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  • In the hands of the tech elite

    It’s obvious, if you start to look under the hood, how the tech industry (I’ll generalize now) believes itself to be an elite, swaying people to believe them, follow them, be like them. Become a tech entrepreneur! Improve people’s lives! Save the planet!

    Bill Gates funds geoengineering research to combat climate change. Jeff Bezos travels into orbit. Peter Thiel funds conservatives in the US, just like Robert Mercer.

    They all want to solve problems, for themselves, for society. But mostly for themselves. One example given is The Boomer Remover, mentioned by Kevin Roose in an interview with NPR. The creators wish to rid employers of the Baby boomers, born approximaly between 1945-1965, and voilá: an app for that! Problem solved!

    This problem-solving approach to issues (or non-issues) pervades much of the discourse. “Tech entrepreneurs” are gladly expressing their willingness to solve issues created by humans, be it climate, environment, jobs, health, national defence or gender. The approach perceives an issue to be solved very much like an algorithm: problem + solution = problem solved. The tech sort of way (of which I’ll write more later).

    If you’ve happened to deal with humans, you might disapprove of this method of solving problems. Humans are often irrational and do not always follow logic procedures, like symbols in a mathematical formulae. A world filled with individual humans and groups of humans is seldom predictable in all ways.

    Anand Giridharadas discusses power in the hands of the public versus tech entrepreneurs (or rich people in general): there’s a very tangible difference if a city, through politics, decides to do something (usually called democracy), and some rich people deciding what happens in the city (usually called plutocracy).

    I’d rather the city council makes decisions on childcare than Elon Musk, Daniel Ek or Notch. Most likely the members of the city council know my city, what childcare is, the economics behind childcare and the city in total, many of them are aware of the diverse lives of parents, public transports, working hours and so on. Most likely the rich kids are no longer aware of life as an ordinary citizen. Furthermore, decisions by the city council are more transparent and can be appealed. Neither of those apply to the rich kids’ decisions.

    And you might have noticed that the absolute majority of the tech names (the aforementioned, and Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Tim Cook, the cadre of Steves, Bills and Pauls, Sam Altman, to name but a few) are all men. White men. So, when they wish to solve problem they themselves see, their solutions are usually tech-y.

    Molly Smith follows blockchain and crypto on her website Web3 is Going Just Great. She summarises (some of) the amounts lost in events related to the so called Web 3.0: scams, fraud, hacks, bankruptcies and the like. Plenty of the people (men) behind these cryptocurrencies are facing jail for various reasons. First, they claim to help people getting rich. Second, they (try to) run away with amassed sums of money from rather unsuspecting, gullible or desperate people. Dan Olson created a video on YouTube on cryptocurrency, and discussed parts of it with Ezra Klein (you can also listen to Molly here). One very thoughtful and valid point Dan makes is how regular people are watching a decline in income versus the lives and opportunities of rich people. They can’t perceive themselves as rich, unless they risk their money (and a big portion of luck) on the stock market, the real estate market or… cryptocurrency! They might have one chance in 50.000, but some people will take the chance/risk, since it’s their only way out of poverty or a poor pension. In the tech community, some people are thus willing to satisfy this demand.

    NFT, that’s another side of the coin. When it first appeared in the media I got flashbacks from the years around 2000, when tech entrepreneurs could pitch virtually any idea and receive money, and 2006-2007, when the financial world seemed on fire with a savings rate on almost 5 %, Icelandic banks (with no money) being hailed as financial vikings. And later it all burned. When the hype is too intense, it tends to border on fantasies on what’s pausible, removing the boundaries on what’s possible. And then things crash. In May 2021 I read this often-cited article about the §2 billion deli. Matt Levine, working in the financial sector, couldn’t grasp how a simple deli in New Jersey was worth several billion dollars. Too many threads like these, ordinary people buying virtual receipts on things they can’t own for several § 100.000, and companies being hailed for doing things that aren’t even contributing to production, in the weave and you know things are spiralling out of control.

    The space contest. I cannot remember who said it or where I heard it (Kate Crawford on a podcast with Taylor Owen, revised 2023-08-11), but the perspective is highly relevant (perhaps not so much today, after the tech business has suffered post-covid, as one year ago). Markets can saturated, demand dropping, so where to next? Space. Direct resources and time to point out space as the next reliable frontier. Humans must go further, exploring the Solar system for real. Why? Because money can be made out of false narratives and hopes of… what? A better future? Because demand is dropping and markets are saturated, (some people in) the tech business needs a new “frontier” in order to scam people even more. Why not invest in something that could potentially be worth x trillion dollars? You could be much richer, if you strike the motherloard, than cryptocurrency, real estate or the stock market. Not to mention work. That’s never going go pay off. This is why Jeff Bezos squeezes himself into a little rocket.

    Seen in this light, Bill Gates seems different, the way he actually accepts taxation, donates money for good causes globally, and publically debate. Personally, I believe geoengineering is extremely dangerous, but research is research and necessarily not applied. I also believe rich people should be able to debate societal issues, instead of hiding or pretending they are contributing to solving issues simply because they create an app. The Boomer Remover, the cryptocurrency, the NFT market, the space contest – they’re all scams and shams without true purposes beside making the owners rich and us poor.

  • Thesis proceeding

    The snow is still covering parts of the ground and I’m writing the introduction, purpose and research questions on my bachelor’s thesis in political science. If all goes according to plan, it’ll be complete and presented to the examiner and supervisor in late May and in May-June it’ll be publicly discussed and examined.

    My only obstacle at the moment is the lack of research on digital transnational repression in Sweden and Scandinavia. I have ambiguous feelings about there not being much research, because on the one hand, it feels great to be one of the first students (in Sweden) to write about DTR and refugee espionage, but on the other hand, it’s also rather uncomfortable being one of the very first. The phenomenon needs to be introduced in a careful and simple, rather effortless, way, which is much more difficult than it may seem.

    Two of the articles I refer to and base my own thesis on are Drawing a line: Digital transnational repression against political exiles and host state sovereignty, and Digital Transnational Repression and Host States’ Obligation to Protect Against Human Rights Abuses. In different ways they highlight the obligations of the host state, and the vulnerability of the host state if it seems to lack capacity to protect its’ inhabitants. Too little has been researched here when researchers have focused on human rights and freedom. It’s not bad, but the phenomenon, I think, needs to be perceived as more than simply an abuse of human rights. It’ll never be enough to highlight one dimension of this form of repression.

    The Citizen Lab released their splendid report “Psychological and Emotional Warfare: Digital Transnational Repression in Canada” one year ago, which comprises interviews with people residing in Canada whom been targeted with various forms of DTR. If you’re looking for definitions and concepts, and insights to how it’s like living under digital surveillance and threats, the report is really useful.

  • Book review: Click here to kill everybody

    Book review: Click here to kill everybody

    For those who don’t know of Bruce Schneier, he’s one of the world’s most famous and prominent cybersecurity experts. If there’s one person you’d like to guide you and hold your hand while in need, Schneier is the one. This book is about basics of cybersecurity, not the technical aspects, but rather about security on the Internet and the Internet+, the interconnected world of the Internet of things.

    Driverless cars, thermostats, drones, locks on doors, baby dolls and monitors, and pacemakers are interconnected – without any concern for security. Virtually all companies except for Apple and Microsoft sell inadequate and incomplete consumer products without testing, whereas in the the airplane industry a line of code can cost millions of dollars and pass through very rigorous testing before being applied in reality.

    “Click here to kill everybody” is a thorough and deep book about how this neglect of cybersecurity has consequences for people, society, companies and governments/authorities. It depends on rushed incentives and meddling from many governments.

    I love the metaphor “The Four Horsemen of the Internet Apocalypse – terrorists, drug dealers, pedophiles, and organized crime” that states and companies use to frighten people. If we standardize encryption in texting, telephone calls, files on your phone, the dark sides will become even stronger and the good forces will fail at catching and prosecuting villains (is the usual comments). The paradox is that states use front companies to do some of these works as well, like North Korea and organized crime and drugs. Even China (companies connected to the People’s Liberation Army), Russia (Internet Research Agency, under the now-well-known-name Yevgeny Prigozhin) and the US (the military-industrial complext and NSA-connected entrepreneurs) are all engaging companies to do their bidding, no strings attached.

    The situation we’re in: From bad to worse

    An entire chapter is named “Everyone favors insecurity”, a telling title. What it basically comes down to, is that companies are unwilling to pay for security, very much like ecofriendly products are more expensive, because taking ecological consideration into account costs more than not caring. Apple and Microsoft are two of the very few companies that actually pay attention to security, making sure that products are released when they’re as secure as possible. Most companies follow the former Facebook motto “Move fast and break things” and release rather delay and miss the launch.

    What people, and companies and authorities, then miss is the fact that our overall security is decreased, in peril, simply because it’s considered too expensive or too troublesome.

    Security should default, like encryption should be default, not optional or thought of in clear hindsight. When products are ready for sale, they should be as complete as possible. The ideal of move fast and break things should be abolished.

    Regulation

    Authorities need more transparency, less secrecy, more oversight and accountability, Schneier argues (and he isn’t alone). FBI, NSA and others don’t want encryption and want backdoors. This is completely contradictory security-wise. If the population is being preyed upon, if rogue elements can infect and steal from people, companies and authorities will also be easier targets. The more people who risk being infected and preyed upon, the more who will be in peril. Less security for civil society and people means states are less secure, although authorities want to weaken encryption, install backdoors – everyone gains access to damage, everyone looses.

    An argument often lost in the debate on regulation is that losing parties in this debate of regulation are small companies without assets or time on their side, and favour big corporations, who can much easier adapt. Big corporations are also prone to being in the attention span of the regulators and tended too, whereas smaller companies are seldom even seen, mostly overlooked. I think this is one of the most important aspects of the entire book.

    Another issue with regulation is its tendency to focus on particular technologies. Schneier’s suggestions is to “focus on human aspects of the law” instead of technologies, apps, or functions. Also, it’s better to aim for a result and let experts work to achieve that result rather than, again, focus on a specific technology.

    Summary

    Rights of the computers scientists / software developers / programmers are still very strong and they can develop pretty much what they want. We’re too short-sighted and can’t, or refuse to, see possible outcomes and changes from longer perspectives. “We accepted it because what they decided didn’t matter very much. Now it very much matters, and I think this privilege needs to end.” Just because products are digital doesn’t mean they have more right to exist, and living in a society where technology has become some kind of religious belief doesn’t mean technology is impervious to critic or bad things.

    Schneier argues that only states should have the capability to confront cyber attacks, not companies or other organizations. Considering they industry of spyware (or mercenary spyware as it’s called) I concur, though companies can help being part of cyber defense.

    One of Schneier’s guesses is that the security issues with “Internet+ will creep into their networks” in unexpected ways. Someone brings a device to work, which connects to the Internet and starts to leak data. Suddenly a company or authority realizes it has serious issues with real life implications.

    If you need a basic book about cybersecurity, without any technical details or prerequisites, this is a book for you. It’ll teach you what cybersecurity is about.

  • Time to decide again

    It’s been two years and finally it’s time to study some more. In roughly one month, we’ll begin writing our bachelor thesis. Mine will (unless some pivotal change occurs) be about digital transnational repression in Sweden. There’s isn’t much research on this issue regarding Sweden. There’s scant research internationally too, except for Freedom House, The Citizen Lab and a few researchers specialized in the field, like Marcus Michaelsen. I’m about to dive into their research more thoroughly, choose my material wisely and formulate questions.

  • Book review: Reset

    Book review: Reset

    “We can reclaim the internet for civil society. The principle of restraint should be our guide.”

    The end.

    Basically, I could stop here and write no more. These are the last two sentences of the book Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society of Ronald J. Deibert and the profound solution to problems with internet, social media, tech companies, surveillance, espionage, cyberwars, is about.

    Deibert founded The Citizen Lab in 2001 as a research group with a mission he had came up with: the dirty backside of the Internet. For once I read a boo by an author who doesn’t need to restort to the creepiest descriptions and depictions on what could happen – he controls this subject totally. You can read it between the lines, see it in the examples given, often from the research of the Citizen Lab and from various other sources, not the usual ones, he doesn’t inundate you with details and a massive amount of examples about everything that is inherently wrong with internet (for that, listen to Grumpy old geeks), and because of the chapters he’s chosen to focus on. He knows this stuff without the restless need to show how well he has (begun) to master this subject after a couple of years. The combination of chapters are his strength.

    Causes

    Surveillance capitalism as a concept is the first subject Deibert touches, writing about the omnipresent tech in our lives, the gadgets we surround ourselves with day and night, for most reasons. This has been covered by Carissa Veliz, Adam Alter (review coming) and (obviously) Shushana Zuboff (review coming), to name a few. Deibert writes about different absurd apps, ideas to capture more personal data and dangerous paths taken by companies, paths that can easily lead to authoritarian perspectives on society and societal change.

    How our addictive machines are used to spread propaganda, disinformation, misinformation, to destabilize societies, divide and rule among foreign adversaries is another bleak chapter. Companies, state actors, organisations are playing a very perilous game with democratic states and risking all progress on human rights. Insititutions are seemlingly falling apart, or at least being unable to thwart a slide towards more fragile societies.

    Thirdly, intrusive powers is about how technology is used to circumvent human rights and deliberation by (nation) states. Abuses of power become harder to track, inhibit and hold accountable. Technology is more often used to suppress minorities and people rather than elevate them.

    Aspects of climate and environment are usually completely excluded from books written by tech-related authors. The link to the natural world is many times exempt from being questioned. Two of the few eexceptions are Kate Crawford and Tung-Hui Hu, both of whom I’ll cover in time.

    I worked in politics for almost seven years and I concur with Deibert that “material factors play a major role in shaping political outcomes”, must be taken into account and politics should, at times, adapt to societal changes rather than neglecting them. Sometimes you simply follow, not lead. And tech is very much physical, material.

    No other expert, that I have encountered, has been able to combine all these issues and subjects into one coherent text about the state of the internet and democracy. A fellow Canadian and political scientist at that, Taylor Owen (yes, listen to his podcast), is the closest one we’ve got.

    Solutions

    Deibert’s a political scientist at heart, although you might think (or decieve yourself) he’s a computer scientist, and it shows when he delves into solutions. He presents the ideas and theory of republicanism, the theory “to tie down and restrain the exercise of power not only domestically, but also across borders.” Politics usually move rather slowly in democratic states and rightfully so, argues Deibert and the republicans, because decisions should take time and deliberation is necessary so as not to react emotionally or irrationally due to some fancy. Deliberation has become a word with negative connotations. Things should be decided quickly, without thoughtful processes, almost impulsively. Deibert argues that deliberation offers restraint, inhibits decisions to be simple (and often stupid) reactions to very contemporary issues. As such, restraint should be exhibited much more, in social media, in politics, on technologically related decisions. Deliberation should be a guideline, not an insult.

    At first my thoughts were similar to my reading of Beijmo’s De kan inte stoppa oss – basically, we’re f*cked. After a while I actually feel hope. For once, here’s a person with vast experience and knowledge of how bad things have turned for more than two decades, who can show us real adequate and suitable actions on a systemic level. Here are no individual recommendations on “block cookies”, “encrypt all your communications” or “refuse to use social media”. Deibert has spent more time than most humans on these issues, so what he writes is very much what we should do. We should move slower, more deliberately, in order to reclaim internet for civil society, not for states or companies.

    Conclusion

    If there’s one book to rule them all, this is the one.

  • Two sides of Cambridge Analytica

    Two sides of Cambridge Analytica

    I reminisce sitting on the bus to Arlanda Airport, frantically reading interviews with someone named Christopher Wylie in The Guardian, the breaking news on every other news channel I could possibly find on the 18th of March 2018: Cambridge Analytica and it’s role in manipulating democratic elections.

    Mindf*ck by Christoper Wylie

    Chris Wylie is a self-taught computer guy with a nack for analyzing data, especially electoral data from Canada, England and the US. He worked for the Liberal democrats in Canada, moved to England and started working for the Liberal Democrats in England. Later he started working for a small data company named SCL Group, (Cambridge Analytica was part of the Strategic Communications Laboratories Incorporated, shortened SCL or later the SCL Group) and later Cambridge Analytica (shortened CA).

    CA worked with military clients and one direction was to influence the minds and behaviour of people, especially “the enemy”. Wylie introduces the reader to the history of psycological operations, psyops. For this they needed data and data to analyze, so they turned to social media, mainly. CA began operating for parties in elections in countries, often poor ones, with weak democratic institutions.

    Wylie tells the story of how Dr. Kogan came up with the app (This is your digital life) that harvested data points and personal data on approximately 87 million Facebook users (Kaiser also tells this); how he met Steve Bannon and how Cambridge Analytica came to be baptisted.

    One of my favourite parts, and the one I remember the most, is how he travelled for CA to interviews lots of people. Countless field studies became a backbone of the Trump campaign, alongside all the digital data points collected through (primarily) Facebook. I think this side, and importance, of the story is rather underappreciated, how people like Wylie sat with hundreds or thousands of people to interview them, to better understand why they voted for conservative ideas, how to trigger people online, how to microtarget individuals or small groups. Wylie and his colleagues understood that talking to real persons in real life is where you really, basically understand people.

    Crucial to the story is that Wylie quit CA in 2014, two years before the Brexit election and the American presidental election of 2016.

    Targeted by Brittany Kaiser

    Before buying Wylie’s book I noticed another person defected from Cambridge Analytica, or actually, the SCL: Britanny Kaiser, to most people an unheard of name. After some time I watched the documentary The Great Hack on Netflix and Britanny Kaiser stepped into my mind for the first time, outside the book reviews.

    She was devoted to human rights and tireless work for NGO’s internationally. She also worked for Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign. According to her, she needed money for the parents, and got hired by SCL. She became a travelling salesperson, working somewhat closely (yet loosely) to Alexander Nix, the head of both companies, for years. She was very much involved in American politics, first with the campaign of Ted Cruz and later with Donald Trump’s campaign.

    AggregateIQ (AIQ), also called SCL Canada, was one of the companies belonging to SCL Group (Wylie also writes about the company), who became involved in the Brexit election, doing business for leave campaigns, using lots of personal data on social media and involving money the campaigns were not supposed to have.

    The most fascinating thing and that really stuck with me is Siphon and the details Kaiser provides on microtargeting people. Siphon was a dashboard with which “the campaign could keep track of ad performance in real time”. The dashboard users could adjust campaigns after going into details about every single ad (and there were many thousands) they ran. Kaiser presents costs for presenting ads to Hispanics deemed persuadables with political interests in “jobs, taxes, and education” or white women in Georgia, deemed persuadables, with interests in “debt, wages, education, and taxes”. The entire US turned into a video game, states representing theatres to be won.

    All in all: Wylie vs Kaiser

    Both Wylie and Kaiser perceive Cambridge Analytica’s work as dangerous. They give plenty of examples of how CA tried to manipulate and influence voters and suppress people from voting. One issue is that they exagerate their own and CA’s clout. They definitely were meddling in the contested elections in the US and UK, but there are so many other actors involved, and Bannon or the Mercers are not flawless superminds who work in the shadows, able to influence and manipulate everyone. Things are usually always complex. I think the main reason the story of Cambridge Analytica became so big is that it showed how social media, personal data and the dirty tactics of today work.

    There are real differences between Wylie and Kaiser, some that I need to address.

    Wylie’s contempt for Alexander Nix is unmistakable, whereas Kaiser is more forgiving and can see beyond Nix’s influence and work, and see someone charming, someone human. Wylie really has/had some difficulties getting along with people and isn’t afraid of mentioning it.

    Where Kaiser is skeptical and suspicious of The Guardian’s reporting, and Carol Cadwallar in particular, about CA, Wylie is completely dependant on this newspaper and Cadwallar in particular.

    Mind also that Wylie claims Kaiser isn’t a whistleblower, just an opportunist saving herself before the boat sank. Kaiser, on the other hand, claims Wylie was a simple low-lever worker she never really heard of, who over-exaggerated himself and his importance, while actually leaving before of the crucial years of 2015-2017. One can see the similarity to Edward Snowden’s story, proclaiming he had more power and insight than he actually did, when Wylie fills his story with conversations with the important persons (Steve Bannon and Rebecca Mercer for instance), while Kaiser doesn’t seem to understand how important she actually was to CA. She was there with Ted Cruz and Kellyanne Conway during his campaign, she was present with Steve Bannon, Conway and Donald Trump on election night in 2016. She was part of the team.

    All in all, I think her book is slightly more sincere. She acknowledges faults and mistakes, blind spots, things she refused to see during the years of 2014-2017. She didn’t seem to ask the necessary questions, albeit, in her defense, she wasn’t immersed in the technical issues or the field research the way Wylie actually was. He admits the jolt of interest and excitement of interviewing a New Age woman who is into Donald Trump, sitting in her house asking questions. Meanwhile Kaiser is constantly on airplanes brokering deals. Should she had suspected something? Shouldn’t she? Should he? Shouldn’t he? Does anyone acknowledge one’s side as “evil”, “bad” or “wrong”? Most people on this planet presume their on the right side, the good side. If I tell you your boss might be using surveillance programs on your work computer, should you examine if I’m right or do you presume I’m wrong? Are you too lazy to check, do you think me a liar, a conspirator for asserting such a thing, are you more comfortable remaining in the unknown unknown?

    Kaiser and Wylie were both useful fools, running fool’s errands for years, for rich people who understood how social media, media, elections (for instance, how few votes in specific districts are needed to winan election there) and people work. People, like Bannon, John Bolton, and the Mercers, pull strings in order to turn politics in their direction. They use a variety of companies to gather personal data, to sway people’s minds, to insert news into social media and media, to manipulate tiny details in order to turn the whole into something different. Insidious and genious.

    Still, after all, how many people actually question their jobs, their vocations, their circumstances as they happen, and not simply in hindsight? These two persons did question jobs before Cambridge Analytica really came into the headlights, even if their views and opinions differ. Their stories are well-worth reading, particularly because they differ.

  • Ukraine: The Gates of Europe and Bloodlands

    Ukraine: The Gates of Europe and Bloodlands

    Despite my interest in history I’ve never read about the history of Ukraine. Through the years I’ve read some about the Czech Republic and the Soviet Union, but that’s basically all regarding what’s considered Eastern Europe. To overlook the eastern parts of Europe is a common trait in westerners (just like our tendency to count the Czech Republic to the “East” when it’s right in the middle of Europe (if you exclude parts of Russia)).

    The Gates of Europe

    Due to the war between Russia and Ukraine one book especially popped up as an excellent recommendation and choice for learning more about Ukraine as a part of the world: The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine by Serhii Plokhy, professor of Ukrainian history at Harvard University.

    The story begins a very long time ago and stops right after a certain comedian had become president of a beleagured nation pressed by the most powerful president of the world in a notorious telephone conversation.

    Throughout the centuries, Ukraine has been divided into the Left bank and the Right bank of the Dniepr river. Look at a map and think you are sailing downstreams towards the Black Sea: The Left is to the east of that river, whereas the Right is to the west. Lviv, once a city in Poland, in thus on the right side of the Dniepr (west then), whereas Charkiv is on the left (east then). This is a very important fact about this complex land.

    Plokhy takes you back to the Scythians, the Slavs, the Greeks, the Khazars, and the Byzantines, the founding and the special relations of the Orthodox church here, the Vikings, the Tatars, the Mongols, the Muscovites, the Swedes, the Poles, the Latvians, the Austrians, the Germans… the list of people coming here seems endless. It’s obvious and apparent how often Ukraine has been ravaged by other countries, the people there threatened by other people. Millions upon millions killed by invaders mostly. And just recently have they received a complicated independence, once again threatened by Russia. The latest version of the book was revised just after the impeachment of Donald Trump for blackmailing Vladimir Zelensky about evidence against Joe Biden’s son. It really puts into perspective what’s it like being in Sweden: on the outskirts of the world.

    Two very crucial facts he gives the reader is i) the discourse on the Rus (once a Scandinavian word probably meaning men who row), the Ruthenianand the derivation of “the Little Russians”; and ii) how Russia came to be more autocratic, more nationalist, more traditionally Orthodox, whereas Ukraine more leans towards Europe, has a more pro-democratic legacy and has had a special church, the Uniate church.

    If you’re interested to learn more about the most talked about nation on the planet and willing to learn more about people like Putin’s thoughts, feelings and ambitions – read this book.

    Bloodlands

    Roughly ten years ago another book was published, mainly focused on the fight over Ukraine, Belarus and Poland between 1933-1945: Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder, professor of history at Yale University and specialized on Ukraine. Josef Stalin had managed to remove competitors and ruled the USSR with an iron fist, implementing cruel policy after cruel policy. Then came Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany which didn’t even bother to abduct and murder people in the cover of darkness.

    This is a very tough book to read. Not linguistically, not due to uninteresting content. Contentwise, it’s extremely bleak, it reaks of blood, murder, genocide, and a complete and utter negligence of and contempt for human life. I’ve read about plenty of genocides before, but reading this book made me almost depressed and sick. Page after page is filled with death.

    Neither Stalin nor Hitler had any qualms whatsoever about letting millions of people die theoretically, through plans, and later physically through agents. They could simply not be wrong or wronged, so people had to die to prove these leaders right every single time.

    The story is set in the so called bloodlands, fertile, productive and beautiful, of Poland, Belarus and Ukraine, a very special place for the Russians and Slavs (as mentioned earlier) and to the Nazis. This is where dreams converged.

    Snyder lets people speak through (mainly) their letters and notes, many which were written in desperation and in very bad situations. It’s difficult to remain untouched by many of them, especially written by children awaiting death.

    To me, it’s obvious the Germans for many decades deluded themselves when claiming that Wehrmacht (the regular army) were never really involved in mass murder or killings. Not even a blind or deaf German soldier could have missed being a part of a war machine so systematically killing millions of civilians, prisoners of war and soldiers. Even asserting that Wehrmacht was somehow “clean” and not to blame seems, in hindsight, completely crazy. Naturally parts of Wehrmacht knew exactly what they were doing in Eastern Europe for years.

    Somehow impressively frightening (I do not find any better combination of words) is the NKVD’s ability to adjust to the circumstances and continue to kill anyone who seemed like a collaborator or traitor when the Nazis seized lands. NKVD remained organized in many places and managed to kill Nazis and civilians on all sides, no matter how hard the Nazis tried to uproot and kill them. That’s how deeply entrenched and vital NKVD were to the Soviet system.

    The craziness gets even deeper and worse when allegiances shift weekly or monthly. A hamlet did away with Jews under German occupation. One month later the Communists returned and cleansed the village from people who helped the Germans. One year later the Germans returned and annihilated all those who seemed linked to the NKVD. Another example is how some of the most oppressive and murderous guards in German concentration and extermination camps were Ukrainians, and some of the (unwilling) collaborators inside the camps were Jews. Religious roots, ethnic roots, family roots all matter in such a complicated way that it makes the civil war in former Yugoslavia seem like a walk in the park in comparison.

    The lands were flooded with human blood.

    However bleak the book may be, despite all the death and blood, at least parts of this book are necessary to understand important history is to people, how history affects people long after certain events have happened.

    It’s also a reminder of how wonderful democracy can be, no matter how flawed it can be and how utterly horrid the alternatives are.

  • Swedish economy in free fall

    Economics and and personal finance are in the news each and every day now and have been for some time. Swedes are generally interested in personal finances, because of the hype around stock markets and the freedom money creates. Now, though, the focus is on debts, the increase in energy prices, the inflation and what those entail for the population in general, and (almost always) the houseowner specifically.

    Too late for this discussion, I say. Before I delve into specifics I want to explain that I’m no economist, so please forgive my mistakes regarding (faltering) terminology.

    Backtracking a bit

    In October 2008, the debt of the Swedish population was almost 2.500 million Swedish crowns/kronor (about €250 million at today’s currency rate). This year the debt will circumspect more than 5.300 million Swedish crowns/kronor, an increase of 114 % over 14 years.

    Right now, the debt quota is 188 % of the disposable income.

    Looking at the general pay increase during the this time period: nominal pay is about 40 % (if we count on 2,2 % increase this year). If we count real income, it’s a meagre 21 % (22,5 % if we say it’s an average increase of the years between 2008-2022).

    That does not look good. A discrepancy of more than 90 %. Remember that this increase in debts has occured even during two financial crisis. The financial crisis of 2008 hit Sweden that autumn, but the Swedes managed to take even more loans during the “bad years” of 2008-2010; and the Corona pandemic, which hit certain sectors quite bad. Still, the loans increased.

    New houseowners are also increasing their debt quota, to an average 327 % of their income now. Another part, also increasing, is comprised of unsecured loans. They increased during the pandemic, and are lonas taken for general consumtion, such as TV’s, sofas and cars.

    What about assets?

    Some say that the assets of the Swedish people have increased over time. That is true. But much of those assets are fictional, locked into expected yields. If I want to sell my house now, I could earn lots of money. But if more people can’t pay their bills properly, lots of people will try to sell their cars or their houses and they will not gain as much as they wanted, because the value has dropped. They cannot be free from debts. The debts are real, more tangible, and will linger for years, if not decades. No bank will willingly pay a person’s debt. People will be forced to keep paying for things they don’t own. And if enough people are in dire need of money, assets will lose value. Rather quickly too. Look at Ireland, the US or Iceland in 2007-2010, or Sweden in the 1990’s.

    So, my take is that to keep saying things are okay and people’s debt quota has decreased is a fictional argument. Expected yield is fictional, debts are not.

    What’s helping us push into a real financial crisis are the debts of the municipalities. Their debts have also increased over the years due to derelict buildings (schools and health care buildings from the 1960’s and 1970’s). If just a few tens of thousands loose their jobs this autumn and winter, or if tens of thousands of houseowners must stop consuming, others will loose their jobs. That means more stress on the economy of the municiplaity, which will have to get rid of employs = more unemployed, more people unable to consume and/or pay their debts. The spiral is very real then. Another economic factor to consider is how inflation affects the costs of pensions, now increasing rapidly.

    The Swedish solution: debts as a living

    2008-2010 we borrowed money, increased our debts, as a solution to a crisis. The then government made it easy to receive money for redecorating or rebuilding your house often. People did that. They rebuilt their homes, took more loans on their houses, and rebuilt some more. Expected yield in action.

    In 2020-2022 we have done the same thing over again. I can’t find the survey, but people had the opportunity to apply for a period of exemption from amortization, and many people used this period to buy things, not to save money for paying incoming mortgages.

    We have (and are living) lived far beyond our assets, as if we can do this forever. We should have paid our debts instead of buying annual trips, houses, boats, TV’s, cars.

    The second most indebted people in the European union are the Swedes, followed by the Dutch. The Danish are in the lead with a whooping §60.000 each. The same populations have the highest debt quota as well. Ironically they constitute three of the four members of the “Frugal Four” in the EU (Finland being the fourth country), the four countries not really willing to lend money to countries with a high national debt, causing anger in southern Europe during the pandemic.

    There’s plenty of other factors here, like the crazy housing market in Sweden, the craze for quick money through stocks or gambling, the lack of savings among Swedish househoulds. But I stop here.

    Free fall for months

    For years my belief has been that the debts in themselves are enough to create a financial crisis when the interest rate increases. That has occured this year and will continue. Incremental steps are enough of a tipping point, because the debts are so large. The municipalities must pay many more millions for simple, really cheap, loans (seen historically, 2 % interest rate is not much) and need to lay off staff. Citizens must choose between food on one hand and a Netflix subscription and tickets to the cinema on the other every month. That times tens of thousands of people leave even more people without jobs, which means less money for the municipalities in tax income and more expenses in social care. And so we spiral downwards. From my perspective, we were like a block of ice on a roof come undone from the rest of the ice sheet last autumn. Then Russia attacked Ukraine and the ice block gained speed. Inflation increased, energy prices and fuel prices soared during the summer and it gained even more speed. Now we’ve fallen off the roof in free fall. Central banks keep raising interest rates, inflation is not down.

    Perhaps we land in February, perhaps in April. Compared to 2008 and the pandemic, this is going to hurt for real.

  • Dead soldiers in Clearview AI (Revised June 15th)

    Dead soldiers in Clearview AI (Revised June 15th)

    The war between Russia and Ukraine rages on. One method for the Ukrainian resistance to raise awareness of the number of dead Russian (and Ukrainian) soldiers is to use Clearview AI, the facial network services company, which can detect faces and connect them to, for instance, social media profiles. It’s also a method for the Ukrainian Ministry for Digital Transformation and five other Ukrainian agencies to detect dead soldiers scattered on and around battlefields.

    On January 6th 2021, two weeks before the inauguration of Joe Biden as president, we could witness the attack on the Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. Afterwards, authorities could tap into the network services of Clearview AI and, quite easily, detect hundreds of participants in these illegal activities. Many of them have been prosecuted and some sentenced to jail. Clearview AI has amassed billions of photos on the public Internet for years, rendering them extremely able to pinpoint human beings if you have a Clearview AI account. The image I have of you will be matched against this gigantic image database and probably tell me it is you, even if we haven’t met for years (or ever).

    The podcast Click Here has a good episode on this and how it’s used in Ukraine. On the one hand employees of the Ministry of Digital Transformation use proper Clearview AI accounts, thus being able to match most images of dead soldiers with real people, even if years have passed, the deceased have no eyes and parts of the faces are distorted. They inform both Ukrainian and Russian relatives and tell them where to retrieve the body.

    More problematic is the fact that groups affiliated with the Ukrainian IT Army appear to use an account too, also informing Russian relatives, though in a(n) (even) more condescending and hostile way. Russian relatives are probably feeling neither gratitude, nor appreciation for suddenly receiving images of dead bodies, especially with gloating or condescending messages.

    Even if I remain a skeptic, there are some reasons for using this kind of technology.

    1. War is gruesome and disgusting. People die and preferably they should be identified. Computers and programs can help here and make this much easier and faster than humans.
    2. War crimes are committed and should be investigated. Technology can help here too.
    3. Russian authorities are not the ones to inform relatives that sons have died in accidents, wars or “special military operations”. They can lie and this is where technology can help tell otherwise.
    4. Identification of people is not dependant on favourable relations with another nation’s authorities. Identification can be made without another nation’s consent, because their citizens are in databases elsewhere anyway.

    There are more cons, however, some really strong.

    1. These databases will be targeted by states, state-sponsored organizations, rogue organizations and individuals.
    2. States will strive to acquire similar databases in order to identify anyone anytime anywhere.
    3. To presume that Russian relatives will feel anger at their government and/or gratitude towards Ukrainians for sending images of their dead ones is really bad. Rather, it can galvanize public support for Russian authorities.
    4. The hope for grieving mothers’ movements to direct their anger at the Russian regime is likewise bad. Why should they, especially if there’s anonymous messages from foreigners telling them they are blind to facts and supporting an evil leader?
    5. Disinformation warfare 1 – whom to believe? A random person from another country claiming my relative is dead or the national authorities?
    6. Disinformation warfare 2 – I can assert you to be a traitor and use this tool to prove it.
    7. Disinformation warfare 3 – can “photoshopped” images be run in Clearview AI?
    8. Disinformation warfare 4 – this kind of technology can trigger an even worse response and method of war, spiralling further down.
    9. Misidentification of individuals happen in every other computer system, so why shouldn’t it happen with Clearview AI.
    10. Gathering of images is done without consent or information and for how long will they be kept?

    Similar systems in use today are the combination of Sky Net and Integrated Joint Operations Platform in China. They are very creepy and should probably be banned altogether, because the more of this technology there is, the more it will be used. Based on a decision in May, Clearview AI is no longer allowed to sell its database to private businesses in the US and to Illinois state agaencies (for five years in the latter case). At this point, the database comprises 20 billion facial photos.

    But. After all, it’s rather easy to stay emotionally detached if you’re not in Ukraine, living your life, albeit with inflation and a shaky economy. Still, the war is far away and it’s easy to say this use, weaponized use, of images is wrong. But in a different situation, with war, death, fear and suffering around me, I’d probably be doing it myself.

  • Perspectives on the war in Ukraine

    Perspectives on the war in Ukraine

    I have been listening intently to a number of podcasts because of the war in Ukraine. One that is not mainly on the daily “progress” of the war, but rather from a higher perspective is The Ezra Klein Show from New York Times. I cannot recommend the episode with Timothy Snyder enough, for three reasons.

    One, it gives insight into the historical relationship (and lack of) between Russia and Ukraina and how Putin perceives this.

    Secondly, he asks what the democratic world would have done if the Ukrainians had laid down their weapons, the leadership fled the country and been easily subdued by the Russian army? What kind of anxious, existential crisis wouldn’t have taken place in Europe and North America? What criticizm would have been heard about the crisis of democracy, its’ inept ability to handle wars, to counter the deceptive and skilled authoritarian regimes?

    Third, Snyder says that every day the Ukrainians fight, they fight for the rest of us in the democratic countries. They give us a better chance to practicing democracy, of thinking about what a future we want for ourselves and others.

    Another guest on the same podcast is Masha Gessen, who discusses Putin’s rather twisted historical perspective on Ukraine and Russia. They have written a book on Russia that can be seen as interlinked with Snyder – Putin lives in the past, we must conquer the future.