tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/mit-5540/articlesMIT – The Conversation2024-03-22T16:22:07Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2256022024-03-22T16:22:07Z2024-03-22T16:22:07ZMy search for the mysterious missing secretary who shaped chatbot history<p>The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Distinctive Collections archive is quiet while the blizzard blows outside. Silence seems to be accumulating with the falling snow. I am the only researcher in the archive, but there is a voice that I am straining to hear.</p>
<p>I am searching for someone – let’s call her the missing secretary. She played a crucial role in the history of computing, but she has never been named. I’m at MIT as part of my research into the history of talking machines. You might know them as “chatbots” – computer programmes and interfaces that use dialogue as the major means of interaction between human and machine. Perhaps you have talked with Alexa, Siri or ChatGPT.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/2023-in-review/the-year-ai-ate-the-internet">Despite the furore</a> around generative artificial intelligence (AI) today, talking machines have a long history. In 1950, computer pioneer Alan Turing <a href="https://academic.oup.com/mind/article/LIX/236/433/986238">proposed a test</a> of machine intelligence. The test asks whether a human could differentiate between a computer and a person via conversation. Turing’s test spurred research in AI and the nascent field of computing. We now live in that future he imagined: we talk to machines.</p>
<p>I am interested in why early computer pioneers dreamt of talking to computers, and what was at stake in that idea. What does it mean for the way we understand computer technology and human-machine interaction today? I find myself at MIT, in the middle of this blizzard, because it was the birthplace of the mother of all bots – Eliza.</p>
<h2>Eliza’s speech</h2>
<p>Eliza was a computer program developed by the mustachioed MIT professor of electrical engineering, Joseph Weizenbaum, in the 1960s. Through Eliza, he aimed to make conversation between human and computer possible.</p>
<p>Eliza took typed messages from the user, parsed them for key word triggers and used transformation rules (where the meaning of a statement can be deduced from one or more other statements) <a href="http://elizagen.org/">to produce a response</a>. In its most famous version, Eliza purported to be a psychotherapist, an expert responding to the user’s needs. “Please tell me your problem” was the opening prompt. Eliza could not only receive input in the form of natural language, it gave the <a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/365153.365168">“illusion of understanding”</a>.</p>
<p>The program’s name was a nod to the protagonist of George Bernard Shaw’s play <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3825/3825-h/3825-h.htm">Pygmalion</a> (1912) in which a Cockney flower seller is taught to speak “like a lady”. Like the Audrey Hepburn musical of 1964, this Eliza took the world by storm. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1968/06/15/archives/computer-is-being-taught-to-understand-english.html">Newspapers and magazines hailed</a> the fruition of Turing’s dream. </p>
<p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160129154303/http:/blog.modernmechanix.com/computers-their-scope-today/1/#mmGal">Even Playboy</a> played with it. Eliza’s legacy is <a href="https://peabodyawards.com/award-profile/eliza-1964/">significant</a>. Siri and Alexa are the direct descendants of this program.</p>
<p>Accounts of Eliza tend to focus on a <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Computer_Power_and_Human_Reason.html?id=1jB8QgAACAAJ">Frankensteinian tale</a> of the inventor’s <a href="https://archive.org/stream/margaretbodenmindasmachineahistoryofcognitivesciencetwovolumesetoxforduniversitypressusa2006/Margaret%20Boden%20-%20Mind%20As%20Machine_%20A%20History%20of%20Cognitive%20Science%20Two-Volume%20Set-Oxford%20University%20Press%2C%20USA%20%282006%29_djvu.txt">rejection of his own creation</a>. Weizenbaum was horrified that users could be “tricked” by a piece of simple software. He renounced Eliza and the whole <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6500618">“Artificial Intelligentsia”</a> in the coming decades – to the <a href="https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1983/12/08/computers-in-your-future/">chagrin</a> of his <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Machines_Who_Think.html?id=r2C1DwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=weizenbaum&f=false">colleagues</a>.</p>
<p>But I am not in the archive to hear Eliza’s voice, or Weizenbaum’s. In all these accounts of Eliza, one woman crops up again and again – our missing secretary.</p>
<h2>The missing secretary</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://cacm.acm.org/research/contextual-understanding-by-computers/">his accounts of Eliza</a>, Weizenbaum repeatedly worries about a particular user:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>My secretary watched me work on this program over a long period of time. One day she asked to be permitted to talk with the system. Of course, she knew she was talking to a machine. Yet, after I watched her type in a few sentences she turned to me and said: ‘Would you mind leaving the room, please?’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Weizenbaum saw her response as <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Computer_Power_and_Human_Reason.html?id=1jB8QgAACAAJ">worrying evidence that</a>: “Extremely short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people.” Her reaction sowed the seeds for his later abhorrence for his creation.</p>
<p>But who was this “quite normal” person? And what did she think of Eliza? If the missing secretary played such an <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?redir_esc=y&id=UVXtBAAAQBAJ&q=ELIZA#v=snippet&q=ELIZA%20effect&f=false">important role</a>, then why don’t we hear from her? In this chapter of the history of talking machines, we only have one side of the conversation.</p>
<p>Back in the archive, I want to see if I can recover the secretary’s voice, to understand what we might learn from Eliza’s user. I work my way through Weizenbaum’s yellowed papers. Surely, among the transcripts, code print outs, letters and notebooks there will be evidence? There are some clues, reference to a secretary in letters to and from Weizenbaum. But no name.</p>
<p>I broaden my hunt to administrative records. I look in department papers and the collections of Weizenbaum’s workplace, Project MAC – the hallowed centre of computing innovation at MIT. No luck. I contact the HR office and MIT’s alumni group. I stretch the patience of the ever-generous archivists. As my last day arrives, I still hear only silence.</p>
<h2>Listening to silences</h2>
<p>But the hunt has revealed some things. How little organisations have historically cared about the people who produced, organised and saved so much of their knowledge, for one. </p>
<p>In the history of institutions such as MIT and computing more generally, the writers of those records – often poorly paid, <a href="https://amita.alumgroup.mit.edu/s/1314/bp19/interior.aspx?sid=1314&gid=20&pgid=56230">low status</a> women – <a href="https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/pages/45621/women-in-computing/">are largely written out</a>. Our silent secretary is the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Gramophone_Film_Typewriter.html?id=zSrte54_9ZwC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">quintessential</a> effaced, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Literary_Secretaries_Secretarial_Culture.html?id=iAskDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">anonymous transcriber</a> of the documents on which history is built.</p>
<p>The contributions of the users of talking machines – their labour, expertise, perspectives, creativity – are all too often ignored. When the model is “talk”, it’s easy to think those contributions are effortless or unimportant. But belittling these contributions has real consequences, not only for the talking machine technology <a href="https://en.unesco.org/Id-blush-if-I-could">we design</a>, but also for the ways we value the human input in those systems.</p>
<p>With generative AI we speak of user input in terms of “chat” and “prompts”. But what kind of legal status can “talk” claim? Should we, for example, be able to claim copyright over those remarks? What about the work on which those systems are trained? How do we recognise those contributions?</p>
<p>The blizzard is worsening. The announcement rings out that the campus is closing early due to the weather. The missing secretary’s voice still eludes me. For now, the history of talking machines remains one sided. It’s a silence that haunts me as I trudge home through the muffled, snowbound streets.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Roach's research was supported by a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship for the project “Machine Talk: Literature, Computing and Conversation after 1945” and facilitated by the expertise and patience of staff at MIT's Distinctive Collections.</span></em></p>I’m hunting for the woman whose use of an early chatbot turned the inventor against his creation.Rebecca Roach, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Literature, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2199022023-12-20T15:59:44Z2023-12-20T15:59:44ZWhat do universities owe their big donors? Less than you might think, explain 2 nonprofit law experts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566742/original/file-20231219-15-day70k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=348%2C274%2C3807%2C2455&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Billionaire investor and Harvard alum Bill Ackman has voiced his objections to the school's current president.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/UniversalMusicPershing/a5060a0466d84e179d3bcbfde643e66a/photo?Query=ackman&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=45&currentItemNo=4">AP Photo/Andrew Harnik</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Exchanging gifts with family and friends can become fraught with contradictory emotions. Instead of gratitude, the recipients of expensive gifts may wind up feeling indebted to the givers. And the givers can have regrets too.</p>
<p>The same kinds of complicated <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10495142.2021.1905134">motivations and expectations</a> can sour relations between big donors and the institutions they support.</p>
<p>This dynamic has been playing out in a very public fashion lately with some <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/12/11/1218556147/heres-the-latest-fallout-at-harvard-mit-and-penn-after-the-antisemitism-hearing">high-profile donors to prestigious U.S. universities</a>. At issue for these donors is the schools’ response to debates and demonstrations on their campuses after Hamas’ terrorist attacks on Israel and the Israeli government’s military campaign in Gaza that followed.</p>
<h2>Disappointed donors</h2>
<p>Notably, hedge fund manager <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/12/business/bill-ackman-harvard-antisemitism.html">Bill Ackman has complained</a> that Harvard University officials, including President Claudine Gay, have not “heeded his advice on a variety of topics,” including Harvard’s handling of antisemitism and how it should invest his donations.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/university-of-pennsylvania-president-liz-magill-congressional-testimony-antisemitism-backlash-97376d49">Ross Stevens, another financier</a>, threatened on Dec. 7, 2023, to <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/12/07/upenn-antisemitism-magill-100-million-donation">take back the US$100 million</a> he gave the University of Pennsylvania through a complex transaction in 2017 “absent a change in leadership and values at Penn.”</p>
<p>In a letter <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ross-stevens-letter-pull-penn-donation-president-2023-12">Stevens released to the media, he alleged</a> that Liz Magill, who was serving as the university’s president, had “enabled and encouraged antisemitism and a climate of fear and harassment at Penn.” </p>
<p>Magill, also on Dec. 7, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/12/07/liz-magill-university-of-pennsylvania-antisemitism/">defended herself from those accusations</a> and related criticism from members of Congress, saying: “A call for genocide of Jewish people is … evil, plain and simple.” She <a href="https://penntoday.upenn.edu/announcements/message-from-scott-bok">resigned on Dec. 9</a>.</p>
<p>Other high-profile donors who have also voiced their dissatisfaction regarding Penn include <a href="https://www.thedp.com/article/2023/10/penn-jon-huntsman-jr-wharton-halts-donations-magill">Jon Huntsman Jr.</a>, a former U.S. ambassador to China and Utah governor, and cosmetics tycoon <a href="https://www.thedp.com/article/2023/10/penn-lauder-reexamining-support">Ronald S. Lauder</a>.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=l-vyPm0AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">scholars of how the law</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=dgewAGoAAAAJ">governs nonprofits</a>, we think these developments suggest that now is a good time to review what donors do and don’t have a right to demand.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1732881220927902140"}"></div></p>
<h2>What restrictions apply</h2>
<p><a href="https://law.justia.com/cases/massachusetts/supreme-court/1986/397-mass-820-2.html">All donations</a> to a charity <a href="https://www.ali.org/publications/show/charitable-nonprofit-organizations/">must support its overall purposes</a>. That is, a hospital can’t take the money it receives from donors and give it to, say, an <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=410504">animal shelter operating 500 miles away</a>.</p>
<p>Donors may request specific restrictions on the use of their charitable gifts in an agreement negotiated before the donation is made. And when gifts are solicited through a specific fundraising campaign, such as a bid to raise money for a new building or for scholarships, that money must be spent accordingly.</p>
<p>State attorneys general and, ultimately, the courts <a href="https://scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/cklawreview/vol85/iss2/3/?utm_source=scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu">have the power to regulate charities</a>. But donors have some tools to police adherence to the restriction they placed on their gifts. </p>
<p>One way they can do this is by threatening to withhold gifts that they had planned to make unless the charity they have been funding changes course. Depending on the state laws that <a href="https://www.ali.org/publications/show/charitable-nonprofit-organizations/">apply to charities</a>, donors may be able to sue for enforcement or reserve the right to do so in gift agreements. </p>
<p>Some donors include in their gift agreements a “<a href="https://www.ali.org/publications/show/charitable-nonprofit-organizations/">gift-over</a>.” This kind of provision redirects the gift to another charity of the donor’s choice if the original recipient violates specified terms.</p>
<p>Promises of future donations from past donors have always allowed donors to informally exercise some degree of influence.</p>
<p>But in the current wrangling between donors and universities over claims of antisemitism on campus, threats to forgo future donations have been explicitly tied to all sorts of university actions, such as the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/26/us/university-of-pennsylvania-donors-israel-hamas.html">statements universities either make or do not make</a> regarding international relations.</p>
<p>The threats have become angrier and more public than in the past. Some of the regret and dissatisfaction is being expressed via <a href="https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/marc-rowan-to-funders-show-upenn-that-words-matter/">op-eds and open letters</a>. And the lengths donors have taken to assert leverage have grown more extreme.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566747/original/file-20231219-21-s59jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two women in professional attire speak into microphones." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566747/original/file-20231219-21-s59jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566747/original/file-20231219-21-s59jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566747/original/file-20231219-21-s59jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566747/original/file-20231219-21-s59jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566747/original/file-20231219-21-s59jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566747/original/file-20231219-21-s59jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566747/original/file-20231219-21-s59jfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Harvard President Claudine Gay, left, testified alongside Penn President Liz Magill before a House committee on Dec. 5, 2023, regarding antisemitism on college campuses. Magill resigned four days later.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/dr-claudine-gay-president-of-harvard-university-liz-magill-news-photo/1833206910?adppopup=true">Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>What charities can do</h2>
<p>Charities can take some solace in the law.</p>
<p>When donors make charitable gifts, they must irrevocably transfer that property to the charity receiving it. Except in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/15/us/yale-returns-20-million-to-an-unhappy-patron.html">very rare exceptions</a>, disappointed donors <a href="https://theconversation.com/disappointed-donors-cant-count-on-getting-their-charitable-money-back-93635">can’t get their assets back</a>.</p>
<p>In 1995, for example, Yale returned a $20 million gift to Lee Bass, an heir to a Texas oil fortune. Bass objected to the way the university was using that donation, which was supposed to <a href="http://archives.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/95_07/bass.htmlBass">support the study of Western civilization</a>. He reached an impasse with Yale after surprising the school’s leaders with a demand they refused to accommodate: that he would personally get to approve four new professors.</p>
<p>And if a <a href="https://www.wealthmanagement.com/philanthropy/no-charitable-deduction-incomplete-gift">donor attaches too many strings</a> to a gift, that can render it ineligible for the <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-the-charitable-deduction-an-economist-explains-162647">charitable deduction</a>, missing out on a tax break. Just as with personal gifts, gifts with too many strings aren’t really gifts at all.</p>
<p>Although donors who have negotiated special conditions in a gift agreement may assert their rights to sue over a charity’s broken promises, that can take a lot of time and energy, while <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/11/education/11princeton.html">squandering money on legal costs</a>. This process can also anger other donors, causing the benefactor to ultimately lose influence with the charity.</p>
<h2>A few tips</h2>
<p>In the University of Pennsylvania case, about two months after the donors began their public pressure campaign, <a href="https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/update-penn-leadership">Penn’s president</a> and the chair of its board of trustees <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/12/09/1218415525/penn-president-liz-magill-resigns-antisemitism-hearing">had stepped down</a>. They resigned in the wake of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-university-presidents-find-it-hard-to-punish-advocating-genocide-college-free-speech-codes-are-both-more-and-less-protective-than-the-first-amendment-219566">contentious congressional hearing</a>.</p>
<p>In this case, some of the disappointed donors got their wish – with an assist from conservative lawmakers. Congress doesn’t usually get involved in these disputes, and with good reason. <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/non-profit_organizations#">Nonprofits are private institutions using private assets</a>, even if the assets are meant to advance purposes that are, ultimately, in the public interest.</p>
<p>So here is our practical advice for donors and the institutions that rely on them.</p>
<p>Donors shouldn’t try to control a charity through their gifts after the fact. The time to establish limits is before you’ve signed off on those gifts.</p>
<p>Charities should reject gifts that are offered with strings attached that they aren’t happy about. If <a href="https://www.501c3.org/kb/what-are-restricted-funds/">gifts have restrictions</a>, charities should <a href="https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p3833.pdf">be aware of that and adhere to them</a>.</p>
<p>We fear that the failure on either side in the controversy now affecting several prestigious schools to abide by this basic guidance can potentially harm not only the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/24/business/philanthropy-colleges-harvard-upenn-israel/index.html">freedom and academic integrity</a> of a university, as many observers have noted, but also the freedom and integrity of the entire nonprofit sector.</p>
<p>The best charitable gifts, like the best personal gifts, are not meant as a means to control the recipients.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219902/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Threats from disappointed donors over the language used during campus protests about the Israel-Hamas conflict have become angrier and more public than in the past.Ellen P. Aprill, Professor of Tax Law Emerita, Loyola Law School Los AngelesJill Horwitz, Professor of Law and Medicine, University of California, Los AngelesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2195662023-12-11T19:23:30Z2023-12-11T19:23:30ZWhy university presidents find it hard to punish advocating genocide − college free speech codes are both more and less protective than the First Amendment<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564911/original/file-20231211-30-y3c9sh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C14%2C4727%2C3137&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Harvard President Claudine Gay, University of Pennsylvania then-President Elizabeth Magill and MIT President Sally Kornbluth testify before Congress on Dec. 5, 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/dr-claudine-gay-president-of-harvard-university-liz-magill-news-photo/1833208996?adppopup=true">Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If a student were to walk off the Harvard campus and onto a street in the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and argue for the genocide of Jews, the U.S. Constitution would bar prosecuting her for hate speech.</p>
<p>If the same student left her perch on the sidewalk and returned to the Harvard campus to continue the rant, the student could be silenced by campus police and either suspended or expelled from the university under <a href="https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/student-handbook/">the school’s code of conduct</a>. </p>
<p>The same is true for many other campuses across the nation, including the University of Pennsylvania and MIT. Private colleges and universities have speech codes that allow them to punish certain speech. But in their Dec. 6, 2023, testimony before Congress <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/opinion/college-presidents-antisemitism.html">about antisemitism on their campuses</a>, Presidents Elizabeth Magill of UPenn, Sally Kornbluth of MIT and Claudine Gay of Harvard failed to clearly state that, when pressed by U. S. Rep. Elise Stefanik to explain what would happen if someone on campus called for the genocide of Jews. Magill <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/education/4352383-upenn-board-of-trustees-chairman-resigns-following-university-presidents-exit/">just resigned</a>, in large part over the furor that followed.</p>
<p>I taught undergraduates argumentation and First Amendment law for 15 years at Syracuse University and have written a user’s guide on the First Amendment: <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/W/bo156864042.html">When Freedom Speaks</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564929/original/file-20231211-26-x3hctl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A large crowd of protestors, some holding signs." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564929/original/file-20231211-26-x3hctl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564929/original/file-20231211-26-x3hctl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564929/original/file-20231211-26-x3hctl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564929/original/file-20231211-26-x3hctl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564929/original/file-20231211-26-x3hctl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564929/original/file-20231211-26-x3hctl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564929/original/file-20231211-26-x3hctl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Palestinian supporters gather for a protest at Columbia University on Oct. 12, 2023, in New York.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/IsraelPalestiniansProtestsExplainer/7fbba5a27e194932a0ab92fcb991ec80/photo?Query=university%20hamas%20%20palestinian&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=145&currentItemNo=17">AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I am surprised by the presidents’ failure <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VtAZBvmzcQ">to respond clearly</a> to Stefanik’s question. The primary purpose of schools is to educate. Private colleges and universities are governed by codes of conduct that support and carry out that objective. </p>
<p>Although private colleges and universities can and often do attempt to recreate the <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/amendment-1/">broad boundaries of protected speech provided by the First Amendment</a>, those boundaries can legally be narrowed by their educational mission. They do this because hatred can poison a healthy learning environment and impair the ability of targeted students to participate fully. </p>
<p>Public colleges generally must apply broader constitutional standards regarding speech on campus. But campus codes at private colleges and universities seek to resolve the conflict between the right to speak freely and the educational mission of the institution. The ham-handed and over-legalistic responses by the three university presidents show how this attempt to balance speech and safety can create confusion, conflict and the opportunity for selective enforcement decisions based on academic fashion, not values of free and open debate.</p>
<h2>Private restrictions; public free speech</h2>
<p>Words matter. As long as the words don’t include a realistic threat that sticks, stones and worse will soon follow, the <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/amendment-1/">First Amendment</a> protects them from repression by the government. </p>
<p>Constitutionally speaking, ideas – whether they be mainstream or scorned – <a href="https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/incitement-to-imminent-lawless-action/">that do not incite violence</a> or <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt1-7-5-6/ALDE_00013807/">intentionally terrorize the target</a> are permissible speech. The First Amendment requires such ideas be available to the public to examine and criticize. Hyperbolic hate speech, even speech that endorses genocide or calls for <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/article/white-supremacy-returned-mainstream-politics/">forced racial and ethnic division</a>, cannot be criminally prosecuted by states or the federal government. Those words might offend and frighten, but they are often part and parcel of emotionally charged political speech.</p>
<p>Harvard provides an example of how campus conduct codes restrict speech that would normally be allowed under the First Amendment. The <a href="https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/student-handbook/guidelines-for-open-debate-protest-and-dissent/">student handbook</a> states that the free exchange of ideas must proceed within the “bounds of reasoned dissent.” The First Amendment does not demand any such limitation on speech, and state and federal governments are constitutionally prohibited from establishing or enforcing any such commitments. </p>
<p><a href="https://catalog.upenn.edu/pennbook/code-of-student-conduct/">The code of conduct at the University of Pennsylvania</a> requires the members of its community to “respect the health and safety of others.” Under the First Amendment, though, state and federal governments are constitutionally prohibited from requiring such limits.</p>
<p><a href="https://policies.mit.edu/policies-procedures/90-relations-and-responsibilities-within-mit-community/95-harassment">MIT prohibits harassment</a>, defined as “public and personal tirades.” The First Amendment provides no such moral guidelines. It does not distinguish between truth or lies, myth or reality, virtue or villainy. It only creates a space to speak where the government has limited power to interfere.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564932/original/file-20231211-27-iji2rm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A screenshot of a letter announcing the resignation of UPenn President Liz Magill." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564932/original/file-20231211-27-iji2rm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564932/original/file-20231211-27-iji2rm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564932/original/file-20231211-27-iji2rm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564932/original/file-20231211-27-iji2rm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564932/original/file-20231211-27-iji2rm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564932/original/file-20231211-27-iji2rm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564932/original/file-20231211-27-iji2rm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Dec. 9, 2023, announcement of President Elizabeth Magill’s resignation, by Scott L. Bok, chair of the Penn Board of Trustees.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://penntoday.upenn.edu/announcements/message-from-scott-bok">UPenn website</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Selective enforcement?</h2>
<p>Yet despite universities’ codes of conduct, there is a growing perception – supported by the highly technical and qualified answers given at the hearing by the college presidents – that they and other colleges and universities are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/opinion/antisemitism-college-free-speech.html">selective in their application of conduct codes</a> and use them to promote a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/08/opinions/israel-palestine-antisemitism-american-universities-zakaria/index.html">political agenda</a>. </p>
<p>In situations involving race and gender, schools have been quick to warn against, rein in or punish speech that administrators find offensive. In 2017, <a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2017/6/5/2021-offers-rescinded-memes/">Harvard rescinded admission offers to 10 students</a> who posted sexually explicit memes, some targeting minority groups. Stefanik, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/harvard-bans-cisheterosexism-but-shrugs-at-antisemitism-95a2c5d7">in a Wall Street Journal op-ed</a>, wrote that in 2022, as part of mandatory anti-bias training, Harvard warned its undergraduate students that <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/harvard-bans-cisheterosexism-but-shrugs-at-antisemitism-95a2c5d7">cisheterosexism, fatphobia and using the wrong pronouns was abusive</a>. </p>
<p>In 2016, several colleges issued proposed guidelines regarding <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/10/28/enjoy-the-holiday-without-being-extremely-offensive-some-colleges-advise-students-on-halloween-costumes/">offensive Halloween costumes</a>. In 2013, two students at Lewis & Clark College were charged with discrimination or harassment for <a href="https://www.thefire.org/cases/lewis-clark-college-two-students-guilty-harassment-racial-jokes-party">hosting a private, racially themed party</a>. In 2006, the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse attempted to <a href="https://www.thefire.org/cases/university-wisconsin-la-crosse-censorship-student-magazine">limit printing of a satirical article</a> deemed by the administration to threaten the recruitment and retention of students from underrepresented groups, although that decision was later reversed. </p>
<p>In contrast, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/12/harvard-mit-upenn-free-speech-congressional-hearings/676278/">Jewish students at the three universities</a> whose presidents testified in Congress accuse their schools of failing to <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/mit-faces-backlash-not-expelling-155058180.html">provide a clear response to alleged repeated harassment</a> of Jewish students and staff members. </p>
<h2>Advocates for campus free speech</h2>
<p>But rather than punishing certain speech, others call for colleges and universities <a href="https://www.thefire.org/news/fire-congress-university-presidents-dont-expand-censorship-end-it">to hold fast to the principle underlying First Amendment freedoms</a>: More speech, not less, leads to a healthy democracy. </p>
<p>Proponents of robust speech protections on campus argue that codes that confine speech to polite dialogue <a href="https://www.thefire.org/news/fire-congress-university-presidents-dont-expand-censorship-end-it">stifle the ability to learn</a> about <a href="https://www.thefire.org/news/blogs/eternally-radical-idea/coronavirus-and-failure-marketplace-ideas">different perspectives and truths</a>, which sometimes only find expression in heated diatribes. Instead, they propose that, in addition to clear condemnation, educational institutions should respond to hateful speech with <a href="https://campusfreespeechguide.pen.org/pen-principles/">countermessaging and dialogue as well as support for targeted individuals and groups</a>. </p>
<p>Many of today’s students have little understanding or respect for a campus – and by inference, a democracy – where all ideas are subject to scrutiny, particularly those that are loathsome to them. To me, <a href="https://buckleyinstitute.com/annual-surveys/">the data is alarming</a>: </p>
<ul>
<li>46% of students support shout-downs of speakers with whom they disagree.</li>
<li>51% of students believe some topics should be banned from being debated on campus.</li>
<li>45% of students believe that physical violence is justified in response to hate speech.</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="https://pen.org/about-us/">PEN America</a>, a 100-year-old organization dedicated to celebrating and protecting creative expression, urges colleges and universities to use caution when attempting to balance speech with safety. </p>
<p>Others warn that codes of conduct <a href="https://www.thefire.org/news/aclu-executive-director-delivers-blistering-critique-campus-speech-codes">offer a false sense of safety to targeted students</a>. Their point: Unless such codes are carefully crafted and applied only to speech that creates physical harm or terror, they will succeed mainly in <a href="https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/twitter-hate-speech-and-the-costs-of-keeping-quiet/">driving hatred underground into echo chambers</a>, where it tends to become more extreme and more dangerous.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated to clarify that the example from the University of Wisconsin occurred at the La Crosse campus.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219566/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lynn Greenky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>University codes of conduct support their mission to educate. But it’s not easy to balance those codes with the values of free speech, as the resignation of a prominent university president shows.Lynn Greenky, Professor Emeritus of Communication and Rhetorical Studies, Syracuse UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1851162022-06-24T11:51:22Z2022-06-24T11:51:22ZWealth of nations: Why some are rich, others are poor – and what it means for future prosperity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470570/original/file-20220623-52178-k6m80x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What makes a nation wealthy?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/many-currency-royalty-free-image/589422272?adppopup=true">Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Why are some nations rich and others poor? Can the governments of poor nations do something to ensure that their nations become rich? These sorts of questions have long fascinated public officials and economists, at least since Adam Smith, the prominent Scottish economist whose famous 1776 book was titled “<a href="https://www.adamsmith.org/the-wealth-of-nations/">An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations</a>.”</p>
<p>Economic growth matters to a country because it can raise living standards and <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/economy/economic-growth-causes-benefits-and-current-limits">provide fiscal stability</a> to its people. But getting the recipe consistently right has eluded both nations and economists for hundreds of years. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.rit.edu/directory/aabgsh-amit-batabyal">an economist who studies</a> regional, national and international economics, I believe that understanding an economic term called total factor productivity can provide insight into how nations become wealthy.</p>
<h2>Growth theory</h2>
<p>It is important to understand what helps a country grow its wealth. In 1956, Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist Robert Solow <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/1884513">wrote a paper</a> analyzing how labor – otherwise known as workers – and capital – otherwise known as physical items such as tools, machinery and equipment – can be combined to produce goods and services that ultimately determine people’s standard of living. Solow later went on to win a <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1987/solow/biographical/">Nobel Prize for his work</a>.</p>
<p>One way to increase a nation’s overall quantity of goods or services is to increase labor, capital or both. But that doesn’t continue growth indefinitely. At some point, adding more labor only means that the goods and services these workers produce is divided between more workers. Hence, the output per worker – which is one way of looking at a nation’s wealth – will tend to go down. </p>
<p>Similarly, adding more capital such as machinery or other equipment endlessly is also unhelpful, because those physical items tend to wear out or depreciate. A company would need frequent financial investment to counteract the negative effect of this wear and tear. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/1926047">later paper in 1957</a>, Solow used U.S. data to show that ingredients in addition to labor and capital were needed to make a nation wealthier.</p>
<p>He found that only 12.5% of the observed increase in American output per worker – the quantity of what each worker produced – from 1909 to 1949 could be attributed to workers becoming more productive during this time period. This implies that 87.5% of the observed increase in output per worker was explained by something else.</p>
<h2>Total factor productivity</h2>
<p>Solow called this something else “technical change,” and today it is best known as total factor productivity.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1057/9780230280823_32">Total factor productivity</a> is the portion of goods and services produced that is not explained by the capital and labor used in production. For example, it could be technological advancements that make it easier to produce goods. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Au2bs7NVT78?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Another way to understand total factor productivity.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s best to think of total factor productivity as a recipe that shows how to combine capital and labor to obtain output. Specifically, growing it is akin to creating a cookie recipe to ensure that the largest number of cookies – that also taste great – are produced. Sometimes this recipe gets better over time because, for example, the cookies can bake faster in a new type of oven or workers become more knowledgeable about how to mix ingredients more efficiently. </p>
<h2>Will total factor productivity continue to grow in the future?</h2>
<p>Given how important total factor productivity is to economic growth, asking about the future of economic growth is basically the same as asking whether total factor productivity will continue to grow – whether the recipes will always get better – over time.</p>
<p>Solow assumed that TFP would grow exponentially over time, a dynamic explained by the economist Paul Romer, who <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2018/romer/facts/">also won a Nobel Prize</a> for his research in this field. </p>
<p>Romer argued in a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1833190">prominent 1986 paper</a> that investments in research and development that result in the creation of new knowledge can be a key driver of economic growth. </p>
<p>This means that each earlier bit of knowledge makes the next bit of knowledge more useful. Put differently, knowledge has a spillover effect that creates more knowledge as it spills out.</p>
<p>Despite Romer’s efforts to provide a basis for the assumed exponential growth of TFP, research shows that productivity growth in the world’s advanced economies <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/Staff-Discussion-Notes/Issues/2017/04/03/Gone-with-the-Headwinds-Global-Productivity-44758">has been declining</a> since the late 1990s and is now at historically low levels. There are concerns that the <a href="https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w28233/w28233.pdf">COVID-19 crisis may exacerbate</a> this negative trend and further reduce total factor productivity growth.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7539064/#bib1">Recent research</a> shows that if TFP growth falls, then this can negatively affect living standards in the U.S. and in other rich countries.</p>
<p>A very recent paper by the economist Thomas Philippon analyzes a large amount of data for 23 countries over 129 years, finding that TFP <a href="https://pages.stern.nyu.edu/%7Etphilipp/papers/AddGrowth_macro.pdf">does not actually grow exponentially</a>, as Solow and Romer had thought. </p>
<p>Instead, it grows in a linear, and slower, progression. Philippon’s analysis suggests that new ideas and new recipes do add to the existing stock of knowledge, but they don’t have the multiplier effect previous scholars had thought.</p>
<p>Ultimately, this finding means that economic growth used to be quite fast and is now slowing down – but it’s still occurring. The U.S. and other nations can expect to get wealthier over time but just not as quickly as economists once expected.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185116/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amitrajeet A. Batabyal does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Economic growth of countries needs many ingredients. Getting the recipe just right is important.Amitrajeet A. Batabyal, Distinguished Professor and Arthur J. Gosnell Professor of Economics, Rochester Institute of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1023132018-09-06T16:34:11Z2018-09-06T16:34:11ZMIT and Harvard: when elite institutions open and hack knowledge<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233940/original/file-20180828-86120-7s349x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">MIT hackathon, 2014.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/50628274@N00/15303971768">Mason Marino, Che-Wei Wang, Andrew Whitacre / Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As researchers and/or entrepreneurs, we have been absorbing cultural knowledge of collaboration, entrepreneurship, co-worker and maker movements for a number of years. We often face and hear about how to become disruptive by two keywords: <em>opening</em> and <em>hacking</em>. Between July 25 and 28, 2018, we co-created a rich learning expedition organized by the <a href="https://collaborativespacesstudy.wordpress.com/">Research Group on Collaborative Spaces</a> (RGCS), at MIT and Harvard University, in Cambridge (Massachusetts). This alternative academic network focuses on topics about new work practices inspired by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_science">open science</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_science">citizen science</a> cultures.</p>
<p>The starting point of our learning expedition was our astonishment: How can elite institutions (in particular, MIT and Harvard University) and an elite territory originate key collaborative practices and ideology such as hacking, open knowledge and open innovation? How to combine search for excellence, global leadership and selectivity with horizontal, transgressive, underground cultures of hacking and opening knowledge? Our objective was to understand this paradox with a set of planned and improvised visits and meetings (see the <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2017/08/30/toward-more-integrative-research-practices-introducing-open-walked-event-based-experimentations/">OWEE protocol</a>) focused on MIT and Harvard University. Is it possible to be both conformist and transgressive?</p>
<p>We want first to share some astonishing discoveries before focusing on key moments and encounters we see as provisional answers to our initial question. We will thus not detail all trip and everything that happened but we want to share here some selected afterthoughts.</p>
<h2>Three striking practices at Harvard University and MIT</h2>
<p>We found three practices particularly striking both at MIT and Harvard University and their relationship with opening and hacking knowledge.</p>
<p>The first was observing how much students (undergraduate, graduate, master and PhD students) and their theses and projects were made visible and valuated by the institutions. Through this, we do not only mean rewarding them and evaluating them (e.g. with awards), but truly putting them at forefront of what the university is and does. At the <a href="https://mitmuseum.mit.edu/">MIT Museum</a>, we participated in the Idea Hub workshop named Hypercube, which was part of a master’s thesis from by the Media Lab. In many parts of MIT, students" work is exhibited, part of the storytelling or simply visible on or from the street.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233941/original/file-20180828-86120-1puv2o7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233941/original/file-20180828-86120-1puv2o7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233941/original/file-20180828-86120-1puv2o7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233941/original/file-20180828-86120-1puv2o7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233941/original/file-20180828-86120-1puv2o7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233941/original/file-20180828-86120-1puv2o7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233941/original/file-20180828-86120-1puv2o7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hypercube workshop.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Secondly, we were surprised that at a time of global tensions and an obsession with security, there was also a great openness in the semi-public and public spaces. It was easy to simply enter, meet people, ask questions, walk around, and have chance encounters. Even if a lot of doors inside were (hopefully) closed and secured, most places were truly open to the city, its movements, its events, its ideas. Literally, those two campuses are open to citizens.</p>
<p>In continuation to this, the third element we found surprising was serendipity. It felt to be a reality here we could almost touch. It was very easy to connect, move from one meeting to another, and collaborate. But here there was a surprise in the surprise: this has nothing to do with fashionable collaborative spaces nor with a particular urbanism. The <a href="https://wyss.harvard.edu/">Wyss Institute</a> we visited or the <a href="https://www.broadinstitute.org/">Broad Institute</a> do not appear at all as decompartmentalised, co-working-like or makerspace-like places. Their offices, meeting rooms and labs are extremely traditional (see pictures below). Nonetheless, collaborative practices occur. We were really surprised by how easy it was to meet and have chance encounters (e.g., with a person who collaborated to the vaccine against cancer).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233942/original/file-20180828-86144-xlqa8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233942/original/file-20180828-86144-xlqa8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=225&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233942/original/file-20180828-86144-xlqa8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=225&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233942/original/file-20180828-86144-xlqa8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=225&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233942/original/file-20180828-86144-xlqa8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233942/original/file-20180828-86144-xlqa8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233942/original/file-20180828-86144-xlqa8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Left: Lobby of the Wyss Institute at Harvard. Right: Entrance of the Broad Institute at MIT.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Five key moments in our exploration of opening and hacking knowledge</h2>
<p><em>To introduce and shed light on the identified paradox, we would like here to share five relevant moments of the learning expedition.</em></p>
<p><strong>A transgressive interdisciplinary place: the Wyss Institute at Harvard</strong></p>
<p>The first encounter we would like to communicate happened at the Wyss Institute “for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University”. This interdisciplinary place is inspired by nature. It uses biological principles or metaphors to innovate in the health sector. Our meeting took place in the morning of day two of our learning expedition. Two researchers, among whom the founding director of the Institute <a href="https://wyss.harvard.edu/team/executive-team/donald-ingber/">Donald Ingber</a>, presented us the institute, its activities and organisation. The institute adventure started right after the 2008 financial crisis with a $125 million donation. Being both inside and outside of Harvard is obviously an interstitiality that fosters innovative collaborations. Can a university accept and host such transgressive projects? Would it be possible to host all those research activities inside a traditional department? Specificities of the organization seem to be based on autonomy, trust and close work with practitioners. Elsewhere, this would probably mean being on one personal academic territory or another. Wyss Institute appears to be a more neutral zone.</p>
<p><strong>MIT tour storytelling: all about hacking culture</strong></p>
<p>The second moment we would like to point out is the official campus tour of MIT (we also did Harvard official campus tour). <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326415466_At_the_intersection_of_materiality_organizational_legitimacy_and_institutional_logics_A_study_of_campus_tours?_iepl%5BgeneralViewId%5D=sCaFedn0NvcsBtUxRfF33sI2OMzPOqSv7VP0&_iepl%5Bcontexts%5D%5B0%5D=searchReact&_iepl%5BviewId%5D=vC9RKru8OjCUmd6ulDp57fpEUhfeMFtKGGk3&_iepl%5BsearchType%5D=publication&_iepl%5Bdata%5D%5BcountLessEqual20%5D=1&_iepl%5Bdata%5D%5BinteractedWithPosition1%5D=1&_iepl%5Bdata%5D%5BwithEnrichment%5D=1&_iepl%5Bposition%5D=1&_iepl%5BrgKey%5D=PB%3A326415466&_iepl%5BtargetEntityId%5D=PB%3A326415466&_iepl%5BinteractionType%5D=publicationTitle">Tours are key practices in the life of American universities.</a> The meeting point of MIT campus tour was at the entrance of the main building with the famous dome. Our guide was a young undergraduate interested in Science and Technology Studies (STS). Extremely mature, with an already assured sense of public speaking, she produced the story-telling of the tour with a lot of practical, scientific and historical details. We learned everything about the facilities, accommodation, recruitment, history, teaching and research activities of MIT. But most of all, we learned about MIT culture. Two enlightened moments of the tour were focused on hack culture of MIT and they happened to be the two key parts of tour: a stop in front of the most emblematic place and the last stop in front of the iconic hacked police car. In both cases, she put the stress on the importance of small transgressions inside MIT community, impertinence and sense of humour embodied by hacks and hacking culture (see pictures below). We were particularly surprised to see and hear all these official narratives precisely about the topic of our learning expedition. This was beyond our expectations.</p>
<p><strong>An intriguing iconic hackers space in the middle of the night</strong></p>
<p>The third moment we would like to share is our chance to visit a hackerspace. At the end of day 2, we were looking for Tech Model Railroad Club (<a href="https://www.wired.com/2014/11/the-tech-model-railroad-club/">TMRC</a>), an iconic, mythological place in hackers" history, and incidentally, makers" history. After three wrong places, we finally found the door and building in late evening. But it was closed. We did not see any way to come or call inside and we were waiting seated outside, waiting for someone entering or leaving the place. One of us went on the other side of the street and noticed something that looked like a makerspace with bikes and strange objects suspended in a big room. We went on the other side and knocked at a grimy window through which we guessed the presence of people inside. This was a lovely moment (see pictures below). Six makers (four men and two women) were working on a prototype of a small electric bike for an event the next day. We had a spontaneous conversation with one of them about the place, what it does, how membership was granted, how it was related to MIT teaching. The atmosphere was cool, warm and open. We came from nowhere, it was the evening and the street was already dark, but we felt really welcome. Indeed, TMRC was in the room next to the makerspace, so we also took time looking at it.</p>
<p><strong>GAFAM unconventional open-office spaces</strong></p>
<p>The fourth moment happened on the third day. We wanted to look also at more entrepreneurial and independent places. After visiting <a href="https://cic.com/">Cambridge Innovation Centre</a> (CIC) and before <a href="https://www.wework.com/">WeWork</a> office spaces, we went to a GAFAM (fantasy name) office we spotted the day before, walking down the street. After an extended discussion at the reception desk, we didn’t manage to get in touch with anyone and were close to simply leaving when an employee left the building by the other entrance. He probably heard us speaking French and stopped. We asked him if he was part of the company, one thing to led another, and he soon invited us to visit their offices the next day. As we agreed to during the registration process, we cannot explain here what we saw, but again, we were surprised by the fluidity of everything here. Moving from a dream to a concrete possibility.</p>
<p><strong>A makerspace for social inclusion and innovation: D-Lab</strong></p>
<p>The last and fifth moment was the visit of <a href="https://d-lab.mit.edu/about">D-Lab</a>. This unit is about social inclusion and social innovation. The main idea of the projects they work on is to co-produce with worldwide communities tools they need. Numerous accomplishment of the place were exhibited in the corridor: corn seller, mechanical washing machine, water treatment system… All largely based on material and handed-gestures. Our guide, who accepted to lead the visit just for us, deepened the story-telling of the projects and gave us opportunity to touch and to watch their experimentations in action. We were again surprised by the place’s openness. Everything was done to perform and materialise local activities for visitors. The inside was turned toward visitors. Because of another appointment, he trusted us to finish the tour alone and take a few pictures. Even the makerspace room was open to public, with simply a yellow line on the ground that needed to not be crossed for security reasons.</p>
<h2>From encounters to learning: what did we bring back from Cambridge?</h2>
<p>What about the initial paradox? Far from a barrier, the tension we stressed appear as a driver, an energy for the place. MIT and Harvard launch standards they both maintain and transgress in a polite, transparent, community-grounded way. Hacking alone in the dark, just for oneself is not enough. Community and society feedbacks are always expected. All campus and territory is a powerful storytelling machine. All world of worldwide science, technique and entrepreneurship is expected to be at MIT and Harvard. And in this summer we can testify that we experienced it crossing MIT campus and walking on Harvard campus. We saw big groups of children and teenagers coming to dream about MIT and Harvard. We ourselves dreamt of duplicating this tremendous spirit in our own institutions.</p>
<p>So, what will be our memory of this learning expedition in which two-thirds of the people and places we visited were improvised (see the <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2017/08/30/toward-more-integrative-research-practices-introducing-open-walked-event-based-experimentations/">OWEE protocol</a>)? A big machine made to make one’s eyes shine. A funny, energetic, largely outdoor, and beyond any walls place likely to make dream any brilliant teenager and researcher who do want to participate to create a brave new world.</p>
<p>We thank all of our guides who opened their doors to us and answered our questions with passion and kindness. And we hope that might lead to cross-Atlantic open collaboration.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102313/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aurore Dandoy is coordinator of the academic network and think tank RGCS (<a href="https://collaborativespacesstudy.wordpress.com/">https://collaborativespacesstudy.wordpress.com/</a>).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>François-Xavier de Vaujany is president of the academic network and think tank RGCS (<a href="https://collaborativespacesstudy.wordpress.com/">https://collaborativespacesstudy.wordpress.com/</a>). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Annie Passalacqua ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>How can elite institutions and an elite territory originate key collaborative practices such as hacking, open knowledge and open innovation? We found out during a recent visit.Aurore Dandoy, Assistant researcher, Université Paris Dauphine – PSLAnnie Passalacqua, Business Development Strategist, HEC MontréalFrançois-Xavier de Vaujany, Professeur, PSL-Université Paris-Dauphine (DRM), Université Paris Dauphine – PSLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/984372018-07-09T22:32:28Z2018-07-09T22:32:28ZWhat if MIT’s Norman and Amazon’s Alexa hooked up?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226512/original/file-20180706-122259-1i4usdz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">MIT's experiment with a serial killing AI called Norman, based on Psycho's Norman Bates, underscores the importance of ensuring we get it right when embedding AI with culture.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">MIT</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If, like Rip Van Winkle, you’ve been asleep for the last decade and have just woken up, that flip phone you have has become super-popular among retro technologists and survivalists alike, and, oh yeah, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is either going to kill you or save you. </p>
<p>AI is the latest in a long line of technology buzzwords that have gripped society, and if we are to believe the people at the respected technology analysts firm Gartner Inc., <a href="https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/2018-will-mark-the-beginning-of-ai-democratization/">2018 will be the year in which AI is truly integrated into our daily lives</a>. As unnerving as the surreal robotics being cooked up at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/BostonDynamics">Boston Dynamics</a> or the deployment of <a href="https://newatlas.com/china-ai-education-schools-facial-recognition/54786/">facial recognition AI in Chinese public schools</a> may seem, this technology is a product of the human condition and as such, we are embedding our own culture within its coded DNA. </p>
<p>Debates about AI currently focus on the notion of ethics. In the study of culture, ethics are embedded within values, and they’ve become <a href="https://www.ipass.com/blog/ai-uninterrupted-culture-representation-and-the-ethics-of-ai/">an important part of the deliberations about how AI will integrate into our lives</a>. What hasn’t been discussed is <em>whose</em> ethics, and ultimately whose values, we are talking about.</p>
<p>Is it Western versus Eastern, or is it American versus everyone else? As values within culture are influenced by the community and larger society, ethics are dependent on the cultural context in which communal values have developed. </p>
<h2>‘Enculturation’</h2>
<p>Thus, culture plays an important role in the formation of AI through what’s known as <a href="https://courses.lumenlearning.com/culturalanthropology/chapter/enculturation/">the <em>enculturation</em></a> of that data.</p>
<p>Anthropologist <a href="https://cecs.anu.edu.au/people/genevieve-bell">Genevieve Bell</a>, Intel vice-president and cultural visionary, has been able to steer the tech giant towards a more profound understanding of how <a href="https://www.engadget.com/2016/08/16/the-next-wave-of-ai-is-rooted-in-human-culture-and-history/">culture and AI</a> interplay with each other. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226604/original/file-20180708-122265-1d016d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226604/original/file-20180708-122265-1d016d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226604/original/file-20180708-122265-1d016d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226604/original/file-20180708-122265-1d016d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226604/original/file-20180708-122265-1d016d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226604/original/file-20180708-122265-1d016d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226604/original/file-20180708-122265-1d016d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Genevieve Bell is seen in this 2015 photo at the Women Innovation & Technology summit in Miami Beach, Fla.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Bell’s research indicated that human interaction with technology is not culturally universal. It is neither the same nor objective, and we encode culture within and throughout technology at a conscious and unconscious level. </p>
<p>If this is true, what happens in the eventual development of culture in AI?</p>
<p>For anthropologists, human cultural evolution has many markers: The <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/srep22219">manipulation of tools</a>, <a href="https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/neanderthals-cave-art-humans-evolution-science/">the development of abstract thought</a>, and more fundamentally, the creation of language in which to communicate. </p>
<p><a href="https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/06/gorillas-koko-sign-language-culture-animals/">Culture begins when two or more living entities start to communicate and exchange information and, with more complexity, ideas</a>. Cultural development among non-human AI entities is something that hasn’t been discussed yet, let alone the melding of human and AI culture.</p>
<h2>Bots developed their own language</h2>
<p>Recently, Facebook’s AI research group (<a href="https://research.fb.com/category/facebook-ai-research/">FAIR</a>) made brief mention of <a href="https://code.facebook.com/posts/1686672014972296/deal-or-no-deal-training-ai-bots-to-negotiate/">an experiment</a> in which two bots were tasked with negotiating with each other. It <a href="https://www.fastcodesign.com/90132632/ai-is-inventing-its-own-perfect-languages-should-we-let-it">was reported</a> at the time that the bots began to develop a more efficient language to communicate with one another.</p>
<p>Facebook computer science researchers quickly pulled the plug on what was rapidly becoming the development of a more efficient AI language between the two bots, not because they were frightened of the emergence of AI self-creation, but because the bots did not return expected results — a negotiation in English. </p>
<p>In a world where code is essentially made up of zeroes and ones, yes or no commands, there isn’t much room for the unexpected. But at times, we should embrace the opportunity and explore the possibilities, as culture does not manifest itself in a singular fashion. </p>
<p>Culture is what we make it. It is a set of norms that we as a society agree upon, consciously or unconsciously, and it frames how we operate within our daily lives.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/heres-how-canada-can-be-a-global-leader-in-ethical-ai-90991">Here's how Canada can be a global leader in ethical AI</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<h2>AI can absorb cultures</h2>
<p>AI has the unique ability in the future to absorb all of the world’s cultural norms and values, developing a potentially true pan-global culture. But first, we, the creators of AI, must understand our roles and how we impact that ability to absorb. AI represents, after all, a microcosm of the culture of the people who build it as well as those who provide input into AI’s foundational data framework. </p>
<p>Science-fiction novelist Alastair Reynolds, in his book <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/289274/absolution-gap-by-alastair-reynolds/9780441012916/"><em>Absolution Gap</em></a>, describes a planet in which the only intelligent creature is a vast sea that absorbs information from the beings and creatures that swim in it. The sea learns from that information and redistributes that knowledge to other beings. </p>
<p>Called “pattern juggling” in the book, the current manifestation of AI as we know it is very much like that fictional sea, absorbing knowledge and selectively distributing it with its own enculturated data. </p>
<p>Using Reynolds’ knowledge-absorbing ocean as an example, AI is currently like the separated salt and fresh water bodies of Earth — each with its own ecosystem, isolated and independent. </p>
<p>What happens when these very unique ecosystems begin to communicate with each other? How will norms and values be determined as the various AI entities begin to exchange information and negotiate realities within their newly formed cultures? </p>
<h2>Norman is a warning</h2>
<p>MIT’s Norman, an AI personality based on a fictional psychopath <a href="https://www.artificialintelligence-news.com/2018/06/06/mit-psychopathic-ai/">produced a singular example of what we have long known in humans</a>: With prolonged exposure to violence comes a fractured view of cultural norms and values. This represents a real danger to future exposure and transmission to other AI. </p>
<p>How so? </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226602/original/file-20180708-122256-1i49npi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226602/original/file-20180708-122256-1i49npi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226602/original/file-20180708-122256-1i49npi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226602/original/file-20180708-122256-1i49npi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226602/original/file-20180708-122256-1i49npi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226602/original/file-20180708-122256-1i49npi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/226602/original/file-20180708-122256-1i49npi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An example of personalities going awry when brought together?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Associated Press</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Envision Norman and Alexa hooking up. Both AI’s are representative of the people who made them, the human data that they consume and a built-in need to learn. So whose cultural values and norms would be more persuasive? </p>
<p>Norman was built to see all data from the lens of a psychopath, while <a href="https://qz.com/701521/parents-are-worried-the-amazon-echo-is-conditioning-their-kids-to-be-rude/">Alexa as a digital assistant is just looking to please</a>. There are countless human examples of <a href="https://soapboxie.com/us-politics/Psychological-profiles-The-Hubris-Syndrome-of-Vladimir-Putin-and-Donald-Trump">similar personalities going awry when brought together</a>.</p>
<p>Social scientists argue that the debate over AI is set to explode and, as a result, that multiple versions of AI are bound to co-exist. </p>
<p>As philosophers, anthropologists and other social scientists begin to voice their concerns, the time is ripe for society to reflect on AI’s desired usefulness, to question the realities and our expectations, and to influence its development into a truly pan-global cultural environment.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98437/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William Michael Carter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Artificial Intelligence is set to explode and, as a result, multiple versions of AI are bound to co-exist. It’s time to influence its development into a truly pan-global cultural environment.William Michael Carter, Assistant Professor, Creative Industries, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/521062015-12-18T10:15:04Z2015-12-18T10:15:04ZVuvuzela, a next-generation anonymity tool that protects users by adding NOISE<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105303/original/image-20151210-7447-xvx237.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Communicating by Vuvuzela, for when anonymity could be a matter of life and death.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/e3000/4712469214">e3000</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Cryptography is the science of keeping secrets, with <a href="http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/definition/Advanced-Encryption-Standard">encryption algorithms</a> and methods such as public key encryption the gold standard. Despite widespread usage and heavy scrutiny, these ciphers remain unbroken. But while encryption can keep messages secret, it cannot protect the identities of the sender and receiver.</p>
<p>Details such as the IP addresses of computers communicating on the internet and other metadata can reveal more than just the identities of those communicating. Companies use metadata to infer sexual orientation, approximate age, gender and interests for targeted advertising, while intelligence and law enforcement agencies collect and analyse it for their own uses. As a former director of the NSA puts it pithily: “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdQiz0Vavmc">We kill people based on metadata</a>.”</p>
<p>So anonymity is required as well as secrecy, for which the most polished tool is Tor. Tor allows users to browse the web anonymously, but has come under sustained attack – and cracks <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-tors-privacy-was-momentarily-broken-and-the-questions-it-raises-52048">have begun to show</a>. Is it time for a replacement? Vuvuzela, a <a href="https://people.csail.mit.edu/nickolai/papers/vandenhooff-vuvuzela.pdf">prototype anonymising software</a> designed by MIT researchers, is one attempt.</p>
<p>Tor achieves anonymity by partially encrypting as much metadata as possible, revealing only small amounts and only as late on in the communication as possible. It sends messages via the encrypted Tor network, where it’s difficult for attackers that snoop on network traffic to detect where <a href="https://theconversation.com/tor-the-last-bastion-of-online-anonymity-but-is-it-still-secure-after-silk-road-35395">a message comes from and where it is going</a>. That an NSA presentation leaked by Edward Snowden included the statement “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/oct/04/tor-stinks-nsa-presentation-document">Tor Stinks</a>” suggests that even the NSA found it difficult to crack. </p>
<p>Yet when the FBI shut down the Silk Road and Silk Road 2.0 illegal online marketplaces, their prosecutions seemingly relied on <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-tors-privacy-was-momentarily-broken-and-the-questions-it-raises-52048">evidence collected despite Tor’s privacy measures</a>. Tor has well-known security weaknesses which are <a href="https://blog.torproject.org/blog/one-cell-enough">explicitly stated</a> by the developers. One is that Tor cannot withstand traffic analysis by an attacker who can monitor global internet traffic in real time: whenever user A sends a message to Tor and almost immediately afterwards Tor sends a message to website B, then it is likely that A uses Tor to browse B. This attack is out of reach for individuals, but some nation states have the capacity to do so.</p>
<p>As MIT associate professor Nickolai Zeldovich, whose group created Vuvuzela, said: “Tor operates under the assumption that there’s not a global adversary that’s paying attention to every single link in the world. Maybe these days this is not a good assumption.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/106473/original/image-20151217-8073-1ih7a2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/106473/original/image-20151217-8073-1ih7a2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106473/original/image-20151217-8073-1ih7a2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106473/original/image-20151217-8073-1ih7a2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106473/original/image-20151217-8073-1ih7a2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106473/original/image-20151217-8073-1ih7a2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106473/original/image-20151217-8073-1ih7a2h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anonymity through obscurity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/10422334@N08/6619734997/">Guy Mayer</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Hiding activity as well as metadata</h2>
<p>To overcome Tor’s shortcomings, other anonymising software approaches have been proposed, such as <a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1503.06115">Riposte</a> from Stanford University and <a href="http://dedis.cs.yale.edu/dissent">Dissent</a> from Yale. While they fix Tor’s flaws, they are not able to support the sort of usage and number of concurrent users that Tor can, which limits their usefulness.</p>
<p>Vuvuzela is both immune to traffic analysis and other forms of attack, and can support a large number of simultaneous active users. Like Tor, Vuvuzela works by encrypting as much metadata as possible, but (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpXN8BvGp_o">like its namesake)</a> it also adds a lot of noise – fake messages with which to confuse attackers. As they are indistinguishable from genuine messages, this drowns out patterns of genuine communication that might otherwise compromise a user’s anonymity. </p>
<p>Unlike Tor, Vuvuzela sends its communication in fixed rounds. Clients cannot send and receive messages at any time, instead on each round a user can only send and receive one message. This obscures the precise timing of messages between sender and receiver, keeping this detail from attackers.</p>
<p>Another difference is how the messages travel. Tor messages pass from sender to receiver in a sequence of hops, while Vuvuzela uses a dead-drop system, where the sender leaves the message at a randomly chosen memory location on one of the Vuvuzela servers, and during a later round the recipient picks up the message.</p>
<p>All messages sent by Vuvuzela messages are the same size, achieved by splitting messages that are too large and padding messages that are too small. This prevents attackers from using message size to compromise anonymity by giving away clues as to what sort of communication is being sent.</p>
<p>As a result, Vuvuzela is the first anonymising privacy system that is resistant to large-scale network traffic analysis attacks, and which can also sustain millions of active users sending tens of thousands of messages per second.</p>
<p>MIT’s software is brand new and still experimental, and cannot yet be considered as a replacement for Tor. It hasn’t yet undergone extensive testing through attacks aimed at its theoretical design, and implementation. Crucially, unlike Tor Vuvuzela cannot yet be used for convenient web browsing, nor is it suitable for real-time chat as it is currently quite slow. However, it holds a lot of promise, and may evolve into a viable Tor successor in the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52106/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Berger receives funding from EPSRC and the European Union.</span></em></p>With attacks against Tor increasing, prototype anonymising software Vuvuzela takes a different approach.Martin Berger, Lecturer in Foundations Of Computation (Informatics), University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/498712015-10-30T10:06:44Z2015-10-30T10:06:44ZCan innovators build a future that’s both disruptive and just?<p>Today – October 30 – <a href="http://media.mit.edu">MIT’s Media Lab</a> celebrates its 30th anniversary. </p>
<p>The Media Lab is a place that takes very seriously the idea that we can invent a better future and have it spread around the globe. It’s a place that’s helped invent things that are very serious, like <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/hugh_herr_the_new_bionics_that_let_us_run_climb_and_dance?language=en">Hugh Herr’s work on artificial limbs</a>, but also a place that helps bring to life the very playful – <a href="https://www.guitarhero.com/">Guitar Hero</a> came out of Tod Machover’s lab and its work on the future of music.</p>
<p>It’s also a place that’s helped invent technologies where the jury’s still out about their utility, like the wearable technology movement. Precursors to Google Glass were developed at the Media Lab. </p>
<p>My work at the Media Lab is about <a href="http://civic.mit.edu">civic media</a>, the idea that citizens can make and share media and use the media they make to make change in the world. </p>
<p>We work on projects like <a href="http://www.mediacloud.org">Media Cloud</a> that help online activists figure out if their work is having impact, studying movements like Black Lives Matter. We build <a href="http://www.promisetracker.org">tools</a> that let communities use mobile phone-based information gathering to monitor infrastructures in their neighborhood – the sidewalks, the streets, sanitation – and combine that information to make rich “crowdmaps” that they can use to improve sanitation in a market and identify new play spaces in poor neighborhoods. And we build platforms that let people make and share rich media, with a focus on amplifying voices that aren’t usually heard from, with projects like international citizen media news site <a href="http://globalvoices.org">Global Voices</a>, <a href="http://fold.cm">FOLD</a> – a platform for publishing complex, media-rich stories online – and <a href="http://deepstream.tv/">Deepstream</a>, a new tool that lets users curate and add context to livestream video.</p>
<p>I’m persuaded, in other words, by the power of innovation to improve the world. But I also want to offer some cautions, and I suspect these cautions apply as much to innovators here in the US as much as they do to innovators in the rest of the world. </p>
<h2>Technology and development: don’t forget the people</h2>
<p>I’ve worked on tech and economic development in sub-Saharan Africa since the late 1990s, when I helped build a network of technology volunteers who worked with businesses across the continent, called <a href="http://geekcorps.org">Geekcorps</a>. </p>
<p>Since working on that project 15 years ago, I’ve seen a lot of trends in development come and go. </p>
<p>Before I was active in international development, <a href="http://realsociology.edublogs.org/2012/02/07/a-brief-history-of-development-aid/">the fashion was to support massive infrastructure projects</a> and offer governments big loans to support them. The hot topic when I started Geekcorps was anticorruption, and that was followed by an emphasis on democratic governance and then microentrepreneurship. </p>
<p>Now the emphasis is on innovation. </p>
<p>I’ve had the pleasure of working with Kenyan nonprofit crowdmapping software company <a href="http://ww.ushahidi.com">Ushahidi</a> for many years, which founded the <a href="https://www.ihub.co.ke/">iHub</a>, Nairobi’s leading coworking and innovation space, and the model for many of these spaces that are springing up on the continent.</p>
<p>But as excited as I am about “hacking and making,” I think it’s important to take a critical look at these other chapters in the history of international development. </p>
<p>None of these ideas – building infrastructure, fighting corruption, ensuring clean elections, building small businesses – were bad ideas. But none of them were silver bullets. </p>
<p>They’re all important, but they’re even more important when we work on them together. And that’s true for innovations in technology as well. </p>
<p>Despite amazing work done at the Media Lab on <a href="http://one.laptop.org/">One Laptop Per Child</a>, an ambitious project to provide children in developing nations with their own laptop computers, the problems of education on the African continent are complicated. </p>
<p>Even if we could get laptops into every school, we’d still have problems with ensuring schools had trained teachers who were sufficiently well-paid to show up for work, with providing safe school buildings – <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/susan-davis/womens-health-and-education_b_1324954.html">including separate toilets for girls</a>, which have been shown to be essential to ensuring equal access to education – with ensuring that children are fed so they can learn, with ensuring that graduates have access to good jobs.</p>
<p>This doesn’t mean we should stop trying to solve social problems with technology. But it does mean we should understand that when the problems we’re trying to solve with tech are social, we need “sociotechnical” solutions that look at the interaction between people and technology. </p>
<p>It’s not a responsible stance for people who want to change the world with technology to think only about the tech they’re building. </p>
<p>This brings me to a second point, which centers on a term we’re hearing a lot in US tech communities right now: disruption. </p>
<h2>Just who is doing the disrupting?</h2>
<p>Uber is disrupting the taxi business; airbnb is disrupting the hotel business. </p>
<p>There are lots of systems in the world today that are broken and could use some disrupting. But it’s important to ask who benefits and who gets hurt when these systems are disrupted. </p>
<p>In the US, the taxi medallion system is <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2012/03/11/medallion-system-shackles-cabbies/vFI0baUOzPqYiZagOJ6eaJ/story.html">grossly unfair</a>, and most drivers are <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/07/nyregion/study-of-taxi-drivers-finds-more-immigrants-at-wheel.html">poorly paid recent immigrants</a> who take on sometimes dangerous work because they have few other options. That’s a system worthy of disruption. </p>
<p>But if the system we replace it with puts <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/22/uber-drivers-pay-study_n_6527470.html">less money</a> in <a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/3048563/fast-feed/this-is-how-much-uber-and-lyft-drivers-make-in-different-cities">drivers’ hands</a> than the current system and more money in the hands of the venture capital-backed dispatcher, we’ve disrupted an unjust system with a worse system. </p>
<p>Disrupters always like to see themselves as revolutionaries. But they can very quickly become the entrenched power.</p>
<p>In the late 1990s, no one in West Africa was sad to see state-owned monopoly phone companies disrupted by mobile phone providers. But now, more than 15 years later, those companies are <a href="http://www.howwemadeitinafrica.com/mobile-operators-nigerias-biggest-advertising-spenders/">some of the most powerful economic actors</a> in many developing nations, and there’s lots of debate about whether their pricing and service is fair, or whether they might not need some disruption. </p>
<p>Now Facebook is talking about disrupting mobile phone data plans with <a href="http://internet.org">internet.org</a>, making access to some parts of the interent via mobile phone free. It’s worth asking whether this disruption would make Facebook a new hegemon, the designated on-ramp to the internet, and whether this is a disruption we want to encourage.</p>
<p>Who gets to disrupt? Right now, it’s usually technologists paired with businesspeople, a team that brings to the table a new way to solve a particular problem and the capital to bring that new method to scale. </p>
<p>But what if different groups of people could upend industries and disrupt the unjust systems they face?</p>
<p>My MIT colleague <a href="http://schock.cc/">Sasha Costanza-Chock</a> is working this spring with worker-owned cooperatives to see what sorts of disruptive innovations they can put into place that are designed to tilt the playing field in favor of workers. </p>
<p>I’m watching the <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-student-protests-are-about-much-more-than-just-feesmustfall-49776">#FeesMustFall</a> protests in South Africa closely and wondering whether there’s a way the students marching for affordable tuition for all students could become part of a movement that disrupts higher education and builds a new system that’s accessible, affordable and designed to disrupt persistent inequities in South Africa.</p>
<h2>Motivation matters</h2>
<p>In other words, tech matters but so do the motivations of people who bring that technology into the world. </p>
<p>One of my favorite companies in Kenya is <a href="http://www.m-kopa.com/">M-Kopa Solar</a>, which makes pay-as-you-go solar systems that include LED lighting, and outlets that can charge your mobile phone or power a radio. </p>
<p>Instead of costing hundreds of dollars to set up a home solar system, it’s around US$35 to start, and then weekly payments under $0.50 a day. The system is currently used by <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2015/02/25/pay-as-you-go-solar-power-takes-off-in-africa.html">150,000 households in Kenya and Tanzania</a>.</p>
<p>The model of rent-to-own, where payments are made via the mobile phone, is both key to M-Kopa’s success and likely the most valuable part of the business. You can imagine it being used to power lots of other businesses that make important infrastructures affordable to middle income customers.</p>
<p>But rent-to-own, empowered by tech, can also be a negative, predatory business – as we know <a href="http://www.creditinfocenter.com/wordpress/2010/06/01/rent-to-own-another-form-of-predatory-lending/">from experience in the US</a>. </p>
<p>It’s not a good idea to declare a technology positive and transformative without considering how it gets used – nor is it a good idea to see it as unambiguously negative. </p>
<p>The combination of new technologies and how we choose to use them is critical in understanding how innovation can lead to social good.</p>
<h2>What makes technology transformative? Consider the bicycle</h2>
<p>Some technologies are more transformative than others. More specifically, tech that people can build on top of is the most transformative of all.</p>
<p>Consider, once again, M-Kopa Solar. It’s built on top of M-Pesa, Kenya’s mobile money system. That, in turn, is built on the mobile phone system – not just the technical system of towers and receivers, but the sociotechnical system of the sellers of phone cards. <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/05/economist-explains-18">Many of these sellers</a> became microbanks, turning cash money into M-Pesa credit and pulling money off phones and into cash.</p>
<p>There’s a very good reason we have seen a long wave of entrepreneurship around the internet – the internet enables a near-infinity of new business ideas. But its high-tech nature tends to obscure what’s really special about the net as a platform for innovation: the fact that it is pervasive, cheap enough to hack, and open enough that we can innovate on top of it.</p>
<p>So I want to invite you to think about a different technology, <a href="http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/11/10/innovation-from-constraint-the-extended-dance-mix/">the bicycle</a>. </p>
<p>In the African countries where I’ve lived and worked, a bicycle is inexpensive enough that people are able to modify it and hack it. You’ll see people using bicycles to power knife sharpeners, to charge mobile phones, to carry heavy loads, to outfit them with stretchers on wheels to use them as ambulances on very bad roads.</p>
<p>These days, the mobile phone is becoming the bicycle.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/02/13/emerging-nations-catching-up-to-u-s-on-technology-adoption-especially-mobile-and-social-media-use/">Two-thirds</a> of sub-Saharan Africa households own a mobile phone. Some include systems that <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3718389/">remind HIV patients to take their medications</a>. Others help customers verify the drugs they take, <a href="http://acumen.org/investment/sproxil/">weeding out counterfeit medicines</a>. </p>
<p>Let’s by all means look for ways to disrupt existing broken systems, but let’s not forget to ask who benefits and who is hurt by these disruptions. And while making change through innovation and technology is an exciting prospect, innovating by changing how people and technology interact is even more powerful. </p>
<p>More bicycles, please! </p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article is an edited version of a speech given on October 22 to a gathering of innovators from South Africa and from Massachusetts, hosted by <a href="http://sapartners.org/">South Africa Partners</a>, a nonprofit organization that builds partnerships for development between South Africa and the US.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49871/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ethan Zuckerman receives funding from the Knight Foundation, the Ford Foundation and Google Ideas. He is affiliated with Open Society Foundation.</span></em></p>An advocate for the power of innovation to improve the world offers some cautions.Ethan Zuckerman, Director, Center for Civic Media , Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/496292015-10-23T15:39:18Z2015-10-23T15:39:18ZMIT rejects fossil fuel divestment but is still a leader on climate change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99519/original/image-20151023-27622-1l6qr1s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://news.mit.edu/2015/debate-fossil-fuel-divestment-0410">Dominick Reuter/MIT</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Massachusetts Institute of Technology <a href="http://news.mit.edu/2015/new-climate-change-strategy-1021">announced</a> this week a new climate change action plan that rejects calls from activists to divest its endowment from the fossil fuel industry. </p>
<p>The best way for the university to tackle climate change, <a href="http://web.mit.edu/climateaction/ClimateChangeExecSumm-2015Oct21.pdf">argued MIT senior leaders</a>, is through active engagement of “fossil fuel giants that have mastered the challenges of delivering energy to millions of households.” </p>
<p>MIT over the next five years will dedicate more than US$300 million to the creation of eight low-carbon energy research centers, where faculty and students will partner with industry on developing breakthrough technologies.</p>
<p>The university also plans new environmental sustainability degrees and courses, and to use its international convening power to spark collaborations and ideas across societal sectors. </p>
<p>The goal is to “shift the public dialogue from deadlocked argument to a constructive conversation about solving problems,” wrote the MIT leadership team.</p>
<p>“We’re talking about a global moon shot, and engagement is the only way to get there,” university president L Rafael Reif <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/10/21/mit-won-divest-from-fossil-fuel-firms/zYM81QyxErUl5YsPoU8ewL/story.html">told reporters</a>.</p>
<p>MIT’s bold focus on societal engagement is a model for other universities and colleges to emulate. </p>
<p>As controversial as it might be, MIT’s decision defines a path for other research universities to follow. Each college or university must act on its responsibility to address the urgent threat of climate change in ways that balance competing constituencies and that leverage their unique institutional capabilities.</p>
<h1>Pressure from a new social movement</h1>
<p>The debate over fossil fuel divestment began three years ago, sparked by a magazine article that quickly went viral online.</p>
<p>The fossil fuel industry “has become a rogue industry, reckless like no other force on Earth,” wrote Bill McKibben at <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719">Rolling Stone</a>. “It is Public Enemy Number One to the survival of our planetary civilization.” </p>
<p>Drawing comparisons to the anti-apartheid effort, McKibben urged a mass movement pressuring universities, colleges, churches and local governments to divest their holdings in fossil fuel companies. </p>
<p>McKibben’s article drew millions of readers, serving as the manifesto for activists at more than 200 campuses worldwide who have lobbied their institutions to divest from fossil fuel industries. </p>
<p>On many campuses, the divestment movement has provided passionate climate advocates a personally relevant focus on their local institutions, and the hope that their actions can make at least a limited symbolic difference. </p>
<p>The campaign has also created important opportunities for student activists to learn about coalition building, negotiation and compromise, with campus forums and events sparking critical reflection on what climate change means for society and how everyday citizens, especially young people, can become involved. </p>
<p>At MIT, responding to pressure from the student group Fossil Free MIT, the new climate action plan was informed by a year of consultation with students, faculty, alumni and other stakeholders.</p>
<h2>MIT debates</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://climatechange.mit.edu/">MIT Climate Conversation Committee</a> organized activities that included an Idea Bank, a community‑wide survey, a series of public events guided by the survey responses and a campus Listening Tour. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99499/original/image-20151023-27607-o5a0dk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99499/original/image-20151023-27607-o5a0dk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99499/original/image-20151023-27607-o5a0dk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99499/original/image-20151023-27607-o5a0dk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99499/original/image-20151023-27607-o5a0dk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=671&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99499/original/image-20151023-27607-o5a0dk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=671&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99499/original/image-20151023-27607-o5a0dk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=671&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A figure summarizing the recommendations of the advisory MIT Climate Change Conversation Committee.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">MIT Climate Change Conversation Committee, June 2105</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Among the actions recommended by the committee were a leading role for MIT in responding to disinformation about climate change and a plan to turn the campus – through research, programs, and a carbon price – into a living sustainability lab.</p>
<p>Though not a formal recommendation, three-quarters of the committee members supported the university divesting from coal and tar sand companies but not from other fossil fuel industry members.</p>
<p>In their recent decision, university leadership viewed the issue differently, concluding that fossil fuel divestment “<a href="http://web.mit.edu/climateaction/ClimateChangeStatement-2015Oct21.pdf">and its core tactic of public shaming</a>” were incompatible with the broader strategy of solutions-focused societal engagement.</p>
<h1>Forcing campus leaders to choose sides</h1>
<p>For many divestment activists, the movement is fundamentally about forcing university leaders and boards of trustees “<a href="http://gofossilfree.org/faq/">to choose which side of the issue they are on.</a>” </p>
<p>As a consequence, on some campuses, such as McKibben’s alma mater Harvard University, the divestment campaign has created intense conflict and polarization, pitting students, alumni, faculty and administrators against each other. </p>
<p>In April 2015, as McKibben joined with other prominent alumni and students at <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/02/12/harvard-sit-protests-school-investment-fossil-fuels/ScEzi0yUch67nfDtZ8NX8L/story.html">sit-ins and protests </a>on Harvard Yard, the university’s administration forcefully rejected demands for divestment.</p>
<p>Harvard leaders argued that the university’s most effective response to climate change would be to maximize investments in research, teaching and students. </p>
<p>“Insinuations that Harvard is not committed to confronting climate change because it does not embrace (Bill) McKibben’s preferred tactic are simply and demonstrably wrong,” wrote Harvard president Drew Faust in a <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/letters/2015/04/10/harvard-committed-confronting-climate-change/KpuPp19zoMMYDLuCj0zvmK/story.html">letter to the Boston Globe</a>.</p>
<p>In the wake of MIT’s decision, campus activists appear to have embarked on a similar strategy to escalate conflict.</p>
<p>“This announcement is business-as-usual repackaged,” <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/10/21/mit-won-divest-from-fossil-fuel-firms/zYM81QyxErUl5YsPoU8ewL/story.html">said</a> a student leader of Fossil Free MIT, which staged a sit-in to protest the university’s decision. “MIT has put money before morals and its students’ futures today.”</p>
<p>McKibben went further, alleging that MIT <a href="http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2015/10/21/mit-climate-change-five-year-plan/">had caved to pressure</a> from oil industry billionaire David Koch, who has given <a href="https://www.kochind.com/files/KochDavid.pdf">some $185 million to MIT</a>. </p>
<h1>Higher education in turbulent times</h1>
<p>For universities and colleges, there is no clear right or wrong choice on fossil fuel divestment, despite what activists might insist. </p>
<p>Each institution must weigh and consider its own unique constituencies and the strategies by which it can make the biggest difference on climate change.</p>
<p>For liberal arts colleges that have small endowments, lack research collaborations with industry and brand themselves in terms of environmental values, divesting may be the right choice.</p>
<p>In other cases likes Stanford University, the choice to <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/07/stanford-university-divesting_n_5276899.html">divest from the coal industry </a>reflected in part the university’s strong ties to the renewable energy sector, and the lobbying of billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer, a major donor and trustee.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99520/original/image-20151023-27580-1aykgkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99520/original/image-20151023-27580-1aykgkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99520/original/image-20151023-27580-1aykgkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99520/original/image-20151023-27580-1aykgkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99520/original/image-20151023-27580-1aykgkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99520/original/image-20151023-27580-1aykgkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99520/original/image-20151023-27580-1aykgkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99520/original/image-20151023-27580-1aykgkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.fossilfreemit.org/divestmentdebate/">Patrick Brown/Fossil Free MIT</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>But for other research universities that can make a major impact through research and graduate training on the fossil fuel industry, the symbolic choice to divest may impair other ways that the institution can make a more meaningful difference.</p>
<p>For example, among the research centers planned by MIT is one focusing on developing carbon capture and sequestration. Many experts warn that thousands of coal and natural gas plants worldwide will have to be fitted with the technology in order to limit global emissions to safe levels. </p>
<p>Rapid development and adoption of carbon capture technology will require close collaboration between leading research universities like MIT and the fossil fuel industry.</p>
<p>In this case, MIT’s approach to the fossil fuel divestment question offers several valuable lessons for other research universities as they weigh similar choices.</p>
<h2>Lessons from MIT</h2>
<p>First, the university’s year-long effort at campus consultation and engagement has likely helped many students, faculty and alumni better understand and appreciate competing perspectives, and to develop skills and experience in grappling with their tensions and uncertainties. </p>
<p>Universities and colleges are the places where we <a href="https://theconversation.com/universities-in-the-anthropocene-engaging-students-and-communities-36472">can most effectively experiment with communication initiatives</a> that challenge how each of us think and talk about the choices we face on climate change.</p>
<p>Through these activities, institutions of higher education can generate the conditions for eventual change in national politics, by rewiring our expectations and norms relative to public debate and by forging relationships and connections that span ideological differences and worldviews.</p>
<p>Second, MIT’s climate action plan can also serve as a model for how major research universities can accelerate effective societal actions on climate change by collaborating with a diversity of industry members, including fossil fuel giants. </p>
<p>This approach involves using research, expert analysis and industry partnerships to <a href="http://ensia.com/voices/a-new-model-for-climate-advocacy/">broaden the menu of effective policy options and low carbon energy technologies</a> that society has to choose from in combating climate change. </p>
<p>Under these conditions, it will be easier to gain support for action from across the political spectrum in the US and from a diversity of countries internationally. Such a strategy also makes powerful industry groups potential allies, rather than morally symbolic enemies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49629/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="border">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Nisbet's research on climate change communication and politics has been funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Nathan Cummings Foundation, and MacArthur Foundation.</span></em></p>MIT has angered fossil fuel divestment proponents, but its strategy of industry engagement is ultimately more effective.Matthew C. Nisbet, Associate Professor of Communication, Northeastern UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/394552015-04-10T09:47:38Z2015-04-10T09:47:38ZCan media reporting lead to more suicides?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77251/original/image-20150407-26507-tulele.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Media can influence our interpretation of suicide clusters. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&search_tracking_id=lBF2XTjkTL9S4-_61k_10g&searchterm=suicide%20%20students&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=185853248">Girl Image via www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the past year there have been clusters of student deaths and suicides at several US colleges including, MIT, <a href="http://www.universityherald.com/articles/8456/20140328/upenn-criticized-for-response-to-rash-of-suicides-in-past-academic-year.htm">University of Pennsylvania</a>, Tulane University, <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/02/12/several-students-commit-suicide-tulane-appalachian-state">Appalachian State College</a> and George Washington University. These clusters have received quite a <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/03/01/third-mit-student-commits-suicide-this-school-year/TxljHhCHGQIROChsA5JoqI/story.html">bit of media attention</a>, and have precipitated discussions about campus mood, college stress, student vulnerability, leave of absence policies and access to care on campus.</p>
<p>How are we to understand and respond to these clusters of student deaths? How far does the media influence our view of the events? And, importantly, what impact does media have on the incidence of suicide itself?</p>
<p>I came to experience the impact of a “cluster” of student deaths during the 2003-2004 academic year, when I served as medical director at NYU’s student counseling service. I also came to see the impact of media reporting on campus suicide. </p>
<p>For several years prior to the 2003-2004 cluster of deaths, there had not been a single death on NYU’s campus. Then many followed within a brief span of time. This pattern has also occurred at schools like University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University. As rates of school suicides are not available in any research setting, I say this, based on <a href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-03-16-IHE-cornell-suicides-16_ST_N.htm">anecdotal reporting</a> and my experience.</p>
<h2>Media can influence interpretation of suicide rates</h2>
<p>In fact, when we look at the rates of suicide and other deaths at NYU over a span of several years, the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3200/JACH.54.6.341-352#.VSQXkJTF8mV">rates are similar to other schools</a>. The same appears to be true of the other schools that have <a href="http://www.nacada.ksu.edu/Resources/Journal/Current-Past-Book-Reviews/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/494/Understanding-and-preventing-college-student-suicide.aspx">experienced recent clusters of suicides</a> and other deaths. </p>
<p>Media <a href="http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/lessons/media/">can impact our interpretation</a> of events. It can frame events in a way that make them feel like a cluster.</p>
<p>Consider if three suicides were to occur among young adults in a town of 40,000-50,000 people over six months. It is likely that local newspapers (if there is one) would not report these deaths and if they were reported, it is not very likely they would be presented as a cluster of suicides unless they happened within an unusually brief time or possibly occurred among a group of friends. </p>
<p>If this same series of deaths occurred among college students at a school of 40,000 students, it may very likely be reported as a cluster of deaths, particularly if the school has had few suicides in prior years.</p>
<h2>Media could also lead to ‘suicide contagion’</h2>
<p>But the interaction of suicide and media is, in fact, more complicated. Reporting can not only create the perception of suicide clusters but can actually in subtle ways <a href="http://reportingonsuicide.org/research/">impact the suicide rate</a> in a community or school. In other words, media reporting can also increase the risk of <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-it-comes-to-suicide-how-may-be-just-as-important-as-why-33426**">suicide contagion</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77252/original/image-20150407-26496-16row0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77252/original/image-20150407-26496-16row0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77252/original/image-20150407-26496-16row0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77252/original/image-20150407-26496-16row0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77252/original/image-20150407-26496-16row0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77252/original/image-20150407-26496-16row0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77252/original/image-20150407-26496-16row0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Media reporting can create a perception of suicide clusters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&search_tracking_id=hsNt2LHB9u91KoXnwR_PVQ&searchterm=newspaper%20&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=241650187">Newspaper image via www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>We know that at any given time in any population there are people at risk for suicide. We know, for example, that <a href="http://www.acha-ncha.org/pubs_rpts.html">six to eight percent of college students</a> report having experienced serious thoughts of suicide in the prior year. People with psychotic illnesses, especially in early stage of illness, are also at <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19570653">significant risk for suicide</a>. Thus, students who may be in early stages of a psychotic illness also may experience greater risk of suicide contagion.</p>
<p>We know that reporting can, at times, suggest suicide as a typical response to stress. Or, in providing rich biographical data, might make the person who died seem heroic. Media could also provide graphic details about the mode of death – all of which are thought to <a href="http://jech.bmj.com/content/57/4/238.full">increase the risk for those who read the articles</a>. </p>
<p>It seems that the more someone is able to identify or feel connected to the person or people who have died by suicide, the greater the increase in risk. </p>
<p>In fact, I’ve wondered whether the high-profile reporting and attention given to the <a href="http://www.afsp.org/news-events/in-the-news/afsp-s-statement-on-the-death-of-robin-williams">suicide of Robin Williams</a>, has impacted or contributed to the recent seeming upsurge of campus deaths. Williams was a much loved and admired figure; someone who many young people could “connect” with. </p>
<h2>What can college do to prevent suicides</h2>
<p>So, what can colleges do when faced with a series of suicides?</p>
<p>How do they know whether this is a cluster that is an artifact of perception or whether it reflects an actual trend or increase in suicide deaths? It may not be possible to know right away and it may not matter. </p>
<p>When faced with any suicide death, a school needs to institute a <a href="http://hemha.org/postvention_guide.pdf">postvention plan</a> – that is, a series of activities undertaken by a community to respond to a death, suicide or other public crisis. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77371/original/image-20150408-18075-1fb55js.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77371/original/image-20150408-18075-1fb55js.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77371/original/image-20150408-18075-1fb55js.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77371/original/image-20150408-18075-1fb55js.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77371/original/image-20150408-18075-1fb55js.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77371/original/image-20150408-18075-1fb55js.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77371/original/image-20150408-18075-1fb55js.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Colleges need to put a plan in place to prevent suicides.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&searchterm=suicide%20doctor&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=151516103">Doctor image via www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
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<p>This plan includes developing a protocol for identifying, tracking and when needed, intervening with those at risk as well as providing emotional and clinical support to the campus as a whole.</p>
<p>The school needs to broadly examine current services and support programs to identify any gaps. But of great importance to the community, the school counseling leadership needs to manage and educate campus and local media about safe and healthy reporting. </p>
<p><a href="http://hemha.org/postvention_guide.pdf">The way we convey information</a> will matter. Too little information might lead to community anxiety and suspicion while too much of the wrong kind of information may increase risk for contagion. </p>
<p>So here is the complexity and the challenge. Media needs to report events, but the manner in which these events are presented will impact how we understand the events and even the way the events might unfold. </p>
<p>In the context of suicide reporting, prevention and postvention, media has the responsibility to not only share information, but also, arguably, to protect the community at whom reporting is directed. </p>
<p><a href="http://dartcenter.org/">Dart Center’s</a> reporting guide for journalists urges journalists to be careful so they are not <a href="http://dartcenter.org/content/covering-suicide#.VSWA2pTF8mU">“inadvertently ‘selling’ suicide as a meaningful way out.”</a> Journalists need to ensure their <a href="http://dartcenter.org/topic/suicide">reporting on suicide is accurate, as well as safe</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39455/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Victor Schwartz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Media reporting can not only create a perception of suicide clusters on university campuses, but it can affect the suicide rate in subtle ways.Victor Schwartz, Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry, New York UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/328482014-10-24T09:45:26Z2014-10-24T09:45:26ZMesa’s ‘most conservative’ title is puzzling<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61857/original/zzr3b74p-1413385151.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Does this look like a conservative city to you? </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Downtown_Mesa_Arizona.jpg">Ixnayonthetimmay</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Mesa, Arizona: a place with wide streets and narrow minds. Or so goes a once popular saying about this traditionally laid-back, conservative community that came into official existence in 1883 as a Mormon town of 300 people. The wide streets came straight from a plan designed by church leader Joseph Smith for Mormon settlements. No accounting for the narrow minds.</p>
<p>Now a booming city of <a href="http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/04/0446000.html">450,000 residents</a> – only 13% of whom are Mormons – located within commuting distance of Phoenix, Mesa is still widely regarded as a conservative stronghold, especially in state and national elections. A recent finding that it is the most conservative big city in the US, however, is a bit more startling and a bit misleading.</p>
<h2>What does ‘most conservative’ mean?</h2>
<p>Mesa’s “most conservative” label is found in <a href="http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/88528#files-area">a recent study</a> by two political scientists, Chris Tausanovitch of UCLA and Christopher Warshaw of MIT, who examined the policy preferences of people in 51 cities with populations larger than 250,000 and explored how they matched up with a range of policies actually pursued by their municipal governments. </p>
<p>Their central finding was that, contrary to some studies, municipal governments are responsive to the ideological positions of their citizens. They concluded, for example, that municipalities with the most liberal populations spend more and tax more on a per capita basis (in the process of providing more services) than municipalities with more conservative populations. </p>
<p>Mesa easily outdistanced Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, as the most conservative municipality. But those familiar with the city are likely to come away from this study somewhat concerned about the impression it leaves as well as by what it does not say. </p>
<h2>The Mesa story</h2>
<p>Over the past several years, Mesa has in fact been led by a set of relatively moderate Republicans who, in the effort to bring life to the growing but somewhat sleepy bedroom community, have often been doing many of the same things implemented by Democratic mayors and council people in their more liberal leaning cities. </p>
<p>Mesa has become a big city and has acquired big city problems. Leaders have sought to revitalize the downtown area, combat sprawl (which is a particularly severe problem in Mesa), encourage use of light rail and attract new job-creating businesses. They also have worked to overcome Mesa’s image as a really boring place to live. </p>
<p>Conservatism may be evident in several policy areas, but much of what has been happening in Mesa has not been well received by people on the far right. They are not happy with the increased spending and debt. Nor do they approve of planning strategies that place an emphasis on increasing population densities.</p>
<h2>Making change happen</h2>
<p>Scott Smith, Mesa Mayor from 2009 to 2014 provided much of the momentum for change. Smith, one of several Mormon leaders in the community, shunned ideology and took a pragmatic approach to the city’s problems, trying to build a culture of innovation. He rolled out several high-profile developmental programs. Smith had the backing of other council members, groups such as the Chamber of Commerce, and a city staff that, as Smith saw it, did not just think outside the box but threw the box away. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/62551/original/fnkppxym-1414001499.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/62551/original/fnkppxym-1414001499.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/62551/original/fnkppxym-1414001499.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/62551/original/fnkppxym-1414001499.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/62551/original/fnkppxym-1414001499.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/62551/original/fnkppxym-1414001499.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=651&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/62551/original/fnkppxym-1414001499.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=651&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/62551/original/fnkppxym-1414001499.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=651&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">That’s Mesa in red.</span>
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<p>In 2014 City manager Chris Brady was the recipient of a prestigious award from the Arizona City/County Management Association. In their <a href="http://www.azmanagement.org/pages/newsletters/azmgmt/2014/0214/index.cfm?a=brady">citation</a> the judges highlighted not only the extension of the light rail but also the recruitment of five liberal arts colleges and the building of spring training facilities for the Chicago Cubs. </p>
<p>Scott Smith, however, lost out in his bid for the Republican nomination for governor in 2014. He came in second in a contest where he stood out as by far the most moderate of several candidates, too moderate win the nomination in the view of political observers. </p>
<p>Most citizens, for their part, have been more than willing to help out by approving bonds for carefully chosen infrastructure projects. Mesa voters have also regularly approved proposals that the city be given the home rule option to spend beyond the limits imposed by the state. </p>
<p>In 2006, Mesa voters rejected a measure suggested by the city council for a primary property tax to provide revenue for the municipality’s general operations. At the same election, however, they approved the council’s recommendation for an increase in the local sales tax rate from 1.5 to 1.75 percent. More recently, there has been some sentiment expressed in public forums for cutting the sales tax and turning to a less regressive property tax in an effort to secure a more stable revenue stream. </p>
<h2>A city in transition</h2>
<p>The MIT/UCLA study compares cities on a set of specific policies. In this context, Mesa comes off as the most conservative big city in the nation.</p>
<p>Looking at the city over time, however, it seems fair to say that as the city has grown it has actually become less ideological (in this case less conservative) and more pragmatic. It has acquired many of the problems and policies found in big cities with more liberal populations and political leaders. </p>
<p>Mesa is still a Republican city, as it has long been, but moderate Republicans have replaced conservative ones in leadership roles. Who knows, with more growth and diversity and a more mobilized Hispanic population, it might even become more open to the Democratic Party.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32848/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David R. Berman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Mesa, Arizona: a place with wide streets and narrow minds. Or so goes a once popular saying about this traditionally laid-back, conservative community that came into official existence in 1883 as a Mormon…David R. Berman, Senior Research Fellow Morrison Institute For Public Policy, Professor Emeritus of Political Science , Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.