Control Yourself

Isn’t it another paradox – or at least another formulation of various paradoxa? …

as always, continued on http://www.esosc.eu

moved …

This blog is now closed, i.e. transferred – with a new design to another place:
I would love to welcome you now at

https://danteskaleidoscope.blog/

new postings, in addition to the normal business will also be posted at

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkmJnIQdH8ZMybMy-SbDXhho1kyHAtPYH

Only Data?

Datafication, Digitisation, Artificial Intelligence, (New) Singularity … – there are different terms used, as much as there are different terms used to to grasp the character of our societies: burocratisation, red tape, administered society, alienated structures. And we find different metaphors and phenomona: the age-old gaming machine

from 1958

and the android, nearly impossible to make out as different from the human.

But …, well, there may be a but. Recently a small group of members of the European Academy of Science and Arts met with the aim of establishing a working group on Digitisation, Artificial Intelligence and Ethics, bringing colleagues from different disciplins together. I put some initial ideas together which may also be of general interst and can be found here. There is a good reason to think what it means to exist as human being.

In the shadow of the German elections

It had been a major day in terms of elections in Germany, going far beyond the elections to the German parliament, which marked the stepping down of Angela Merkel after 16 years as Chancellor. In Berlin there had been four votes, three for the different levels of the federate system, and one that is especially outside of Berlin perhaps not even known: the referendum concerning the expropriation of the Deutsche Wohnen& Co, i.e. major real estate groups. Looking at the figures, it had been a referendum about more than 200.000 flats. As the rbb-website knows:

Everyone who was also allowed to vote in the elections to the House of Representatives was allowed to vote in the referendum. That was around 2.47 million Berliners. The referendum is successful if the majority of those voting ticked “yes”.

And this is what happened: though the final results are not yet available, there had been a clear majority.The vote had not been about the expropriation as such, but about forcing the senate (the Parliament of Berlin) to elaborate a plan for the expropriation. In legal terms a more or less tricky thing, as the referendum referred to article 15, not 14 of the German Basic law – and the term expropriation is far from being clear (— at the end of this blog-post I paste a passage from a text I wrote in a completely different context, to be published soonish).

Here and now I only want to make the vote, or even the fact of the referendum known, and congratulate the initiators.What is going to happen? It is far from being clear; and that means that major work, including campaigning for accommodation as Human Right — this is standing at the bottom line as affordable housing does not exist, not least due to speculation – will be necessary. Not least, if we look at the results of the election. – Again, the rbb-website

Since the referendum “Expropriate Deutsche Wohnen & Co.” will also elect a new House of Representatives, the result of the vote is more or less a basis for consultation for the parties that will negotiate a coalition after the election – probably led by Franziska Giffey (SPD), who recently clearly opposed the referendum.

**********

Interesting aspects had been discussed in the early 1950s by German public and constitutional law. Helmut K.J. Ridder, in a prominent presentation during the annual conference of the public policy and international law academics, engaged in the topic expropriation and socialisation, aiming on specifying the terms.[1] Although his contribution had been very much of the employed by discussing specific issues of the German basic law and it it’s articles 14 and 15, it is of general interest. Summarising the highly differentiated analysis, we have to point on two fundamentally different forms: the one aims on specifying the use of property, without actually changing the legal title whereas the other changes the property title. However, this is only part of the difference. Another, and more important, aspect becomes clear when we follow Ridder’s reflection on the motives. The following quote marks the fundamental difference:

In the case of expropriation, the de-privatisation of property is also seen on the part of the expropriating state or the state granting the right of expropriation, as it were, with an expression of regret for the affected party, necessary for the sake of the administrative project, because a free contractual settlement was or would be rejected by the affected party or would be practically impossible to implement for other reasons.

In the case of social devaluation, the de-privatisation of the assets of the person effected is decisive, because the private character of the assets is thought to be currently or potentially harmful to society. Compared to this negative purpose of social devaluation, the positive aspects of a general nature (new impulses for the national economy, raising the standard of living of broad strata, etc.) are at most of secondary importance and those of a special nature (increasing the profitability in a certain branch of the economy, etc.) are almost insignificant … .[2]

In short, we see in the one case a measure, that intervenes in an individual case, thus making a specific ‘project’ possible; in the other case we are witnessing a kind of system change that is independent of an individual case, aiming on a change of a structural issue. It may be in one case, the intervention allowing to build a road, in the other case it would an intervention that allows to structurally influence the availability of accommodation. Another aspect is occasionally added, also in some way proposed by Ridder: the latter case is distinct from nationalisation, transferring ownership – responsibility for care and use – directly to citizens.

Finally, he suggests that subsequently the social devaluation – unlike expropriation is not a legal institution but a legal form, as such part of a fundamental change:

Cases, regulated by expropriation, can recur randomly. The state uses expropriation ad hoc. That is why its focus is also … on the individual act.

The social devaluation has a unique aim; it fulfils the mission of socialisation. The Basic Law expressly permits, as is appropriate to the matter, only the legislative path for social devaluation according to Article 15. And it is a condition that these laws are not only applied do not only cover a part of the enterprises of a certain branch of industry.[3]

As much as all this is crucially a matter of the economy, it is important to note, that with this the establishment of a mindset is going hand in hand. We can easily see that for instance health related behaviour, health services, and related issues are influenced by this mindset: the question would then be, if health is considered as something that is secured by society or that must be secured by individuals themselves; the question is also, if the individual has in case of transmittable diseases main responsibility towards others.

To conclude, we may say that appropriation should in its definition be linked to an elaborated understanding of appropriateness. Politically this can only be realised by developing a multilateral and global approach towards democracy, on the one hand referring to the fact that we are dealing with the global economy, on the other hand equally accepting the diversity when it comes to the mode of production.

---

[1] Ridder, Helmut, 1951: Enteignung und Sozialisierung; in: Ungeschriebenes Verfassungsrecht. Enteignung und Sozialisierung. Verhandlungen der Tagung der Deutschen Staatsrechtslehrer zu Göttingen am 18. und 19. Oktober 1951. Mit einem Auszug aus der Aussprache. With contributions by: Ernst von Hippel, Alfred Voigt, Hans P. Ipsen and Helmut K. Ridder Volume 10 in the series Veröffentlichungen der Vereinigung der Deutschen Staatsrechtslehrer; 124-147; https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110900750; 22.09.21

[2] Supra 14: 140

[3] Supra 14: 142

no end …

There is no end to progress I suppose …

Recently, after booking a hotel, I received a mail from the inn in the park, telling me that I would find the bed linen in the room, just next to the safe. I should activate the hoover so that the robot-thing would start with doing some of the cleaning. also it said:

In case you enjoy one of our excellent snacks, please, clean the dishes afterwards — you are not supposed to dry them as we do not change kitchen towels anymore.

Finally, if there is anything you need, please contact the helpline … after pressing several numbers for the different options you will most likely be disconnected, or in the worst case connected to a bot. Unfortunately, training them to be friendly, did not leave much capacities for training them to be usefull.

Well, that still may be the future – at the moment only offering online ceck-in. Still, it may be just one of the many steps towards the ultimate future of customers’ participation.

Flight MU7158 – looking back

Finally the return flight – from home, back to home – making notes for another key note, preparing a key change

while humming a song, remembering a passage from Kazuo’s Klara and the Sun

‘It can’t be, can it, Klara? That you believe you’ve made an arrangement?’

I thought Manager was about to reprimand me, the way she’d reprimanded two boy AFs once for laughing at Beggar Man from the window. But Manager placed a hand on my shoulder and said, in a quieter voice than before:

‘Let me tell you something, Klara. Children make promises all the time. They come to the window, they promise all kinds of things. They promise to come back, they ask you not to let anyone else take you away. It happens all the time. But more often than not, the child never comes back. Or worse, the child comes back and ignores the poor AF who’s waited, and instead chooses another. It’s just the way children are. You’ve been watching and learning so much, Klara. Well, here’s another lesson for you. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, Manager.’

‘Good. So let’s have no more of this.’ She touched my arm, then turned away.

made to measure – setting the standards

Data tracking, as referred to recently, is one point; the apparent impossibility to avoid, due to the lack of knowledge; another point …

Well, let me tell a little story here:The other day I called a company, regarding the delivery of a parcel. Though I said who I am … as one does, making a phomem call (here is …/… speaking), I did not provide any other details, not even saying what I ordered. “I will check it with the warehouse and will send you an email … “- and that is what he did. – Do I have to state the reason for being surprised about receiving a mail without having provided proper informatio that makes identification possible? Is it likely that somebody picks up the my name even if I mentioned it only en passant, not emphasising it, clearly stating it? ???
Anyway, without denying the severity of the tracking issue, there is another point that makes me think:

Didn’t we standardise our own lives already for a long time, making it easy to be cloned? Aren’t we too often behaving like sheep – you may remember Dolly, the sheep. Or put it differently: didn’t we double or even multiply ourselves, following trends, fashions, mainstream thinking … resisting resistance? Aren’t we all little tyrants against ourselves? Sure, there are the inescapabilities – having no money isn’t funny; but that isn’t an excuse for everything.

a question

Our answer to the question what the most thought-provoking thing might be is the assertion : most thought-provoking for our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking.

Martin Heidegger, 1968 (German original 1954): What is called thinking? – A translation of Was ist Denken? by Fred D. Weck and J. Glenn Gray; with an introduction by J. Gay Glenn; New York and later: Harper & Row: 17

Remarkable proposal by artificial intelligence – I came across Heidegger’s book – and then this quote, when working on the internet, searching for something on today’s high-tech/AI-ideology and their manipulation of the world — no need to think, everything made to measure.

The State of Law – The Code of Answers, ignoring what the question is about

Nil sapientiæ odiosius acumine nimio. (Seneca)

Taking the floor during the BEN MASS Global Conference on Religious Diplomacy, organised by the Academy of Arts and Science on the 17th of July 2021, I raised my old concern again, elaborating on the tension between a purely formal understanding of the rule of law, based in an individualist understanding as it stands in the tradition of the Roman Law doctrine on the one hand and the need to emphasise that humans have to be understood as social animals, shaping there life through production as social process on the other hand. This leads us to an understanding of law that includes what is commonly called an ethical dimension; at the same time it has to be emphasised, however, that such dimension is not based in voluntary perspectives, but in clear guidelines emerging from the social character of production. Even if the importance of individual genius (and individual failure) should not be underestimated, it is at the end of the day the social, the social conditions, the historical context that determine our action – be it success or failure. This provides strong point of reference for the definition of the rule of law, defining responsibility and in particular social responsibility not as matter of distribution of what had been privately appropriated, but of securing societal conditions – material and ideational – that allow people to live comfortably together, meaning leading an appropriate life. And obviously this entails the two spects, one being about approriation, the other being about appropriateness as coherence.

Flying to the Moon

Work in Progress, together with Maria Yudina

While Sir Richard and JB entered a fierce competition, presumably standing every day in front of a mirror, asking themselves “mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the biggest smartass in the world”, I thought it may be worthwhile to publish the abstract of an article to come.

SOCIAL NARCISSISM – HOW SOCIETY PUSHES US TO OVERESTIMATE OUR CAPACITIES, LEAVING MANY BEHIND

Abstract

Truth is stranger than fiction.

Old Saying (taklen from E.A. Poe: THE THOUSAND-AND-SECOND TALE OF SCHEHERAZADE

The following introduces the concept of overlife, not claiming that it is an entirely new idea, however suggesting that it is a suitable term to bring different problems of contemporary societal development together. Broadly speaking, overload is defined as simultaneously condensing patterns of life and the actual living, i.e. intensifying living by establishing patterns of multitasking; however, doing so occurs for the price of a shallowed concept of life by a differentiated system of standardization. Simplification of cognition and education, not least in the context of digitization, are important factors: The apparently increasing control, everybody experiences, goes hand-in-hand with increasing difficulties of understanding – and enjoying – the complexity with which we are confronted. Still, although this seems to be a secular process concerning humanity and humans in general, control and power remains in the hands of a few who, as individuals and corporations, design life and society. Paradoxically, the theoretically gained possibility to answer complex questions and develop long-term perspectives, turns, at least under capitalist conditions, into narcistic idiosyncrasies, making people fly to outer space for 1.5 hours and wasting huge amounts of monies for the thrill of egos instead of strategically developing socio-economic strategies addressing major challenges as poverty, environmental threats, digitisation and new forms of stupidification.