Scott Monty

The Differences Between Generations Span Centuries

The Differences Between Generations Span Centuries

Saturn Devouring His Son by Francisco Goya, 1823 (Wikimedia Commons - public domain) Listen to this commentary We've all he...

Tech Companies Are Ethically Challenged

Tech Companies Are Ethically Challenged

The Adoration of the Golden Calf by Gerrit de Wet, first half of the 17th century (Wikimedia Commons - public domain) As a subject, et...

Lessons from The Brain Center at Whipple's

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Giovanni_Domenico_Tiepolo_-_The_Procession_of_the_Trojan_Horse_in_Troy_-_WGA22382.jpg">The Procession of the Trojan Horse into Troy</a> by Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, 1760 (public domain, Wikimedia Commons)</span></i></td></tr>
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<br />
What is it about technology that makes us think we're inoculated from the errors, pains, and foibles of what it means to be human?<br />
<br />
I'm a big fan of the old <i>Twilight Zone</i> series, and I was recently watching it on Hulu. One of the episodes in the final season is called "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brain_Center_at_Whipple%27s" target="_blank">The Brain Center at Whipple's</a>," and while it was made in the mid-1960s, it is remarkably timeless.<br />
<br />
The episode opens with Mr. Whipple previewing a film with his Chief Engineer: an update that Whipple is making to the board of directors. He assesses the W.V. Whipple Manufacturing Corporation by the numbers: 283,000 personnel, 13 plants, and 34,827 people in one plant.<br />
<br />
He says, "<i>At Whipple's, we only take forward steps</i>," and proceeds to introduce the X109B14 Automatic Assembly Machine, proudly announcing that it will replace 61,000 jobs, 73 machines, and save the company $4 million in employee insurance, welfare, hospitalization, and profit-sharing. And that the entire company would be automated within six months, running from a so-called "Brain Center" filled with similar machines.<br />
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He says all of this without emotion or regret, much to the chagrin of Hanley, the Chief Engineer, who does not approve of "<i>a lot of men out of work</i>." He cautions Whipple about taking men's livelihood and  reason for being away from them, and about Whipple's lack of goodwill and compassion through his "<i>heartless manipulation of man and metals</i>."<br />
<br />
Whipple's response is one rooted in numbers: "<i>I am here to provide efficiency. That is my only concern</i>." And in Whipple's mind, efficiency only comes from machines.<br />
<br />
The episode ends with the board removing Whipple from his job, due to overexertion and the inability to make sound judgments. Cut to his office, where a robot is now handling all of his duties.<br />
<br />
Rod Serling reminds us that this is "<i>the historical battle between flesh and steel. Between the brain of man and the product of man's brain</i>."<br />
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<h2>
<b>Ethics, Efficiency, and Empathy</b></h2>
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<b><i><span style="font-size: large;">"I think technology really increased human ability. But technology cannot produce compassion." </span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">– Dalai Lama</span></div>
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This isn't the first example of humans grappling with technology. The term "robot" was first introduced in the 1920s in the play "<a href="https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/the-origin-of-the-word-robot/" target="_blank">Rossum's Universal Robots</a>" by Czech playwright Karl Čapek. The word robota means "forced labor." And robots were certainly a central theme in Fritz Lang's 1927 silent film <i><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017136/" target="_blank">Metropolis</a></i>. I'll spare you the recap, but it was about the conflict between man and machine and lives lost in the process. The film ended with an interstitial card that read:<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4Ovhq09wwGw/XJMC7-e3GkI/AAAAAAABD1Y/nVV84S6XYswxz7lyyHLLov7xjEzsMzCQACLcBGAs/s1600/Metropolis%2B-%2BEpigram.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Final interstitial from Metropolis" border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1440" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4Ovhq09wwGw/XJMC7-e3GkI/AAAAAAABD1Y/nVV84S6XYswxz7lyyHLLov7xjEzsMzCQACLcBGAs/s640/Metropolis%2B-%2BEpigram.png" title="The Mediator Between the Head and the Hands Must be the Heart" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Mediator Between the Head and the Hands Must be the Heart</td></tr>
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In <i>Westworld</i> on HBO, we witness android hosts at an American Old West theme park that are programmed with narratives and interact with each other and guests. Meanwhile, guests can do whatever they want to the robot hosts, including murder and rape.<br />
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What is it about technology that makes us distance ourselves from the laws and customs that have been established for thousands of years?<br />
<br />
Part of the answer lies in the drive within Mr. Whipple, who was only concerned with efficiency. Looking at the history of technology, in every case, tools — however crude they were — allowed humans to be more efficient. Stone-tipped spears were more effective at hunting. The wheel allowed us to move large objects more easily. The machine gun and chemical weapons made warfare much more deadly.<br />
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In every case of technology, it removed us one step or more from the task at hand: we didn't risk being maimed by a wild animal during a hunt, construction became less back-breaking, and we didn't have to murder with our bare hands.<br />
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But that distance created a barrier of sorts. Because we aren't so viscerally connected to those and other instances of the infliction of pain, we're less likely to have the empathy that Whipple's chief engineer noted was missing.<br />
<br />
Fast forward to present-day. With artificial intelligence, mounds of data, the Internet of Things, and autonomous everything, we ostensibly have more technology at our disposal than ever before. As a result, we're experiencing a crisis of ethics that seems to take on a daily drumbeat:<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Elizabeth Holmes</b> ran a massive fraud scheme at <b>Theranos</b>, keeping people in the dark about the true nature of the blood test she supposedly invented. The lie was promulgated such that Walgreen's signed a major deal with them, and investors were blinded by their own greed, seeing their paper worth balloon. Even a board member like George Shultz chose to protect his investment rather than to believe his own grandson, the whistleblower behind the downfall.</li>
<li>The <b>Securities and Exchange Commission</b> is suing the former CEO of <b>Volkswagen </b>for the "massive fraud" behind the diesel emissions scandal. By using a simple bit of software, Volkswagen was able to make emissions cleaner during testing, but left drivers' vehicles as dirty as ever, when they thought they were buying cleaner vehicles.</li>
<li>And <b>Facebook</b>. Oh, Facebook. They've used <a href="https://www.scottmonty.com/2019/03/whens-last-time-you-heard-proper-apology.html" target="_blank">half-hearted apologies</a> as their strategy for too long. And the <b>Cambridge Analytica</b> scandal brought even more focus to them, as did their inability to curtail the Christchurch shooting video. Facebook has made it clear that they continue to <a href="https://medium.com/@scottmonty/a-little-matter-of-ethics-93e92af331ee" target="_blank">worship at the altar of the golden calf</a> rather than try to protect users. As <b>Scott Galloway</b> recently said on the Pivot podcast, "<a href="https://www.iheart.com/podcast/358-pivot-with-kara-swisher-an-29927080/episode/live-from-sxsw-its-kara-and-30695455/" target="_blank">Have any two individuals done more damage while making more money than <b>Mark Zuckerberg</b> and <b>Sheryl Sandberg</b>?</a>"</li>
</ul>
<br />
In every one of these instances, technology is at the core. But here's the thing: the technology isn't to blame. Humans are. In each of those cases, a human made the decision to say, "I have a choice between right and wrong. And I'm choosing wrong."<br />
<br />
The technology just made it easier for them to accept what they thought: that they weren't causing direct harm.<br />
<br />
I don't think it's any coincidence that there are three books that have just been released that all deal with this in one way or another:<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Shiv Singh and Rohini Luthra</b>'s book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Savvy-Navigating-Companies-Leaders-Post-Trust/dp/1940858720" target="_blank"><i>Savvy: Navigating Fake Companies, Fake Leaders, and Fake News in the Post-Trust Era</i></a> addresses this head-on by looking at how technology has isolated us and engendered a dearth of trust in the marketplace.</li>
<li><b>Amy Webb</b>'s latest book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Big-Nine-Thinking-Machines-Humanity/dp/1541773756" target="_blank"><i>The Big Nine: How the Tech Titans & Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity</i></a> deals with the unintended consequences that we're dealing with, following the implementation of vast amounts of online technology and artificial intelligence.</li>
<li>And <b>Kate O'Neill</b>'s <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Tech-Humanist-Technology-Better-Business-ebook/dp/B07GBHTX9K" target="_blank">Tech Humanist: How You Can Make Technology Better for Business and Better for Humans</a></i> gets to the core of what's needed: better-informed decisions based on how people are affected.</li>
</ul>
<br />
Is it any wonder that we're trying to wrap our heads around this lack of humanity in technology right now? The engineers and programmers that have contributed to this phenomenon have been brilliant technologists in their own right.<br />
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But with any undertaking that affects such a mass of humanity — whether it's the 283,000 employees of the Whipple Manufacturing Corporation or the 2.3 billion people who use Facebook's services — needs to have a leader that understands how humanity may be impacted by decisions.<br />
<br />
In case you haven't been following closely, my theme here is Timeless Wisdom: putting things in perspective and reflecting on how similar struggles were met in the past. It's borne from my own degree in classics and from a collection of Great Books of the Western World. And that's what's missing in a technology-heavy culture: the importance of humanities and a fundamental understanding or awareness of how human beings will react to various forms of technology that are introduced to them.<br />
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To study humanities is to understand humans, as flawed as we are. From head to heart. And we need technology that accounts for both.<br />
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<b><i><span style="font-size: large;">“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” </span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">– Aristotle</span></div>
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Lessons from The Brain Center at Whipple's

The Procession of the Trojan Horse into Troy by Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, 1760 (public domain, Wikimedia Commons) Listen to this...

When's the Last Time You Heard a Proper Apology?

When's the Last Time You Heard a Proper Apology?

Cleombrotus Ordered into Banishment by Leonidas II, King of Sparta by Benjamin West, 1768 (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) I’m sorry...

[Facebook] Data Is the New [Standard] Oil

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-npKb2cqudcQ/XblBZqgitFI/AAAAAAABI1w/VksoMR2cKoYFr2iJzLxPLqY3Qu98UeiIACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Diego%2BRivera%2B-%2BMan%252C%2BController%2Bof%2Bthe%2BUniverse.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="316" data-original-width="754" height="268" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-npKb2cqudcQ/XblBZqgitFI/AAAAAAABI1w/VksoMR2cKoYFr2iJzLxPLqY3Qu98UeiIACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Diego%2BRivera%2B-%2BMan%252C%2BController%2Bof%2Bthe%2BUniverse.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Image credit: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Libro_Los_Viejos_Abuelos_Foto_68.png">Man at the Crossroads</a> by Diego Rivera (via Gumr51 <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, Wikimedia Commons)</span></i><br style="text-align: left;" /></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
You've heard the phrase "data is the new oil," right?<br />
<br />
It was <a href="https://www.quora.com/Who-should-get-credit-for-the-quote-data-is-the-new-oil" target="_blank">first used</a> by <b>Clive Humby</b>, a British mathemetician and architect of Tesco’s loyalty program called Clubcard, in 2006. He said, "It’s valuable, but if unrefined it cannot really be used."<br />
<br />
The phrase has been repeated many times since 2006, and most recently, many pundits have taken exception to it. The primary objection is that data is not scarce or in danger of running out, like oil is. In fact, there's a glut of data.<br />
<br />
But let's pause for a moment to reflect on old oil. Or, put in another way, the origins of <b>Big Oil</b>.<br />
<br />
In America, we have a strange way of treating celebrities, whether their business is industrial, tech, or entertainment. We don't have a monarchy in the States, but celebrities are the closest thing we have to royalty.<br />
<br />
We consider them, their children, and those who associate with them, as larger than life. And we've certainly been treated to a whole wave of news recently that indicates that they've got just as many flaws and foibles as mere mortals. Perhaps more.<br />
<br />
In the late 19th and early 20th century, we didn't have kings, but we had captains of industry. Names that are now legendary, many of whom made their mark in their respective industry. <b>Astors</b>, <b>Vanderbilts</b>, <b>Morgans</b>, <b>Carnegies</b>, and <b>Fords </b>were known for furs and real estate, railroads, banking, steel, and automobiles, respectively. For the most part, their names became part of their institutions.<br />
<br />
But there was one other name that became syonymous with "the rich." <b>John D. Rockefeller</b>. Modern citizens will of course connect his name with Rockefeller Center in New York City, but over the last 75 years or so, his business empire has become increasingly obscured. His company, Standard Oil, was broken up, and you probably know some of the companies that sprung from it: ExxonMobil, Chevron, Sunoco, BP, Marathon. Some of the biggest names in the oil and gas industry.<br />
<br />
For decades, Rockefeller ran Standard Oil with a tight grip. From his boyhood in rural New York, he was taught to be careful with money. He had to. His own father was a con man who often cheated his children out of their money. His mother was the thrifty one, and she impressed this upon him:<div><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>"Willful waste makes woeful want."</i></b> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">— Proverb</span></div>
<div><br /></div><br />
He had an entrepreneur's spirit, being careful with his resources and tracking his income and his spending.<br />
<br />
When he founded Standard Oil, he was deeply involved in its operations and finances, and remained so for most of his time in the executive suite. When an enterprising journalist by the name of Ida Tarbell came along, she did what no one else had done: she exposed Rockefeller's methods of doing business that made it possible for Standard Oil to corner 90 percent of the oil market.<br />
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Her methods — now known as investigative journalism — exposed business practices that helped to hone and redefine anti-trust laws for the 20th century. From colluding with railroad companies on rates to end-to-end ownership of the oil industry, and an eventual business structure that rolled all of the divisions up to the Standard Oil Trust, Rockefeller did everything he could to dominate the buinesss.<br />
<br />
He was ultimately known as "the single most important figure shaping the oil industry."<br />
<br />
That sounds remarkably like Mark Zuckerberg and the social network industry.<br />
<br />
Let's compare Facebook to Standard Oil:<br />
<br />
<table class="wdn_responsive_table flush-left" id="t416656"><caption></caption> <thead>
<tr>             <th colspan="1" id="t416656_row_0col_0">Standard Oil</th>             <th colspan="1" id="t416656_row_0col_1">Facebook</th>        </tr>
</thead> <tbody>
<tr>             <td colspan="1" data-header="Standard Oil">• Made backdoor deals with railroads</td>             <td colspan="1" data-header="Facebook">• Made backdoor deals with apps for data</td>        </tr>
<tr>             <td colspan="1" data-header="Standard Oil">• Was criticized over price-fixing </td>             <td colspan="1" data-header="Facebook">• Was criticized over privacy issues</td>        </tr>
<tr>             <td colspan="1" data-header="Standard Oil">• Complete vertical integration: drilling, refining, distribution</td>             <td colspan="1" data-header="Facebook">• Control over distribution and holds power over publishers/media</td>        </tr>
<tr>             <td colspan="1" data-header="Standard Oil">• Consolidation of 34 entities within Standard Oil Trust</td>             <td colspan="1" data-header="Facebook">• Consolidation of messaging apps: Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger</td>        </tr>
<tr>             <td colspan="1" data-header="Standard Oil">• Grew by acquisition</td>             <td colspan="1" data-header="Facebook">• Facebook has acquired 79 companies</td>        </tr>
<tr>             <td colspan="1" data-header="Standard Oil">• Insider deals for shipping rates locked out and strangled those Rockefeller wanted to defeat</td>             <td colspan="1" data-header="Facebook">• After Snapchat refused Facebook's acquisition offer, Facebook simply copied many of Snapchat features in Instagram as revenge</td>        </tr>
</tbody> </table>
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But is the call to break up Facebook a realistic one? Size alone is not a crime. Recall a previous post in which I mentioned how <a href="https://www.scottmonty.com/2018/11/dont-stop-innovating-because-youre-big.html" target="_blank">the "Big" descriptor is automatically <span style="color: black;">— </span>and sometimes incorrectly <span style="color: black;">— </span> seen as evil</a>.<br />
<br />
The two giants have done their part to improve our collective experience, and their founders are also known for their philanthropy. Facebook provides a service that has made the world a more connected place, allowed families to stay in touch, old schoolmates to reconnect, and the like. Just as the Standard Oil Trust <blockquote><div>"made notable strides in improving kerosene, developing by-products, and reducing the cost of packaging, transporting, and distributing petroleum products worldwide." (Chernow, Ron. <i><a href="https://amzn.to/3oHFjfc" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.</a></i> New York: Random House, 1998. p. 228)</div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>That doesn't mean we shouldn't be concerned, or that their charity washes away the negative. Facebook's (and Google's and Amazon's…) control over so much data gives them extraordinary power. But if we're using anti-trust standards from 100 years ago, we're using outdated modes of thinking. Breaking them up either reduces the network effect that makes them useful, or it simply rearranges things like Standard Oil's 34 subsidiaries did.<br />
<br />
It's painful to say, but better scrutiny should have been applied by regulatory authorities upon the announcement of acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. The purchase prices alone should have indicated there was something up.<br />
<br />
Regulators and trust-busters need to become more data-savvy, just as those of over 100 years ago had to try to get ahead of one of the most able business minds in American history.<br />
<br />
Theodore Roosevelt, the leading proponent of trust-busting, had this to say in 1895:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Too much cannot be said against the men of wealth who sacrifice everything to getting wealth. There is not in the world a more ignoble character than the mere money-getting American, insensible to every duty, regardless of every principle, bent only on amassing a fortune, and putting his fortune only to the basest uses —whether these uses be to speculate in stocks and wreck railroads himself, or to allow his son to lead a life of foolish and expensive idleness and gross debauchery, or to purchase some scoundrel of high social position, foreign or native, for his daughter. Such a man is only the more dangerous if he occasionally does some deed like founding a college or endowing a church, which makes those good people who are also foolish forget his real iniquity. These men are equally careless of the working men, whom they oppress, and of the State, whose existence they imperil. There are not very many of them, but there is a very great number of men who approach more or less closely to the type, and, just in so far as they do so approach, they are curses to the country."</blockquote>
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True in 1895. True today.</div>
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[Facebook] Data Is the New [Standard] Oil

Image credit: Man at the Crossroads by Diego Rivera (via Gumr51 CC BY-SA 3.0 , Wikimedia Commons) Listen to this commentary You&...

Our Post-Privacy Fate

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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OGdmp03lntg/XIe9Q--hDQI/AAAAAAABDsA/vA3YdNb5mQI8BMAzOxqPcfMb5M8f6kWvQCLcBGAs/s1600/Joseph%2BMallord%2BWilliam%2BTurner%2B-%2BThe%2BDecline%2Bof%2Bthe%2BCarthaginian%2BEmpire.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="568" data-original-width="800" height="454" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OGdmp03lntg/XIe9Q--hDQI/AAAAAAABDsA/vA3YdNb5mQI8BMAzOxqPcfMb5M8f6kWvQCLcBGAs/s640/Joseph%2BMallord%2BWilliam%2BTurner%2B-%2BThe%2BDecline%2Bof%2Bthe%2BCarthaginian%2BEmpire.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Joseph_Mallord_William_Turner_-_The_Decline_of_the_Carthaginian_Empire_-_WGA23169.jpg" target="_blank">The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire</a> by Joseph Mallord William Turner, 1817 (Wikimedia Commons - public domain)</span></i></td></tr>
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Mark Zuckerberg's <a href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-zuckerberg/a-privacy-focused-vision-for-social-networking/10156700570096634/" target="_blank">announcement</a> last week that Facebook is throwing its efforts into private, encrypted messaging should have rung alarm bells, despite his plaintive concerns <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-interview-privacy-pivot/" target="_blank">about safety</a>. More on safety in a moment.<br />
<br />
First, it's worth pointing out that the move itself — putting more focus on private messages — is one of self-preservation, pure and simple. It's a move to control the platform where users are and to defend itself against a potential break-up.<br />
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<h2>
<b>Control</b></h2>
When a CEO pens a 3,200 word manifesto-cum-business strategy, it's not a knee-jerk reaction to something happening in the news. You can guarantee that this is something that's been discussed in board meetings and strategic planning sessions.<br />
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Facebook sees user growth numbers before any of us. And they naturally want to shield any negative news for as long as possible. But <b>Edison Research</b> did its own independent research and found that <a href="https://www.edisonresearch.com/facebook-declines-first-time-infinite-dial-history/" target="_blank">the number of Facebook users was shrinking</a> from 2017 to 2018. We know that Facebook was continuing to see growth from Instagram, one of its other properties.<br />
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So what's Facebook to do? Since we're seeing more people flee the always-public updates and seek out more intimate, private places (Facebook Groups, Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram, and critically, SMS), Facebook is <a href="https://www.convinceandconvert.com/digital-marketing/facebook-messaging-push-privacy/" target="_blank">positioning itself to own private chat</a>.<br />
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In some ways, it's amazing that it took us this long to get here. It's been about a decade of major public adoption of public social networks. And look what it's gotten us: contentious debates, irredeemable trolls, duplicitous bots, and misinformation. It's the exact opposite of what's needed.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting men free from men."</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">— Ayn Rand, <i>The Fountainhead</i></span></div>
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While not explicitly stated in the U.S. Constitution, <a href="https://www.livescience.com/37398-right-to-privacy.html" target="_blank">privacy is a fundamental right</a> that flows throughout a number of Amendments. And despite Facebook's seemingly magnanimous pivot to privacy, there are causes for concern.<br />
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In <a href="https://www.convinceandconvert.com/digital-marketing/facebook-messaging-push-privacy/" target="_blank">a must-read essay</a>, <b>Jay Baer</b> lays out that Facebook's move is all about controlling <i>the</i> communications platform of the future. They have the critical volume: roughly 30 percent of the world's population is on one of Facebook's platforms.<br />
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And by merging the four of them together, Facebook will then have a super-platform that will control the flow of private messages, integrate commerce, and distribute advertising.<br />
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It's unparalleled in scope.<br />
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<h2>
<b>Protect the Firm</b></h2>
At nearly the same time that Facebook published its new strategy, <b>Senator Elizabeth Warren</b> published her own position — a rather wide-reaching and sometimes incorrect one — on <a href="https://medium.com/@teamwarren/heres-how-we-can-break-up-big-tech-9ad9e0da324c" target="_blank">the need to break up Big Tech</a>. <b>Ben Thompson</b>, as usual, has <a href="https://stratechery.com/2019/where-warrens-wrong/" target="_blank">thought about this deeply over on Stratechery</a> and deserves a careful read.<br />
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But Facebook's move in advance of any regulatory crackdown, in addition to positioning the company as an unstoppable communications juggernaut, also accomplishes something else. By <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/25/18197228/facebook-instagram-whatsapp-merge-messaging-services-mark-zuckerberg" target="_blank">merging the infrastructure of Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger</a>, it makes it more difficult to extract them from each other, should the government call for a break-up of Facebook.<br />
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Just as Zuckerberg said it's <a href="https://www.recode.net/2019/2/20/18233640/mark-zuckerberg-explains-ad-free-facebook" target="_blank">nearly impossible to make an ad-free version</a> of Facebook, he might make the case that it would be too difficult to separate the messaging systems from one another. So merging the three in advance of regulatory oversight could be a way to protect the firm.<br />
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As an aside, it's worth checking out <b>Planet Money</b>'s three-part series on anti-trust matters: <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/02/15/695131832/antitrust-1-standard-oil" target="_blank">Standard Oil</a>, <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/02/20/696342011/antitrust-2-the-paradox" target="_blank">The Paradox</a>, and <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/02/22/697170790/antitrust-3-big-tech" target="_blank">Big Tech</a>.<br />
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<h2>
<b>A Word About 'Safety'</b></h2>
Facebook says that it will protect our data in encrypted messages, which will lead to a safer experience on Facebook. There's no question that such moves will protect our data. But what's been happening on the platform in recent years regarding the spread of misinformation and fake news (real fake news, not the kind of news that reflects poorly on a world leader) demands more attention.<br />
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We need our minds and our sensibilities protected from malignant forces, not just our data.<br />
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In this regard, there's no evidence that private conversations will yield more safety. In fact, the opposite may be true: it will drive hate speech, misinformation campaigns, and other dangerous movements underground. It's a potentially insidious development.<br />
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If anything, we need better monitoring of the very public systems we already have in place before doubling down on giving them more life elsewhere.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><b>"Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman."</b></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">— Louis D. Brandeis</span></div>
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Lest you think that Facebook is making any of these moves for the benefit of society, recall that the company has had every opportunity to do the right thing, to build trust, to develop its own set of standards and ethics before being called out. And at every turn, the company has failed to do so.<br />
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How can we reasonably expect this time to be any different?<br />
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Our Post-Privacy Fate

The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire by Joseph Mallord William Turner, 1817 (Wikimedia Commons - public domain) Mark Zuckerberg'...

The Secret of Good Futurists

The Secret of Good Futurists

Alexander Consulting the Oracle of Apollo by Louis Jean Francois Lagrenée, 1789 (Wikimedia Commons - public domain) Listen to this...

The Seeds of Time

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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IY6O2c1bQFM/XH4RJ_UiQBI/AAAAAAABDiY/WVdqY-h5ZVEWBb31WReVu058AQj8rdRngCLcBGAs/s1600/Th%25C3%25A9odore%2BChass%25C3%25A9riau%2B-%2BMacbeth%2Band%2BBanquo%2BMeeting%2Bthe%2BWitches%2Bon%2Bthe%2BHeath%2B1855.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="597" data-original-width="800" height="476" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IY6O2c1bQFM/XH4RJ_UiQBI/AAAAAAABDiY/WVdqY-h5ZVEWBb31WReVu058AQj8rdRngCLcBGAs/s640/Th%25C3%25A9odore%2BChass%25C3%25A9riau%2B-%2BMacbeth%2Band%2BBanquo%2BMeeting%2Bthe%2BWitches%2Bon%2Bthe%2BHeath%2B1855.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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We're all racing toward the future at the same rate.<br />
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No matter what happens, nor when it happens, we'll all experience it at the same time.<br />
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We do want to reach certain solutions before our competition, and increasingly as quickly as customers demand it. Which is why so many companies are racing toward digital transformation.<br />
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You've probably heard a CEO use this quote to motivate employees to think ahead:<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>"Skate to where the puck is going, not to where it has been."</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">— Wayne Gretzky</span></div>
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Not only is it trite and a cliché, but it's flawed. And we should stop throwing it around so freely.<br />
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The problem in business is that the future isn't a sure thing. Futurists are good at flagging big trends, but customers aren't necessarily on the same path. We don't know how things are going to turn out. As the saying goes, <b><i>"Where's my flying car?"</i></b><br />
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In Act 1 Scene 3 of <i>Macbeth</i>, the two generals Macbeth and Banquo visit the three witches, who are gifted with the power of foresight. Banquo requests of them:<br />
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<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i><span style="font-size: large;">"If you can look into the seeds of time</span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-size: large;">And say which grain will grow and which will not,</span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-size: large;">Speak, then, to me."</span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">— </span><span style="font-size: large;">William Shakespeare</span></div>
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Most of us aren't witches. And none of us has the power to accurately predict what will happen in the future.<br />
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However, we do have the power to look into the past, which in turn helps us understand human nature, motivations, and decisions made by leaders who may have been in comparable circumstances.<br />
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In 1952, the publishers of the Encyclopedia Britannica put together a collection of works called <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Books_of_the_Western_World" target="_blank">Great Books of the Western World</a></i> in a 54-volume set. The idea is that there are certain works in the canon of western culture that deserve exploring. This is referred to as the Great Conversation, or the ongoing process of writers and thinkers referencing, building on, and refining the work of their predecessors.<br />
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"We want them heard again—not because we want to go back to antiquity, or the Middle Ages, or the Renaissance, or the Eighteenth Century. We are quite aware that we do not live in any time but the present, and, distressing as the present is, we would not care to live in any other time if we could. We want the voices of the Great Conversation to be heard again because we think <i><b>they may help us learn to live better </b></i><b><i>now</i></b>." [Emphasis mine - ed.] ("Preface," <i>The Great Conversation</i>, <i>Great Books of the Western World Vol. 1</i>, p. xii)</blockquote>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PFr7k1ocHyA/XH52Rd062UI/AAAAAAABDjQ/8OsIDJ7I8Yoeuer_fB4HfEf_lBm1qsGdACLcBGAs/s1600/Great%2BBooks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="924" data-original-width="1232" height="478" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PFr7k1ocHyA/XH52Rd062UI/AAAAAAABDjQ/8OsIDJ7I8Yoeuer_fB4HfEf_lBm1qsGdACLcBGAs/s640/Great%2BBooks.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Great Books</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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This may seem academic or esoteric, but when it comes to business, we're dealing with psychology and behavioral economics. In other words, we need to understand human nature, decision making, persuasion, storytelling, and other related factors that can all be found in such Great Books.<br />
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It doesn't matter what your customers have read, because they'll act according to human nature, which is timeless and universal. History is replete with examples.<br />
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All we have to do is study the past if we want to predict the future. Are you with me?<br />
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<i>Image credit: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MacbethAndBanquo-Witches.jpg" target="_blank">Macbeth and Banquo Meeting the Witches on the Heat</a>h by Théodore Chassériau, 1855 (Wikimedia Commons - public domain)</i><br />
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The Seeds of Time

We're all racing toward the future at the same rate. No matter what happens, nor when it happens, we'll all experience it at th...

Scott Monty - Strategic Communications & Leadership Advisor