News — At The Edge — 7/21

• A bridge too far — facial recognition, undemocratic system & bad faith behavior — places us at the edge of a dangerous precipice.

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As facial recognition technology becomes pervasive, Microsoft issues a call for regulation —

“Technology companies have a privacy problem[:]…good at invading ours and…negligent at protecting their own…[thus] call from Microsoft President Brad Smith for government to…oversee the facial recognition….

Imagine a government tracking everywhere you walked…[or] a database of everyone who attended a political rally…like ‘Minority Report,’ ‘Enemy of the State’ and even ‘1984’… on the verge of becoming possible….[Globally] governments are deploying these tools…to control their populations….

’The more powerful the tool, the greater the benefit or damage it can cause’….

[T]he industry’s not-so-secret huge problem. Facial recognition…used in the identification of suspects, negatively affects people of color…[and] government surveillance is an extraordinary invasion of [privacy]….[and] control of our identities altogether….

Facial recognition…[and] AI technologies…have some rate of error even when they operate in an unbiased way’….

[Need] technology companies to slow… ‘the deployment of…facial recognition technology…[because] people’s fundamental rights are being broken.’” https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/13/as-facial-recognition-technology-becomes-pervasive-microsoft-yes-microsoft-issues-a-call-for-regulation/

American democracy’s built-in bias towards rural Republicans —

“[T]he only democratic vice more troubling than the tyranny of the majority: tyranny of the minority….

[U.S.] electoral system…gives rural voters more clout than urban ones…[and] Republican Party has become disproportionately rural and the Democratic Party disproportionately urban….

[I]n the three elections in 2012–16 [Republican] candidates got just 46% of the…vote for the Senate, and…won the presidential vote in 2016 with 49%….

In no other two-party system does the party that receives the most votes routinely find itself out of power….

Every president…in the 20th century…won the popular vote. In two of the five elections for 21st-century presidents, the minority won the electoral college….

[Since] elected politicians appoint federal judges…this rural bias in the courts…[with] a conservative court…[from] a president and Senate…elected with less than half the…vote may end up litigating the fairness of the voting system….[A] dangerous new twist in the tribalism and political dysfunction that is poisoning politics….

[T]he built-in bias is obviously bad… for America as a whole…[with] lawmaking is paralyzed…[beyond] party-line votes…[so] most divisive political issues often falls to the courts….

[In] rancorous political disputes…guns, abortion and climate change — split…along urban-rural lines…[so] voters increasingly sort themselves into urban-rural tribes. Gerrymandering and party primaries reward extremists…partisanship, ineffective federal government and electoral bias…and are hard to fix.

Changing the constitution is [impossible]…[but] the voting system for Congress is easier to reform…could make both parties competitive in rural and urban areas again, helping to restore majority rule.

One option…is ‘ranked-choice voting’…in which voters list candidates in order of preference. After a first count, the candidate with the least support is eliminated, and his or her ballots are reallocated to those voters’ second choice. This continues until someone has a majority. Candidates need second- and third-choice votes from their rivals’ supporters…[and] look for common ground with…opponents.

Another option is multi-member districts…[that] aggregate groups of voters….To maintain the trust…democracy needs to reform itself.” https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21745753-its-elections-no-longer-convert-popular-will-control-government-american-democracys

One Story the Media Ignores Completely

For Trump, Failure Is the Only Option —

“[Trump] insulted our allies…[because] disrupting NATO…[is] an end in itself…[like] the escalating trade war…[with] no indication what any of the countries…could do to satisfy him…[and] just wants a trade war….

[T]hey’re all in evident bad faith…[just] to tear things down…making bullying great again….

[I]f Trump isn’t literally a Russian agent, he certainly behaves like one…[and] obviously dislikes anything that smacks of rule of law….[H]e pardons criminal bigots while ripping children away from their parents…consistently praises brutal strongmen while heaping scorn on democratic leaders….

[He] wants negotiations with our allies and trading partners…to fail. And by the time everyone realizes this, the damage may be irreversible.” https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/12/opinion/trump-nato-failure.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion&action=click&contentCollection=opinion&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=6&pgtype=sectionfront

Find more of my ideas on Medium at,A Passion to Evolve.Or click the Follow button below to add me to your feed.Prefer a weekly email newsletter — free, no ads, no spam, & never sell the list — email me dochuston1@gmail.com with “add me” in the subject line.May you live long and prosper!Doc Huston

News — At The Edge — 7/21 was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.