Secret Monopoly Causes
your Saturday roundup
Professionally, I focus on creating social benefit startups. In my Saturday morning emails I share what I’m learning and thinking. Topics range from better living and parenting to business and philosophy.
Dark Wire. Secure communications are hard. Hard enough that organized criminals have outsourced it like a legit business would. Except they failed to do enough due diligence on their vendor. They hired the FBI to run their encrypted mobile phone network. “The FBI operated its own encrypted device company, called ‘ANOM,’ which was promoted by criminal groups worldwide. These criminals sold more than 12,000 ANOM encrypted devices and services to more than 300 criminal syndicates operating in more than 100 countries, including Italian organized crime, Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, and various international drug trafficking organizations, according to court records.” Read more about it the book Dark Wire. Does that mean criminals will “insource” or go back to face-to-face meetings only? More likely they will turn to mainstream apps with end-to-end encryption like iMessage, Whatsapp or Signal. What is the responsibility of companies like Apple or Meta to make it hard to use their products to break the law or easy to catch if you do? Where is the line between privacy and free speech on one hand and aiding criminals on the other? I’m intrigued that in the FBI sting operation they largely stayed away from US-based criminals because they did not have legal authority. Is it ethical to monitor communications outside the US if we wouldn’t do it to our own citizens?
Goodbye Exits? We’re seeing more antitrust activity from the US government. Adobe’s deal to buy Figma was spiked and the JetBlue/Spirit’s merger called off. The US government filed complaints against Apple, Meta, Google, Visa, Amazon, and the list goes on. Is this a good thing as it will make sure there are enough companies to compete to keep prices low? That may work for commodities like kerosene for lighting. But there is a narrative among venture capitalists that this current wave of enforcement will stifle innovation. As the story goes, with the IPO path less available (BTW, why is it less available? or less desirable?) investors rely on selling entire companies to get their money back. If sales of companies are blocked by antitrust, then investors' money will be tied up and not available to fund the next wave of innovation. There may be other reasons that antitrust can hurt innovation. A friend asks “stipulate for the sake of argument that the antitrust reformers are right — bigness is a problem, the tech giants are engaged in anticompetitive practices, they’re using market power for political influence, etc. Stipulate also that the VC community is right that gumming up M&A decreases entrepreneurs’ incentive to build small companies with innovative ideas. What’s the solution?“ While we’re at it, could you let me know if consumer benefit / harm is the right antitrust yardstick?
The Big C Cause. How do we get cancer? The standard model tells us that “random mutations create aberrant cells that run amok in the body.” The atavistic model of cancer says that “more recently evolved capabilities are compromised first during cancer progression”. Cancer is closer to a “multicellular-to-unicellular reversion” than a random variation and selection for fast-growing cells. If right, this could offer the opportunity for new treatments attacking cancer’s weaknesses rather than its strengths. I’d love to learn more about this? Does it make sense? Who is working on it?
Until next time,
Miles
In the 70s (and perhaps before that) there was an adage that went something like, “Teachers are adults among children and children among adults.” This fits the evolution of academia to lean fully into “Big government is the answer.” They want Big Daddy to take care of them rather than becoming independent adults in an adult world. Naturally, this is what they indoctrinate students to want.
Power is seductive and addictive. Government, especially bureaucrats, will pursue ever more power i.e. sanctions against everyone and every business. Iron clad evidence? “Since 1975 until the end of 2019, [the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR)] total page count had grown from 71,224 to 185,984, including the index—a 161 percent increase, (https://cei.org/publication/tens-of-thousands-of-pages-and-rules-in-the-federal-register-2/).”
The above is the basis for not getting caught up in the morality of crime on a “where do you draw the line” basis. Rather than being primarily focused on blaming or holding responsible perfectly legitimate businesses because criminals use them like everyone else, and in the process proposing solutions that necessarily infringe on everyone’s freedoms, the emphasis must be about individual freedom (vs liberty, which implies human granting of freedom vs individual sovereignty). It’s a fool’s errand to go after businesses like Apple or Meta. They are merely symptoms of a problem. The problem is the criminals! Law enforcement needs to be wholly focused on going after them, not reducing shoplifting of under $950 to a non-consequence breaking of the law, or telling district attorney’s not to pursue cases of drug use.
Politicians, bureaucrats, media, and academicians (all power mongers) will always put the emphasis on promoting fear to then institute some purported form of security (regulation). 100% of security is a false promise and an erosion of individual freedom. The Mesopotamian's (and probably societies before them) got it right with the ten commandments. Ten rules on one page, not 185,984 pages. Further, the USA fore-fathers got it right when they put the emphasis on States Rights. Power in the hands of locals is vastly superior to a federal government instituting a one size fits all mandate for 334,000,000 individuals, especially coupled with the freedom to live anywhere. Man (like wolves, elephants, bees) necessarily gravitates to being conglomerates of commonality, i.e. generally like-minded communities. Local fine tuning of the ten commandments for any given community is vastly superior to one size fits all. Yes, there is a place for federal governance, an example being down-river disputes if for instance a northern state allows certain pollutants to be introduced that adversely effect a southern state. But this does not equate to a mega company being able to lobby a federal government to override a state choice regarding something like a pipeline. Citizens, to every extent practicable, must maintain individual and local control vs handing it over to Big Daddy government.
If you have visited all or most of the states in the USA then you know how ridiculous, for example, a one-size climate policy is. CT has enormous quantities of water and limited space. CA has enormous quantities of space and limited water. Think about diapers. CA should promote using disposable diapers where 100 years in a thoughtfully developed landfill will have minimal impact on the environment. CT should promote cloth (washable) diapers. Local governance is infinitely superior to one size fits all.
Will you hear arguments against any of the above observations? Yes. But what world would you rather live in? One with 185,984 pages of rules? (Can you even remember everyone on a day-to-day basis, even if you read them all?) Or one where you can have meaningful input on what works for your local community?
Take education again. The Department of Education is a duplicative waste of tax dollars and therefore a snake pit of corruption since it has no real purpose except to cause one size fits all trouble. Each state can handle their own education management. That said, a national homogeneity would continue to exist because there already are national conferences where everyone in the field has opportunities to hear what is or is not working for others, and where new knowledge and resources can be ciphered.
But first we have to put individual responsibility back into education. No more participation trophies. At the same time the approach to education must stop being elitist i.e. college focused. No more leaving boys behind if they are not college bound. No more teaching on a one size fits all basis. No more trying to force Alpha boys to be Betas on the pretense that aggression is an unacceptable behavior. Rather, provide activities and learning opportunities where aggression is acceptable in areas other than sports, where boys can be boys. At the same time, be sure Betas have an educational environment where they can equally flourish. The current female oriented format should continue to be utilized and improved for the benefit of women.
We must not allow educators to collaborate with pharmaceutical companies to drug children so they are more compliant and therefore less demanding of teachers’ attention. This is another example of the focus of current education tactics to indoctrinate students rather than helping them hone the life skills they really need, most crucially critical thinking, to be an independent success in life rather than dependent on Big Daddy government that promotes the thinking that companies like Apple and Meta should be somehow held responsible for promoting criminal activity.