Stories Shape Our World: Building a Humane Network
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Lightning talk given at "Upgrade Democracy" Unconference in Palo Alto
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Stories Shape Our World: Building a Humane Network
- 1. THE MAKING OF SENSE / A HUMANE NETWORK PETER WANG @pwang peter@pwang.io
- 2. I have come to fully realize that Stories are more fundamental than Facts. They are the reality that people experience. Those who insist on pursuing “the Truth about the issue”, or solving the problem of getting “the Right Facts out to everyone”… are almost always chasing a mirage.
- 3. THE META-MODEL • Facts are notes; Ideas are chords; Stories are the song. • The human mind is wired to hear music, not individual notes. (How many have perfect pitch vs How many enjoy music?) • Even if you could ascertain what the objectively Right Facts are, if you can’t weave them into the song playing in people’s heads, it won’t matter.
- 4. YOST VIOLIN METHOD “Just play all the notes, with every finger.”
- 7. • We ALL have layers of stories and narratives that frame our worldview. For something to “makes sense”, it just means that it fits within the narrative frame — the story — we believe about the world.
- 8. • We ALL have layers of stories and narratives that frame our worldview. For something to “makes sense”, it just means that it fits within the narrative frame — the story — we believe about the world. • As humans, we need stories to give us a sense of permanence and of control. This is because we use stories not just to explain the past, but to lay the groundwork for our expectations of the future.
- 9. • We ALL have layers of stories and narratives that frame our worldview. For something to “makes sense”, it just means that it fits within the narrative frame — the story — we believe about the world. • As humans, we need stories to give us a sense of permanence and of control. This is because we use stories not just to explain the past, but to lay the groundwork for our expectations of the future. • The fundamental mythos of the intellectual is that they live in a world where better ideas should win, do win, and move things forward.
- 10. People want things to make Sense, more than they want Sense itself to usefully predict the future. (Mostly, they want the Sense that is made to re-affirm that the past justifies the present.)
- 11. • The stories don’t have to be True (c.f. Trump’s “Parable of the Snake” • The facts don’t have to be facts (c.f. Bowling Green) • I don’t think this is a healthy way for people to live. It does not maximize human potential and joy. • But this is how people live. More than ever, human dynamics are dominated by the memetic landscape. MYTH-BENDING
- 12. In the game of human dynamics, you tell stories and craft myth, or you go home. • The stories don’t have to be True (c.f. Trump’s “Parable of the Snake” • The facts don’t have to be facts (c.f. Bowling Green) • I don’t think this is a healthy way for people to live. It does not maximize human potential and joy. • But this is how people live. More than ever, human dynamics are dominated by the memetic landscape. MYTH-BENDING
- 13. COROLLARY: AN EQUIVALENCE PLANE? • Trump explicitly tells his supporters stories. He knows what they need and he gives it to them. They don’t need or want any more Facts than are necessary to make the Story interesting. • Clinton would have done the same. (She wouldn’t have told so many bold-faced lies, because her listeners don’t want to be insulted.) • Trump is dangerous because he is an opaque vessel for hidden agendas, and those agendas could be arrogantly stupid, hawkish, or both. • What about Clinton? A little less opaque, agendas a little less stupid?
- 14. There is a rare gap right now in the global sense-making engine. It won’t last long. We are here! Now is the time to start a new song. But first, we have to get our stories straight.
- 15. TOWARDS A HUMANE NETWORK
- 16. ARPANET • Resilient military network • Testbed for inter-networking: scaling a network across disparate sub-networks
- 17. INTERNET
- 19. INTERNET • Insecure protocols • When centralized, extremely janky (name lookup, root CAs)
- 20. INTERNET • Insecure protocols • When centralized, extremely janky (name lookup, root CAs) • When decentralized, extremely janky (BGP attacks)
- 21. INTERNET • Insecure protocols • When centralized, extremely janky (name lookup, root CAs) • When decentralized, extremely janky (BGP attacks) • Pseudo-resilient, de facto network for human species
- 22. INTERNET • Insecure protocols • When centralized, extremely janky (name lookup, root CAs) • When decentralized, extremely janky (BGP attacks) • Pseudo-resilient, de facto network for human species • Actually a network of insecure computers
- 23. STACK PILE OF FAIL Vulnerability Example App DNS, SMTP, HTTP, SSH • DNS is terrible • SMTP is terrible • HTTP is terrible • SSL relies on flaky CAs • Javascript sucks • ISPs hijacking DNS lookup failures to display ads • Spam is still a problem • Phishing is a major problem • No common, user-friendly security protocol Transport TCP, UDP • ISPs attack/throttle bandwidth • Connection-oriented • Leaky metadata • ISPs own your ass • Net neutrality, “zero-rate streaming” • Targeted ads based on geolocation • Verizon uber-cookie • DDoS Internet IP, ICMP BGP attacks 2013 Belarus traffic diversion (banks, govt, etc.) Link ARP, 802.11 Single-source suppliers of HW parts, firmware, etc. • IoT backdoors into home networks • Routers with malicious counterfeit hardware
- 24. OTHER FAILURES • Twitter: Libyan rebels calling in airstrikes by DMing @NATO • Steve Fry, others quitting Twitter • The Chinese model: Huxley-style control network of WeChat, Weibo, QQ, Didi, Baidu, Alibaba • ”Dear Mark, I will not comply” • Ads vs. Adblockers vs. Google algos vs… • The "fake news swings 2016 election" is the Tacoma Narrows Bridge of information networks. Synchrony in communications networks is significant. In the brain, meta-stability with synchronized firings is the difference between consciousness and epilepsy.
- 25. FUNDAMENTALLY The internet is founded on the principle of end-to-end connectivity between computers. The web is based on servers and content, and a universal addressing scheme in the document format. These both emerged in an era when bandwidth (and connectivity) was scarce. Trust, security, etc. were luxuries. Overabundance of bandwidth has created a different problem: scarcity of attention.
- 26. HUMANE NETWORK A Humane Network is defined by concepts and protocols that give rise to a communications network for humans which fits the natural inclinations of human interaction. It should scale up and out without creating major potential negative outcomes: • Loss of confidentiality • Loss of attribution • Loss of Anonymity • Centralization of content • Centralization of traffic flow • Inappropriate novation of trust into global reputation In scaling human networks, trust is the scarce resource. In such a network, a trusted connection is 90%+ of the signal.
- 27. A NETWORK THAT MAKES SENSE • In the first era of humanity, Reality was defined by consensus. • In the second era, it was defined by models, prediction, and experiment. Models are needed in order to have Explicit Control. • In the third era, we stop needing reality to be defined in a way that fits within people's heads, and immerse ourselves in an experiential Present, confident that the structures we've created will enable our collective patterns of behavior to converge on optimal actions. • Technology tools that extend the vocabulary of human interaction • Allows experimenting with and scaling out different kinds of social structures • Amplifies and implement aspects of human relationships, which are grounded in social primitives like trust, justice/fairness, etc.