Tag Archives: corporation

A Dark Side of Software

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Lying and cheating to get a competitive edge is nothing new and certainly not limited to human beings. But Earth has plenty of resources and there’s no serious threat to our existence in sight (other than ourselves, of course). Because companies affect so many beings, cheating has serious effects.

Thanks to software, never before has cheating had so many ways of staying hidden through complexity and obscurity. Thankfully, some people still have a conscience and this is how we found out about the way Uber, Volkswagen and probably many other companies have stayed above the law and ruined the lives of countless people:

https://medium.freecodecamp.com/dark-genius-how-programmers-at-uber-volkswagen-and-zenefits-helped-their-employers-break-the-law-b7a7939c6591#.k774sps2y^

As software engineer, to say that I’m disgusted by what these guys did would be an understatement. It is not unethical. It is outright criminal. What’s even worse is that such people^ usually manage to escape justice. Laws are changing too slowly to be able to keep up with these crooks and their perpetually changing methods. It’s like an old turtle chasing a cheetah. It’s not even funny anymore, it’s painfully sad.

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Big Pharma Finds Itself in the Spotlight Again

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Now and then, the dirty tactics of Big Pharma burst out into the open. At the end of 2015, the disgusting maneuvers of Valeant came to light^. Then-CEO, Martin Shkreli, laughed at and insulted the representatives of the people^. We might sometimes dislike politicians, but the arrogance and greediness of these pharmaceutical companies is absolutely staggering.

Last week, another drug maker entered the spotlight. Mylan, makers of allergy shot EpiPen have been greedily and unscrupulously raising the price of their products:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/08/24/white-house-epipen-price-hiles-raise-moral-questions/89269028/^

Mylan promised to do something about the situation^, even though the company’s decision has left more than a few experts in the field rather confused. In the meantime, people with low income that depend on these products are sacrificing the quality of their life to fill Mylan’s coffers. This takes “unfair” to a whole new level.

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All Your Computers Are Belong to Us

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In recent years, Intel has moved towards integrating some pretty nifty remote administration features into its CPUs. While this may be a good idea for certain enterprises, it may quickly turn into a nightmare as soon as exploits and vulnerabilities are found. And guess what^?

Software has bugs. Hey, it happens, everybody makes mistakes. But in this case, the mistakes can’t be corrected in time (before an attacker exploits them). That’s because, in typical monopolist corporation fashion, Intel is obscuring the process by not allowing the security community to analyze whatever code the company decides to shove into our machines. The same argument stands true regarding any proprietary code, especially Microsoft’s Windows, which after 20 years of fixes is still the most vulnerable mainstream operating system.

The following article describes the problem pretty well:

http://hackaday.com/2016/01/22/the-trouble-with-intels-management-engine/^

It’s probably only a matter of time until a clever attacker will compromise the company’s buggy code. Of course, Intel will eventually patch its security holes, but given that the company’s CPUs are used across the world in some pretty sensitive contexts, there’s no telling how much damage such attacks can cause.

As for us mortals, we are at risk of having our privacy compromised even by petty criminals. This is because there’s a large window of opportunity between the time when a security hole is found and the time that Intel moves to fix it for less prioritized customers.

And don’t even get me started on how governments across the world can (and probably will) force Intel’s hand into giving over political dissidents on a silver platter. Privacy? What privacy?

If you want to learn more, here’s another article on the same topic:

http://boingboing.net/2016/06/15/intel-x86-processors-ship-with.html^

I wrote this hot on the heels of a Dissected News piece about Cyber-Warfare^. There’s additional interesting information to be found there.

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The Uncertain Future of the Internet

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As one of the most, if not the most powerful force for change, the Internet’s future is a cause for concern. In the past decade, governments and corporations have increasingly encroached upon our freedom and privacy. These entities will use every possible excuse to rein-in the transformative power of the Internet.

As more people get connected, the Internet is becoming a mirror of our society. The good, the bad, the beautiful, the horrible, we can all find it online. Our society isn’t perfect. With such an educational system, who can even expect it to be? But regulatory bodies can now motivate various restrictions as being “for our own good”, this being one of the age-old excuses that our masters have used when trying to deprive us of something:

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/345063-internet-mousetrap-shut-freedom/^

But here’s the good news. The Internet is still at its very beginning. The fifty or so years^ that have passed since the first research into packet switching might seem like a lot. But really, compared to other technologies that have been around for hundreds or thousands of years, it’s not. Here’s a good article driving this point home:

http://new.www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-kelly/the-internet-is-still-at-the-beginning_b_10321958.html^

We’re still in danger of governments depriving us^ of what is becoming our voice as a species (more than 40% of the world population is now online). Keep this in mind next time you read about efforts to protect the freedom and independence of the Internet.

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Mitsubishi’s 25 Years of Lies

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Not even a year has passed since Volkswagen was caught cheating emission tests. The scandal that followed pummeled the company’s stock value and profits. But now, the German automaker has to stand aside for a bit, because we have a new champion of deception. Mitsubishi has been at it for 25 years:

http://time.com/4308223/mitsubishi-motors-fuel-testing-cheating/^

It’s almost impossible to estimate how much damage this has done to human health in Japan, but it’s probably a lot. By doctoring emission tests, there was less pressure for the company to improve its cars. Those cars are still out there on the streets and they won’t be going anywhere for some time.

Studies regarding how many people die yearly due to air pollution are inconclusive. This one puts the figure at three million, yearly^. What is certain is that pollution will shorten and decrease the quality of life for everybody. What’s even scarier is that, by now, it’s pretty obvious that most vehicles on our streets today have been sold with understated pollution records (other companies have been caught cheating or admitted that this is a wide-spread practice). Exactly on the day when I published this article, Suzuki was in the news^ regarding their fuel economy lies.

I’ve said a while back that we’re partially to blame for the behavior of companies in the past decades. I don’t want to defend Mitsubishi, but the company has an additional excuse in the fact that it’s from Japan. Their culture is one of extreme performance. There’s even a special word for people who die from being over-worked^.

Under these conditions, I am not entirely surprised that a bunch of engineers decided to lie to their superiors in order to look well at the salary review. In more ways than one, Japan is one of the worst cases of mixing Western values with another culture.

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The Intellectual Diet

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Just like the body is what it eats, the mind is what it experiences. This is a truth with vast and grave implications when it comes to the types of entertainment we invest our time in. Entertainment is a highly efficient social programming tool because, when entertained, the mind is open and relaxed. While in this state, it is easier for toxic messages to escape our scrutiny and infiltrate our thoughts.

A simple example about how entertainment has negatively affected our society is the impressive range of stereotypes it helped create. We need look no further than the objectification of both women and men. The silent enforcement of ideal body types starts as early as the first cartoons kids watch and continues throughout the adult life, slowly dripping into our minds from movies to magazine covers and commercials.

Desensitize through violence

Let’s start with a short thought experiment. Let’s imagine a person that has almost never seen other people getting hurt, shot or killed in movies, games or news. Now let’s say a military power decides to invade another country and the news suddenly broadcasts a scene of carnage. How would such a person react?

I’m pretty sure that in most cases, outrage would be a likely reaction. Politicians would suddenly have a much harder time selling the wars that the weapon manufacturers so badly want to happen. It’s quite likely that we’d see a drop in violent crime as well. This is quite a simple conclusion based on the fact that the mind is shaped by what it experiences and what is obviously passing as “entertainment” these days.

To be clear: I do not propose that we censor violent movies or games or that we don’t show the news as it is. As I grew up, I was exposed to plenty of violent entertainment and realities. I still play a few rather gory computer games. What I’m saying is that perhaps we need to take into consideration the quantities in which we absorb such imagery.

I believe that one of the purposes of this seriously biased towards violence entertainment style we are subjected to is to desensitize us to murder. It’s also easy profits for whoever produces such intellectual drugs: the brain is easily hooked on this sort of stimulation, because it taps into the primal, savage survival instinct. Like any drug, it is needed in increased quantities as the mind develops tolerance for it. We start our children with gun toys and cartoon battles and as they grow up, they’re left craving for more of the same.

Violence is present in all forms of art, but more recently, movies and video games have spread it more efficiently than ever. All this happens in a day and age when the race for survival is clearly not a matter of “dog eat dog” anymore. Given our vast resources and technology, it is not necessary that we massacre each other, or other beings for that matter.

Creating fake ambitions

Our will to survive is at the base of yet another important area of our behavior. This is probably even easier to tap into than the areas of our brain that are pleased by violent entertainment. You might have guessed it already: I’m referring to the desire to procreate. Sex is an excellent tool for selling products and creating fake ambitions (be thin, smell good, use certain brands to gain the approval of the opposite sex).

Unfortunately, the content shown on TV or “official” channels on the Internet is often seen as a sort of authority, even when it comes to advertisement. This is completely counter-intuitive, since advertisers are anything but altruistic. Most advertised products don’t have anything to do with improving our health; quite the opposite, actually.

Just a couple of decades ago we were advertising cancer. I’m quite sure most of the “beauty chemicals” advertised today are dangerous, although, hopefully, not quite as dangerous as the additives they’ve been stuffing our tobacco with.

Of course, it all goes way beyond advertisement. A lot of the entertainment beamed at us can be considered cultural weaponry, which is used to make us adopt certain lifestyles. There are many reasons for this, ranging from something as simple as profits (making us buy various products) down to truly dangerous society-changing opinion building (such as shaping political preferences, ideological orientation or religious affiliation).

The reason I use the word “weaponry” is because we are dealing here with actions that tamper with our minds, ultimately causing damage to our society. Perhaps the social standards haven’t advanced yet to the stage where we can own-up to the fact that we’re producing a lot of mind-corrupting junk, but this doesn’t mean it’s not time to start exposing it for what it is.

Solutions

The best solution I can imagine (and have started applying for myself) is adopting an intellectual diet. However, this must be voluntary. We can’t go about it by declaring “war on violence”. Censorship is not the way. Prohibition never worked and there isn’t any proof that it ever will. Humans’ desire to be free is too powerful.

We should aim towards increasing awareness regarding toxic entertainment. Most people I approached regarding this subject have agreed that the vast majority of movies being shown in cinemas today are utter junk. For me, this is a sign that we are already aware of the problem. The only and most important other step necessary is taking action and rejecting the content that abuses and insults our intellect.

Therefore, content creators should be encouraged to gradually improve their output and use it to educate the public. If we – as a society – decide that it is important to surround ourselves with positive art forms, I have little doubt that it is possible, within a couple of decades, to witness a pivotal change in our collective consciousness.

This change should not be seen as a threat to the economy, but rather as an opportunity to explore new challenges. If anything, humans are inventive. As with any evolutionary changes, new opportunities for profit will present themselves. Yes, a change in the intellectual environment could prove fatal for some economic entities, but then again, we don’t live in the jungle anymore so I’m quite hopeful nobody will die of hunger because of this.

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A Few Words About the Wonderful Mining Industry

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When the balance sheet looks bad, what’s a good executive to do? Cut worker benefits, of course! A bankrupt coal mining company just agreed to give millions of dollars in bonuses to its managers, as a reward for their clever financial strategy. I’d be more sarcastic if it wasn’t so damn tragic.

Here’s the article that breaks the story:

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/02/16/3749331/coal-company-executive-payments/^

It’s not the first time when these mining conglomerates are meat-grinding their own employees. From disastrous oil spills^ to catastrophic dam breaks^, down to transforming pristine nature into apocalyptic landscapes^, there are but a few crimes against the ecosystem that mining companies haven’t committed yet – don’t ask for a list.

When are we going to wake up to the fact that our current economic model is not only unsustainable, but downright murderous? Mining companies are the scourge of the Earth. I suppose they have the excuse that they’re just following orders – it’s our society that “needs” their goods. The truly disgusting thing is that while all this is going on, politicians pad their bank accounts and judges look the other way.

It’s quite hard to be balanced when analyzing this subject, almost impossible to be diplomatic. I am aware that we should be understanding towards investors and other interested parties. But when a CEO is paid 8 million dollars, it’s very difficult to argue in favor of cutting health and disability benefits for the company’s workers. There’s only one name such practices can be given: slavery.

Unless we urge our governments to intervene, this situation will only get worse, because these corporations with bully mentality will only become more daring with every passing year. If they do this to their workers, it’s easy to extrapolate and realize that they’re applying the same budget cuts when it comes to maintenance and safety protocols. No wonder we’re hit by one environmental catastrophe after another.

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How the Stock Market Drives Companies Insane

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In the past decade, we’ve witnessed countless cases of companies breaking the law and harming the environment in their frenetic quest for profits. The most recent high profile case is Volkswagen’s cheating in the emissions scandal^. Or was the toxic spill from a mine in Brazil^ worse? In case we’re undecided, perhaps the disastrous explosion in China^ can take the prize? All of these happened in the space of four months in 2015.

Now, just think about how many companies get away with extremely dangerous practices just because we haven’t caught them or because disaster hasn’t struck yet. I believe there is an explanation for these behaviors. And, as it is often the case, understanding the causes of an undesired behavior can give us clues about how we can change it.

A life-form analogy

Profit is the motivating force behind a company’s decisions. Following a natural tendency, the individuals that have teamed up to form a commercial entity share the desire for prosperity. This collaboration between individuals is similar to the association of more cells that constitute a multi-cellular organism. Companies can therefore be seen as a sort of life-form. The environment where many of the larger life-forms exist is called the stock market.

One of the most important changes that the stock market has seen in the past decades is the worrying drop in stock ownership time. Actually, this has outright plummeted in recent years. What this means is that companies have less time to prove themselves to investors and, often, this negatively impacts their long-term strategies.

The stock market is forcing corporations to make a profit as large and as soon as possible, lest investors simply pull the plug and move on to the next “growth opportunity”. This childish attitude on the part of the investing public forces many economic entities into a ruthless quest for profit. The alternative is death and, like any life-form, a company will do everything in its power to survive.

As with all ecosystems, there is a relationship of interdependence between companies and the stock market. While companies adapt to their environment, they also have the power to change that environment. The problem is that, for the time being, there’s a lot of greed and paranoia swirling inside this ecosystem.

The rules of the game

If the stock market influences the companies’ behavior, it stands to reason that skillful changes in the market could help companies to become friendlier. The main issue in the investment game is that most of the players are, to put it mildly, uneducated. Fewer investors than ever hold a company’s stock for more than a year. Like hyper-active children, most of them stumble into speculation, fattening the paychecks of brokers and stressing out everybody in the market.

With or without the stock market, companies are bound to sometimes play dirty due to their desire for profit. Unfortunately, the lack of proper investment principles on the part of the public becomes yet another reason to adopt bad policies and take massive risks.

A ruthless stock market may mean better profits for a while, but it’s us breathing in Volkswagen’s fumes; losing our planet under mountains of sludge; having our life blown to bits due to the fact that some manager decided to improve his bottom line by neglecting the security of a warehouse that contains 900 tons of ammonium nitrate. I’m referring, of course, to the three articles that are linked in the first paragraph.

We’ve built a jungle-like environment for these corporate life-forms, and we’re reaping the rewards. As companies are becoming more and more disconnected from humanity, our values and ideals become secondary – all bow in front of the throne of the quarterly financial statements. It’s survival of the fittest.

Solutions

The most obvious way to break this vicious circle we’re in is, of course, education; not only financial education, but also psychological education. Financially, investors need to understand the concept of long-term investments. Psychologically, they need to be prepared to weather the ups and downs of the stock market and to hold onto their assets (provided that those assets are of a company that the investor truly cares about, has vetted and has faith in its long-term vision).

Certain changes of policy must be applied on the companies’ end as well. We should take back our governments from the greedy claws of lobbyists. Through the increased independence thus gained, we can facilitate the creation of a strict code of conduct for corporations, enforceable through larger fines and increased regulation.

Some will cry that this will stifle innovation. Perhaps it will, to a certain degree, which is why any such measures must be taken together with the companies and the people that brought their success. Let us not forget that these entities are comprised of our brothers and sisters.

Too many times have we, as a species, decided that we know best when we intervene in an ecosystem. We must heed the delicate balance of the stock market and the companies that inhabit it. Now is the time for dialogue, for finding a harmonious way to co-exist with these corporations, before they decide that they don’t have any need for humans. Even if we don’t manage to create true artificial intelligence, automated processes will continue to make humans obsolete.

Note 1: For those interested in the stock market, I can recommend one of the best books I’ve ever read on the subject of financial and psychological education in investment: Benjamin Graham’s “The Intelligent Investor”. Warren Buffett is one of the author’s students.

Note 2: I’ve entered the stock market roughly 8 months ago and so far, never sold a single stock. I’ve invested in two established, dividend-paying North-American semiconductor companies, one major software company and a promising (but high-risk) computer games studio in Sweden.

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Don’t Forget Tesla Motors

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What is the word “forget” doing in the same sentence as the name of this rising star in the world of automobiles? It all starts with an article I read on Wired a couple of weeks ago. The author is busy praising General Motors for beating Tesla in creating the “first true mass-market electric car”:

http://www.wired.com/2016/01/gm-electric-car-chevy-bolt-mary-barra^

The article is far from being objective. It reads like a standing ovation for GM and its CEO, with very little regard for the full picture. There are two glaring mistakes. I’ll perform a little experiment and demonstrate how easily the author of the article could have improved upon the objectivity of his work, just by adding the following two paragraphs.

We should not forget, however, Tesla’s galvanizing effect upon the entire automobile industry. Not only did the company spend hundreds of millions of dollars in research, but its designs and success have also been an inspiration for drivers everywhere. Tesla popularized the electric vehicle like no company before. It is through Tesla’s ground-breaking work that many companies can today even consider working on an electric vehicle.

The elephant in the room (pun intended), is the very size of General Motors. We’re talking here about a company that produces close to 10 million vehicles per year, and has a yearly net income of 10 billion dollars. Tesla’s output isn’t even close to a million and it has a net loss of almost 300 million dollars. So does anybody still wonder why GM can afford to beat its chest claiming they’re manufacturing the first “true mass-market electric car”?

That wasn’t so hard, was it?

To GM’s credit, the company was actually one of the first to have even attempted mass producing an electric vehicle back in the 90s (and kudos to them). Unfortunately, the EV1^ was unceremoniously dumped in a set of rather dubious circumstances that some people saw as outright sabotage by the oil industry – with GM’s cooperation.

I personally believe that the lack of public interest, a fair bit of managerial incompetence and a lack of vision were the main culprits. There’s even a documentary about all this. Here’s its Wikipedia entry, draw your own conclusions:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F^

However, a long time has passed since then and Tesla’s approach is radically different from that of Big Motor. It’s a reboot of the entire scene, and that’s what’s pissing off a lot of large companies. Tesla wants to alter the supply chain, interfering with the fat paychecks and bonuses of a lot of people. And those people won’t sit quietly while this happens. They’ll buy press, invest millions into sneaky marketing and do everything in their power to see Tesla fail.

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