greenwald (h/t Jim).

Has the best response I've seen so far to the "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear from surveillance" argument. A statement so silly that I simply cannot take it seriously. Greenwald points out that those who say this don't really believe it and go to great effort to be sure that they are not subject to it.

But those who do claim loudly that they are "nice" people with nothing to hide (or who simply do not have the means to create their own personal privacy bubble)  make themselves into small, submissive  subservient citizens. And that is deadly for democracy.  As J.C. Scott put it in Two Cheers for Anarchism:

The implications of a life lived largely in subservience for the quality of citizenship in a democracy are also ominous. Is it reasonable to expect someone whose waking life is almost completely lived in subservience and who has acquired the habits of survival and self-preservation in such settings to suddenly become, in a town meeting, a courageous, independent-thinking, risk-taking model of individual sovereignty? 

Tribes and Truth

This delightful Ted video was posted by Andrew over at Multicultural Meanderings.  Hans Rosling is back with his son Ola to explain How Not to Be Ignorant of the World.  A few heuristics for rethinking what we think we know of the world.  To Andrew's short summary of Ola Rosling's points I would add one that I call (for want of a better term) Tribes Never Tell the Truth.

We are social creatures and every human group (family, tribe, clan, class, country, nation, state) we belong to has a story about itself and about the people and places beyond its boundaries and borders. Arjun Appadurai put it quite well when he pointed out that "No modern nation, however benign its political system and however eloquent its public voices may be about the virtues of tolerance, multiculturalism, and inclusion, is free of the idea that its national sovereignty is built on some sort of ethnic genius."

 These stories contain facts mixed with myths to form powerful narratives and we cannot help but evaluate the input we get from the world against the storyline of whatever group we identify with. Even the most indepdendent of thinkers can find himself struggling mightily to incorporate information that challenges what he thinks he already knows about the world.   Those who are quick to recognize this about religion or nationalism should acknowledge that there are quasi-religious narratives lurking under the surface of their "rationality".  As Mircea Eliade said:

"Mythical behaviour can be recognized in the obsession with 'success' that is so characteristic of modern society and that expresses an obscure wish to transcend the limits of the human condition;  in the exodus to Suburbia, in which we can detect the nostalgia for 'primordial perfection';  in the paraphenalia and emotional intensity that characterize what has been called 'the cult of the sacred automobile.'"

These stories are another impediment to seeing the world clearly because challenging them (and finding them wanting) gets us kicked out of a club we desperately wish to belong to.  Most groups (even ones comprised of "free thinkers") do not tolerate even small deviations from the common story.  Is it not true that perceived apostates are treated even more harshly then those who are clearly in the camp of the enemy?  Every group has its own Inquisition, ready to ferret out those who "belong without believing."

So I would add this heuristic to the list - one that was beautifully expressed by the late Christopher Hitchens -  "How do I know that I know this, except that I've always been taught this and never heard anything else? How sure am I of my own views? Don't take refuge in the false security of consensus, and the feeling that whatever you think you're bound to be OK, because you're in the safely moral majority."

Ted Talk: Ernesto Sirolli

Another very powerful Ted talk. Here is Ernesto Sirolli, an evangelist in the area of sustainable development, giving his unvarnished opinion about aid in developing countries.  From the title of his talk you will quickly grasp his first and most fundamental requirement for making any aid project successful, "Shut up and listen."

Amen to that.  But there was another message in there about something I've been mulling over for a few months that I call the Tyranny of Expectations.  This is not just the paternalistic, patronizing, "let's remake them in our image" attitude of the developed world toward what we used to call the Third World, it is also something that we all do to the people around us on a regular basis:  our friends and our families, our neighbors and colleagues.  It all starts with the belief that there is something wrong with them that needs to be fixed.  From there it quickly moves to our explaining to them how they need to change according to our quasi-divinely inspired plans for them.  Stop drinking.  Lose weight.  Go back to school.  Eat your carrots.  Quit your job.  Be polite.  Stand up for yourself.  Lose the accent.  Do this.  Don't do that.  Care about this.  Don't care about that.  Here's the plan and you're a chump or a fool if you don't follow our advice and do what we think is best for you.

This, in my view, is just another way we do violence to each other.  Having expectations for other people is another way of degrading them.  People are not "fix-it" projects.  Same is true of cultures or countries.  In the guise of being "helpful" we try to make them less by making ourselves more.  If this were a play we would cast ourselves in the role of the wise, the prudent, the perfect.  They, on the other hand, are the lacking, the screwed up, the flawed, the perfectible.

At the country level it isn't just the developed world doing it to the developing world, it's also citizens of developing countries doing it to each other.  Just ask a European about gun control in the U.S. or an American about "Socialism" in Europe and then watch the "donneurs de leçon" have at it.

As Sirolli points out so eloquently, isn't it interesting how this doesn't seem to work out too well?  For a very recent example of an aid program run amok read this very funny take on the U.S. development projects in Iraq, We Meant Well by Peter van Buren.

Frankly just as I've never known anyone to lose weight or quit smoking because they were nagged into it, I think it is also pretty damn unlikely that Americans will change their laws to conform to European standards or that Europeans will suddenly change their minds about social security just because both sides are wrinkling their noses and wagging their fingers at each other from across the ocean.

Put that way it sounds pretty stupid and childish, doesn't it?  And it is but look one level deeper and recognize that there is real violence underneath the criticism, the nagging and the finger-wagging whether it is happening at a personal level or between citizens of nation-states or between some development workers and the people in the countries in which they operate.

Here are two very modest suggestions for getting out from under the Tyranny of Expectations.  The first is to accept that people are just fine the way they are.  Just start with the assumption that there is nothing that needs to be fixed in that person, that culture or that country.  There are no "should's" - there are only "could's."

And then approach the situation with an attitude of service.  Listen to what the other person has to say, think it over and then propose things they could do if they were so inclined.   Make it very clear that your skills, talents and time are at their service should they choose to accept.

And if they don't accept?  Then you shut up and leave them alone.

Enjoy the talk and your weekend.

Ted Talk: Nikola Tesla - Pure Magic

Pop quiz time at the Flophouse.  Yesterday I took each of the Frenchlings aside and asked them to tell me who Nikola Tesla was.  The elder Frenchling (proud possessor of a "baccalauréat littéraire" also known as a Bac L) didn't have a clue. But the younger Frenchling who is working on her "baccalauréat scientifique" (Bac S) did and almost seemed offended at being asked such an obvious question.

Following this short test I was tempted to make a snide comment about the French educational system since it seemed to me that the history of technology is something that should be part of everyone's "culture générale" and not just confined to the geeks.  Tesla was, after all, one of the great engineers/inventors of our time.  And then I remembered that what I know about Никола Тесла I didn't learn at school either.  I know about him because I come from long line of engineers and other technology workers.  My grandfather was a 30-year veteran of the Boeing Corporation and worked on just about every airplane they produced from the B-17 up to the 747.  My other grandfather worked nearly his entire life for the Army Corps of Engineers.  My father was a computer programmer back in the days of mainframes and punch cards.  My stepfather is a radio engineer.  My mother is a proposal manager at an engineering firm in Seattle.  With a lineage like that how could I have done otherwise than to work in Information Technology?  And is it any surprise that I married a material sciences engineer?  His father, by the way, was an ingénieur de combat (combat engineer) and the commander of:  the Unités du Génie (engineering) in Laos (1953-1956), the Génie of the 20th division in Algeria (1961-1962), the 5ème Régiment du Génie here in Versailles (1962-1965) and, at the end of his career, la Brigade des Sapeurs-Pompiers de Paris.

So if the elder Frenchling doesn't know about Nikola Tesla then the fault lies firmly at our door.  How to rectify this?  One place to begin is this wonderful Ted Talk about Tesla's life and work by magician Marco Tempest which captures so well all of the romance, the tragedy and the sheer love of discovery that defined the great engineers/inventors of that time (and ours).   Perfect place to start.  Because as Arthur C. Clarke so rightly said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Ted Talk: Hans Rosling on Religion and Babies

Watching Hans Rosling work his magic is better than eating an entire box of vanilla-flavored raspberry-filled Enigma Cornettos.

A lesser mind with weaker diplomatic skills could not have pulled off this talk on a topic so sensitive in front of such a diverse audience.  But he did it.  Amazing.

Ted Talk: Perspective is Everything

Wonderful Ted Talk by Rory Sutherland who is a great speaker and quite a hoot.  Among the gems in his talk is this great line:

"If, at a party, you go stand and stare out of the window on your own, you are an anti-social friendless idiot.  If you go stand and stare out the window with a cigarette, you're a fucking philosopher."

What he's talking about is "framing" - the idea that it's not so much reality that gets you down as it it your reaction to it.  Not a new idea and one that was mocked so well in Voltaire's Candide and by Pierre-Henri Cami in this wonderful line, "L'optimiste est un homme qui s'abrite sous une fourchette le jour où il va pleuvoir des petits pois." (The optimist is a man who takes shelter under a fork the day it starts raining green peas.)

Soit.  But there are good reasons to "look on the bright side" and to "make lemons out of lemonade."   For one thing, if you have an evil perverse bent, nothing will drive your entourage into insanity (and pure mindless rage) faster then giddy smiles and unrelenting mindless optimism. I doubt that is Mr. Sutherland's intent.  Instead he's making the modest suggestion that we can take any situation (parts of which are not at all under our control) and perform the intellectual exercise of looking at it from different angles.  By doing this we almost always find a fresh way of looking at it and reacting to it that may make us feel a bit better.  To take another of his examples:  let's say you have a son or daughter who is unemployed and decides to wander the world instead of standing in an unemployment line.  What was, "my child is unemployed" becomes "my child is 'taking a year off' to tour Thailand."  His point is that how you frame any situation will impact how you feel about it and that just strikes me as simple common sense.

We can (within limits of course) fabricate our own misery or our own happiness and if we can learn to use a few psychological tricks to avoid the former and promote the latter (thereby improving the sum total of contentment and goodwill in the world), well that just strikes me as a very Good Thing indeed.  I plan to use this to good effect the next time I'm accused of being anti-social when I step outside for a smoke.  "But I'm a philosopher, my dear friends. Respect."  :-)

Ted Talk: Chip Kidd - Designing books is no laughing matter. Ok, it is.

Remember books?

Vaguely.  Every since I got my Kindle last year the ratio of electronic books I buy to physical ones is about 20 to 1.  It' so bad that I curse when I see a title I want and the Kindle edition does not exist or I'm not allowed to buy it.  My most recent frustration came yesterday when I tried to purchase a David Sedaris book and discovered that the e-book version is not available to me in Europe.

In this very entertaining and very funny Ted Talk, Chip Kidd was neverthless able to temporarily provoke a bit of nostalgia in me.  He's right, I would look pretty silly sniffing my Ipad/Kindle.  Will I change my habits as a result of his gentle chiding?  No.  OK, I do have a few very precious hardcover books in my library like The American Language (fourth edition) by H.L. Mencken which I bought in a used bookstore in Seattle 20 years ago but my copy was published years before Mr. Kidd was even born.  The other physical books I have are French ones and the covers are very stark - no book designers required.  My most recent purchase was Sanche de Gramont's Les Français: portrait d'un peuple which I think was first published in English many years ago.  But I found a used copy in French at a local store so I went with that one.

But those are the exceptions.  For almost everything else (and especially when I want to do research and find books that are so off the beaten path that you won't find them on bestseller lists anywhere) I look for the electronic version.  I'm sympathetic to Mr. Kidd.  I loved his talk and you should watch because he is a very entertaining and convincing speaker.  But my reaction to his talk reminded me a bit of how I once felt about my 40 year-old Viking (Swedish) sewing machine.  It was a beautiful machine and a real precision instrument.  I used it for many years but it was heavy and every time I hauled it out of the closet I was guaranteed lower back pain for the next couple of days.  I really miss it but these days I have a spiffy new Janome (French) 8077 which is not nearly as pretty but it's light and quiet and has an automatic needle threader and all kinds of bells and whistles that I may actually use one day.  I may feel a twinge of regret when I come across one of the accessories for that old Viking in a closet, but when I actually sew,  I don't miss old that machine one bit.  And when I stuff my Ipad/Kindle into my backpack and I take off for Paris in the morning to read on the train, I don't miss physical books either.

Ted Talk: Your Different is My Normal

This is wonderful.  In a few short minutes Derek Silvers shows that what you think is "normal" depends very much on your cultural perspective.  He uses the difference between the address system used in Japan and that used in the U.S.  or France to show that we can all be looking at the same thing but we interpret it very very differently depending on our cultural programming.  Many thanks to Jaime LeBlanc for sharing this on Twitter:

Ted Talk: The Global Power Shift

Fascinating talk by Paddy Ashdown (former MP in the British Parliament).  I think he may be right to call the wars of the 20th century as the "European Civil War."  I had a professor at university who referred to them as "The 30 Years War of the Twentieth Century."  Ashdown sees three power shifts on a global level that he thinks will destabilize us in the 21st century.  Is this the end of Western hegemony in the world? Perhaps that is not the most constructive way to look at it.  How about we say instead (as Ashdown points out) that the world is beginning to share a common destiny.

And here is the John Donne poem he refers to at the end of his talk:

No Man is an Island

No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Ted Talk: Captcha and Duolingo

This is a great talk that I really appreciated because I finally got a clear rationale for why I have to type in those darn funny characters when I try to post a comment in a blog. Yes, I know it's to stop spammers but it's not the most human-friendly system and it's particularly hard on those of us who are visually impaired. I use it because I must, but I curse the entire time thinking to myself, "Who is the idiot who thought this up?"

This Ted Talk was my first glance at the "idiot."  Yes, Luis von Ahn is responsible for this system and I'm surprised that the audience didn't throw shoes at him at the beginning of his talk.  But he turned out to be quite charming and funny.  He has also redeemed himself somewhat by tweaking CAPTCHA so it is now something rather useful called RECAPTCHA - a means of digitizing books.

He has a new project which is even more interesting called Duolingo.  This is nothing less than an attempt to translate content on the Web into multiple languages by helping people learn another language.

Ted Talk: Suzanne Moyer in Morocco

This was just shared by a friend on Facebook and after watching it I wanted to post it right away.

Ms. Moyer is a young American woman who fell in love with Morocco, decided to stay, learned Arabic and French, and has started two businesses there.  She is the founder of AmeriSource Consulting which puts American and Moroccan people, companies, government agencies and NGOs together to do business, build companies and put on events and run common projects.  A lot of enthusiasm in her talk - a perfect story to illustrate how migration can be good for everyone, sending and destination countries alike.

Ted Talk: Louie Schwartzberg: Nature. Beauty. Gratitude

This is stunning.  Watch it before you start your morning and, I promise you, your day will be very different.

Ted Talk: Phil Plait Talks about Asteroids

This is so good I just had to post it.  Phil Plait gives a very engaging and sometimes quite funny talk about asteroids.  Some interesting (and apparently plausible) methods for defending the Earth from the Big Rocks.  Ion drives?  Wow.....

Ted Talk: Hasan Elahi

This Ted talk is really inspiring.  The speaker, an American of Bangladeshi origin, was mistakenly added to a surveillance list and was dropped into a Kafkaesque nightmare where he had to prove that he was not a terrorist.  His reaction was not what one would expect.  I would have been highly indignant and looking for the best lawyer money could buy.  After watching his talk I have to admit that he is the better man.  What he did and how he reacted is both deeply inspiring and really funny.

For example, when he was being interrogated by the FBI, he had to answer many questions.  His answer to this one had me laughing so hard I almost cried:

FBI:  Do you belong to any group that wishes to harm the United States?
Elahi's answer:  I work at a university

I am astounded by his courage, his patience and his ability to turn this event into a really fascinating personal project - information as art.

Ted Talk: Hans Rosling Explains Global Population Growth

Using "analog teaching technology" from Ikea (of all places).

I am in awe of Hans Rosling.  This man makes data come alive and his talks are usually beautifully scripted   using animated graphs to show you how the real world changes over time.   This time around he keeps it simple and all the animation is in his voice and in his face.  He says that he is neither an optimist nor a pessimist - he is a "possibilitist."

Ted Talk: What We Learned from 5 Million Books

This is hysterically funny and had me glued to my Mac this morning.  The speakers, Erez Lieberman Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel, are quite a pair. What a cool project.  Here is the link to the Google Ngram Viewer if you want to check it out for yourself.