Questioning

I was listening to a podcast today, and the host brought up the Fine-Tuned Universe hypothesis. Listening to him, it struck me that what may actually have been at work was an answer to a mystery that exists mainly in people's imaginations.

The general gist of the Fine-Tuned Universe hypothesis is that the constants of nature, including the fundamental forces of gravity, electromagnetism, et cetera, have to be within very narrow parameters for "life as we know it" to exist, and this isn't something that can be easily (if at all) explained by the Anthropic Principle. For instance, if the strong nuclear force were the slightly-to-somewhat stronger nuclear force, and everything else were unchanged, fusion would work differently than it does in our current universe and so stars would operate differently.

The idea that the constants of nature being their current values purely by chance is highly unlikely gives rise to the Fine-Tuned Universe hypothesis being part of an argument for Intelligent Design; something had to set the constants to their current values, and that something is an immensely powerful deity.

Fair enough, I suppose, but... how, exactly, do we know that there are lots of different possible values that these constants could have? After all, we have a sample size of precisely 1. And, given that the whole of the Universe and the Observable Universe are not the same thing, potentially less than that.

And in this sense, the Fine-Tuned Universe hypothesis seems to be the answer to a question that there isn't actually enough information to ask. Rather, it's a solution to a question that comes into existence if certain assumptions that have been made about the nature of the physical laws of the Universe turn out to be correct... and even that assumes that scientists will be able to test them at some point.

Granted, I'm neither a scientist or a theologian, but I'm at a place in life where I'm okay with not knowing, and the very distinct possibility that no-one will ever know. It's a mystery to which I don't need a solution. The question is only as interesting as the answers that people produce to it. In part, because there are other, closer questions; ones that it does make sense that we may be able to answer, and those seem to be much more fruitful places in which to invest attention.

Accusatory

Using generative automation for things is quickly becoming a cardinal sin, and this is leading to an interesting social media phenomenon; calling people out for using generative "A.I." as a means of leveling a criticism without actually engaging with whatever it is that's being presented. It is, in effect, a form of ad hominem.

I suspect that it's a form of the Liar's Dividend, although not in a manner that I saw coming. While it does seek to sow distrust of others, it's not about the quality of the information itself, as had usually been noted. Here, it's a form of moral accusation, one the serves to disqualify the writer from further consideration of their ideas. I'm curious to see how long it lasts: Is this something that the Millennials and the cohorts that follow them will carry with them as a generational habit, or is it simply a fad that will fade away as the technology does whatever damage it will do, and then simply becomes part of the background noise?

I think, at least for now, it will be the latter. Most people today don't strike me as being committed Luddites (in the original sense of the term); they're not likely to give up things they want, or give up some portion of an attainable standard living, simply out of opposition to the technology that enables it. Once whatever is going to happen happens, there will be no profit in standing athwart history shouting "Stop!" Even in a race to the bottom, no one wants to be the last one to cross the finish line, and while generative automation may be worth complaining about, if younger people were any more likely than Generation X or the Baby Boomers to pay more money that necessary simply to support their ideas of the way the world should be; well, the world would look very different now. 

Bedrock

It's a simple enough sentiment: "The foundations of trust are reliability and integrity."

But, I would hasten to add, the foundation of reliability and integrity is trust. I first encountered it as a bit of snark, but "he who never wins and never quits is an idiot" is more true than I think many people are willing to give it credit for. Keeping one's word and keeping one's commitments are both predicated on the idea that there will be a payoff in the future.

And I think the problem is that the people who preach things like reliability, integrity and grit are so accustomed to the payoff happening that they don't realize that for many, if not most people in the world, it's not a given. If reliability and integrity are simply avenues to being taken advantage of, people aren't going to display them. Not out of a disdain for virtue, but out of a belief that virtue is an expensive path to receiving nothing in return.

Work To Do

I was listening to the most recent episode of Malwarebytes' Lock and Code podcast, this one on the topic of "pig butchering." I find the topic of online scams and frauds interesting, but perhaps just as importantly, being in the know can be prophylactic; a lot of what makes people vulnerable to being defrauded is not knowing the red flags that the person they're communicating with isn't who they claim to be, has ulterior motives or both.

But Lock and Code tends to repeat a mantra that I'm not 100% on board with; the idea that "anybody can be scammed." This isn't something that I find to be untrue, but I think the phrasing of it can give people the wrong idea. A lot of pig butchering schemes have a distinct romantic angle, the mark believes that they've encountered someone who genuinely cares for them, and is attempting to help them out; someone who could be a life partner as well as an investment partner.

But that's not a vector that everyone is susceptible to. Some people are going to reject the idea of an attractive stranger suddenly seeming to want a relationship, and others are going to look askance at the "investment opportunity" being offered. That doesn't make such people impervious to all fraud schemes, but it does inoculate them against this one.

I think a better way of putting it is that for any given individual, there is some amount of work that would fool them. And what protects most people is that for these schemes to operate at scale, the amount of work on any initial approach tends to be fairly low. But for more targeted schemes, a fraudster may be willing to put in quite a bit more effort.

This, for me, is the value of podcasts like Lock and Code; the knowledge shared makes low-effort frauds less effective. Because the biggest risk factor for being drawn in by a supposedly misdirected text message from a random stranger is not realizing that this is a common lead-in for all sorts of schemes. Knowing may have been half the battle on the old G.I. Joe cartoons, but when it comes to online fraud schemes, 85 or 90% may be a better number.

Sure, random podcasts, blog posts and news articles are never going to make anyone absolutely impervious to trickery; anyone willing to put in the work may find a way to get to their target. But these resources increase the amount of work that needs to be done, and given the number of schemes where the initial amount of effort is really minimal, that can save a lot of people a lot of grief. 

Petitioning

Conservative Political Action Committee "Let's Go Washington" is attempting to get a pair of initiatives on the ballot that I suspect that many people would describe as anti-transgender. So today, they were at my usual grocery store (which doesn't allow for initiative petitions on the premises) looking for signers. Apparently, they'd telegraphed this move (or word simply got out), as "Washington Families for Freedom" (which sounds like a Conservative group itself) was there urging people to "Decline to Sign."

If I were a betting man, my money would be on WFF to win this one, either now, or once the initiatives make it to the ballot. Washington state is pretty Blue, and Trumpist candidates don't do well in statewide elections. Granted, Let's Go Washington is a PAC, and not a person, but something tells me that they're Trump-aligned enough that it's going to take more than ignoring the wishes of property owners for them to pull this one off.