Edward Snowden On Blockchains/Masha Gessen On An Injustice

Ben Wizner explains why he's making this discussion public:

"Through it all, I’ve found him to be the clearest, most patient, and least condescending explainer of technology I’ve ever met. I’ve often thought that I wished more people — or perhaps different people — could eavesdrop on our conversations. What follows is a very lightly edited transcript of one of our chats. In it, Ed attempts to explain “blockchain” to me, despite my best efforts to cling to my own ignorance."

and this comes almost a the very end of the discussion:

"This is the one interesting thing about blockchains: they might be that one tiny gear that lets us create systems you don’t have to trust. You’ve learned the only thing about blockchains that matters: they’re boring, inefficient, and wasteful, but, if well designed, they’re practically impossible to tamper with. And in a world full of shifty bullshit, being able to prove something is true is a radical development. Maybe it’s the value of your bank account, maybe it’s the provenance of your pair of Nikes, or maybe it’s your for-real-this-time permanent record in the principal’s office, but records are going to transform into chains we can’t easily break, even if they’re open for anyone in the world to look at.
The hype is a world where everything can be tracked and verified. The question is whether it’s going to be voluntary."

You can see how Snowden and his interviewer got there here.



Another example of our  imperfect justice system.  Some of it is 'the system.'  Much of it is people who simply don't care and do their job perfunctorily, without considering how they can make the system work better.  And some people get off on their power, which they can best demonstrate by harming others unnecessarily:

The Injustice of Siwatu Ra’s Imprisonment and the Relentless Logic of Mass Incarceration

"A story can defy belief and appear ordinary at the same time. This is such a story. Siwatu Ra, a twenty-six-year-old woman with no prior criminal record, was sentenced by a Detroit court, in March, to two years in prison on felonious assault and felony firearm charges, after brandishing a gun at another woman during an argument. Ra maintained that she pointed the gun in defense of herself, her mother, and her two-year-old daughter; her gun was unloaded and licensed, and she has a concealed-carry permit in Michigan, which is an open-carry, Stand Your Ground state. Ra was incarcerated as soon as she was sentenced, even though she appealed her conviction, and even though she was nearing her third trimester of pregnancy. Three months later, she gave birth in St. Joseph Mercy Hospital, in Ann Arbor, in the presence of four armed guards. Her son was taken from her two days later."

One can't help wishing that stats were easily available to test my belief that this result (the incarceration) would be less likely to happen at all if this were a white man, instead of a black woman.

The author,  Masha Gessen, has US and Russian citizenships, wrote a biography of Putin, and is just smart - both in intelligence and street smarts.

But I spent a good part of the day at the Kiddie Museum with my three grandkids.  Such activities are necessary for one's mental health in today's world, and because they still need to have a childhood full of fun and new experiences.