Wednesday, April 10, 2013

And they're patenting food!

As a computer engineer, I've been a longtime opponent of software patents, but there are other areas where patents are not beneficial to society either, such as Monsanto's patenting of seeds. They're famous for suing farmers and for generally using intellectual property law to throw their weight around in the physical world of living organisms. And it isn't just Monsanto--other companies have collectively patented the human genome in the U.S..

So Avaaz has a petition going right now against Monsanto's moves in Europe. Please sign it!

And don't forget, the popular idea that patents benefit small inventors is a myth. In reality, patent litigation is very expensive and vastly easier for large companies to use than small ones or individuals; also, as you'll see at the link, individual patents are sometimes easy to circumvent, depending on how they're written; but large companies have large patent portfolios to increase the chances of having some patents that are hard to circumvent, and patents that, while easily circumvented, the defendants were unaware of, so that lawsuits can be launched against accidental perpetrators (the latter case is more common).

And here's a paper from two economists arguing that patents should be abolished entirely. I haven't read it yet, but I know I'd be more receptive to that idea than Mr. Baylis's proposal that people should be jailed and given a criminal record for infringing a patent.

I have never patented any of the programming ideas I've come up with, and hopefully I never will. I want my ideas to be used to benefit the world, not as obstacles for other programmers to "find a way around". And there are lots of computer scientists in academia who also publish papers for the good of mankind--not as a tool for personal profit (which the patent system rarely provides anyway, see above). Certainly it would be nice if there were monetary awards for inventing and innovating--but these rewards should be given for ideas that are freely shared, that actually enter widespread use in society, not for ideas that are locked away in some patent written in legalese, ideas that people can be punished for using even accidentally.

Tuesday, April 09, 2013

Canadians support electoral cooperation

That's what this poll says, anyway.

Since Canada has a first-past-the-post voting system, it is subject to the vote-splitting problem. I'd be shocked if you're not familiar with the problem--but not that shocked, so I'll just explain briefly.

Most politicians earn their seat with less than 50% of the popular vote, and sometimes as little as 33%, and this occurs because of vote splitting: I may strongly prefer both candidates A and B over C, but I am only allowed to approve one of them on the ballot. Often more than 50% of the people feel the same way, but candidate C will win if the vote splits between A and B.

This seems obviously undemocratic to me. I have seen dozens of proposals for voting/election systems, and FPTP is the one and only system that has the vote-splitting problem.

In order to overcome the vote-splitting problem, some NDP and Liberal folks are proposing temporary cooperation--instead each party running 20 candidates in 20 ridings, each party could run 10 candidates in different ridings (the ridings would be selected mathematically to maximize the chances of winning for each cooperating party). This avoids vote splitting, since voters are left with only two choices.

But other folks in the same parties are calling this "undemocratic" because it "reduces voter choice". This is a very disingenuous thing to say, because the current FPTP system only provides "choices" that don't matter. After all, it is well-known that most people's votes don't count in FPTP. For example, if 10% of the population votes for the Green party all across the country, it is still possible for the Green party to end up without a single seat in Parliament, because 10% is not enough to win any single riding anywhere (only regional differences can overcome this problem, which is why regional parties like the Bloc Quebecois have had a disproportionate amount of power in the past). So I ask you, what good are "choices" if our choices can't possibly win the election?

Electoral reform is the key to fixing this problem, but the party in power (the Conservatives) will fight against electoral reform as long as the status quo benefits them. We need electoral reform to bring true voter choice--to make sure that votes really count for something. And to get electoral reform the Conservatives must be reduced to a minority power in Parliament, and in order to accomplish that we will need one-time, temporary cooperation between the other parties. Don't spit on the proposal for being "anti-voter-choice", when the final result will be improved voter choice in the future!

Addendum: Leadnow.ca was encouraging people to send letters to Justin Trudeau in favor of cooperation for electoral reform. So I thought, what the hay, and sent this:
Mr. Trudeau, I was very disappointed with your statements denouncing proportional representation and trashing the idea of cooperation to pass electoral reform. I don't hold out much hope that you'll actually listen to people who have studied electoral systems and electoral reforms, but I already blogged about this so you might as well be in the loop.

I don't have to tell you what the vote-splitting problem is. I have seen dozens of proposals for voting/election systems, and our FPTP system is the one and only system that has the vote-splitting problem. To overcome it, we need electoral reform, and to get electoral reform, you'll need the support of the NDP, the support of the electorate, and most of all, to do well in the next election.

But you seem to be saying that cooperating with the NDP would be undemocratic because Canadians don't need "fewer choices". This is a very disingenuous thing to say, because the current FPTP system only provides "choices" that don't matter. After all, it is well-known that most people's votes don't count in FPTP. For example, if 10% of the population votes for the Green party all across the country, it is still possible for the Green party to end up without a single seat in Parliament, because 10% is not enough to win any single riding anywhere (only regional differences can overcome this problem, which is why regional parties like the Bloc Quebecois have had a disproportionate amount of power in the past). So I ask you, what good are "choices" if our choices can't possibly win the election?

Electoral reform is the key to fixing this problem, but the Conservatives will fight against electoral reform as long as the status quo benefits them. We need electoral reform to bring true voter choice--to make sure that votes really count for something. And in order to accomplish that we will need one-time, temporary cooperation between the other parties. Don't spit on cooperation for being "anti-voter-choice", when the final result will be improved voter choice in the future!

I would say one more thing, because you're in favor of only a very modest reform to use Alternative Vote (a.k.a. Instant Runoff Voting). I would much rather see a system that honestly attempts to assess voters' desires, such as direct representation or mixed-member proportional (MMP). I'm sure that you could sell IRV/AV to the average voter who doesn’t know any better, but no one who has studied democratic systems, and all the myriad possibilities that exist, would want to settle for IRV/AV, a riding-based system that is unstable in close races and is unjustified from a mathematical perspective.

A key problem with all single-riding systems is that they are geographically biased. To illustrate, imagine that 40% of the voters prefer party A and 30% each prefer parties B and C. Reasonably, this should produce a minority government. However, imagine you could randomly shuffle where everyone lives, so that the same 40-30-30 split exists in every single riding. In that case, the same party would win in every riding, and take every seat in the country! This occurs with every riding-based system: FPTP, IRV/AV, and even superior systems like Ranked Pairs and Range Voting. I ask you, why should winners be picked based on where the voters live instead of what they want? Of course, people are not shuffled in reality, so what this means in practice is that (1) no riding-based system is ever proportional, (2) these systems give too much power to regional parties like Bloc Quebecois, emphasizing divisions among people, and (3) they give too little power to small parties like the Greens.

Unfortunately, big parties tend to like this bias against small parties (and independents), so they don’t do electoral reform, and this is just plain wrong on principle.

There are other problems with riding-based systems too, e.g. if a party expects to win 10% of the seats, it must field 10 times as many candidates as it actually needs, so as to have a candidate in every riding! It also makes politics costly and stressful for the candidates, by guaranteeing that most candidates will not win a seat. These systems encourage negative ads, too, because instead of demonstrating your value as a candidate, you can instead convince the voter that "the other guy" is bad; negative ads don’t work so well if each voter has lots of choices. Finally, these systems constrain voter choice–for example I live in Calgary but I can’t vote for the Liberal in downtown Calgary, why? Just because I’m in the northeast! And neither Liberal will win anyway!

In summary, the AV/IRV proposal is literally the smallest possible improvement that could be made. AV’s better than first-past-the-post, to be sure, but it’s nothing to get excited about.

Goodbye, Aaron Swartz (and Alfred Anaya)

It's been a bit hard to get motivated to post in my blog recently, what with the lack of readers and all. But I'm getting various activist emails, and there are such important discussions going on about... stuff. It'd be a shame not to say something...

So hey! Let's talk about overzealous federal prosecutors, shall we?

First up, the case of Aaron Swartz has been on my mind a lot, because in some ways he reminds me of myself. Aaron was a former internet activist and computer genius, who, for reasons that he never disclosed, downloaded over a million academic papers from JSTOR, a repository of scholarly knowledge. Although students at MIT, including Aaron, have free access to JSTOR, they are not allowed to download files in bulk. Aaron was eventually caught and arrested for it, and lost his copied files.

Ultimately JSTOR decided they were willing to drop the matter and so were state prosecutors, but then the Feds appeared and made his life hell for the next two years, as they piled on charge after charge and restricted his freedoms. As prosecution attorney Carmen Ortiz explained, "Swartz faces up to 35 years in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, restitution, forfeiture and a fine of up to $1 million." I heard that 97% of federal cases result in guilty pleas, and that out of the cases that go to trial, 90% of defendants are found guilty. I hear that defending against a federal case is unbelievably expensive, and the risk of obscene jail time so dangerous, that defendants are basically forced to take a plea "bargain" regardless of the merits of their case.

But Aaron steadfastly refused to accept a plea bargain, and for reasons that are unclear, committed suicide January 11, 2013.

Many activist groups and individuals (including myself) believe that the law under which Swartz was charged, the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, is both unreasonable and dangerous and needs to be amended. It basically makes a crime out of violating the terms of service of a web site, which is crazy since people do it all the time. Ever set up a Facebook account for someone under 13? That's against the CFAA so it's technically a Federal Crime. Some websites restrict the minimum age to 18, and there are any number of other "bad bahaviors" which are against website terms of service--none of which should actually be a crime.

So Demand Progress (with which Aaron used to be involved) and other activist organizations have been lobbying congress to pass "Aaron's law", which would limit the scope of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and exclude "crimes" that are nothing more than a breach of contract. But other congresspeople, as if in response, instead are attempting to expand the CFAA to make it even more draconian.

In response, Demand Progress (and me!) are requesting people to call their congresspeople and have the CFAA limited, not expanded; click the picture for more information.


Besides that, if you are in science or academia, I would urge you to publish your academic papers in open-access journals. (I don't understand why you wouldn't in the first place, unless you're paid extra for preventing the general public from seeing your research.) Certainly as a non-academic, I often like to Google for the latest algorithms--but I ignore any papers that are marked "$15 to download", and sometimes I read "drafts" that are free rather than the final paper. Let me put it this way: I publish MY research freely; it's a nice club, you should join!

I would also like to draw your attention to the case of Alfred Anaya, who was found guilty and given a prison sentence similar to what you would expect for a murderer--for doing something that, although a bit fishy, is technically not a crime. Apparently, he is being punished not for what he did but what he saw and heard--which actually wasn't very much at all. Click here for the gruesome details.

Or, if you'd prefer to read a more personal perspective on what it's like to be squashed by federal prosecutors, read this account from a former girlfriend of Aaron Swartz.