Skip to content

{ tag Archives } Politics

Scalia likes …

Some time ago I had a discussion at the Rathenau institute with Geert Munnich about a new project they are setting up (the picture on the side I took of Geert and Mirjam Schuijff to show them that it is not only information they publish themselves that may harm their privacy but also pictures someone else might take that includes date and GPS data). During this meeting we talked about the idea that in a way the Internet is often used for the same purpose as the formal databases are used to find information about people. There is so much valuable information to find on people if you take some effort to find it. It is probably even richer than the data in many formal databases like those form the civil service. In relation to this I came across this article. It deals with Judge Scalia of the supreme court in the USA. He has always played privacy issues down in relation to information stored on the Internet. However, recently a professor of law in the USA asked a group of his students to compile a dossier ...
[more ....]
2009 05 07 Martijn Kriens privacyTags: , , Comments (0)

Transparancy in politics

I recently came across this website that is dedicated to fact checking on political statements in the USA. If you listen to the candidates for US president it is often very hard to know if they are talking the truth, bending the truth in their direction or lying outright. Interesting to see that this website (and there are several other ones like this one) are increasing the transparancy a lot. It is shocking to see how much "distorted truths" are being told by these politicians. The power of sites like these is that it will be getting harder and harder to stretch the truth once very white lie is monitored..
2008 09 07 Martijn Kriens PoliticsTags: , Comments (0)

Private?

I came across this article in the paper on Saturday about the fact that civil servants are adding and changing information on Wikipedia during working hours. Some time ago I blogged about the Wikiscanner and of course one can see more and more how important transparency is. There have been numerous cases where with the help of the wikiscanner people have been found out while trying to create their own truth ... However, the question is how are we going to deal with this transparency. Of course ciivil servants also use the Wikipedia during working hours and of course they sometimes also change information. Just like people in companies and people at home. Wherever we are we still remain individual human beings. One of the effects of Web 2.0 is that the different roles we have are more and more blending together. At all times of the day we are private person, employee, citizen, husband and father and can switch easily between all these roles. Somehow we have to learn how to deal with this transparency. The fact that information came from a computer within a public department ...
[more ....]
2007 11 19 Martijn Kriens PoliticsTags: , , , Comments (0)

Who do you call

When I start to work on something new the first thing you do is find a lot of information about the subject you are going to deal with. However, information only gets you started. In order to really understand a subject it is essential to talk to people that have dealt with it before. You can read a wall of books on how to cure diseases but there is no substitute for a talk with the real expert. In every field the amount of knowledge to make the right decisions is so vast, you simply can not write everything down. In the past I did a project for bakery's and my task was to write down how they make the bread. One of the issues was how we could describe the moment the dough is ready to be laid down to rest. Terms like stickiness, feel, elasticity and many others where mentioned but there was no way to get a good description to tell someone knew when it was OK. The only way to learn this was to work together with an expert and be shown how it was to be done. (this reminds me of a ...
[more ....]
2007 10 02 Martijn Kriens governanceTags: , , Comments (0)

black swans

Bill sent me this article that describes how voters have a systematic bias regarding some economic effects. The article questions the fact that voters in general have a bias for anti-market, anti-foreign, anti-efficiency loss of work and a pessimistic outlook. This systematic bias of course would lead to bad decisions since the errors do not even out. The stupidity of the crowds. Though I think part of the bias is not completely false due the following reasons: Not all companies are rational too. Look at some of the big mergers in the world where the merger is probably more driven by the ego of the winning CEO than by economical motives. Most large mergers fail Not all market are markets where demand and supply have a more or less balanced power. Once one side creates a invincible power and becomes a monopoly the market stops. Look at Microsoft or the cartel of energy companies in the Netherlands. Health is also an example where it is very hard to impossible to establish a fair market because it involves your health... Markets are driven by the ...
[more ....]
2007 09 27 Martijn Kriens Politics
diversityTags: , , , Comments (2)

PANGEA DAY

First have a look at the video: The way I see it the idea behind this video is that until now images have been used for a lot of bad reasons. Their message on their website is: So ask yourself this. If you had the entire world's attention for just a few minutes, what story would you tell? Perhaps you think the world looks at you, your country and your culture... and just doesn't understand. Then do something about it. Make a film and upload it here http://www.youtube.com/group/pangeaday. You never know. It could end up bringing millions of people that bit closer together. The least you can say is that they are used to influence a lot of people at the same time. As they say: "images of the many have been in the hands of the few". How extraordinary it would be to look through the eyes of other people around the world. Not the people in control of the big cameras but ordinary people like you in me. And in a way we can if you look at the video somebody makes when he ...
[more ....]
2007 09 16 Martijn Kriens Politics
crowdsourcing
diversity
social networksTags: , , Comments (0)

Conversation

Some books are very helpful in making you understand developments. This summer I have read a book called "The Cluetrain manifesto". Central theme of the book (which by the way is written in 2000 but started as as website in 1999) is the statement that markets (and a lot of other things) are conversations. The way companies use corporate communications and PR to tell us how we should think about them simply does not work anymore. It makes you think. When I go to the market each Saturday to get the ingredients for a nice dinner I am in constant conversation. I tell the girl that always helps me with the vegetables how they were last week and she tells me what kind of specials she has this week. Sometimes we discuss how the ingredients are best used for the recipe I will be making. I learn from her and sometimes I can tell her new things. Same with the small butcher that I go to. In essence this is a weekly conversation that accompanies the business we do together. The one greatly enhances the other. In ...
[more ....]
2007 09 06 Martijn Kriens long tail
paticipation
social networksTags: , , , , Comments (0)

La Dolce vita

It has been a long time since last post due to vacation and various other activities. But even in vacation time you can still enjoy the possibilities of all the new channels of communication and communities. There is a (closed) discussion group I am member of that deals with various political subjects. Many of the members are educated as philosophers and the discussions are on a very interesting level. One of the people in this group is an American living in the Bourgogne in France. During the vacation I sent him an e-mail to suggest to meet for drinks when I would be traveling through France on the way back home. He was so nice to invite us to his house and stay the night there. Imagine: in the middle of the beautiful country side in the Bourgogne in a water mill dating back to the year 1300. Great company, great place, great food, great wine (probably the best red wine I ever tasted) and great conversation. We enjoyed ourselves immensely. One of the other surprises was how my son of 11 years was able to converse in English. Due to his playing games ...
[more ....]
2007 08 26 Martijn Kriens UncategorizedTags: , , Comments (0)

A thousand lies

This is such an interesting example of how our new production of information can go wrong:This is an interview with Christine Boutin, the French minister of housing, about the conspiracy that George W Bush is behind the attack on the WTC towers on 9/11. A small translation of the first part goes like this: I think that it's possible. I think that it's possible... I think it is possible. I think it more especially as I know that the sites that speak of is problem are the sites that have the greatest numbers of visits....And so, I tell myself, I who am extremely sensitive...to the new techniques of information and communication, that this expression of the mass of the people cannot be without any truth. I'm not telling you that I adhere to that position, but let's say that, nevertheless, I'm questioning myself a bit on this question Some time ago I talked about the fact that due to ease of copying information of the Internet it is possible for an item of ...
[more ....]
2007 07 09 Martijn Kriens diversity
long tail
recommandationTags: , , , Comments (1)

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Does Wikipedia work or doesn't it? That is the question.There is a lot of discussion on what the quality of Wikipedia is and how we should use it. An interesting point of view is the comparison with Open Source software. I think there are two quite important distinctions how Wikipedia and the Open Source movement handle the way they organize their processes. Wikipedia is for the most part anarchy. Anybody can simply put some information in and correct whatever is there. Even when Einstein would have written the part about relativity than john doe can easily "improve" upon it. On pages where this leads to numerous changes (who the hell does this Einstein guy thinks he is by changing what I, John Doe, have shown to the world...) the adopt a feudalist approach where some people (the Aristocracy) have received special administrator powers by Jimmy Wales (the King, Wikipedia: c'est moi). Open Source has adopted a much more open approach to this. Also here you find the few who are at the inner circle with special powers but they are promoted there by the group based on their merit. In software it is ...
[more ....]
2007 07 02 Martijn Kriens Politics
Social Software
governance
workspaceTags: , , Comments (0)

Citizen participtation

Yesterday we had a meeting for the political party I am active in (the PVDA in Arnhem). The subject was participation of citizens in the decisions the local government is taking. Often decisions effect the direct environment of the citizen itself. It is amazing how little trust people can have in the capabilities of groups of people. Many feel that giving much responsibility to the people in an area to determine the way a reconstruction budget is spent is foolish since they can not agree or some people will only go for their own interest. I think web 2.0 will be an interesting concept also in this environment. Giving enough participants in the discussion to create diversity this will give amazing results. Precondition is of course that the civil servants start with the idea that contributions from citizens can be valuable. At his moment they normally start to develop their plans and when they are ready they ask the citizens: ?do you like this?". A better way would be to start the participation before the plan and collect all the good ideas in order to incorporate this into the plan. Social software gives us so much more possibilities to be open to ideas from ...
[more ....]
2007 05 23 Martijn Kriens Politics
workspaceTags: Comments (0)