“ For Siri to be really effective, it has to learn a great deal about the user. If it knows where you work, where you live and what kind of places you like to go, it can really start to tailor itself as it becomes an expert on you individually. This requires a great deal of trust in the institution collecting this data. Siri didn’t have this, but Apple has earned their street cred.”
— Jon Pielak, former Siri-iPhone developer
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Posts tagged with trust
“ [T]he US Congress has demonstrated clearly that it can’t be trusted to govern the country in a responsible manner. And the tail-risk implications for markets are huge. … When you build up large stocks of mistrust and ill will, nothing can happen for a very long time. But when something does happen, it’s much quicker and much worse than anybody could have anticipated. The markets might not be punishing the US government at the moment. But the mistrust and ill will is there, believe me. And when it appears, it will appear with a vengeance.”
— Felix Salmon
On Linking to Primary Sources
Trust but verify, as they say. The New York Times erodes the credibility of it’s writers by not allowing links in their iPad app.
Via DF.
Why is there no Looting in Japan?
Big win for Francis Fukuyama?
My argument is that the rule of law comes out of organized religion, and that democracy is a weird accident of history.
(Source: theweek.com)
On the Internet, Community (Only) Costs $5
I don’t know that much about MetaFilter or Matt Haughey. Sure MetaFilter sometimes shows well in Google searches, and Haughey is an internet celebrity, first making an impression with me after reading about his adventures in $40 eyeglasses and more recently with his public battle with a brain tumor.
In March, Dan Benjamin interviewed him on The Pipeline. During the conversation, Haughey described his idiosyncratic take on fostering internet communities. Haughey’s unconventional aspects to joining and participating in MetaFilter include a $5 fee. The rationale for the fee seems to be more about keeping the quality of posts on the website high, and by extension, keeping the quality of the community on MetaFilter high as well.
It would be quite reasonable to question whether or not that $5 actually buys MetaFilter anything. I’m not aware of any social network that charges money for people to use it, except for Flickr, and Flickr only charges for unlimited uploads of photos and has quite generous terms for their free membership. So clearly, MetaFilter has a distinct take on how to build community online.
But I think we’ve now got a data point that MetaFilter and its $5 fee is doing something right.
This week, MetaFilter helped save two Russian women from likely being forced into sex work in New York City. A MetaFilter member posted a plea for help which was answered with useful information and many offers of help, including one from an official at the US State Department. However, it was a complete stranger to man asking for help that ultimately stepped in and convinced the two Russian women to change their plans and provide them with food and shelter.
This isn’t supposed to happen. The good guys aren’t supposed to win. The internet isn’t supposed to be helping us solve the Kitty Genovese problem. Even Barack Obama argues that technology creates distractions and not “empowerment” or “emancipation.”
But he’s wrong. Some of us are figuring out new ways to generate social capital on the web. Democracy is going to be okay. Internet stories are awash in scams, and lately the stories of social networks have been about the way they can destroy teenagers and young people’s self-esteem. Those are real problems. I don’t want to belittle those tragedies, but we need to tell and share this story too (thanks Neven, thanks Kottke.org) because the Internet really can create good outcomes.
Collectively, we need to thank the guy who asked for help, cheer the woman who went to save strangers at a bus station, and applaud all those other people who posted links, contacted authorities, or sent money, or gave their time as translators to support this effort. But quite importantly, we should take a moment to think about what Matt Haughey and MetaFilter have accomplished in spite of (and maybe because of) that $5 fee, which seems like a pretty good thing right about now. I don’t know if the $5 generated the trust necessary to avoid collective inaction, but it’s something that we need to consider.
UPDATE: Mother Jones provides good coverage of the entire story.
Polarization Does Not Affect Trust in Government
So says John Sides of the Monkey Cage and he has the data to back up the claim.
John Sides: “People trust government when times are good.”
