From: Lucian Mogosanu Date: Sun, 26 Feb 2017 13:47:41 +0000 (+0200) Subject: posts: 058, 059 X-Git-Tag: v0.9^2 X-Git-Url: https://git.mogosanu.ro/?a=commitdiff_plain;h=8a76612bdcbfdbb31130cbe93b23530f2246c0c1;p=thetarpit.git posts: 058, 059 --- diff --git a/posts/y03/058-catch-22.markdown b/posts/y03/058-catch-22.markdown new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dad4d71 --- /dev/null +++ b/posts/y03/058-catch-22.markdown @@ -0,0 +1,165 @@ +--- +postid: 058 +title: Catch-22 +date: February 24, 2017 +author: Lucian Mogoșanu +tags: video +--- + +

**Motto**: +*Yes, indeed, you can see him, when he isn't there. +That is, he'll see you, all right, but only in his office, and only when +he's not there. +The other times, when he's in... he's not there to be seen. +Except when he's out.* +

+ +The film[^1] is an excellent piece, seemingly on war, but really +gravitating around three major themes and the interplay between them, +namely: death, travesty and power. + +The story begins with Captain John Yossarian's glance +[in the mirror, at his own death][the-mirror][^2], which is a full +circle starting with the death of him who may have been his only +friend. The events set in motion by the story illustrate the same +Yossarian's struggle -- which may very well be your struggle or mine -- +to escape this circle, this tar pit of its own. And what better setting +for representing death other than war; empires rise and fall, but war, +murderously laughing in the face of everything, never changes[^3]. + +Along with death, our main character is accompanied in his journey by +travesty, a travesty exposed by the writers of this particular piece +under the name of Catch-22; no different, however, from doublethink, +post-truth, or whatever flavour's in fashion this season. The travesty +in cause is run by a bunch of bureaucrats who like to call themselves +General, Colonel, Major and whatnot, but who are in fact naught but +derps derping around in a puddle of crass incompetence. It doesn't +matter one bit that the USAF has invested power in them, as power +without substance corrupts not in evil ways, as Tolkien's fantasy would +have one believe, but in mind-bogglingly stupid ways[^4]. + +And speaking of power. The wielder of power in this movie is not the +USAF nor the military daddy, but the Lieutenant Jew Milo Minderbender, +who for his own profit, and as his name suggests, feeds the entire +travesty. But make no mistake, the man is the only one who doesn't +actually fall in the puddle, but who keeps everyone else there in order +to make a buck. And if you pay attention, he's honest about it, he +gives "the facts"; though "the facts" are not an object used to build a +narrative, but the very product of the narrative itself[^5]. Surely, you +may think he's evil, and maybe he is, but you don't see anyone else +trying to make [the best][building-business] of it. + +Catch-22 has aged well. There are beefy portions of comedy scattered +throughout the movie, in every scene, in every event which otherwise +gives one the chills -- a so-called dark comedy which is quite obviously +the literary device through which the narrator permeates, that is, +conveys all the bits of madness beyond the screen and to the viewer. I +for one was pleasantly impressed by this technique, despite the fact +that it dates back to a couple of millenia before ol' Caragiale. + +There's not much left to add. We conclude with: + +> **Old man**: You all crazy! +> **Boy**: Why are we crazy? +> **Old man**: Because you don't know how to stay alive. And that's the +> secret of life. +> **Boy**: But we have a war to win. +> **Old Man**: But America will lose the war; Italy will win it. +> **Boy**: America's the strongest nation on earth. The American +> fighting man is the best trained, the best equipped, the best fed... +> **Old man**: Exactly. Italy, on the other hand, is one of the weakest +> nations on earth and the ltalian fighting man is hardly equipped at +> all. That's why my country is doing so well while yours is doing so +> poorly. +> **Boy**: That's silly! First ltaly was occupied by Germans and now by +> us. You call that doing well? +> **Old man**: Of course I do. The Germans are being driven out, and we +> are still here. In a few years, you'll be gone, and we'll still be +> here. You see, Italy is a very poor, weak country, yet that is what +> makes us so strong. Strong enough to survive this war and still be in +> existence... long after your country has been destroyed. +> **Boy**: What are you talking about? America's not going to be +> destroyed. +> **Old man**: Never? +> **Boy**: Well... +> **Old man**: Rome was destroyed. Greece was destroyed. Persia was +> destroyed. Spain was destroyed. All great countries are destroyed. Why +> not yours? How much longer do you think your country will last? +> Forever? +> **Boy**: Forever is a long time, I guess. +> **Old man**: Very long. +> **Whore**: Ciao! +> **Boy**: Please, we're talking. +> **Whore**: We go to bed now? +> **Boy**: No. Would you go put some clothes on? You're practically +> naked. (To old man:) I wish she wouldn't walk around like that. +> **Old man**: It is her business to walk around like that. +> **Boy**: But it's not nice. +> **Old man**: Of course it's nice!... She's nice to look at. +> **Boy**: This life is not nice. I don't want her to do this. +> **Girl**: When we go to America, Nately? +> **Another girl**: When we go to America, Nately? +> **Old man**: You will take her to America? Away from a healthy, active +> life? Away from good business opportunities? Away from her friends? +> **Boy**: Don't you have any principles? +> **Old man**: Of course not. +> **Boy**: No morality? +> **Old man**: I'm a very moral man. And ltaly is a very moral +> country. That's why we will certainly come out on top again if we +> succeed in being defeated. +> **Boy**: You talk like a madman. +> **Old man**: But I live like a sane one. +> **Old man**: I was a Fascist when Mussolini was on top. Now that he +> has been deposed, I am anti-Fascist. (Sips wine.) When the Germans +> were here, I was fanatically pro-German. Now I'm fanatically +> pro-America! (Gestures.) You'll find no more loyal partisan in all of +> ltaly than myself. +> **Boy**: You're a shameful opportunist! What you don't understand is +> that it's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees. +> **Old man**: You have it backwards. It's better to live on your feet +> than to die on your knees. I know. +> **Boy**: How do you know? +> **Old man**: Because I am 107 years old. How old are you? +> **Boy**: I'll be 20 in January. +> **Old man**: If you live. + +[^1]: 1970, directed by Mike Nichols, after the book bearing the same + name written by Joseph Heller. Starring Alan Arkin, Art Garfunkel, + Martin Sheen, Jon Voight, Orson Welles and a bunch of other guys. + +[^2]: Giving in to the enemy's logic is equivalent to death. Yes, the + body may carry on, it may last a decade, two or five, but + then... what? Ponder on that for a moment. + +[^3]: In a manner similar maybe to that other well-known piece about war + and its paradoxes, this time with Martin Sheen in a major role. I am + talking of course about Apocalypse Now. + +[^4]: Did you ever wonder why your politicians fail you? and not in any + exceptional way, but consistently and without any apparent end. + + Think about it for a moment: you live in times in which democracy is + considered valuable. Thus politicians' greatest incentive is to + claim that they do things "for the people" -- not to actually do + that, mind you, but only to *claim* it. Some of the more stupid ones + will actually give it a shot, despite the numerous examples of + failure given to us by history. And despite the failure, they will + continue claiming the opposite, leading to a spiral of + [marketing][marketing] and PR and whatnot, leading us to MAGA and + whatnot. Popescu's got details in [his writings][politicians]. + + But this is an aspect masterfully illustrated by the movie -- and + this in the beginning of the '70s, when America was still great! -- + so read on. + +[^5]: Which is, if you think about it, one of the great marks of + power. Science is by its very definition falsifiable, and science + put aside, politics becomes the art of making people believe (in) + the leader, and not just by mere persuasion. Conversely, perverting + science in order to support a narrative is inherently evil; but I + digress. + +[the-mirror]: /posts/y00/01e-the-mirror.html +[marketing]: /posts/y02/043-on-the-failure-of-marketing.html +[politicians]: http://trilema.com/2017/why-politicians-dont-ever-do-anything-for-the-people-a-model/ +[building-business]: /posts/y01/028-building-business-or-why-gypsies-are-smarter-than-romanians.html diff --git a/posts/y03/059-the-problem-of-trust.markdown b/posts/y03/059-the-problem-of-trust.markdown new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dcd6255 --- /dev/null +++ b/posts/y03/059-the-problem-of-trust.markdown @@ -0,0 +1,122 @@ +--- +postid: 059 +title: The problem of trust +date: February 26, 2017 +author: Lucian Mogoșanu +tags: cogitatio +--- + +The concept of trust is as simple as it is deeply problematic. Let us +first [define it][mw]: + +> **a** : assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth +> of someone or something +> +> **b** : one in which confidence is placed + +and the remaining definitions are more or less similar. + +Human societies are built on trust, and thus the ability to place trust +in others, be they things or others of their kind, is a fundamental +quality of the Zōon Politikon. In fact nowadays we trust so many things +and so many people that this trait has become implicit in our way of +life. We must bear in mind however that trust is inherently +asymmetrical, so that the trusted needn't give his entruster one iota of +trust in return -- if we were able to quantitatively appreciate trust, +which as far as I know we do not. + +When trust as a whole is broken or otherwise disappears by some other +means, society collapses and war ensues. That is not to say that lack of +trust (or distrust) is necessarily a cause of war; after all it is not +that Genghis Khan didn't trust the peoples he conquered, but that he +conquered them first and foremost because he could. Lack of trust is +also not a problem in and of itself -- (too much) trust is, especially +when it is not accompanied by [verification][reversing-lists]. + +Since I am an engineer by formation, I will use the closest example I +have available to formulate the problem of trust: let us imagine that we +are [the last remaining men on Earth][humanity] and that we wish to +build an advanced technological artifact, say, a high-performance +numerical computer. Now, how do we go about making that? + +The approach of `n`-societies[^1] builds the state of the art in +computers by using large computer-factories relying on complex +[chains of dependencies][software-engineering-iii]. This works +principally because large numbers are readily available on both ends of +the chain; on one end lies the cheap overworked labour; on the other lie +[fat worms][slither] who are able to take in the end product in big +quantities. This approach works for now, but it has the major +disadvantage that it is fragile because of its multiple interdependent +points of failure; in other words, it is disadvantageous because of its +incompatibility with our previously enunciated scenario. + +The approach of small societies, numbering as few as one individual, +[does not exist yet][future-hardware], a fact which is somewhat +disquieting. + +Let us further imagine then that we had readily available +[synthesizers][3d-printing] to help us in our endeavour, along with +enough knowledge of hardware and software to allow us to build a system +from scratch. At this point we will have eliminated trust[^2] in other +hardware and software developers, who at the point of our +post-apocalyptic scenario are long gone anyway. + +But this is not done yet, because now we have to trust the device +printing our chips either in terms of design-to-implementation +correctness or of lack of subtle malicious behaviour[^3]. Ideally we +would use the printer to make our own hardware printing device, but this +is necessarily incomplete, as demonstrated by Gödel. In other words we +cannot trust that the `n`th order printer-of-printers will not replicate +the same incorrect or malicious behaviours in their lower order +creations. + +The naïvely correct approach would be to start by placing our trust in +the laws of physics, which we know to manifest in a specific way +according to common sense[^4] scientific experiments. From here we can +use fire to refine iron to make tools that help us make tools, and so on +until we are able to build the tools necessary to build computing +machines of a satisfactory performance. The viability of this approach +has been demonstrated by history; however, given the time required to +put it in practice, this might not the right approach from a pragmatic +point of view. + +Assuming that the scarce society in our thought experiment still +contains leftover technology from our `n`-ancestors, an honest enough +avenue would be to employ common sense combined with existing tools as +means to verify existing systems. This is in itself a hard problem, +since there is no general method to this verification, and I doubt there +will ever exist one[^5]. + +Fundamentally this thought experiment reduces the problem of trust to +the question of trading off between outsourcing and independence. I have +no doubt that there are people who at least believe they have the answer +to this problem; however, history seems to show that in general there is +no stable point of equilibrium to balance the two situations. + +One lesson we can take away from all this, though: knowledge is never +ever to be outsourced, for it is the primary prerequisite for the +ability to verify. + +[^1]: This term is borrowed from the definition of "slave empires" in + Trilema's [Republican Thesaurus][thesaurus]. + +[^2]: And moreover, [dependence][freedom-is-slavery]. + +[^3]: At the time of writing, this is a problem worthy of consideration, + as illustrated in Yang et al., "A2: Analog Malicious Hardware", + published at the 2016 IEEE Symposium on Security & Privacy. + +[^4]: Common sense is used here merely as a device to put a halt to the + "turtles all the way down" phenomenon described previously. + +[^5]: I have actually thought about this. Stay tuned. + +[mw]: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/trust +[reversing-lists]: /posts/y03/057-reversing-lists.html +[humanity]: /posts/y01/032-your-worth-to-humanity.html +[thesaurus]: http://trilema.com/2016/republican-thesaurus-with-vocabulary-and-dictionary/ +[software-engineering-iii]: /posts/y03/04e-the-myth-of-software-engineering-iii.html +[slither]: /posts/y02/048-slither-io-unfairness.html +[future-hardware]: /posts/y03/04d-future-of-computing-hardware.html +[3d-printing]: /posts/y00/01c-3d-printing.html +[freedom-is-slavery]: /posts/y03/04f-freedom-is-slavery.html