Gov activates National Guard to aid Flint water crisis →

Gov. Rick Snyder has activated the Michigan National Guard to aid water distribution efforts in Flint and is requesting support from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Late Tuesday, the governor issued an executive order to activate the National Guard, the state's latest step in an effort to provide relief to Flint residents exposed to contaminated drinking water.
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The decision comes after about 45 Michigan State Police troopers and other state workers began Tuesday distributing water and filters to residents without them because of the lead poisoning crisis that has put Flint in the national spotlight and even drawn comments from the White House.
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Flint, operating under a state-appointed emergency manager at the time, began using the Flint River for drinking water in April 2014 after disconnecting from the Detroit water system’s Lake Huron. Residents immediately complained about the taste, odor and discoloration.
Independent scientists eventually discovered high levels of lead in the water, and the state health department confirmed the findings Oct. 1. Flint was reconnected to the Detroit water system in mid-October, but state officials said this week the city’s drinking water still is not considered safe.

The Internet of Things that Talk About You Behind Your Back →

More evidence that the law can't keep up with technology, and that "privacy" is something we need to actively protect, if we care about it any longer.

SilverPush is an Indian startup that's trying to figure out all the different computing devices you own. Itembeds inaudible sounds into the webpages you read and the television commercials you watch. Software secretly embedded in your computers, tablets, and smartphones picks up the signals, and then uses cookies to transmit that information back to SilverPush. The result is that the company can track you across your different devices. It can correlate the television commercials you watch with the web searches you make. It can link the things you do on your tablet with the things you do on your work computer.
Your computerized things are talking about you behind your back, and for the most part you can't stop them­ -- or even learn what they're saying.
This isn't new, but it's getting worse...

Why Do Americans Work So Much? →

How will we all keep busy when we only have to work 15 hours a week? That was the question that worried the economist John Maynard Keynes when he wrote his short essay “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren” in 1930. Over the next century, he predicted, the economy would become so productive that people would barely need to work at all.
For a while, it looked like Keynes was right: In 1930 the average workweek was 47 hours. By 1970 it had fallen to slightly less than 39.
But then something changed. Instead of continuing to decline, the duration of the workweek stayed put; it’s hovered just below 40 hours for nearly five decades.
So what happened? Why are people working just as much today as in 1970?
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A third possibility proves more convincing: American inequality means that the gains of increasing productivity are not widely shared. In other words, most Americans are too poor to work less. Unlike the other two explanations Friedman considers, this one fits chronologically: Inequality declined in America during the post-war period (along with the duration of the workweek), but since the early 1970s it’s risen dramatically.
Keynes’s prediction rests on the idea that “standard of life” would continue rising for everyone. But Friedman says that’s not what has happened: Although Keynes’s eight-fold figure holds up for the economy in aggregate, it’s not at all the case for the median American worker. For them, output by 2029 is likely to be around 3.5 times what it was when Keynes was writing—a bit below his four- to-eight-fold predicted range.

Brussels launches unprecedented EU inquiry into rule of law in Poland →

The European commission has launched an unprecedented inquiry in response to controversial Polish legislation that puts more power into the hands of the country’s staunchly conservative government.
The decision marks the first time EU authorities have launched a formal investigation into the rule of law in a member state.
Announcing the inquiry, Frans Timmermans, vice-president of the commission, the EU’s executive body, said officials in Brussels had an obligation to ensure the rule of law was upheld across the EU, and that they were concerned about the functioning of Poland’s highest court.

Iran releases captured U.S. Navy crew members →

Tense, but quickly resolved:

Iran on Wednesday freed 10 American sailors from two small Navy vessels that Tehran claimed strayed into Iranian waters, prompting their overnight detention as Washington opened direct contacts with Iran seeking their release.
A senior defense official, speaking in Washington, said the sailors were not harmed but would undergo medical evaluation and a debriefing in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar. Meanwhile, their vessels were taken by another American crew to Bahrain, their original destination and home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.

Saudi Aramco I.P.O. Prospect Reflects Kingdom Looking Beyond Oil →

Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest petroleum exporter, is staring into a future in which its most valuable asset — the oil under its sands — is shrinking in value.
That is not only because the price of oil has been plummeting over the last year, but also because the climate-conscious world has a diminishing appetite for fossil fuels.
So, in a potential strategic shift made public this week, Saudi Arabia is considering a public offering of shares in its giant state-owned oil company, Saudi Aramco, or possibly some of its subsidiaries.
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In the view of Ms. Marcel and other Saudi watchers, the country’s new leadership is trying to use the oil price collapse over the last two years to remake the economy and shift away from an oil-funded, government-dominated system to one where private business has a larger role. The leaders were appointed by King Salman, who came to power early last year after the death of his brother King Abdullah.

7 Events of Geopolitical Consequence to Anticipate in Asia in Early 2016 →

2016 is just around the corner and there’s a lot to keep an eye on in Asia in the first month of the year. In January 2016, we’ll see elections in Taiwan, the formal operational launch of China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the possible resumption of peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban, the first steps toward renewed comprehensive talks between India and China, and the possible disintegration of a recently concluded controversial deal between the Japanese and South Korean governments on comfort women. Here’s your guide to starting off the new year with an eye to some early developments of geopolitical significance in the Asia-Pacific:...

Replacing Judgment with Algorithms →

China is considering a new "social credit" system, designed to rate everyone's trustworthiness. Many fear that it will become a tool of social control -- but in reality it has a lot in common with the algorithms and systems that score and classify us all every day.
Human judgment is being replaced by automatic algorithms, and that brings with it both enormous benefits and risks. The technology is enabling a new form of social control, sometimes deliberately and sometimes as a side effect. And as the Internet of Things ushers in an era of more sensors and more data -- and more algorithms -- we need to ensure that we reap the benefits while avoiding the harms.
Right now, the Chinese government is watching how companies use "social credit" scores in state-approved pilot projects. The most prominent one is Sesame Credit, and it's much more than a financial scoring system.
Citizens are judged not only by conventional financial criteria, but by their actions and associations. Rumors abound about how this system works...
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This is what social control looks like in the Internet age. The Cold-War-era methods of undercover agents, informants living in your neighborhood, and agents provocateur is too labor-intensive and inefficient. These automatic algorithms make possible a wholly new way to enforce conformity. And by accepting algorithmic classification into our lives, we're paving the way for the same sort of thing China plans to put into place.
It doesn't have to be this way. We can get the benefits of automatic algorithmic systems while avoiding the dangers. It's not even hard.
The first step is to make these algorithms public. Companies and governments both balk at this, fearing that people will deliberately try to game them, but the alternative is much worse.
The second step is for these systems to be subject to oversight and accountability. It's already illegal for these algorithms to have discriminatory outcomes, even if they're not deliberately designed in. This concept needs to be expanded. We as a society need to understand what we expect out of the algorithms that automatically judge us and ensure that those expectations are met.