In recent weeks we have been re-alerted to a most scandalizing fact, namely that the NSA and other US intelligence agencies have been spying on all internet and cell phone communications on an unprecedented level. I say re-alerted because we were first made aware of this in May of 2006 when USA Today reported on the NSA building a huge database for compiling phone records. There is a long discussion of the aftermath of these revelations here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_controversy . But the reality is that this is nothing new. Our government, despite getting its hand slapped previously for warrant-less searches of wireless communications, has expanded the program to include all internet communications as well. Given the strictures of the 4th amendment, many are arguing that this is a clear violation of our constitutional rights. I will not argue with them, at least not on theory. However, it is worth pointing out that the Obama administration and the intelligence community have included such legal safeguards as they think are needed to pass constitutional scrutiny. Likely that argument will not be settled until it is in front of the US Supreme Court. But ignoring the pure legal arguments, it is hard to square our nation's stated values of liberty, freedom of speech and right to privacy with the actions of our government.
On the other side of the coin, I understand where the government is coming from. Since September 11th 2001, we as a nation have been made more alert to the dangers posed by terrorists, both foreign and domestic. The US public has been clamoring for the intelligence community to improve our safety in this new and dangerous world. In intelligence work, data is key, and when most of the world's internet communications come through US hubs, gathering that data was easy and convenient. The belief that if we just had more information that we could prevent the next attack drove the community to use questionable means to increase the amount of data they could analyze. It's easy to sympathize with them, especially with civilian lives on the line.
The problem with this theory is that, in many previous cases of terrorism, we already had the tools we needed to prevent disaster. What we lacked was the competence to interpret that data correctly and prevent the attacks. Take Sept. 11th, the Bush administration had received intelligence about Al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden and their readiness to attack the USA. Had these warnings been heeded, we may well have avoided the disaster that occurred. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/opinion/the-bush-white-house-was-deaf-to-9-11-warnings.html . More recently, the intelligence community ignored Russian warnings about the Tsarnaev brothers and how they may be radicalizing. These are the brothers who then perpetuated the Boston Marathon bombings. http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2013/06/fbi-knew-earlier-of-boston-bombing-suspect-166313.html . Two of the largest attacks in recent memory on US soil were both preceded with specific intelligence warnings to the government of the risk of a terrorist attack; intelligence that was ignored. More damningly, this was intelligence gathered through traditional means. If we lacked the competence to interpret this data properly, it is easily imagined that we lack the competence to mine the NSA program properly as well.
So where does this leave us? We have a multi-billion dollar spying program that is manned by the same incompetent people who failed to heed traditional warnings of previous attacks. A spying program that tramples on the world's privacy rights and freedoms which likely will not help us prevent the next attack (if the Boston Marathon bombings are predictive). I can't help but think that our government would have been a lot better off hiring more analysts to mine traditional intelligence than spending billions of dollars on a computer data warehouse. But that is the modern state of our technocratic government. It thinks it is a lot smarter, and a lot more competent, than it actually is. It is now up to the courts to interpret its constitutionality, and the voters to let their representatives know their displeasure.
Friday, June 21, 2013
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Why I am not a Scientist, Psychiatrist or Doctor
Sorry about the hiatus, I had a vacation and then some job related things to take care of. Real life intrudes sometimes...
So, without further adieu, here is why I am not a scientist....
When I was graduating from high school, I got it into my head that I should be an MD/PHD psychiatrist. This came from a variety of misconceptions that I had at the time, primarily that learning psychology would give me some sort of insight into the human mind and how people think about things. I also thought it would be a good way to spend my life talking to people and helping them work through the emotional traumas and troubles of their lives. My vision of psychiatry was of a Freudian doctor sitting in a big comfy leather chair in a wood paneled office talking to someone who was lying on a couch discussing their inner turmoils. Unfortunately, modern psychiatry has little to do with traditional therapy techniques. Instead it mostly involves popping people full of pills until they either stop complaining or actually believe you have cured their mental problems.
Now, you can probably tell from the end of the above paragraph that I do not hold modern psychiatry in much esteem. While this is true, I do wish to point out that there are quite a few people whose psychological conditions really are due to neurotransmitter imbalances that can be successfully treated with psychotropic drugs. Unfortunately, these people make up an incredibly small proportion of those seeking help from psychiatrists. Most people are simply depressed due to the modern world and their lives not living up to their ambitions, hopes and dreams and their inability to accept the life they have. Most of these people would likely be better served by not experimenting with drugs but instead working through their problems and analyzing the root causes of their psychological trauma. Unfortunately, years of therapy with a doctor is not cost efficient from an insurance perspective, so instead the grand tradition of psychiatry has been reduced to a happy pill dispensary. A way point between a troubled mind and the pharmacist.
But I digress, I entered college honestly thinking that I would go pre-med and major in psych. In my first year I took intro to psych, chemistry and a class called brain and behavior. Much to my horror, I found the focus of both psych courses to be neurology. Instead of learning about brain development, I was memorizing the taxonomy of a neuron and learning who was the first person to shove electric probes in a mouse's head and have it actually do something other than killing the mouse. It was an incredible let down to say the least. Moreover, in chemistry I found myself confused in lectures and bored in labs. The end result was that I was either obsessively reviewing notes and reading assignments, or sitting in a lab waiting for a solution to properly mix. In labs I would bide my time squirting liquids onto the hot plate to see them sizzle and pop. This included flammable liquids, mostly because they had the most satisfying reactions. The end result of all of this was that my grades were suffering and I had completely burnt out on my chosen collegiate course of study by the middle of the second semester of my first year.
After some personal issues, and some other unrelated problems, I ended up switching majors into a completely unrelated area of academia. Fortunately, I was much more engaged there and my grades improved markedly. In hind sight, my blunder from the very get go was a profound lack of knowledge about myself. I do not have the attention span to watch a chemical reaction slowly occur over a three hour lab. I do not have the patience to sit down and properly balance a chemical equation or memorize all the parts of the body and their Latin names. My mind requires more active thought and discussion. The discussion, and the desire to help people was what made me want to be a psychiatrist. It was the science required to get there that convinced me this was a bad idea. This is why I am not a scientist, psychiatrist or doctor. But it is why I respect the people with the mental discipline and fortitude to put up with all the years of tedium required to follow one of these three professions.
So, without further adieu, here is why I am not a scientist....
When I was graduating from high school, I got it into my head that I should be an MD/PHD psychiatrist. This came from a variety of misconceptions that I had at the time, primarily that learning psychology would give me some sort of insight into the human mind and how people think about things. I also thought it would be a good way to spend my life talking to people and helping them work through the emotional traumas and troubles of their lives. My vision of psychiatry was of a Freudian doctor sitting in a big comfy leather chair in a wood paneled office talking to someone who was lying on a couch discussing their inner turmoils. Unfortunately, modern psychiatry has little to do with traditional therapy techniques. Instead it mostly involves popping people full of pills until they either stop complaining or actually believe you have cured their mental problems.
Now, you can probably tell from the end of the above paragraph that I do not hold modern psychiatry in much esteem. While this is true, I do wish to point out that there are quite a few people whose psychological conditions really are due to neurotransmitter imbalances that can be successfully treated with psychotropic drugs. Unfortunately, these people make up an incredibly small proportion of those seeking help from psychiatrists. Most people are simply depressed due to the modern world and their lives not living up to their ambitions, hopes and dreams and their inability to accept the life they have. Most of these people would likely be better served by not experimenting with drugs but instead working through their problems and analyzing the root causes of their psychological trauma. Unfortunately, years of therapy with a doctor is not cost efficient from an insurance perspective, so instead the grand tradition of psychiatry has been reduced to a happy pill dispensary. A way point between a troubled mind and the pharmacist.
But I digress, I entered college honestly thinking that I would go pre-med and major in psych. In my first year I took intro to psych, chemistry and a class called brain and behavior. Much to my horror, I found the focus of both psych courses to be neurology. Instead of learning about brain development, I was memorizing the taxonomy of a neuron and learning who was the first person to shove electric probes in a mouse's head and have it actually do something other than killing the mouse. It was an incredible let down to say the least. Moreover, in chemistry I found myself confused in lectures and bored in labs. The end result was that I was either obsessively reviewing notes and reading assignments, or sitting in a lab waiting for a solution to properly mix. In labs I would bide my time squirting liquids onto the hot plate to see them sizzle and pop. This included flammable liquids, mostly because they had the most satisfying reactions. The end result of all of this was that my grades were suffering and I had completely burnt out on my chosen collegiate course of study by the middle of the second semester of my first year.
After some personal issues, and some other unrelated problems, I ended up switching majors into a completely unrelated area of academia. Fortunately, I was much more engaged there and my grades improved markedly. In hind sight, my blunder from the very get go was a profound lack of knowledge about myself. I do not have the attention span to watch a chemical reaction slowly occur over a three hour lab. I do not have the patience to sit down and properly balance a chemical equation or memorize all the parts of the body and their Latin names. My mind requires more active thought and discussion. The discussion, and the desire to help people was what made me want to be a psychiatrist. It was the science required to get there that convinced me this was a bad idea. This is why I am not a scientist, psychiatrist or doctor. But it is why I respect the people with the mental discipline and fortitude to put up with all the years of tedium required to follow one of these three professions.
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