Category Archives: Human Behavior

Human Behavior

Opinion: We Need Human Services That Serve Communities – The Lund Report

Local human services perform a critical role in strengthening the foundation of our communities. Yet despite their vital contributions, for more than four decades they have been largely ignored, denigrated and defunded.

The divided nation we see around us is due in no small part to the inadequate maintenance of and increasingly hostile attitude toward the human service agencies and programs at our core. In allowing our society's foundation to crumble, we have left most Americans living on a playing field progressively tilted toward poverty. Many in what used to be the middle-class fight the escalating gravitational pull as they fall closer and closer to the bottom. Lacking opportunity and a place to make a stand, they have little freedom to resist.

We have acted as though systemic problems can automatically fix themselves; that the imaginary invisible hand will magically make everything better. Despite all evidence of their failure, the haves continue to champion simplistic answers to complex problems that only continue to widen the chasm and leave the have-nots behind with hard truths and limited hope. The very words we use to describe our situation no longer have shared meaning, and the more we try to communicate in either relatively wrong vocabulary, the further apart we grow literally and figuratively.

The reality these facts describe is more concerning when you consider this list represents how our country was doing in late 2019, prior to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Human behavior in response to the virus has only clarified the depth of our underlying dysfunction; the cracks in our foundation are multidimensional, huge and filled with years of anger and frustration.

Failures of this scale and magnitude arise from system behavior. We will not repair the fissures and restore strength to our communities by blaming the poor for their reality and leaving them to their fate. Poverty limits everyones potential rich or poor. Instead of wasting our time arguing the isms capitalism, socialism, libertarianism, individualism and other outmoded theoretical ideologies, we should instead focus on the immutable rules of nature.

All people and every community are biological systems, and every pattern of being within biology exists in the social systems emerging from them. We desperately need to recognize the limited applicability of ideas from our 18th century icons and concentrate our efforts on developing a solid 21st century understanding of systems, especially biological systems. Alignment with nature's rules and processes will put the wind at our back, pointing us toward a better, more sustainable future.

A human community is a biological system that should grow opportunity for people, in the same way that soil is a biological system that grows fertility, supporting life on earth. And biology is bottom-up, not top-down: the survival of larger organisms depends on the survival of smaller. This system is not designed but rather grows and adapts through self-organization.

In many ways, it is the opposite of industrialization. Industrial engineering produces systems designed to operate under predetermined conditions. Rigid assumptions and narrow focus make such systems fragile when unexpected events or situations arise.

Conversely, biological systems use a highly flexible paradigm and quickly develop adaptive responses to novel conditions. They are robust because they contain many complex components that continuously co-evolve. These components participate in a dense network of interdependency constrained by a common goal: survival.

Our goal, then, should be to transform the human service system into a similar natural system constrained to desired outcomes. The work of James. M. Whitacre explaining the dynamics of biological systems published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology and Medical Modeling can point to a better, more productive organization of human services. This is something none of us can do alone, but all of us can do together.

Dr. Michael Rohwer is executive director of Curandi and a member of The Lund Report's board of directors. You can reach him at [emailprotected].

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Opinion: We Need Human Services That Serve Communities - The Lund Report

Human Behavior

State awaits Thanksgiving COVID surge – Alton Telegraph

This is the time to be extra careful

Scott Cousins, scousins@thetelegraph.com

CHICAGO While an uptick in new cases and positivity rates may be a reflection of increased testing, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Tuesday state officials continue to take a close look at the numbers to see if it is an indication of the post-Thanksgiving coronavirus surge that has been predicted.

One thing Im certain of is this virus is circulating widely in every county in Illinois, Pritzker said.

Statewide the Illinois Department of Public Health reported 5,835 people in Illinois hospitalized with COVID, 1,195 in the ICU, and 721 on ventilators.

Locally, the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force, which looks at COVID-19 and related issues in both Illinois and Missouri, said hospital admissions and other critical numbers were up.

It was announced Tuesday that hospitals in four major healthcare systems (BJC HealthCare, Mercy, SSM Health and St. Lukes Hospital) are at 82 percent capacity, and ICUs are at 90 percent of staffed capacity.

Pritzker noted that new cases, hospitalizations and deaths announced today are the result of actions taken a week or more ago, and they will start to see whether or not the expected surge begins in a day or two.

We know we arent going to see the bulk of the impact from Thanksgiving just yet, he said.

He also noted that past experience has taught us decisions about whether to get tested are different around holidays, with many being tested prior to Thanksgiving, followed by a drop off.

Todays uptick in the positivity rate could be fluctuations in testing, he said, saying that is one of the reasons they need time to study the data.

He cautioned that many who traveled or met with others for the holiday could be infected but asymptomatic.

You may feel fine right now, but you may be passing COVID-19 to others, Pritzker said, saying those who traveled or celebrated outside of their immediate family should be tested 5-7 days after potential exposure if they are asymptomatic.

This is the time to be extra careful, he said, citing the predictions of a new surge. These next few weeks are a time to stay home as much as possible. Its the safest thing you can do for the people you love, and the healthcare workers who will be there when you need them.

Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said the increases are the result of human behavior, including failure to wear masks, practice social distancing and washing hands.

She added those who are not complying with the current Tier 3 mandates are not helping the situation.

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State awaits Thanksgiving COVID surge - Alton Telegraph

Human Behavior

Now Is the Time for Climate Action – Open Society Foundations

As someone who has been working on climate policy for 20 years, I am often asked to speak to student and youth groups. This is one of my favorite parts of my job, and it has been a joy to watch in recent years as young peoples interest in and knowledge about the climate crisis has increased.

Despite the overall increased public awareness, however, a gap clearly exists between what weknowabout the climate crisis and what were willing todo about it. Indeed, as a new report from d|part makes clear, outright denial of the climate crisis is rarebut people remain confused about how much of the problem can be attributed to human behavior.

In our surveys, significant minorities of respondents in the United States and several European countriesranging from 17 percent to as much as 44 percentstill said, incorrectly, that climate change is equally caused by human society and natural processes. Just as concerning, significant minorities also said that scientists were divided among themselves on the issue, even though the truth, as theConsensus Projecthas shown, is anything but.

Of course, the prevalence of climate misinformation is not new. But what our research shows is that this confusion about causes ultimately harms the chances of enacting good climate policy. Soft skepticism can quickly turn into rigid opposition. With time running out, its clear that more work needs to be done to improve the publics understanding of the climate issue, on the one hand, and to confront and weaken the power of disinformation, on the other.

To be sure, disinformation is a symptom of our time, and its effects are not limited to the politics of climate science. Rallying public opinion behind action is always difficultand its exponentially more so when populist political movements spread conspiracy theories and falsehoods. The good news, though, is that our research also found that, despite these hurdles, respondentsexpectedtheir governments to address the issue of climate change. Across all nine countries polled, clear majorities (from 58 percent in the United Kingdom to 57 percent in the United States) agreed that climate change requires a collective response.

This is crucial momentnot only for the future of climate justice, but for the future of the world. And as we can see through narrative-shifting developments like2018s UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changereport, theParis Agreement, and the European Commissions 2019European Green Dealproposal, the political space for climate action is growing. The challenge of our time, then, is translating the publics demand for action into policy that works for peopleandthe planet.

D|parts report shows that this wont be easy, and that misinformation remains a serious threat to climate justice. At the same time, though, the report also underlines that there is already sufficient public will behind government-backed action. Rather than waiting until 100 percent of the public embraces reform, policymakers and advocates alike should seize this moment and push for strong climate action. The time to act is now.

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Now Is the Time for Climate Action - Open Society Foundations

Human Behavior

Uncomfortable ground truths: Predictive analytics and national security – Brookings Institution

Executive summaryReducing uncertainty in all aspects of life is undoubtedly an action that all individuals, societies, and governments seek to achieve. In the national security policy space, such forewarning takes on even greater importance owing to the high stakes and lives on the line. It is no surprise, then, that forecasting is a longstanding tradition, both within the intelligence community and the Department of Defense. More recently, the Department of State also started to seek its own oracle through the establishment of the Center for Analytics, the first enterprise-level data and analytics hub that will utilize big data and subsequent data analytic tools to evaluate and refine foreign policy.

This paper focuses not on those predictive analytics systems that attempt to predict naturally occurring phenomenon. Rather, it draws attention to a potentially troublesome area where AI systems attempt to predict social phenomenon and behavior, particularly in the national security space. This is where caution must be advised for the policy crowd. This paper discusses human behavior in complex, dynamic, and highly uncertain systems. Using AI to predict ever more complex social phenomena, and then using those predictions as grounds for recommendations to senior leaders in national security, will become increasingly risky if we do not take stock of how these systems are built and the knowledge that they produce. Senior leaders and decisionmakers may place too much reliance on these estimations without understanding their limitations.

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Uncomfortable ground truths: Predictive analytics and national security - Brookings Institution

Human Behavior

Will robots ever be in charge? Not if we raise them well – Innovation Origins

According to the Israeli historian-futurologist Yuval Noah Harari, humans are becoming more and more robotic and robots are increasingly gaining human traits. Over the past few months, Innovation Origins has been looking around the Dutch robotics nursery at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) and wrote about it in this series. Today, the last installment.

A 3D printer that builds your home exactly the way you want it. All parts are movable so that the house can literally be adjusted to your liking. An extra-large living room or balcony, that can be arranged right away. A robot brings you a cup of coffee even before you realize that you feel like one. And if you need care at a later stage of your life, the robot will always be by your side. Are you already able to envisage this in your future?

It is obvious, robots are going to change our lives. Nowadays, you can develop a robot for every application in every field. For this series, scientists spent hours talking about the technology, potential fields of application, and the ethical aspects of (self-steering) robots. All these robots and related research have one thing in common: Robots have to respond to the behavior of people and, moreover, behave more and more like human beings themselves.

The technology that is behind it all? Artificial intelligence. This is the basis for all robots, the brain, you might say. A great intangible thing that will overtake humanity if we are not careful enough. Because, just how human can robots become? How clever will they become? And how will they learn to deal with emotions?

There is so much that can be done and yet at the same time, not so much either. The soccer robots from Tech United are getting better every year. But they still have a long way to go if they want to beat the human world champions. Robots do not have any insight that enables them to predict what will happen in a few seconds. Something that is extremely important in soccer. This is difficult to pinpoint in an algorithm.

Predictive capability is also important in the development of autonomous cars. As humans, we often see, for example, when a cyclist is going to turn even before they signal that with a hand gesture. But what do we base that on? It is difficult to establish rules for this that an algorithm can use. The robots have to learn from a wealth of data about the choices people make in these kinds of situations. That takes time. For now, therefore, AI cannot match a human driver by a long shot.

But there are also tasks that robots can perform much better than humans. Order picking, for example. But even this type of robot is not yet ready for the world of humans. A robot cannot feel the difference between materials. This means that it does not know how to handle certain materials. When people pack a box of items, they know exactly which materials they can press down a bit more so that they can close the box. A robot does not have that insight. Such skills are needed to really be able to function as, for example, a fully-fledged employee in a factory.

And we have not even mentioned service robots in healthcare yet. A robot can perform tasks such as lifting someone out of bed, bringing food, or helping them to the bathroom, although interacting with people is still very complicated. How hard do you have to grab someone when you are helping them to go to the toilet? A person needs to feel safe and of course, you should not drop them either, but grasping them too hard is painful. The robot itself has no skin, has no idea what it feels like, and thus has difficulty assessing this kind of thing. Moreover, this varies from person to person. There are several service robots under development at the moment. It is often the case that these can only perform a few specific tasks. As such, the full range of tasks of a nurse is (still) far too complex.

Robots need to understand their environment in order to truly become part of society. They have to recognize situations and be able to respond to them accordingly. Scientists are attempting to put the social behavior of human beings into a robot. But this is tricky. After all, robots work on the basis of facts and connections. But human feelings cannot be grasped that way. How close do you stand to someone when you are having a conversation with them? How do you know that someone has heard you when you say something? And how do you identify feelings someone else might have? All things that we use feelings and emotions in order to work out. Which is quite hard to explain to a computer.

An algorithm can learn from mistakes. But then it needs to know what is right and what is wrong. Except that so many things in society are not so black and white. Every situation is slightly different, which is what makes it all so complicated. You could compare it to a childs learning process. From the first weeks of their lives, children learn more and more about the world around them. They discover basic principles such as gravity by doing things. Social skills also develop over time. Robots are undergoing that same kind of development too. The university is not just a nursery, it is also a preschool for robots.

The fact that robots are still in preschool feels reassuring for now: It means that people are still not replaceable. We are creative, have empathy and emotions. Robots do not have any of those qualities. Not yet, at least. Because, how sensitive could a robot actually become? What if they develop emotions as well? Will we be able to distinguish people from robots in the future? These are questions that remain unanswered. The future will teach us.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. There is still a tremendous treasure trove of technological developments, new applications, and special innovations lying beneath the surface. We will discover them in time. In the interim, scientists are continually developing existing robots. What if the robots start puberty soon? The researchers are preparing themselves for real issues to do with their upbringing. After all, humankind is in charge of robots and their development. At least for the time being. Will robots ever take over the world? Maybe in the future, but right now, humans and robots are empowering each other.

Read all articles in this series here.

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Will robots ever be in charge? Not if we raise them well - Innovation Origins

Human Behavior

‘The more who die, the less we care’: Why we’re growing numb to COVID-19 – Oregon Daily Emerald

University of Oregon psychology professor Paul Slovic has spent much of his time during the COVID-19 pandemic writing articles, talking to journalists and thinking about why the coronavirus is so out of control.

To explain why case counts are surging and the virus is growing so rapidly, Slovic has drawn on previous psychological research that he thinks is relevant to the pandemic.

Slovic said there are a few concepts in particular including reinforcement theory and psychic numbing that can help everyone understand why, while the virus is getting worse, it seems the community is becoming less worried.

Fast and slow thinking

Slovic said that given the curve of coronavirus cases since March, its clear the growth is exponential. This means it is growing more rapidly over time. This type of growth happens when one person gets infected, then infects a couple others, who in turn each infect more than one person and so on.

The human mind doesnt deal with exponential growth very well, Slovic said.

Behind this, he said, is psychological research that shows humans think in two ways: fast and slow. Fast thinking relies on intuition and gut feelings, while slow thinking is based on analysis, data and science.

We rely on fast thinking because usually it works for us, Slovic said. Its easy, it feels right and most of the time, it works for us. Except when it doesnt. And when things are happening exponentially, it doesnt work for us.

Exponential coronavirus data can also teach us about climate change, Slovic said. The overwhelming surge of sea level rise will also come sooner than expected and the early exponential curve has been hard for the human brain to process.

If one isnt trained to think exponentially or rely on slow thinking, they underestimate data. Slovic said the overwhelming surge that follows the initial, steadier exponential growth comes sooner than expected.

This is why we need to rely on scientists and experts those who are trained to think slowly when they face data to make decisions regarding the coronavirus, Slovic said.

Listen to the experts, he said. Not the politicians.

Risk judgement

Another reason people misjudge the risks of the coronavirus and allow it to get out of hand is because its an invisible threat. Unless people see the virus right in front of them if they or a loved one gets sick they dont really think COVID-19 is there.

Were better at judging risk when we can see the evidence of it directly, Slovic said.

Because people cant see the virus itself, they are less likely to be careful about it and more likely to underestimate the risk of it, he said.

Reinforcement theory

Another factor that makes the virus hard to control is that everyone has to rely on behavior to curb the spread, Slovic said. Unfortunately, this means communities have to stop doing things they like and start doing things they dont.

When the pandemic first hit the United States in the spring, most people followed guidelines and took them seriously, Slovic said. Because of pressure to open the economy which resulted in relaxing restrictions people started to relax and stop following guidelines as closely.

Even now, when we have a tremendous amount of cases, he said, people are tired of doing the things theyre supposed to do.

The reason people are tired of practicing COVID-19-safe behaviors is because they dont feel the benefit from them, Slovic said. In fact, they feel like theyre being punished.

Slovic said people can understand these behaviors through reinforcement theory a concept that students might have come across in an introductory psychology class.

Reinforcement schedules are rules that state the relationship between a behavior and its consequences. With COVID-19, the reinforcement schedules are the opposite of what they need to be to keep people doing the right thing, Slovic said. People dont feel the immediate consequences when they do whats wrong, and they feel punished for doing whats right.

You dont see who youve been protected from or who youve been protecting. You dont see the benefit, he said. But you feel the cost that youre constrained and you cant do the things you want to do.

Slovic said those kinds of reinforcement schedules dont keep people motivated to keep doing the right thing and continue following COVID-19 guidelines.

So thats why you see people who are really good people and are concerned about COVID in general. They relax their guard, Slovic said. And thats inevitable.

This backwards reinforcement schedule means that the only way to get people to do the right thing during the pandemic is to enforce regulations and shut things down.

Psychic numbing and feelings of inefficacy

Another psychological concept that explains why the virus is out of control is called psychic numbing. When people are exposed to countless data and statistics, they become numb to the information, Slovic said.

Especially as numbers increase, he said, they become just that numbers. They dont carry emotion and they dont impact people as much.

A related concept is the feeling of inefficacy. Even if individuals are concerned about something, they feel as if they cant do anything about it.

As Slovic put it: Why make yourself miserable worrying about these horrible things if you feel you cant do anything about it?

An example of this occurred in a study regarding donating to children in need, Slovic said. Participants were shown two commercials: one of a single child they could donate to, and one of that same child next to statistics of millions of other children who needed aid.

Participants who saw the commercial with the statistics were almost 50% less likely to donate, even though the inclusion of the data was meant to get more donations.

This happened, Slovic said, because with the added millions of children, it felt like the problem was too big and a single donation wouldnt help.

People feel this sense of inefficacy often false inefficacy because their feelings mislead them.

David Markowitz is a professor at UOs School of Journalism and Communication. Markowitz and Slovic have collaborated on projects including exploring why people dehumanize immigrants in the United States.

Markowitz said he thinks psychic numbing is the most relevant concept on display during the pandemic.

As the number of cases and deaths surge, Markowitz said, our feeling system becomes numb and cannot respond compassionately.

Markowitz and Slovic agree that hearing stories about COVID-19 directly affecting people instead of just seeing numbers and data can make people care more about it.

The arithmetic of compassion

Slovic uses this term the arithmetic of compassion to explain why people care less when they should care more. Their feelings can only do arithmetic up to the number one, he said.

The arithmetic of compassion, Slovic said, is a mistake. In reality, people should care more about problems that are bigger. Everyone should work harder to stop them, he said, but they actually do less.

The more who die, Slovic said, the less we care.

Slovic said efficacy is a powerful motivator for peoples actions, and this also explains human behavior during the pandemic. Feelings of inefficacy can arise when people see others ignoring coronavirus guidelines or when they cant help but be exposed to others at their jobs, for example.

If we dont think our actions make a difference and theyre not pleasant to do, he said, we won't do them.

In addition to working for the university, Slovic is the founder and president of Decision Research, an institute that investigates human judgment, decision-making and risk, according to its website.

Along with others from the institute and faculty from various universities including UO, Slovic has been working on a project titled the Arithmetic of Compassion.

Slovic said the project goes from the basic science of things like psychic numbing and inefficacy and shows how those concepts play out in the world around us. The goal of the project is to make people aware of this mistaken arithmetic and other psychological factors that affect their behavior.

Maybe, Slovic said, the project can help people overcome the barriers and get the arithmetic right.

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'The more who die, the less we care': Why we're growing numb to COVID-19 - Oregon Daily Emerald

Human Behavior

These Medicinal Plants Have Evolved an Ingenious Way to Hide From Their Predators: Us – ScienceAlert

On the wide open slopes of China's Hengduan Mountains, there are perks to being a wallflower. After thousands of years of human harvesting, a rare alpine flower - prized in Chinese medicine - is trying its hardest not to stand out.

In the alpine meadows where humans pluck theFritillaria delavayi plant the most, scientists have noticed the perennial herb blends in better with the rocky background.

Avoiding the limelight in a drab environment is no easy feat when your leaves and bulbs are normally a bright green, so some populations of F. delavayihave turned more of a brown or grey to better match their surroundings.

Many plants are capable of such camouflage, usually as an attempt to hide from hungry hunters, but up here, the only real predators are us.

"Like other camouflaged plants we have studied, we thought the evolution of camouflage of this fritillary had been driven by herbivores, but we didn't find such animals," explains botanist Yang Niu from the Kunming Institute of Botany.

"Then we realised humans could be the reason."

Normal green plants with low harvest pressure (A and B) and camouflaged individuals with high harvest pressure (C and D). (Niu et al., Current Biology, 2020)

Speaking to locals in the area, researchers estimated how each accessible population of alpine herb had been harvested over the past five years.

Using a model for human vision, researchers found significant colour diversity among herb populations - especially those that existed in areas with high levels of human harvesting.

This suggests human behavior is somehow shaping the evolution of these famous herbs, which are the most commonly used treatment in China for coughs and phlegm.

F. delavayi plants sport a set of leaves that vary in colour from grey to brown, but it's only after their fifth year of life that they begin to produce annual bulbs of similar shades. Over 3,500 individual bulbs are needed to make just a kilogram of medicine.

This slow and minimal growth is part of what makes the rare herb so cherished, but it's also what makes it vulnerable to overharvesting.

Changing colour is probably one of the only defences this plant has got against increased harvesting from humans. And so, it seems, the more we want it, the harder it is to find.

To further test the plant's camouflage on real human vision, researchers set up a computer experiment in which participants were asked to locate various colours of the herb in 14 slides of its natural environment.

As expected, the more-camouflaged and less green plants were harder to locate as quickly.

"It's remarkable to see how humans can have such a direct and dramatic impact on the colouration of wild organisms, not just on their survival but on their evolution itself," says botanist and ecologist Martin Stevens from the University of Exeter.

"It's possible that humans have driven evolution of defensive strategies in other plant species, but surprisingly little research has examined this."

The rare snow lotus is one of the few examples we have. Historically collected by humans, studies have shown this coveted plant has grown significantly smaller in the past hundred years.

There's even a theory that humans unconsciously drove the evolution of weeds from a pest to something more similar to wheat as plants tried to avoid being torn out of the ground.

That's a fascinating idea, and further research on harvested wild plants like F. delavayi might help us better understand what aspects of plant biology humans are truly capable of influencing.

The study was published in Current Biology.

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These Medicinal Plants Have Evolved an Ingenious Way to Hide From Their Predators: Us - ScienceAlert

Human Behavior

Internet Governance and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Part 6: Articles 18-19 – CircleID

Articles 18-19: Freedoms of Thought and Opinion. Co-authored by Klaus Stoll and Prof Sam Lanfranco.1

Internet Governance, like all governance, needs guiding principles from which policy making, and acceptable behavior, are derived. Identifying the fundamental principles to guide Internet ecosystem policy making around digital citizenship, and around the integrity of digital practices and behavior, can and should start with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, (UDHR). The UDHR was embraced after World War II to protect the rights of persons in literal space. We are now facing the same challenge regarding digital space.

Our discussion now explores UDHR Articles 18 and 19. The UDHR principles guiding human rights in literal time and space serve as a starting point for the necessary principles guiding digital rights in the Internet ecosystem.2 Here, in addition to dealing with the freedom of thought and opinion in cyberspace, we explore some aspects of the development of Internet Governance and the work of the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression.3

Article 18: Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.4

Article 18 in the UDHR, with its emphasis on religion and belief, was heavily influenced by the terrible events of the inter-war years in the first half of the Twentieth Century. Article 19 generalizes the concerns and principles found in Article 18, and ends with the prophetic words, for the Internet age: "...to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

Article 19: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Our discussions have explored the relationship between the UDHR and the social and political structures of countries, nations, and states. Articles 18 and 19 focus greater attention on the role, and rights, of the individual. Freedom of thought and opinion are essential to protect the autonomy of the individual from demands by the state, and for informing the state of the wishes of its citizens.

The actions of an individual can be put into three legal categories: prohibited, permitted, or required. Articles 18-19 put freedom of thought and opinion firmly into the permitted category and limit the ability of a state to prohibit or require them. However, issues formal or behavioral restraint arise when expressed opinion is contrary to other principles in the UDHR, for example supporting racism, patrimony, and other forms of discrimination, and growing issue of the circulation of false information on digital platforms.

Article 18 protects not only thought, conscience and religion but also its manifestations by an individual or a group. Any attempts to prohibit them or require conformity are either illegal, or permissible only then the rights of others are affected.4 Thoughts, beliefs, religion, and digital data, are intangibles. They become real through their manifestations as actions and through social behaviors and institutional structures and processes. We encounter once again the principle of separate but inseparable as discussed in part 1 of this series on the UDHR.

Bertrand Russell reflected on freedom of thought:

"What makes a freethinker is not his beliefs but the way in which he holds them. If he holds them because his elders told him they were true when he was young, or if he holds them because if he did not he would be unhappy, his thought is not free; but if he holds them because, after careful thought he finds a balance of evidence in their favor, then his thought is free, however odd his conclusions may seem."6

One's thinking will always be exposed to outside influences, but it should not mirror those influences. It should be like a light that goes through a prism, to be split into its components, for critical evaluation based on dialogue with others. Dialogue is necessary to determine how my thought affects the rights of others, and to reach a consensus over how my thought can manifest itself in behavior without doing harm.

Free thought cannot not exist when the information/data on which it is based is corrupted by misinformation. Historically misinformation, or lack of information, stemmed from censorship, repression, or lack of access. Today, with ease of access and speed of dissemination, this problem is compounded by the of rumors, false news, and false facts through the Internet ecosystem. This prevents, or even perverts, dialogue-based evaluation, and the building of a common consensus.

Thought needs the ability to discover the new, to cross boundaries and be shared without fear of reprisal. Freedom of thought is the basis of innovation and has been as a key driver of progress in the digital age. However, the digital venue opens the double-edged sword of so-called thought leadership driven by social media "influencer" thought leaders, influencing both opinions and behavior.7

We cannot subjugate our freedom of thought to the opinions of others, especially when in uncritical support for technical or social innovation. We cannot bow to a leadership that postulates the superiority of one thought over another, independent of evidence, logic, and morality, or thought that demands acceptance without accountability. Innovation with integrity is hampered by leadership when that leadership seeks to preserve and strengthen special interests, frequently at the expense of human rights and wellbeing.

A sign of true innovation and leadership with integrity is that it enables and nurtures the processes of free thought, evaluation, dialogue, and consensus. These four steps are integral to the process of sound Internet Governance policy making.

The UDHR envisaged competent tribunals as an important checks and balances.8 As history has shown, factions within states pursuing self-preservation and advancing their empowerment frequently restrict the abilities of national tribunals. Hence, in cases such as war crimes and crimes against humanity, such tribunals have been established above and beyond the state.9

To exercise free thought and its manifestations in cyberspace requires, as discussed in part 3 of this series, recognition without discrimination and the absence of arbitrary means of repression or presumption of guilt. This freedom can only be secured within Internet Governance when that governance is created and maintained by empowered engagement from all its digital citizen stakeholders.10

States have their own jurisdiction and sovereignty and will exercise control over domestic Internet Governance. Much like domestic human rights governance, based on the principles of the UDHR, those policies and behaviors should respect the principles behind global digital rights. There will never be a global cyberstate in the sense of an independent digital state with sovereignty over its digital territory. But the digital rights of empowered digital citizens require the principles a global universal declaration of digital rights, backed by an international judiciary, empowered by signature states, and operating with its own jurisdictional independence. This is where the separately but inseparable overlap. Stakeholder engagement in global dialogue, as well as dialogue within existing national and international bodies, is necessary to agree upon the principles and mechanisms for international agreements around the rights (and obligations) of digital citizenship, to establish appropriate judiciary institutions and processes, and to inform behavioral integrity.

The right to freedom of conscience protects an individual from being forced or coerced into participation in an activity that is against his/her values. When accessing a service, nobody should be arbitrarily refused, or forced to give unwilling consent, or be subjected to discrimination. This is a pressing issue when it comes to required consent to the terms of agreement for access to many of the services, apps, and activities confronting a digital citizen in the Internet ecosystem.

Many digital applications, some of them vital for the exercise of our empowered digital citizenship, are only available after agreeing to term and conditions that are contrary to the users' interests and rights. Digital technologies and the terms under which they can be used need to conform with basic human rights, expressed as basic digital rights. Coercing individuals to sacrifice or compromise their human and digital rights through denial of services, for example through unreasonable "legal" consent forms, and the failure to fully disclose the true uses of personal data, are unethical and comparable to giving a person the choice to opt in to slavery, or starve.11 Universal Internet access should be a fundamental right, and not be subject to questionable constraints on personal rights and freedoms, or digital date use practices of questionable integrity.

Does freedom of religion, as manifested and exercised in Cyberspace, present special problems? Does it require special rights and protections? Religion is an attempt to join the separate but inseparable nature of the human mind and body, the so-called mind-body problem.12 How does my physical body relate to my religion based (virtual) being? Building the links between the virtual and the physical is key to the security and self-preservation of one's personhood. One's virtual "residence" in the Internet ecosystem poses similar questions.

Religion, at is core, is virtual, with "residency" within a belief space. For believers that belief space is true. Non-believers express doubt or disbelief. Religion and philosophy provide rationales and rituals to satisfy multiple personal and societal needs. Believers and non-believers both understand that religion's impact on literal life is real. One's virtual residence within the Internet ecosystem has a same virtual-to-real personal and societal relationship.

Challenging a person's religious believe system equates to questioning a believer's being in mind and body. Since the origins of religious communities, threats and exhortations by religious leaders have driven followers to believe that extreme acts such as crusades, witch hunts and terrorism are necessary and justified. This "thought fascism" allows for multiple terrible means to be deployed to attack religious beliefs and persecute those who hold them, when those beliefs different from one's own, as was witnessed in the middle of the past Century.

The UDHR puts religion on a same level as thought and conscience, and reaffirms the right of a believer to hold and "to change his[her] religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance". The core principle here can be applied to the notion, and protection of thoughts and behavior within one's digital residency.

At the start of the 21st Century Capitalism is under the microscope. The recent era of neoliberal (pro-market) policy has produced major technological and economic advances. At the same time, it has produced extreme concentrations of income and wealth, and increased marginalization. These outcomes are prompting serious reflection on whether market capitalism can be reformed, or needs to be replaced, with no clear idea of how to reform, or replace with what.

Belief systems satisfy our need for physical and spiritual wholeness, acting as personal "global positioning systems", and provide comfort and security. They also help weave the fabric of society. The role of capitalism, as a technology driver within that fabric is evident. However, its impacts in the rapid development of the Internet ecosystem are driving calls for a critical review of its socio-economic impacts and the integrity of its digital business practices.

One area of particular concern is Surveillance Capitalism. Surveillance capitalism is the newly emergent digital business practice of collecting and monetizing identifiable personal digital data. This raises issues about the integrity of digital data use practices and how they relate to the digital and literal rights of persons. Processing digital data for marketing goods and services, and for feeding information (valid or false) risks the uses of digital technology in the service of thought fascism. Such risks are not new. They arose with the printing press, with radio and with film and television. The risks to human rights posed by such practices in cyberspace are greater today given the scope, scale and speed with which information can flow on the Internet. There may be reasons, and hope, to believe that humankind will be able to deal with this threat:

"...[a] careful final summary indicates commercialism as the great danger to future free thought; but it seems legitimate to hope that the great economic interests bound up with science, together with the spread of education, will prevent any return to the more noxious superstitions of the past."13

While one might passively hope for principled outcomes with integrity, it is better to work on identifying principles and formulating policy through engagement by an empowered digital citizenry.

To exercise freedom of thought in Cyberspace requires an understanding, almost a paradigm shift, and think about one's "residency" in the Internet ecosystem. One must think not only of digital rights but also of digital duties (obligations) as a citizen of the internet. As in the case of one's literal citizenship, duties evolve and become part of the social fabric. Most are not mandated or handed down in policies and regulations but develop as social conventions. Personally, lying or spreading false rumors are frowned on. Politically, voting is an act of good citizenship, but usually it is not required.

Expressed opinions, as a contribution to dialogue and consensus should not contain falsehoods or blatant lapses in logic. Frequently they do not face legal sanctions when they occur. This is a difficult area today regarding social media, where falsehoods are widely circulated, both innocently and with malicious intent. Any system of governance, including Internet Governance, relies on a dynamic blend of binding policies and generally mutually agreed upon individual and private behaviors. Opinions should be contributions to dialogue where common wisdom says: "One is entitled to one's own opinion but not one's own facts".

Multi-layered, multi-lateral and multi-stakeholder political processes include dialogue as part of processes to determine policy, hopefully based on what is right, just, and based on agreed true facts. There is a major challenge to society here today. Much of current traffic (cannot call it dialogue) in the Internet ecosystems social media is evidence-free, false news, and even unfounded conspiracy assertions. Such traffic is not much more than a tug of war in which the respective factions via to gain adherents and influence policy, frequently in ignorance of the costs in terms of damage and what is at stake.

Freedom of thought in the Twenty-First Century is about more than the freedom from the forms of persecution that lay behind Articles 18 and 19. It is about the integrity that goes into those thoughts as they manifest themselves as opinion and actions. The digital age has brought forth new risks to freedom of thought and opinion.

A century ago Bertrand Russell spoke of the "machinery of persecution", that "insured the triumph of its own views."14 A century later we face new forms of "machineries of persecution" as residents of the Internet ecosystem. Digital surveillance in the broadest sense, combined with AI algorithms, fashions digital profiles of us (digital personas) to shape the information, dialogues, and contexts we see in the digital venue. This is shaping our sense of self and of who we are in both a virtual and a literal sense.

This is a serious assault on our freedom of thought and opinion and made worse when driven by a toxic mix of digital business practices (greed driven?) and deception (fallibility driven?) by false or mistaken information, as we form socio-economic and political thoughts and opinions and engage in social and political actions.15

Where free thought is free from persecution, and where dialogue determines and respects the boundaries of rights, there is greater probability of the formation and manifestation of consensus. This can help overcome the obstacles consensus posted by silo-like views of self-interest, and begin to create new Internet ecosystem behaviors and supporting Internet Governance that is based on, and supports, the free will of empowered digital citizens

Competent Internet Governance will be born out of this kind of new dialogue. Its responsibility is it to enable and educate dialogue based on free thought and the respect of the rights of others. The responsibility of competent Internet Governance will be to support education and knowledge as inputs into thoughts and opinions, but not to control thought or opinion, or delegate it to algorithms16.

Article 19 is one of the key articles of the UDHR and worth repeating here:

Article 19: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 19 could be called the "UDHR Internet article". Its "through any media and regardless of frontiers" foreshadows the Internet and expresses the core values to be applied to digital communication technologies. It expresses a key concept that connects with and ties together all its articles. Its importance is underlined by the UN Commission on Human Rights which in 1993 established the mandate for the office of the Special Rapporteur.17 In 2008 it replaced the Commission on Human Rights and its mandate continues to be renewed. Most recently (August 2020) Irene Khan was appointed as UN Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Opinion and Expression and is the first woman to hold this mandate.18 The previous officeholder David Kaye summed up the Rapporteur mandate and activities as:

"gather all relevant information, wherever it may occur, of discrimination against, threats or use of violence and harassment, including persecution and intimidation, directed at persons seeking to exercise ... against professionals in the field of information ... or to promote the exercise of the right to freedom of opinion and expression..."19

Rapporteur reports submitted since 2010 contain a wealth of information on relevant topics concerning the right to freedom of opinion and expression in the digital age such as: online hate speech, surveillance, AI, content regulation, role of digital access providers protection of sources and whistleblowers, encryption and anonymity, right of the child to freedom of expression, in an electoral context, protection of journalists and media freedom, health system issues, criminal justice system and new technologies, national security, the rights of women20.

In statements to the 2017/18 General Assembly 2017/18 then Rapporteur David Kaye addressed the member states concerning the state of art of Article 19. His comments, reproduced at length here, sum up what Article 19 means in the context of Cyberspace:

"In the year since my last report, the crisis for freedom of expression has deepened worldwide. Journalists have been murdered, their killers rarely if ever brought to justice. Individuals have been arrested merely for posting online criticism of government policy or officials. Our online security, essential to our ability to take advantage of the digital revolution, has been undermined by governments and government-sponsored and private trolls. The public's trust in information has been, and continues to be, attacked by political demagogues and their surrogates. Threats to civil society activists continue unabated, subject to digital attack, surveillance, baseless investigations and accusations, xenophobia and much else. And corporate actors in digital space are both attacked by authorities and themselves growing in power that, to many States and observers, seems unaccountable and opaque".

Rapporteur Kaye in 2017 made specific recommendations that lay out the way forward for the member states regarding Internet Governance:

"It is my hope that the political bodies of the United Nations, especially the General Assembly and Human Rights Council, and other intergovernmental organizations will: (a) Promote the adoption of access to information policies through resolutions and other governance mechanisms; (b) Ensure the development of monitoring and oversight functions; (c) Provide comprehensive information concerning organizational governance mechanisms, including election and selection or appointment processes, and broader and simpler accreditation of organizations to participate in and monitor organizational activities; (d) Promote knowledge of access to information policies, including through the provision of clear information on websites and active dissemination and promotion of those policies to staff and stakeholders.21

All the reports and statements include clear recommendations and calls for action to the member states and stakeholders.

Growing frustration by the special Rapporteur is apparent. His recommendations are ignored and even contradicted by actions taken by the members states.22 He goes on to say:

"I apologize for having to begin on a grim note, but while I will spend a few moment describing my formal report, I could not begin by ignoring the vast suffering that mainly governments are causing individuals around the world today. The repression of expression is repression of democracy and rule of law. It is repression of innovation, self-exploration, and connection. I cannot urge you strongly enough to take steps to reverse and resist this trend. I urge your leaders to speak the language of respect for reporting as the crucial public watchdog. I urge you to implement indeed the important normative measures the Human Rights Council adopted earlier this month in its resolution on the safety of journalists. The UN cannot continue on with high-level commitments and limited implementation. That is a recipe for cynicism about the work that you do here, and I dearly hope you can change it."23

David Kaye went on to provide an extensive and highly recommended discussion in his 2018 report on the practical aspects of regulation of user-generated online content.24 But he also knows the game the member states play. They want to look good and as guardians of the UDHR but without accountability. For this reason they install positions like special rapporteurs and allow them to publish critical reports, but at the same time they ensure that the rapporteurs and their reports are absolutely powerless and have no binding consequences that would force action on the recommendations.

Kaye's reports are an important voice of the UDHR from within the UN, the question is how to make it heard. The rapporteur is reporting ultimately to member states and their citizens. His reports matter to all IG organizations. One way to ensure that they have a real impact would be to put them on the agenda for discussion at the main sessions of the annual meetings of the internet governance fora such as IGF, WSIS and ICANN.25 Reports should not just be discussed. Organizations should report back to the rapporteur on how their institutions plan to address the Rapporteur's concerns. Organizations should not be able to hide from accountability when issues within their remit have their roots in the UDHR.26

Websites, including social media apps, quickly became crucial and essential means to exercise the right of freedom of opinion and expression.27 Domain names make it easier (than IP addresses) to access websites. Domain names can also convey meaning and values, and point to relevant content. The Domain Name System (DNS) with 1530 Top Level Domains, (gTLDs), for example .org, .com, .net, and numerous second-level domains, for example xyz.org, bridge the connection between the technical infrastructure and content elements of cyberspace.

Domain names, and search engines, are the means that bring Internet access and the dynamics of the Internet ecosystem to life. Without DNS, in the words of Internet pioneer Jon Postel, there is not enough "there there" to make the Internet ecosystem easily accessible.28

The significance of domain names has changed over the past years. Search engines make the knowledge of a site's specific domain name less necessary. Owning a domain name and maintaining a website are not necessary for digital user to disseminate specific digital content. Users have a choice of social media and other platforms to host their operations. Strong internet-based brands and dialogues can exist without their own domain name, using such hosts as YouTube, Facebook, Amazon, Linkedin and Shopify, or a wide array of social media.

The importance of domains for the freedom of expression is still significant. To express a particular opinion in Cyberspace an individual or organization only has full control over content based on domain name ownership and control of a particular website. The words that replace the numeric IP address of a website can have a meaning. This is part of the rationale behind the exponential explosion of gTLDs such as cat, caf, farm, fish, xxx, etc. A domain name ending in .org gives a bit of a different message than one ending in .com. Search engines and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms might decrease the importance of domain names but a message contained on a site with its own domain may carry more cache than a message on a hosting platform with thousands of similar or contradicting messages, Platforms serve the ends of their creators. Using them as the basis for exercising freedom of information and opinion can be subject to restrictions, manipulation, and loss of control.

Domain name ownership is not without its risks. For civil society groups the terms of access to ownership data (names, locations) can subject activists to risk from repressive authorities or opponents. This is part of the complex and ongoing debates over privacy and "Whois" access to domain name registration data.

The language and the principles of Articles 18 and 19 of the UDHR are heavily shaped by the traumas (WWI, the Depression, the Holocaust and WWII) and the violations of human rights across the first half of the 20th Century. The challenge here is to understand what the principles mean for one's existence as a resident of the Internet ecosystem, for one's rights and duties as a digital citizen in the Internet ecosystem, and how those principles, rights, duties are to be enshrined in Internet Governance, and inform the integrity of behavior within the Internet ecosystem.

These issues have been discussed in this reflection on Articles 18 and 19, but it is premature to draw out the lessons learned. That task is reserved for the final piece in this exploration of the relevance of the UDHR for digital residency and digital citizenship in the Internet ecosystem, and for Internet Governance.

In the next installment of the series we will discuss Articles 20-21 that address such topics as Freedom of Assembly and The Will of the People.

These articles are a contribution to the upcoming 75th UN UDHR anniversary and to promote an Internet ecosystem wide discussion around digital rights and policy development. Comments are welcomed. (Send comments with "UDHR" in the subject line to klausstoll@thebrocasgroup.com ). When finished a retrospective rewrite of the content will culminate in a book version of this material.

https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22533

The richness and the value of these reports and statements can not be underestimated.

are examples how special interests pay lip service to human rights but engage in evasions of human rights in spirit and deed.

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Internet Governance and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Part 6: Articles 18-19 - CircleID

Human Behavior

Kentucky expected to be part of predicted national surge in COVID hospitalizations after holiday – User-generated content

Kentucky Health News

Kentucky is expected to be part of a predicted national surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations after the Thanksgiving holidays. Twelve groups that do such forecasts submitted their predictions to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which published them Nov. 25. Most of the forecasts are for an upward trend, and that was also the case in Kentucky.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told The Washington Post a few days earlier that if Americans do the things that are increasing the risk the travel, the congregate settings, not wearing masks the chances are you will see a surge superimposed upon a surge.

The forecasts published by the CDC are based on differing assumptions, based in large part on past and expected human behavior, but theres a big variable: how many contacts and exposures there are during the holidays.

While it appears that many Americans . . . scaled back on their plans for Thanksgiving, heeding the CDCs recommendation that celebrations should be limited to only household members (people whove lived under the same roof for at least the last 14 days), too many have not, writes Frank Diamond of Infection Control Today.

Even before the forecasts, Gov. Andy Beshear and other officials were warning that hospitals could start running short of staff and filling up. The record for hospitalizations has been broken every day since Nov. 10, Diamond notes.

Sarah Kliff of The New York Times said on PBSs Washington Week Friday that there fears of surges across the country like the one that plagued New York City early in the pandemic, not just that hospitals will be overwhelmed but wont have enough staff: Theres only so many people in the U.S. who know how to operate a ventilator, how to treat this disease.

Some of the forecasting groups make assumptions about how levels of social distancing will change, but most assume that existing social distancing measures in each jurisdiction will continue through the projected four-week time period.

Most of the forecasters assume that a certain fraction of infected people will be hospitalized; they are Columbia University, the Covid-19 Simulator Consortium, Google and Harvard Universitys School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Universitys Applied Physics Lab; JHUs Infectious Disease Dynamics Lab; the Los Alamos National Laboratory; UCLA; UC-Santa Barbara; and the University of Southern California.

The University of Washingtons Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation estimates numbers of new hospitalizations based on numbers of forecasted deaths; Georgia Techs College of Computing uses hospitalization data reported by some jurisdictions to forecast future hospitalizations; and the Karlen Working Group uses the rate of reported infections to estimate the number of new hospitalizations in a given jurisdiction, unless the rates of reported infections and hospitalizations differ. In that case, the rate of reported hospitalizations is used to forecast new hospitalizations.

The rest is here:
Kentucky expected to be part of predicted national surge in COVID hospitalizations after holiday - User-generated content

Human Behavior

Tab Cola, Advent, and Conspiracy Theories – JSTOR Daily

Goodbye, Tab (The Conversation)by Jeffrey MillerThe iconic diet soda Tab is on its way out. What can its fifty-seven-year history tell us about health, branding, gender, and corporate decision making?

The many meanings of Advent (Vox)by Alissa WilkinsonAdvent is a holy season of fasting. Or a time for special holiday TV and daily infusions of chocolate leading up to Santas visit. It all depends on who you are.

When QAnon comes for your family (Slate)by Charles DuhiggWhat can you do when someone you love starts believing conspiracy theories? One step toward understanding whats happening is to think about how your mind works when you wonder whether you left the stove on before leaving the house.

What is personal space? (Aeon)by Frdrique de Vignemont and Colin KleinIt might seem like you have an innate sense of how close is too close. But our personal bubbles are dynamic, social things that can change depending on whether were holding a tool, how we judge the person next to us, or whether new CDC guidance has come out.

The tragic death of a happiness researcher (The New York Times)by Jennifer SeniorSocial psychologist Philip Brickman came up with ideas that probably influence the way you think about happiness and fulfillment. After his suicide, his colleagues and family members had to rethink what they thought they knew about him, and about human behavior.

Got a hot tip about a well-researched story that belongs on this list? Email us here.

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Tab Cola, Advent, and Conspiracy Theories - JSTOR Daily