Reality is far better than you believe

This is the finale of a four part series. Part one is here, part two here, part three here.

I’m going to tackle the perception that the world is going to Hell in a handbasket. Inspired by the Indian Government’s ‘Clean India’ campaign, where they packaged a highly popular anti-corruption drive with an appeal to citizens’ personal responsibility to keep the country physically clean, in exchange for creating a system that provides the level of prosperity people crave I will also appeal to them to see the world in a more positive light, and show them how.

It has become an increasingly common refrain that there is fear in the air, and that the media is the source of this noxious smell. In a recent article in Rolling Stone magazine, writer Neil Strauss asked “why are we living in an age of fear?” when, simultaneously, we are “living in the safest place at the safest time in human history.”

Wealth, longevity and education are on the rise around the world, while violent crime and extreme poverty are down. As reported in The Atlantic, 2015 was “the best year in history for the average human being.” Yet the reason people voted as they did in 2016 is because they genuinely believe the world is going to shit. Surely another ‘Great Paradox’? How can this be?

Because, according to leading sociologist Barry Glassner, “we are living in the most fearmongering time in human history. And the main reason is that there’s a lot of power and money available to individuals and organizations who can perpetuate these fears.”

With a media that instills in us fear of the terrible things and people around the corner (it’s always around the corner, otherwise the fact most people never see these terrors would be a terrible inconvenience), it’s no surprise we have widespread mental health issues. From “economic crisis” to “refugee crisis”, the existing political narrative of perpetual catastrophe is being deployed to divert attention from root causes, allowing flawed regressive proposals to be pushed upon a panicked public.

Many of our so-called crises are not the consequences of unforeseeable chaotic forces, but of specific decisions taken by well-informed individuals to meet their political and financial goals. Those suffering from Hochschild’s ‘Great Paradox’ vote against their own interests because, just as in the UK, they focus on “benefits scroungers” rather than the corporations that poisoned their homes and families or the tax avoiders uncovered by the Panama Papers. The masses have been brainwashed to blame those at the bottom of the heap rather than those at the top (persuaded by people at the top, of course). Once again, fear of ‘other’ trumps reason and truth.

The media is not the only machine generating fear: insurance companies, Big Pharma, advocacy groups, lawyers, politicians and many more, have a multi billion dollar interest in you being afraid.

Our brains are “stress-reactive machines” evolved to keep us alive, and fearful creatures tend to live longer. In other words our biology and psychology are utterly susceptible to corruption, or what author Daniel Goleman coins “amygdala hijacking” to describe triggering the emotional brain before the logical brain has a chance to catch up. But humans are ill equipped to distinguish between an actual present threat and something they perceive or anticipate may be a threat in the future, we worry about things that haven’t happened and may never happen, i.e. uncertainty.

And uncertainty is the lever that the media, politicians and those that stand to gain, regularly use to influence behavior. This phenomena isn’t just the preserve of the right. “It’s big banks” “It’s ISIS” “It’s the environmentalists” “It’s the NRA” “It’s Wall Street” “It’s the patriarchy” “It’s the feminists” “It’s the right” “It’s the left” “It’s the Illuminati”…

So…that didn’t happen.

The scare-mongering machine mis-informs everyone that ‘others’ are the greatest threat to their safety. There’s always a scapegoat. Sociologist Christopher Bader says “Fascist governments have risen in times of economic change because they offer simple answers to complicated personal questions. And one of the most popular ways people can have certainty is by pointing to a villain to blame things on.” Donald Trump has been particularly blatant here. And barely a day passes without the front pages of the British press screaming that the world’s problems all rest at the feet of migrants.

The machine instills anxiety of the unlikely. Strauss notes “the first problem with the news is that it must be new. Generally, events that are both aberrations from the norm and spectacular enough to attract attention are reported, such as terrorist attacks, mass shootings and plane crashes. But far more prolific, and thus even less news-worthy, are the 117 suicides in the U.S. each day (in comparison with 43 murders), the 129 deaths from accidental drug overdoses, and the 96 people dying a day in automobile accidents (27 of whom aren’t wearing seat belts). Add to these the 1,315 deaths each day due to smoking, the 890 related to obesity, and all the other preventable deaths from strokes, heart attacks and liver disease, and the message is clear: The biggest thing you have to fear is not a terrorist or a shooter or a deadly home invasion. You are the biggest threat to your own safety.”

Open your mind

Imagine if we celebrated innovative solutions to human problems, rather than money and wealth as the benchmarks of success? Talented people from around the world working tirelessly to solve the most challenging problems they can find, such as using robotics to help disabled people, or using information technology to increase civic engagement, or designing more sustainable cities. They might not necessarily make big money doing it, but they have defined their status in terms of solving big problems to help people and society.

Some recent examples include:

• New research showed that acid pollution in the atmosphere is now almost back to the level that it was before it started with industrialisation in the 1930s.
• The World Health Organisation released a report showing that, since the year 2000, global malaria deaths have declined by 60%.
• In 2016, some of the world’s biggest diseases, like colon cancer, dementia and heart disease, started declining in wealthy countries.
• A new study from the world’s leading health journal reported that the number of women dying from pregnancy and childbirth has almost halved since 1990.
• Fresh evidence showed that public smoking bans have improved health in 21 nations.
• The WHO announced that measles have been eradicated in all of the Americas, from Canada to Chile. It’s the first time the disease has been eliminated from an entire world region.
• The proportion of older US adults with dementia, including Alzheimer’s, declined from 11.6% in 2000 to 8.8% in 2012, a decrease of about a million people.
• 93% of kids around the world learned to read and write this year. That’s the highest proportion in human history. And the gender gap between girls and boys in school narrowed in 2016 too.
• World hunger reached its lowest point in 25 years.

Feeling pumped? Read this list of achievements and you’ll want to rip off your shirt and howl at the moon.

The world really isn’t that shit.

Do yourself a favour and watch the first few minutes of Peter Diamandis’ TED Talk from a few years ago early on as he explains the REAL state of the world:

A better way of thinking

The neurology that stokes our anxieties can also quel them.

‘Agency’ is your capacity to exert power on your environment, and is related to anxiety. “It’s your belief about your agency that ultimately determines your emotional outcomes” according to Justin Moscarello, a researcher at NYU. Believing you don’t have control over your own life can lead to depression, he continues, while believing that you have a voice and can influence a situation can lead to positive feelings.

Rather than grasping for control and certainty, one could, as University of Pittsburgh sociologist Kerr puts it, “learn to have a degree of acceptance around uncertainty and ambiguity, learn to feel comfortable with change, and seek to understand things you may be afraid of rather than withdrawing from them.”

As Strauss concludes in his article:

“All this doesn’t mean that we should completely unplug, live in ignorance and accept terrorism, murder, racism, sexism, poverty, human rights violations and all the other problems in our world. One instance of any of these is too much. It also doesn’t negate the fact that technology has made it possible for one rogue person, group or nation to cause mass destruction and death.

The goal, however, is to separate real threats from manufactured ones. And to find a balance where we are not so scared that we’re making bad decisions that hurt us and our freedom, but not so oblivious that we aren’t taking steps to protect ourselves.

If we are to address the very real and numerous problems facing the country and the world today, we must do so without fear and anxiety, but with our heads clear and a sense of compassion for everyone, not just the people who look like or agree with us.”

So what’s the solution?

The system outlined within the previous posts of this series provides a solution to the real problems people face around prosperity. Here are solutions to the problems of perception they face.

They are a combination of political reform and finding truth in the age of (mis)information,

Direct democracy = a say on the problems to be addressed

In this era of near ubiquitous (mis)information, it’s absurd to have a democratic system structured for an era when data was transferred on horseback. For citizens to have genuine influence only once every 4–5 years in a general election is archaic and feeds the anxiety that they lack control over their lives (and in the first-past-the-post political systems adopted by the UK and US, you don’t even have this this if you live in a safe seat constituency).

A modern system needs a combination of representation and direct consultation with citizens over big policy decisions. I don’t mean the direct democracy free-for-all of California where regular open ballots have inevitably created a public accounts nightmare (who doesn’t want more for less?). 2016 has been a painful reminder of the outcomes that plebiscites can generate when citizens aren’t exposed to the necessary compromises of governance.

It makes more sense to ask people to vote on their problems rather than solutions. On the whole people are not well qualified to select solutions to their problems — if they knew the solution then the problems wouldn’t exist in the first place! People are, however, much more well versed in what troubles them.

Democracy should include regular voting on the major issues that people want solved. Government could then provide incentives to business, universities, charities or whoever else to solve those problems. Politics wouldn’t be about offering false answers, but about framing the important problems and then facilitating society to solve them. This is far more effective.

Finding truth in the (mis)information age

“New media and the information revolution have not only empowered access to information but also fuelled the spread of disinformation. Such is the scale of the problem that the World Economic Forum has defined misinformation as one of the world’s most urgent problems. Corrupt, neo-authoritarian rulers have become skilled at using disinformation to confuse their opposition, break down trust and fracture civil society. Increasingly, disinformation is used as a weapon by closed societies to attack more open ones. Inside democracies whole segments of society are pulled into alternative realities which are manipulated by violent extremists and dominated by conspiracy theories. Some commentators have even speculated that we are entering a “post-fact” age where political candidates reinvent reality on a whim. This poses a serious danger to deliberative democracy and good governance: if we cannot agree on the facts, debate and decision-making break down.”

This prescient extract is from a recent report by the Legatum Institute. The report recommends these steps in order to make progress:

• Mainstream fact checking in the media: Fact checking currently exists in a niche where it is sought out by those who have an a priori interest in “the facts”. One way forward is to include fact-checkers live in current affairs debating shows and news programmes. This can also help make fact-checking entertaining and help nip politicians’ lies in the bud.
• Understand and penetrate echo chambers: Social media and search algorithms have led to audiences self-selecting the “facts” they want to hear. Instead, echo chambers need to be analysed and understood and the key influencers identified. Once the underlying world-views have been understood, fact-checkers can engage more meaningfully with the audience.
• Encourage regulation: At the regulatory level a standards authority for political campaigns could help ensure politicians cannot lie with impunity, along the lines of what I discussed earlier.

To address the last point, the loophole that exempts political advertising in the UK from the regulatory oversight that commercial entities adhere to must be closed. You can’t claim that a pill will make your hair grow back, but you can claim that £350m a week will go to the NHS instead of the European Union. Freedom of speech has been manipulated and used as a shield. It has become the bastard child of the concept hailed by John Locke and the Founding Fathers. Unfettered markets work no better for the truth as they do for financial derivatives. Surely it is even more important to hold politicians to the truth than corporations?

There should be stronger repercussions for those that spread mis-truths for personal gain. A judicial challenge is being considered against the Leave Campaign. But this is not enough. If people believe what they are told and then, when their ‘truth’ is retracted, find it hard to accept this, it is no longer ok for newspapers to print whatever they like and make a (small) retraction later. The damage is already done.

The Czech Republic took an interesting step in December with the launch of an anti-disinformation watchdog. The new Centre Against Terrorism and Hybrid Threats was formed in response to increasing concern (not least from the country’s intelligence agencies) about fake news spread by Russian-backed websites. The fear is of Kremlin mischief-making in the general election this autumn, and the presidential contest early in 2018. There are risks to this sort of approach, but the risks of the current approach are evident to all and must be addressed. Regulation already exists on speech; hate speech against many groups is outlawed, commercial entities can’t spout wildly inaccurate claims for their own benefit, and the libel laws in the UK are some of the most stringent in the world (a fact Donald Trump recently took full advantage of). The approach of a political audit office with powers to “call bullshit” and force media to correct stories with the same prominence of original story, is an interesting one to be monitored.

Fact checking

The mainly manual process of fact checking could be automated in order to increase its efficacy and scale.

Google has a long running mission to “divide fact from fiction”, with the recent launch of ‘fact checking tags’ within Google News their latest attempt.

I talked in a previous post about the challenges of automating fact checking and Full Fact’s mission to make it a reality. It is possible to create an end-to-end fact checking system using existing technology that will monitor claims, check them, prepare and publish responses, all without human intervention. Common standards are already emerging for presenting fact checks through work done with schema.org by encoding fact checks as structured data so they can be presented in different places, from shareable widgets to search results.

PolitiFact’s main aim is to provide the tools needed for an informed citizenry, which is why their material is packaged in such a lively manner in order to attract readers within a lively information marketplace, the most ridiculous falsehoods get their lowest rating: “Pants on Fire!”

Whilst entertaining and increasingly utilised by mainstream media, I believe Full Fact’s aim to “stop misinformation at its source” to be more effective. The Full Fact model targets those with the “leverage to change the presentation of information” — journalists, newscasters, and opinion formers — in an attempt to force these professionals to tie public debate to reality. It focuses less on getting fact-checks re-tweeted thousands of times, and more on pressuring news institutions to prevent lies and misinformation being spread unchallenged. They have developed a tool called Robocheck, which ultimately aims to do exactly this by providing subtitles on live television and adding verdicts to claims as they are made.

Once automated fact checking is possible, the ultimate solution rests with attacking the incentives that underpin fake news.

Adding truth to the algorithms

The distribution of online news within the western world is dominated by the trifecta of Google, Facebook and Twitter. Their algorithms favour the distribution of content that has already proved popular, hence it is in the interests of content providers to create clickable content and headlines that ride these algorithms to lots of clicks and subsequent advertising revenue. “Entertaining” and damaging fake news is a byproduct of this. Fortunately, you can use the same systemic incentives as a cure:

• All major publications (selected using MediaCloud) should have their back catalogues fact checked (performed by trusted independent organisations such as Full Fact and Politifact) for the past 2–5 years, starting with their most viewed content.
• All bogus claims are noted, and the aggregated mark is incorporated as a ‘truthfulness factor’score within the algorithms of Google, Facebook and Twitter.
• Google’s search algorithms famously assesses the trustworthiness of a source by the volume and quality of its incoming links, favouring the large publishers. They also do some clever things to assess “quality”, a reaction to the deluge of poorly written content in the past. Incorporating this penalty score would be a huge boost towards dividing fact from fiction. Large publishers would still be favoured, but their display order (and subsequent advertising revenue) would be reliant upon their truthfulness.
• Facebook and Twitter’s algorithms ultimately determine the virality of a piece of content. Content from sites with a high penalty score would be shown on fewer feeds, reducing their virality.
• This truthfulness factor would be a rolling score, affected by a publication’s future content.

The financial ramifications of this would be enormous and instantaneous, cutting millions in revenues from media organisations that are already struggling financially.

It would incentivise major news providers to be truthful in order to reduce their penalty score, and swing the balance back toward the honest quality journalism that has been dying for years.

Piercing echo chambers

As for the misinformation that will still get out, the reality is that most people are only seeking confirmation of their truth. Many people end up believing something more strongly when you tell them it’s wrong. It’s part of the human condition to have self-narratives, if you then proceed to mess with this narrative by undermining the ‘facts’ upon which it is built, it causes holy hell with the person’s mind, and rarely is the end result an enlightened “I guess I was wrong all along!”

Fortunately, technology can help fact checkers penetrate echo chambers through audience analysis. RumorLens, developed at the University of Michigan, tracks how far misinformation spreads online, and can define the contours of online echo chambers which did not see the fact check because it was not re-tweeted by anyone within their network. Bots could then be used to put fact checks into these networks.

Hope for the future — lots of it!

Hochschild’s ‘Great Paradox’ and the data within the first part of this series show the genuine problems around prosperity that people face, problems that have been championed by Thomas Piketty and others who have shown quite how bad inequality has become.

The system outlined within parts two and three, if deployed properly, would solve these problems.

The universal basic income would equitably distribute money as a common resource. If Kartik Gada’s forecasts regarding permanent QE + tech-driven deflation turn out to be true, and not undermined by future protectionist policies, then we have a way to pay for this programme that is both politically feasible and won’t spark uncontrolled inflation.

With money more widely available, the standard of living framework would simultaneously reduce the fixed costs of modern life by increasing efficiency within the cost of production and/or delivery of those things we spend most of our money on (housing, transport, etc). This would reduce the need, and therefore power, of money, so long as people weren’t persuaded that current discretionary items should be classified as essentials (not everyone needs a boat).

Still not a necessity

And ushering in the long awaited post-GDP era would enable all future policy decisions to be sustainable; environmentally, socially, economically, and without the Herculean financial pressures to maximise returns that currently exist and lead to such unfair and destructive outcomes.

Finally, there’s universal access to education, for all ages, that will enable people to maximise their opportunities within this new economy, or simply nurture interests through the joy of learning. This will make it easier for people to understand the effects of the fear-mongering machine and take personal responsibility to be vigilant and see the world for the far more benevolent, though imperfect, place it is. They will see that queue to prosperity zipping along at a rate of knots, fueled by a basic income, and not worry about people butting in.

Time to take a stand

To achieve this we need an open globalised system and collaborative world. Defenders of the open world order need to make their case more forthrightly. People who live in areas of the UK that benefited most heavily from the EU also voted overwhelmingly to leave, the benefits of the open globalised system weren’t passionately explained.

The flow of goods, ideas, capital and people is essential for prosperity. Tolerance and compromise are virtues. They must remind voters why the EU matters for Europe, and how free trade and openness enrich societies. Protectionist policies will undermine the deflationary forces that can fund a basic income for all. Only a handful of politicians — Justin Trudeau in Canada, Emmanuel Macron in France — are brave enough to stand up for openness. Those who believe in it must fight for it.

They must also acknowledge, however, where globalisation needs work. Trade creates many losers, and rapid immigration can disrupt communities. But the best way to address these problems is not to throw up barriers. It is to devise bold policies that preserve the benefits of openness while alleviating its side-effects.

But simply saying that “we should stick with what we have” isn’t good enough. Obama offered “hope” and “change”, but the disgruntled working classes felt there wasn’t any. Trump came along and offered the same and voters plumped for it. If a progressive platform came along and offered a genuine program for hope and change like the one outlined within this series, voters would flood to it.

There is much hope for the future. Bernie Sanders almost got the Democratic Party nomination with no corporate support, media support, support from the wealthy, nor prior name recognition. And this came about primarily due to the overwhelming support of young people, even in states that voted for Trump in the presidential election. This is a hopeful sign for a turning point not far into the future.

The question to ask yourself is — what are you going to do?

Hopefully this series has pressed some buttons and, at the very least, made you realise we are far from hopeless.

I am actively creating solutions through Hack Brexit, if you want to know more about tech solutions to our big political problems you can follow me on Medium and Twitter (@nickwasmuth). If you want to get involved with Hack Brexit we’re always looking for developers, activists, product managers, data scientists, UX designers, systems architects, or anyone passionate about change — and you can join here.