DRIVELRY.COM Publishing, tech and social media colliding messily

What’s the problem with the political staffers researching untapped votes in the electorate?
Why they aren’t capitalising more on space? That’s ‘Space’ with a  capital ‘S’.

The prevalence of Space memes in popular culture

We all know about space, it’s the frontier meme that entire cable television channels are built around like the ‘Sci Fi’ channel, it’s the one that is the standard fare of blockbuster after blockbuster. 

“How do we reach 20-somethings?” pundits moan, “how can we get them out to vote?”

Want to guess what one of the most popular Twitter feeds was in May standing at 42 in Twitter’s rankings? It was the Mars Phoenix probe. The two Mars Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity launched in 2003, are still driving around the Mars landscape today, more than 17 times their original expected lifespan, and in the week following their landing on Mars NASA’s website recorded 1.7 billion hits, eclipsing all records from previous NASA missions.

Consult the movie database IMDB.Com and you’ll find there are 2400 sci-fi movies that have been released over the last 10 years.  Hollywood has even produced two major blockbusters specifically dealing with a plot involving asteroids striking the earth, ‘Deep Impact’ and ‘Armageddon’.

Do a search on ‘McCain AND NASA’ and you get 4.24m results on Google. Do a search on ‘Obama AND NASA’ and you get 4.5m results. Just to put this in context a search on ‘McCain AND economics’ gets 6.5m results or ‘Obama AND economics’ gets 7.42m results.

Put simply the electorate out there has a huge interest in this subject. So you can’t say the worldwide audience hasn’t been well prepared for bold policy initiatives on space.

How much is being spent on Space by national governments

Whilst there is clearly a vote or 10 in space exploration it is also interesting that it is not taken more seriously on its own merits by politicians.

With world population having grown from 2.5 billion people in 1950 to an expected 8.9 billion people in 2050 and a range of non-resource related global risks from nuclear/biological to asteroid impacts, this is not just about getting votes from legions of devoted Star Trek fans.

Yet, US spending on space (probably one of the highest national budget allocations) represents just .6% of the national budget. The British National Space Centre, which actually has a budget cobbled together out of allocations from various other departmental budgets, has an annual budget of around £200 million pounds, compared to an estimated UK government budget of in excess of £500,000 million ponds or put it another way .04% of the UK budget is spent on space and the USA spends fifteen times the proportion of its national budget on space than Britain. 

On the surface it’s the Europeans who seem to take Space much more seriously: the European Space Agency, which is contributed to GDP-proportionally by EU member states, spends about €2.8 billion euros of its total budget of 116 billion euros, i.e. more than 2% of its total budget on space.

However, when you consider that 70% of EU funding comes from the member state allocations which represent just .73% of each member country’s gross national income, you can start to see in Europe too, that space exploration is nowhere in funding terms (admittedly this does not take into account what European national governments spend individually on space outside the ESA – in most cases not a lot). 

Let businesses fund Space exploration?

Some people argue that it’s not up to governments to fund space exploration. The private sector should do it.

Frankly it doesn’t seem worth spending a lot of time on this argument. For a start, if we’re talking about the implicit benefits of space colonization to the human race as a whole there’s just no property rights. Why would a corporation spend money on putting say a manned base on the moon when it’s not clear who owns the moon or the resources on it?

Exploration of this nature carries risk that is well outside the parameters of normal commercial returns with totally unmodel-able cash payoffs. It’s for this reason that the British Admiralty funded Cook’s expedition to Australia, or that the Spanish government of the time funded Columbus.

It’s obviously going to involve corporations in supplier roles and it is interesting the way that SpacEx has taken on the job of redesigning rockets to deal with the impact of the retirement of the space shuttle program on the space station, but at the moment serious space exploration and colonization does not have the commercial payoffs to attract businesses.

That is not to say that there is a long list of commercial products that have originated with space programs but at the moment it’s a bit like air: it’s of immense benefit to the human race but you can’t make a buck from it. 

Space exploration is one of the truly global unifying themes

There are also major benefits in terms of emphasizing the commonalities of nation states over their differences, because fundamentally it is a very harsh environment out there and public emphasis on Space would be a far better use of money than spending more on defense budgets.  There are so many problems to solve, ranging from radiation protection, to creating sealed sustainable habitats, that participating as a country doesn’t need to involve putting up rockets.

Would it be totally far-fetched to imagine a ‘Space Olympics’ that focused public attention on the challenges every four years in the spirit of international cooperation?

Looking at the level of interest (outside the realm of politics!) this is an Olympics I’d like to own the broadcasting rights for.

Posted under Unanswerable questions

Even as someone who started working on the web 12 years ago I am still awed by the ripples spreading out from simple full text search.

Dinner party argument about an obscure fact? Google it. Wish there was a piece of software written by someone that organised your email just-so.. Google it. How much has the Korean market risen over the last couple of years? Google it. Want to find a phone number for restaurant? Yep, Google it.

Economists talk about search costs in the sense of the preamble to a buying decision made by a consumer and although some people have questioned whether web search engines = reduced consumer search costs my personal analysis is that I am now able to find information that 10 years ago I wouldn’t have been able to without investing considerably more time and money. 

But what about the quality of that information? In a discussion with a publishing friend a couple of weeks ago she noted that the problem with distinguishing ‘good’ information on the web, was that Google didn’t tell you what was ‘good’ quality information and what was a poor quality information.

Of course, this is not entirely true, as Google’s search results algorithm takes into account the number of people on other websites out there on the web who link to your website, and considers that each outgoing link to your site as a ’vote’ for the quality of your site (PageRank). All other things being equal, the more incoming links, the closer your website to the top of the search results.

However what if that (perhaps even well-linked to) information out there on the web is just plain wrong?

It’s staggering what well meaning and often highly intelligent people believe just by virtue of having found it on the internet (or having received something by email from a friend ‘check it out’ by simply Googling it to obtain confirmation) and then believe it is true.

Here are three important things (see links for details) you need to know right now about dangerous cancer health risks inside your home:

1. having a wifi network in your home increases your chance of cancer and particularly your kids’ cancer risk (if they’ve got one at school speak to your parent teacher association – it should be ripped out right now)
2. using underarm deoderant increases your chances of breast cancer
3. re-using plastic mineral water bottles gives you cancer as well

There are some giveaways when you read these articles as to their real validity, for instance often the articles concerned will use wording that should set off alarm bells, like (in the BBC article above on wifi networks) “there is insufficient long-term evidence to demonstrate whether such networks are safe”.

Think about this for a minute … what exactly would such evidence look like…. hmmm…. perhaps use of wireless networks for 30 or so years by children with no statistically signficant difference in cancer incidence for them versus non-wifi exposed children? How exactly do you prove something is safe in that sort of context - well I guess there’s 50 years or so experience of use of radio transmitters appearing to be pretty safe but does that ‘prove’ it always safe?  Fundamentally I suspect you can’t prove something is safe by this sort of formulation - you can only ‘prove’ something is unsafe.

There is other authoritative documentation on the the web which might seem to undermine the thrust of this BBC article (for example the UK Health Protection Agency here) but it doesn’t necessarily appear at the top of the search results.

For all Google’s comprehensiveness and PageRank the fact that (as of writing) the 4th result for the phrase “underarm deodorant breast cancer aluminium oxide” doesn’t mean that it’s true. Not all web information sources are equal. For example, the National Cancer Institute governmental site says  pretty clearly “There is no conclusive research linking the use of underarm antiperspirants or deodorants and the subsequent development of breast cancer.”

Finally, let’s try Googling “cancer re-use of plastic bottles” and as expected there at the number two result all our worst fears are realized. So what does the American Cancer Society have to say about it:

These emails are apparently based on a student’s college thesis. In fact, DEHA is not inherent in the plastic used to make these bottles, and even if it was the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says DEHA “cannot reasonably be anticipated to cause cancer” 

This last example is also interesting as the myth appeared to be based on a student’s college thesis, which raises the key point that somewhere in the world you can always find a scientist (sometimes retired) who is prepared by reason of fame, fortune or other more positive reasons, to support your claim. 

That doesn’t make it true.

And in effect this very article today is merely perpetuating the three myths above.

Why? Because in spite of the thrust of the paragraphs above, this article links to three websites on the web where the myths are given credence. Because of the links above Google has just received further evidence that perhaps these myths have validity and will rank them higher in search results!

And if you receive an email shortly from a trusted friend claiming that Bill Gates will pay you to forward it, my guess is that somewhere you can find supporting evidence for this on the web.

Posted under Unanswerable questions

If you’re a Republican or Democrat in the US, Tory and Labourite in the UK, or Liberal or Labor supporter in Australia then when elections come around in a sense you have a choice.

By choice I mean two things:

1. you are able to vote for someone whose approach you broadly believe in, and, 
2. your vote’counts’ because in all these two party states (note that’s only one more party than a “one party state”) there is not a huge gulf between both party’s vote share (as both are always trying to capture the middle ground)  so there is always a reasonable chance of a change of government (for the moment let’s ignore the generally powerless nature of voting in a ’safe seat’).

Now consider the rest of us: those of us who typically vote for minority parties, those of us who don’t vote at all (sometimes because we don’t feel knowledgeable enough to even make a meaningful choice), and those of us who hold our noses and vote for the ‘least worst’ of the two parties.

Just how many of these people are there? i.e. people who don’t vote at all, or don’t vote for one of the major parties (obviously we can’t really tell who is holding their noses).

Well I included Australia in the list because bizarrely if you don’t vote there you even get fined by law! So as much as we can talk about the dubious nature of compulsory voting we can’t talk about turnout. However we can still look at how many votes voted for one of the two major parties, the Liberals or Labour. And as it happens 79% of the population voted in the national 2008 election for one of the above. Sounds ok (perhaps) until you realize that 20% of the population never had a chance of their party being elected (or other words 1 in 5 people in the electorate could be said to be ‘disenfranchised’ in that their choice of party was never going to exercise power).

What about the UK? Well in the last national election in 2005 turnout was 61%  – so straight off we can say that 39% of the population (or roughly 2 people in 5) did not feel that they had much in the way of political choice. And if we look at those who voted for the Tories or Labour that is only 67% of the 61% of voter age population who actually voted. Let’s say that less than half the voter population had a real choice.

Finally the US. Well the 2004 presidential elections saw voter turnout of 55% i.e. almost 1 in 2 people didn’t consider they had a worthwhile choice.

Still feeling isolated because you can’t bring yourself to align with one the major parties with a real chance of winning government?

Well you’re joining in excess of 20% of the voter population in Australia, in excess of 50% of the voter population of the UK, and 45% of the voter population of America.

This is a huge number of people who are essentially outside the political system and even given the size of those numbers a conservative estimate. Why? Because many of the two party supporters voted in ’safe seats’ where there was never any real chance of unseating the incumbent.

So what is this huge mass of people (let’s call them the ‘non-aligned voters’) supposed to do when elections roll around?

We want our voice to be heard, but not by singing friom either of the two major hymn-sheets.

It looks like the answer lies outside the major parties in the non-aligned political movements who fund campaigns on individual issues.

Specifically we can find a home in organisations who specifically do not want to be elected to minority seats but want to actively influence policy formation. Organisations ranging from single issue groups like Greenpeace, to multi-issue groups like moveon.org or getup.org.au in Australia (for the moment there appears to be no pre-eminent players in the multi-issue space in the UK).

The traditional political parties have nothing to offer and the numbers reflect it. Over the last 50 years or so certainly in Australia and the UK the number of major party memberships has dropped like a stone (for example around 1950 the Torys in the UK had 3m members – their membership is now estimated to be around 300,000). As party membership dried up in Australia the major parties even decided they needed to dip into the public purse to fund their election campaigns (they are now paid a bounty out of the public purse for every vote they garner in the general election!).

Fundamentally these parties have proven unwilling (what incentive do they have to do otherwise?) to shake up the system that delivers them power with such low levels of general support (most parties are elected to government with by far and away a minority of the population).  It’s as if your bank operated like it did in the 1950s with no online access to your accounts, no sophisticated savings products, and it opened for very limited trading hours (like once every few years …).

Pretty bleak huh?

Well there might be a silver lining of sorts….

As the ‘non-aligned’ mass of people dissillusioned with the present political menu grows (the 2001 election turnout in the UK was the lowest for almost a century) the ability of parties to ’sell’ their policies whilst in goverment has greatly diminished.

Increasingly governing (in the sense of running the executive arm of government) has less to do with elections and everything to do with negotiating with powerful lobby groups who have interests in relation to your leglslative agenda.

Organisations like GetUp and Moveon are doing what political parties are not doing: becoming lobby groups that enable people to engage on single issues (why shouldn’t you be able to do this – you’re unlikely to agree with every single policy your party has across the board), feeding people regular information by email (rather than a leaflet through the door every few years), and providing people with an electronic space which includes polls to express their views.

They’re not winning elections but they are definitely influencing government and they are giving the ‘non-aligned’ a sense of choice again. 

It’s hard to understand why the major parties can’t see this… but then on the other hand as an elected representative the smaller your support group the easier it is to manage.

Posted under Unanswerable questions

Ongoing exposure to preschoolers is a bit like unexpected exposure to Alzheimers. The expectation for a lot of adults is that somehow the preschoolers will remember this period of their life.

But will they?

Probably not. Ask anyone you know whether they remember when they were 3 or 4.  

Does this period give them maybe just an emotional response to various figures in their lives?

Some parents probably hope so. But are they kidding themselves?

Sure, we can all fall into patterns of relating to small children – but just say the pattern was impermanent – suddenly a kid hits his/her 4th birthday and the adult that imposed this pattern changed it overnight. Then what?

I guess there are a bunch of people out there who work with very young abused kids who probably know the answer to some of this.

On the plus side there are probably a whole bunch of adults who remember little of the mistakes made by their learner parents in their early years…

Posted under Unanswerable questions