Category: individual achievement

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First Amendment rights individual achievement social media

A Failure of Trust

Elon Musk, Twitter, free speech

Why is the Federal Trade Communication threatening to investigate Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter?

The FTC is reportedly reviewing the Tesla CEO’s takeover of the forum and will soon decide whether to conduct an anti-​trust probe of the transaction.

Musk hasn’t been entirely clear about his plans for Twitter now that he is on the verge of acquiring it. But we can expect that this avowed free speech absolutist will do his best to ensure that tweet-​speech is much more open than it has been. He won’t label every statement he dislikes as “hate speech” or “misinformation” and forthwith expunge it.

And this, I’m pretty sure, is the problem.

Certainly, no new “monopoly” is in the offing. It’s not as if we lack social-​media alternatives to Twitter — or that Musk already owns the alternatives. His other gigs pertain to electric cars, tunnels, and space flight.

The problem must be that government officials, too, expect that Musk will be a much better friend of unfettered speech than the previous Twitter insiders.

Officials expect — but also fear — that his Twitter won’t routinely terminate the speech of persons who dispute “official” doctrines about COVID-​19, elections, or what have you.

To fear the prospect of a Musk-​run Twitter is to fear open debate — debates that are unavoidable and should be welcome if we value citizen control of government.

But of course, those who seek to control us worry: if the people do not agree with them about what is and is not a fact, what is and is not the highest moral and political value, they might not stay in power.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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individual achievement progress

The Power of Man’s Mind

brain reader, text, binary, analog

Can you communicate with your mind alone, without moving a muscle?

Setting aside fantasy and wishful thinking, my answer is, at least presumptively, “No.”

But the paralyzed man known as T5 was not alone when the sentences he imagined appeared on screen at a rate of 18 words per minute with an accuracy of about 94 percent.

He had the help of inventive scientists. And, by some definitions, I suppose T5 did move a muscle: his brain. 

Normally, though, we must also move other muscles to get what’s on our mind out into the world and communicate it to others.

After suffering a spinal cord injury in 2007, T5 became almost entirely paralyzed. Several years later, he enrolled in a clinical trial called BrainGate2 to research brain-​computer interfaces.

Two small microchips were implanted in his brain.

Scientist Frank Willett of Stanford University and his colleagues asked T5 to imagine that he was writing individual letters and punctuation marks. They found that the patterns of neural activity they recorded were distinct for each letter, period, and comma.

Now all they had to do — a trifle! — is train an algorithm to predict, based on T5’s neural patterns, what letter or punctuation mark he was writing in his imagination.

It worked. Initial accuracy: 94 percent. With autocorrect that percentage went up to 99.

As yet, the technology is said to be too rudimentary to be practically applied. But the basic approach has been shown to be viable. The work also communicates the power of human ingenuity.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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art credit: binary

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The Division of Adventure

Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson

On Sunday, billionaire Richard Branson became the first person to ascend into space in his own spacecraft — assuming that myth, old rumors and sci-​fi stories of god-​kings and mad scientists going to the Moon or Mars remain just that, myth and rumor and fi.

“The launch with Branson marked the 22nd test flight of Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity space plane,” writes Alex Veiga for MSN. “The company has planned at least two more space test flights this year.”

Thus Branson beat Jeff Bezos into space — depending how you figure. Later in the month Bezos’s Blue Origin spacecraft is set to launch Amazon’s less-​than-​beloved billionaire even higher above the planet.*

The billionaire space race is on, with the next level to be reached when regularly scheduled flights become the norm, ticket sales and all.

This is really “just” thrill-​ride fare we are talking about here — and likely when commercial space travel first becomes normalized. Neither man is aiming to rocket into orbital space.

Yet.

Which is not to say this is not of great significance.

Of course, the fledgling industry receives criticism. Why go to space now, some say, when we have so many problems on Earth?

Well, explorers and adventurers did not wait till Europe’s problems were solved to explore and settle the Americas. They pushed forward.

Just as there is a division of labor in society, there is a division of ambition, of venture.

I will likely never go into space. But I am happy Richard Branson got there.

And I’ll applaud if you, too, jaunt upwards.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 * Branson and Bezos publicly squabble about what “space” is. Virgin Galactic went above the American standard of about 50 miles, while Bezos aims for the worldwide “accepted” standard of 62 miles.

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Jeff Bezos| Elon Musk | Richard Branson

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individual achievement media and media people

The Dittos Now in Order

Rush Limbaugh

In reporting Rush Limbaugh’s passing, yesterday, from lung cancer at age 70, the Associated Press dubbed Limbaugh a “bombastic talk radio host and voice of American conservatism.” 

The latter, yes; but if you think Rush was “bombastic,” you missed the joke. Sure, he spoke of “talent on loan from God” and of “flawlessly” running the “Excellence in Broadcasting Network … with zero mistakes.” But bombastic means “high-​sounding but with little meaning; inflated.” 

Washington, D.C., in other words.

Decidedly not Rush.

Rush was both communicator and political force. When Republicans took the House in 1994 on a promise to vote on term limits, Limbaugh strongly supported the strict term limits passed by the states, challenging congressional Republicans for playing games on the issue. 

Later, in 2007, Rush also gave this program a boost by reading my column, “The Two Americas,” on the air, calling it “a great way of restating the ideological arguments that exist in the country today.”

Rush stood for “the America of ever-​increasing wealth, innovation, creativity.… The abundant work product of freedom.” And not “the politician’s America: The regulated America, the subsidized America, the earmarked America.”

Unlike so many seemingly angry shock jocks in talk radio, Mr. Limbaugh was actually nice to callers — even those who disagreed with him — and thoughtful, intelligent, and polite.

While on the hot seat speaking live for three hours each weekday to the nation’s largest radio audience (upwards of 15 million people a show) Mr. Limbaugh was one of the most transparent personalities of the age. “Dittoheads” could feel like they really knew precisely who and what they were ditto-ing.

Now, they ditto their respect. As do I.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom individual achievement meme Thought

Martin Luther King, Jr.

mlk

“Deep down in our non-​violent creed is the conviction there are some things so dear, some things so precious, some things so eternally true, that they’re worth dying for. And if a man happens to be 36-​years-​old, as I happen to be, and some great truth stands before the door of his life …

“A man might be afraid his home will get bombed, or he’s afraid that he will lose his job, or he’s afraid that he will get shot, or beat down by state troopers, and he may go on and live until he’s 80. He’s just as dead at 36 as he would be at 80 and the cessation of breathing in his life is merely the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.

“A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true.…

“We’re going to stand up amid anything they can muster up, letting the world know that we are determined to be free!”

— Brown Chapel, AME Church, Selma, Alabama, March 8, 1965

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ideological culture individual achievement

The Individualist Economist

Walter Williams, obituary

Walter Williams died today. Or, by the time you read this, yesterday. 

Williams was a major figure in economics education, instrumental in building an economics program at George Mason University. Plus, he popularized economics for a wider audience with books, columns, and regular guest radio appearances on Rush Limbaugh’s show.

Dinesh D’Souza, in his video tribute, called Williams “an economist, an individualist, and an African-​American conservative” when such people were rare. Especially the African-​American variety.

Now, Williams’ main themes were not so much conservative as libertarian, citing Frédéric Bastiat a whole lot more than Edmund Burke. But D’Souza no doubt indicates that when he calls Williams an individualist. Consider it a euphemism for libertarian. 

And Williams certainly was an Individual — an individualist in more than just the political sense — though, we saw his resistance to mob pressure and groupthink most clearly in the realm of ideology. 

He could certainly have gotten wider praise had he stuck closer to the culturally dominant notion of what an African-​American intellectual’s role was supposed to be. But instead of pushing “discrimination” as the major factor in differences of wealth and health outcomes in ethnic and racial groups in America, he insisted that actions have consequences, constantly reiterating the major themes of the classical liberal economists Adam Smith and Milton Friedman: people provide greater benefit to the general welfare when they marshal their own resources in a private property/​free trade framework than when they pretentiously talk about the “public good” through special government programs. 

When two people trade, both gain. 

In politics, it’s too often about taking from some to give to others.

By being himself, going his own way, Walter Williams himself provided a great example of how to serve the common good. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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