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More Bad News From The Hellmouth
from the geek-profiling-in-the-post-columbine-age dept.
Within minutes of Sunday's announcement that the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is working with a threat-evaluation company to develop a computer program that helps school administrators spot dangerous students near the brink of violence, the e-mail began.
Although the new program was widely described in the mainstream media as a valuable tool for defusing violence, plenty of geeks and nerds -- especially younger ones -- knew better, and saw it in a different, perhaps wiser, context.
"It worries me a great deal, wrote The Hollow Man. "Can you make us heard about this? Voice our concerns? This tool will be making diversity a wrong, [and will be used] for alienating and ostracizing those who are different." Hollow Man described himself as a "very, very worried geek."
But he's also a smart one, and history is on the side of his well-founded fears.
Geek Profiling, the Post-Columbine nationwide American war on the culture and lifestyles of the different, the alienated, and the non-Normal, has climbed to another Orwellian level, thanks to a federal law enforcement agency and a threat-evaluation computer program.
After the Columbine High massacre, American educators, politicians and journalists concluded that guns, values or a twisted educational system weren't the problem. It was, especially, those geeks who were online a lot, who gamed, listened to the wrong music, wore the wrong clothes, rejected sports and other reigning social conventions, engaged in rebellious, defiant or "inappropriate" speech or dress.
Even though violence -- and fear of violence -- among the young has been declining sharply for years, media and political ignorance of kids, technology and culture has only deepened. The only demonstrable links in the recent spate of horrific school shootings - still a very rare occurrence - suggest that trouble arises when emotionally-disturbed adolescent white males gain access to guns. In the months after Columbine, however, there is no federal or nationwide program to help emotionally disturbed kids or to keep them away from lethal weapons.
The answer, most schools seem to have concluded, isn't examining their own structures, values or curriculum, but in enforcing widespread conformity. Stop dressing strangely, behaving individualistically, engaging in non-traditional recreation, or speaking honestly.
Now there is Mosaic-2000, with its promised ability to confidentially (read secretly) vet and rate potentially violent students on a scale of 1 to 10. It is not yet clear where this information will be stored or who, precisely, will have access to it or for how long. But it seems plausible that anonymous complaints, aberrant behavior or teacher hostility could be stored digitally in a student file for the rest of their lives.
Some administrators can't wait to test Mosaic-2000. One Ohio principal whose school is getting Mosaic-2000 told a newspaper that Mosaic's "immediate virtue would be in producing detailed documentation of its evaluation of a troubled student so that doubting parents could no longer challenge an administrator's judgement as too subjective." Now parents defending their dangerous kids will have the ATF and Mosaic to contend with as well as school bureaucrats.
Mosaic's programs, according to The New York Times, rely on carefully - worded questions about student behavior based on case histories of people who have turned violent. They're designed by Gavin de Becker Inc., a private security and software company in California (de Becker came to prominence garnering tons of publicity protecting Hollywood celebrities), and are intended to help officials discern a real threat amid varied outbursts, threats and warning signs. For the past 10 years, the company has tailored risk-assessment programs for special law-enforcement programs dealing with problems from domestic violence to terrorism.
This is an astounding elevation of the unthinking deployment of computer technology as a social -- and profit-making tool to make intuitive judgements in educational environments that often confound experts with years of training.
The Mosaic school program promises questions carefully crafted from case histories by 200 experts in law enforcement, psychiatry and other areas. It will include a variety of concerns beyond alarming talk, ranging from the availability of guns to reported abuse of domestic pets.
"I think it's a wonderful tool that has a great deal of potential, and I hope it's properly used by the schools," said Andrew Vita, associate director of field operations for the ATF, which has used the Mosaic approach to investigate abortion-clinic bombings.
Mosaic is also used by Yale University and federal courthouses to evaluate the potential for violence of individuals who make threats. None of the many media stories about Mosaic in the past few days even raised the question of why such a Draconian security program -- do we really want schools to be run like federal courthouses? -- would be deployed against schoolchildren at a time when violence among the young has dropped to its lowest levels in nearly half a century.
Don't hold your breath about that. Since it's simpler and more expedient to blame the Net and harmless subcultures like the Goths or computer games like "Doom" or TV shows like "South Park" for violence, schools have been granted what amounts to hunting licenses with few restrictions. Kids like Hollow Man have every right to be worried that they'll be punished for what they think, wear, say or do on weekends.
In any other context, a government-sponsored computer program offered by a law enforcement agency and a private security firm to enter school systems and track down certain types of students in schools would trigger howls of protest. As long as we're deploying Mosaic-2000, why stop at "potentially violent" oddballs? Why not get to the really dangerous people loose in schools, maybe programming Mosaic to hunt down and identify religious fanatics such as those who believe in the literal truth of the Bible and reject Darwin and evolution? Aren't they a threat to school science programs?
Will Mosaic be used to identify bullies who exclude, ridicule, beat up and harass kids who choose to be different, driving them into the fringes of school life?
Might it prove helpful in identifying oppressive and unimaginative educators who cling to antiquated curriculums and passive teaching environments, even though many of their brightest students have vastly more creative and stimulating lives online than they do in school?
What about social cliques that believe the most important part of their school year centers around parties where they drink themselves into oblivion and, afterwards, are prone to elevated rates of sexual assault and automobile accidents?
Or school administrators and guidance counselors who know so little about some of their students or the nature of their own schools that they are shocked and uncomprehending when some kids become severely disturbed or enraged, even sometimes to the point of stockpiling and using guns and bombs?
Hollow Man and most geeks and other know better. Mosaic 2000 is out to vet them, and others who dares to define themselves differently from the normal as defined by unknown people working for private firms and government agencies.
Federal law enforcement agencies and private, for profit security companies have no legal mandate or business in schools, deploying computer programs to compile information on kids.
Federal agencies like the ATF and DEA haven't been able to put much of a dent in gun or drug traffic. Why would anybody cede them the duty of sifting through the complex sociocultural world of high school?
Programs like Mosaic-2000 are another nightmare from the Hellmouth that school is for so many kids. They are an abdication of responsibility and a lame excuse for schools to seek out the often creative, individualistic, idiosyncratic and rebellious students with whom they have battled for eons, and who cause them so many problems.
Violence is almost never one of them.
Re:Barking up the wrong tree. (Score:4)
1) This is a politicized issue. Thus, it is unlikely that the test will be completely objective. A school in Dallas already considers wearing Marilyn Manson shirts to be a "warning sign," and I wouldn't be surprised if more things along those lines started happening.
2) Psychology is not 100% correct. If you violate the rights of even one person because of your psychological analysis, it's not worth it. In fact, it's possible that your labeling a non-violent person as "violent" and constantly reinforcing that they're sick and need to get help (when, in fact, they're not) could do more harm than good.
I personally listen to Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, KMFDM (in fact, the two songs the Columbine kids quoted on their webpage are among my favorite KMFDM songs), Bad Religion, Ministry, and a host of other "bad influences." I enjoy playing Doom2 quite a bit, and Quake or Vigilante occasionally. I am fond of explosives (though I don't get much opportunity to experiment with them).
I wouldn't be surprised if one of these profiling tests (provided I answered it truthfully) considered me "violently inclined," even though that's about the furthest possible thing from my personality.
I'm impressed! (Score:3)
However, he obviously wants feedback, so here it is:
I'm sorry, but I'm not impressed by Jon Katz take on this. "Troubled" kids can be identified, and often fall into one or more of the following:
In the first 3 categories, the parents need help. It's not the child's fault that their parents are messed-up, but what good does it do anyone, least of all the kid, if everyone else says "it's none of my business"? And how can do you anything, if you blind yourself to there being a problem?
In the next 4 categories (and there are probably a great many more like them), the kid needs help. Not counselling - ADHD isn't "bad behaviour" - but help as in appropriate teaching style & pace and a check-up by a COMPETENT pdoc. In short, the kid STILL doesn't need to be changed, it's their environment that's the problem.
In the last case, the OTHER kids might need some kind of treatment, to be more tolerent, as might some of the staff. As above, it's not the kid's fault, but it does NOBODY any good to neglect the fact that SOMETHING isn't working.
IMHO, this program approaches the problem with an Anti-Katz attitude - it blinds itself to the reality of the dynamics involved, as much as Katz has a tendancy to blind himself to the fact that sometimes action needs to be taken.
Re:I'm impressed! (Score:3)
"Different" kids -MAY- need a mild chemical imbalance fixed. That's IT. And I repeat - any such imballance is MILD. However, if it exists, it'll often need correcting. This requires nothing more complex, intrusive or controlling than a visit to a doctor, and the taking of a pill in the mornings. That's IT.
MUCH, MUCH MORE OFTEN, the problem is with the teachers, NOT the kids. Gifted, ADHD, depressed, bipolar, etc, kids become bored easily, each for their own reasons. If the teacher doesn't (or won't) make some kind of allowance for that, and adjust the material accordingly, the kid is likely to vent their frustration by being disruptive.
(If I speak as someone who knows what they're talking about, I do. I was a voluntary teacher for a gifted program, and learned from many of the parents that the kids were "uncontrollable" at school. In the 6 months I taught them, I had not one problem requiring more than a "please don't do that" from any of them. That's because I made damn sure that the kids were free to speak their minds and were -active-, rather than bored, mindless parrots. Any time I hear of a teacher having a "problem pupil", I'd lay good odds on it not being the kid that has a problem.)
ANY "pro-active" policy has to address the REAL problem, not the "make-believe, back-covering" problem that often gets reported. If there's a problem with a classroom, see what that says about the TEACHER, and what the TEACHER should do different. If there's a potential problem brewing, find out if the STAFF, or other kids, are responsible for the powder keg, so that it can be safely dealt with and the REAL, UNDERLYING ISSUES can be resolved.
This is the problem with both Katz' view, and the "traditional" view. Neither think that "their side" could have any part in the underlying issues. I'm sorry to burst the illusion, but reality says that someone is, and it's not the Loch Ness Monster.
IMHO, NEVER, EVER, EVER tackle surface stuff -BEFORE- addressing the underlying cause. If a house is subsiding, what's more important to fix - the foundations or a loose tile on the roof?
Re:Overreaction? (Score:4)
My take on this is that it's a bad thing, but if we have to do it (calming the nerves of worried parents is a perfectly valid reason) then its better than many of the alternatives. I'd rather have a computer doing the initial finger pointing. A machine doesn't discriminate on anything other than what it 'sees.' People are far less objective.
Okay. (Score:3)
Y'know, I bet its those Christians again. If the "self-proclaimed guardians of morality" would just stop harrassing the poor little geeks, then we wouldn't need these computer profiling tools.
We could have our freedom! Freedom to be different, to indulge our base instincts without any niggling voices telling us that we are humans, not animals! We could live, free from the cruel repressions of those who want us to love each other.
We could have world peace, or at least whirlled peas. We could stand up, hand in pasty hand, and share our victimization.
</sarcasm>
Jon: we are all victims sometimes. Do you know when we become victimized? When we define ourselves in terms of how we've been oppressed. It's time to get over it. Yeah, school sucks. So you do better for your kids than your parents did for you. IMNSHO, Homeschool. But you don't spend your whole life dwelling on a sucky circumstance that you can't do anything about.
Given your lack of identifiable geekiness, all I can figure is that you are trying for demagoguery with these "hellmouth" articles. The first one was good. The second half as good. The progression is geometric, or worse.
Think Different? Then You Can't Think Private (Score:5)
So, if heart attacks can be diagnosed accurately, why not violent behavior?
After all, I may not be normal, but what do I have to hide? I'm not going to kill anyone.
Us good people don't have anything to fear.
Oh. I've heard that before, haven't I.
Framing Mosiac 2000 as anti-geek is myopic. A psychographic dragnet such as this is quite possibly the most disturbing concept I've heard in quite some time, and should be on the top ten lists of every privacy advocate in the country. Suppose the data compiled was absolutely accurate--a fallacy I will address later--suddenly, a complete profile of your identity has been compiled automatically. Your character type, your likely reactions to various forms of coercion, your fears, your dreams, an invaluable pantheon of knowledge about how to control you and how to react to you--all sitting in a file, based upon answers you were compelled to supply.
And that's if the data's accurate!
It's tough to not see Orwell when people keep using 1984 as a study guide.
Of course, the chances that such information might actually be accurate isn't exactly high. Yes, it's true that expert systems do wonderfully for heart attack victims. Heart Attack Victims don't usually intentionally lie about their symptoms--students do. What's so beautiful about it all is how natural it is:
A close friend of mine grew up ill, and because of the pain she saw her parents experience from her illness, she learned to mask that pain from them and the people around her. Children learn very quickly--there are expectations of you, you are to meet them not in terms of reality but in terms of perception.
Testers like Mosiac 2000, which cannot be written without an implicit bias towards a given desired social identity(non-violent passive, Mr. Orwell?), will quickly be seen as another overbearing set of expectations to fulfill. And children, masters of the art from birth, will learn to adapt to the tests, and "pass them" like any other standardized centrifuge of a test.
Not that this is easy, or without consequence. Shoving your self into a corner has a way of making you even more isolated, even more wrong. Or, of course, it's just another way to fuck the system that's trying to do the same to you. Either way, useless data.
But what of this semi-mythical test? How do we know that it doesn't really know what to ask?
The fact that it was apparently designed using Grade A Felon Material probably isn't a good thing. Reminds me alot of the controversy when some serious yahoos took feminism way too far and posted fliers across their university containing the photo of one guy with the words underneath: POTENTIAL RAPIST.
They picked the poor schmuck at random.
In a world where every student is a potential assassin, where the mob demands the right to psychoanalyze on penalty of exclusion, where everyone and everything must be open and analyzed and identical and conformant and not too much and not too little and nothing in between...is there any room for childhood?
For finding oneself?
How can you find yourself when the test already knows who you are?
What do you say to the kid who the test claims will kill his family?
Technology is a wonderful thing. Kids don't even need to grow up anymore; computers will do it for them.
Of course, it won't work, at first. There will be problems. There would be gnashing of teeth. But with time, the psychographic profiles of the kindergartners will be compared with their profiles when they finally grow up to their violent and sexual destinies, and the next generation of kindergartners will be more correctly controlled.
Who needs privacy. The babies are dying. You don't have privacy anyway, Mcnealy told me so, the babies are dying. You don't want the babies to die, do you? Are you a baby killer too?
No. I guess I grew up in time.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
What are they trying to profile? (Score:3)
Of the 'geek' types that I know they are not remotely depressed/opressed to the point that they wish to take up arms for their cause.Sure these people are pissed off that their inteligence and ability causes them to be outcasts but they are okay with it. These people have the intelligence to transend this sort of discrimation.
Goths
Of the 'goth' types that I know I see a common thread of 'Oh my god, everybody hates me, nobody loves, so I'm going off to school to kill everyone when high on drink and drugs that alter my perception of reality'. These people feel opressed. They feel descriminated against. They are prepared to 'fight the power/system' that causes the pain the percieve.
But by focusing in on sterotypes -- Geek/Goth/Jock/Nerd/Brain etc etc --we are no better than the powers that be who authorise and endorse the deployment of this sort of personality profilling.
Is personality profilling ever going to give us accurate results? I could kill my lover and get off with a few years in jail by claiming a crime of passion. I could storm in to the office of my 'pointy haired boss' and stab him and claim tempory insanity and get let off! If I have no history of violent behaviour and I do not fit into any 'profile' this could happen and frequently does!
So what am I saying? This sort of profiling does not work. We live in a diverse cultured socitity. We live in an age of information. Who can say what makes people commit these actions? No one can. Everyone can suggest actions that can contribute to actioning of violence but sometimes people just see red. Reason goes out of the window and violent acts just happen. Fact.
What can be done? I suppose that the only thing that can be done is generate a socitity that allows us to act individually without fear of oppression. But we are a long way from this while software such as this is permitted into our lives.
As a little a side - at sometime I will learn to spell!
I'm really getting tired of this.... (Score:4)
>Why not get to the really dangerous people loose
>in schools, maybe programming Mosaic to hunt down
>and identify religious fanatics such as those who
>believe in the literal truth of the Bible and
>reject Darwin and evolution? Aren't they a threat
>to school science programs?
First off, just because you have a religious faith (of any sort) and may not believe in Darwinism, does not instantly make you a fanatic OR dangerous. And doesn't mean do you necessarily object to the teaching of the theory of evolution.
And teachers and school administration staff tend to be more liberal, not members of the religous right. And the one teacher I had in high school who WAS a dyed in the wool, born-again, Bible-thumping Christian, was my science teacher for 3 years, and we covered quite a lot of Darwin, and no Creationism, except in a few personal editiorials in private.
Second, this is nothing but bait. Due to the large reaction over the Kansas evolution, I get the idea that this is an attempt to influence readers using an already popular reference completely out of context. The school/evolution debate has NOTHING to do with Mosaic2000, and the idea that they are somehow related is wrong.
There is a lot of 'content free' information here. In this article we see the statement "The level of teen violence is at it's lowest point in years" (sic), yet we see no references or research. I'm not arguing the point, but it is NOT an accepted fact. We have one anonymous e-mailer that Jon mentions, quoted several times. What about the rest of the e-mails? Nothing quotable?
I once liked some of Jon's articles, but now I'm starting to view them as attempts at pandering to the
jf
Re:Overreaction? - Right reaction, wrong target (Score:3)
What Mosaic does is irrelevant. It is just a technical justification do continue doing what the majority really want to do anyway, but can't justify otherwise. It's an artificial way to produce evidence. Drag any student in front of a 'psychological testing machine' and you'll likely get an angry reaction. He scored an 8! Great, now we can punish him, like we always wanted.
US Culture is simply no longer capable of rational discourse or action. Jon has gone to fury because he doesn't want to admit this. Which is funny, because that's the problem. Somewhere, you guys picked up a massive superiority complex, and so you can't actually admit that there's anything wrong with America(TM). The taint is everywhere. It's part of your cultural doctrine.
And since America is perfect, by axiom, then any yawning pit of hollowness inside your soul must be your problem, and anyone shouting "No! This is all wrong!" must be silenced. Because they might be right. And you don't want to think about that.
At least, that's the majority view. And you can't change it, either. It's deep-seated, and reinforced every time they go through the daily American grind or shop at the strip-mall with their babyboomer friends. Something sucked all the life out of your country in the last few decades. I think it was rampant capitalism, or maybe the cold war. Russia seems to have suffered a similar, though more spectacular, fate.
Russia is actually an interesting example. Now that their country has obviously collapsed, they're free to go into crisis-management fix-it mode, and make some of those hard choices. They may very well come out of this strong and vibrant. That would be irony.
So, just do what the physicists do. Wait for the old generation to die, and a new one to take it's place. The kids are the future. Well educated and flexible, they'll rebuild your sagging culture.
Oh, that's right...
Re:Overreaction? (Score:3)
It is likely that the program will be able to successfully identify people who will act violently. And this is a very good thing.
The two obvious problems are false positive results, and the way those "identified" are treated. Unfortunately that's going to be in the hands of the same sort of people who thing evolution is a bad idea.
I think the program itself is a very good idea. It even probably works. What needs careful handling is who gets profiled and what happens to those that the program "identifies". That's where people's efforts need to be concentrated instead of on pointless venting against profiling.
processing ... GUILTY (Score:3)
Accessing Prosecution Data, Defendent 000000.
Processing, Defendent 000000
GUILTY
Pupil: "I know my rights! I have a right to an attourney, and a real court of law!"
Administration: "You're a problem child. You don't have any rights."
This is a paraphrase of a scene from a Max Headroom episode ("Blanks"). I always considered this to be one of the less realistic, and less prophetic episodes of the show (many of the other themes, such as organ theft, pervasive monitoring and security, and economic crimes carrying heavier punishments than violent crimes, have come true a scant 10-15 years later to varying degrees).
Funny, how that which we least expect to _ever_ be tolerated, has now become accepted, even defended, in a forum where one would expect people to be more acutely aware of just how destructive this kind of thing can be. It isn't about geeks, it's about all of us (and this includes geeks). Geeks may be marginally more vulnerable, being slightly outside of the mythical, homoginized average, but everyone is a potential victim of the misuse of this kind of thing, and if history is any indication, misuse is exactly what we can expect.
Labelling children as "troubled" or not, with or without the adjective "potential", is destructive. People have a tendency to live up (or down) to the expectations society has for them. Even a potentially troubled child can end up being a positive influence in their school and community with the right support and expectations. I fear, however, that the label this screening will place on many children will make that kind of positive outcome much more difficult, if not impossible. In many cases it will probably insure a negative outcome where such would not have been the case otherwise. Then, of course, there are the inevitable false positives
first... (Score:3)
Re:first... (Score:3)
That's an excellent solution, but only if they ask you questions. Do you ever sit by yourself? Do you engage in subversive activities such as reading when you could be playing football? Do you point out that your teacher is occasionally wrong?
But before we continue attacking the teachers, it's important to remember one thing: they're doing it for the good of the kids. The fact that they're clueless and making a bad situation worse is unfortunate, but ultimately they're on the side of the angels.
Why do I mention this? Because the first reaction of angry
I don't know the solution. But I do know it involves education.
Katz, oh Katz, where is thy sting? (Score:3)
"Being different" isn't, for the most part, really different. Instead it arises from a basic desire to establish an identity, a unique personhood, especially in the face of a sort of commercial conformity that some young people embrace and others despise.
What is sad and tragic is that each attempt to create an identity is immediately co-opted by the marketing machine and sold back on MTV (and every other media outlet).
This leads to a sort of vicious cycle where youth goes to greater and greater extremes in the natural quest to be not their parents, teachers, or other adult authorities. Once targeted marketing made the great discovery that younger people are less careful with their money than older people, what would have been unthinkable now appears on prime-time TV. Look at how long it took the "hippe" youth culture to move to the mainstream. Compare that with any youth trend today from Goth to body-piercing. It's instantly a product.
I, for one, think we (meaning adults, or if you prefer, people over 30) should be a lot less uptight over teen identity, and a lot more concerned about the commercial debasement of our self-expression.
That said, I think Katz is hitting off the mark here. This "screening" is a bit unfortunate, but I see it as an effort to identify young people who might need a concerned adult in their lives. It's far from ideal, but in a world where otherwise healthy, affluent children are killing themselves and sometimes killing others, its about damned time adults and institutions started to pay attention to young people. If this tool becomes a way to make contact and start listening to the real emotional needs of young people, then it is a good tool. If it becomes a way to sort young people into the "good" ones and the "bad" ones, it's a bad tool.
Basically, I think Katz is jumping before there is something to jump on.
As for me, my approach to young people is: Respect them. Listen to them. Involve them. Love them.
Any youth who is respected, listened to, involved, and loved is unlikely to kill himself/herself or others. The rest they have to figure out for themselves.
John, please respond. (Score:4)
OK, M-2K sounds like a bad idea for use outside of threat evaluation by law enforcement in very specific situations.
While geeks are no doubt affected by this nonsense, everyone affected by this is not a geek, and not all geeks are. The old-fashioned, stereotypical pocket protector-wearing geeks are probably still safe. There are lots of Goth-type people and other groups who wouldn't know a mouse from a hole in the ground who ARE affected. You play this up to make it seem more topical for
Even more to the point, by calling for "geek unity" (for lack of a better term). By uniting together to form a group to protect themselves, you form nothing but a NEW clique, and you water down the driving force of geekdom (and for many of these other groups) -- individuality. Once this new clique forms, groupthink begins to emerge, and geekdom flounders. You're basically advocating a group to protect itself by divesting itself of it's quintessence. Geeks won't get picked on if they just stop doing what it is that gets them picked on. Great solution.
Further, you nitpick every attempt made by the world at large to prevent violence. I understand that you have legitimate issues with curtailing free speech and freedom of expression for youth (or anyone), and these are always issues for society to deal with. At what price freedom? But in your polemics about "the man" you rail against the injustice heaped upon youth by well-meaning, if misguided adults. So I ask -- what positive do you have to contribute to the debate? Put yourself in the position of an educator or parent. List 10 practical steps that a school could take to guard against this violence. That's all. Be constructive, contribute.
Fight the Violence (Score:4)
-----
"I think it's a wonderful tool that has a great deal of potential, and I hope it's properly used by the schools," said Andrew Vita, associate director of field operations for the ATF, which has used the Mosaic approach to investigate abortion-clinic bombings.
"I hope it's properly used by the schools" Yes, I'm sure most will have the extra time and funding to get counselors extensive training with a black box that spits out your violence quotient. Wow all the way from 1 to 10, I'd hate to be on the line of 7 (angry, but safe) and 8 (will blow up school if left unmodified).
Nothing like getting an institution like ALCHOHOL, TOBACCO and FIREARMS, involved with the kids. I can't wait to see how they deal with a standoff with some high schoolers...
Jon, it looks like you've become the voice of the disenfranchised geek. Congrats, represent them well, maybe a voice will be heard above the braying of Britney, LFO, and Insane Clown Posse. Luckily most of the social disruption sorts itself out by college, y'know, that part of education without metal detectors, violence aptitude tests, and orange jumpsuits (or whatever your school colors may be)
Some profiling characteristics, from the web site (Score:3)
Dr. McGee had over 60 categories of information on classroom shooters and about 80 inclusionary and exclusionary criteria, arrayed in spreadsheets and tables. And here was where he caught me. As the slides displaying this information commenced flashing on the big screen at the front of the darkened auditorium, I began noticing an eerie congruence between his profile of the school shooter type, and the actual traits of the boy who had murdered my son... member of alienated group; appearance of normality to adults; negative self-image and unstable self esteem; average to above average IQ; covert vandalism and dishonesty; distrustful and secretive with adults in authority; interest in real and fictional violence in the media; motive vengeance and achievement of power; mixed personality disorder with paranoid, antisocial and narcissistic features... the list went on. The fit was uncanny. McGee told us, for example, how in their fantasies, school shooters pre-select victims, witnesses, time, place, location, means and course of action. I recalled testimony from the criminal trial to the effect that my son's killer had repeatedly and publicly rehearsed his fantasy of shooting up the dining hall at the evening meal.
And this interesting characteristic:
These kids were middle class male Caucasians averaging 16 years of age, who felt socially isolated and who had ready access to guns. Other kinds of information were surprising. These kids were NOT drug addicts or alcohol abusers, and they had no documented history of severe mental illness. Aside from an occasional preference for dark or camouflage clothing, they presented a normal appearance to adults. They were not pierced, tattooed scary looking kids, and they were not high-profile trouble makers. They were, generally, of above average intelligence.
Hmmm, can we categorize these as geek or goth characteristics?
characteristic geek goth
alienated group maybe maybe
appearance of
normality to adults maybe no
negative self-image
and unstable self
esteem* maybe maybe
average to above
average IQ presumable maybe
covert vandalism and
dishonesty** maybe maybe
distrustful and secretive with
adults in authority maybe maybe
interest in real and fictional violence
in the media *** maybe maybe
motive vengeance and achievement
of power no no
mixed personality disorder
with paranoid no no
ready access to guns no no
* this sounds like a typical adolescent, GH
** does cracking count?
*** does AP history count?
You can make almost any adolescent fit these characteristics, but maybe in summation they mean something.
You'll notice a lack of computers in the mix, too.
I had to fudge some of the Goth stuff, not really knowing any Goths anymore.
George
Re:Don't be too quick to judge, yet... (Score:3)
It doesn't.
Students will probably never see Mosaic, it's for administrators.
From the NYTimes and Gavin De Beckers's web site [gdbinc.com] it asks questions like:
What kind of access to firearms does the student have?
__No known possession of a firearm
__Friends known to have ready access to a firearm
__There are firearms in the home
__There are firearms in a home frequented by the student
__The student owns his own firearm
__The student recently acquired a firearm
I'm guessing from the context of the web site, but if student Joe Geek was just dumped by his girlfriend and he sent her a threatening invitation to the prom (ala Go with me or it will be an unforgettable Prom, and your last prom!) and Joe Geek just bought a gun, maybe Mosaic-2000 will flag him.
George
What's wrong with metal detectors and guards? (Score:3)
armed guards at school entrances, hallways, etc.,
metal detectors,
Speaking as a parent who will be sending his daughter to a school district where kids have killed kids, I'm fine with metal detectors and armed guards.
What freedoms do metal detectors restrict? The freedom to bring a crowbar to school in your backpack, just in case you need to pry open an air vent?
I also had to pass through a metal detector when I did jury duty, and when I went to the airport. I don't feel particularly threatened or impinged, or even less free.
What freedoms do armed guards restrict? I just hope they're better shots than the Columbine wusses.
George
Training Young Americans for Big Brother (Score:4)
The list:
This is really so sad. Maybe you don't see what I see, but I see a generation of young Americans becoming accustomed to and desensitized to the tools of a police state.
When they graduate and enter the world at large, they will be coming from a heavily-restricted environment and perhaps will be less willing to question lawmakers and special-interest groups who would propose laws that restrict our freedoms in the name of safety.
Some hope? [libertystudy.org]
*applauds* (Score:3)
There are generally two problems with profiling IMHO: the profiles are too general, and they are frequently based off of stereotypes rather than data. And right now this has affected my life and the lives of my friends in some ways I'm plenty pissed about:
1. Lots and lots of well-meaning friends telling me to break up with my boyfriend because he supposedly fits the profile of an abuser (divorced parents, "troubled" high school years, slightly erratic job history, and what could be called a "fascination" with weapons). I *know* that the only way he'd ever hit me is if I take up SCA heavy weapons or he takes up fencing and we're BOTH wearing armor. And yet the concerned inquiries persist. Meanwhile, the piece of slime that abused my housemate for two years set off no such alarm bells -- his parents were still together, and did I mention he's gay?
2. Carload of guys coming back across the border from a Canadian fencing tourney. Four young white long-haired males. All their stuff gets picked through for any possible sign of drugs, and their fencing foils almost get confiscated.
3. Another friend of mine (this one female) who fences was given a lot of grief by her doctor at her last checkup because he was absolutely CERTAIN that she was being abused. Now, mind you, this doctor knows that she and her husband are both highly skilled fencers, but just based on her age and the newness of the marriage, he made rather an ass out of himself asking repeatedly if she was being abused. *sigh* What a pain in the neck that must've been.
Overreaction? (Score:5)
We don't know how it works yet. We don't know what factors it considers important, and which it doesn't. It's a bit hasty to assume that it's going to single out the people who are different, the "geeks" as Katz likes to call anyone who's not a conformist.
Perhaps they've actually done something GOOD with this program. Perhaps they've found more of the real issues that can influence violent and troubled kids. How do we know this tool isn't a good thing, finding people in danger before something happens?
If it turns into just another geek profiling tool, then I'll gladly join in the chorus about how bad it is. But I'm not going to do that until I know that's how it's working.
---
Re: cross-referenced questions (Score:3)
> For example, they will ask you two differently
> worded questions about the same topic.
>
> Would you describe yourself as punctual? Yes/No
> Would you describe yourself as patient? Yes/No
Personality Profiling 101:
Knowing how to spot these kinds of questions is a very useful life skill, whether in a Geek Profiling situation or a job interview. For an excellent example of the "ask the same question different ways" techique in action, and for an opportunity get some practice, play with this version of the Keirsey Temperament Sorter [keirsey.com].
First, answer with "the truth" - your honest answers to the questions. Then, when you've read your results and realized that the questionnaire is only measuring "yes/no" answers along four orthogonal axes, try to give the "right" answers for an "all-yes" or "all-no" score on the axis of your choice.
Advanced class:
Note that someone who scores "perfectly" - with zero inconsistent answers, less so on Kiersey, but probably more so on something more sophisticated, like Mosaic, is likely to be spotted as a liar. Humans are inherently fuzzy things, and some degree of internal inconsistency is to be expected. Doublethink is normal.
If your answer to "Do you believe in non-violence" is "yes", and your response, 10 questions later, to "What if you saw your wife boinking the milkman" is "I'd ask them to please stop and put their clothes on before inviting them both out to dinner to rationally discuss our differences of opinion on marital fidelity", it could well be as much of a red flag as "I'd cut them into little chunks with my big mofo chainsaw and cook and eat them both, and then throw her goldfish in the microwave for dessert! Muhahahaha!".
(In my obviously-contrived example, a "right" response to the wife question would be "umm, that'd totally such, uh, I dunno, I hope I wouldn't like, freak out completely or anything", particularly if your other answers "If some bozo cut me off in traffic, I'd just let him get up ahead and get busted for speeding, he's worth making a fuss over" are generally consistent with nonviolence.)
Re:I am sensing a bit of a bias here... (Score:4)
Yup, there is truth in what you say. Physical education is part of a balanced curriculum. But surely you understand that football (and I enjoy watching football occasionally myself) has been elevated to a position of artificial importance?
If the school football team wins a victory, it's a big deal. Time is even taken from classes to rally spirit prior to the game and celebrate victory afterwards. Team heroes often get laid. Buses are provided to transport the team. There is even an officially endorsed team of attractive females to encourage the male football players and spectators by shouting and wearing skimpy outfits. This sport is valued so highly that regular occurrences of paralysis and maiming in children do not derail it. Where exactly is the social value in paying so kids can act violently with the full approval of their peers and parents? And they think DOOM is desensitizing?
When the school's debating team or chess team (assuming they still have one) wins, where is the recognition or encouragement? Why do they have to provide their own transportation to the match? Why do students laugh at their victories (at least until some team hits the state or national finals -- then suddenly they're "our geeks")? Seems this kind of rivalry would benefit commercial sponsors much more in the long run, but as you say, there is *no* money in it at all.
Testing students for violent thinking thru a test, then sending them out to actually break bones on the gridiron, or cheer such mayhem on, seems a little contradictory to me.
If it were up to me, I'd can the test and keep football. But I'd also get the money completely out of all kinds of football but professional. *Especially* high school football -- because engaging in a dangerous sport for *any* reason other than the love of it is the wrong reason.
Money to fund sports and other competitions needs to come from somewhere. Why do I have the feeling that most of it goes to adminstrators with fat salaries and corrupt vendors of materials with sweetheart deals? Maybe because throwing more at the problem does absolutely nothing for students?
I think it's time we consider a federal standard for education with individual schools only responsible to themselves and that standard. That eliminates untold bureaucrats, promotes choice in education, and keeps deals for materials very small and hard to control or corrupt.
Re:Making Threats -IS- a Crime (assault) (Score:3)
It was so enforced that if you didn't bring the pamphlet in the first week, you were automatically suspended until you did. Sound like horseshit?? Welcome to my highschool.. and MANY all around the country.
Aaahhh, the dreaded 'Student Handbook' did you remember to read the fine print on the last page where it says 'I swear to indemnify and release from all responsibility this establishment for any harm which may result of my presence on the premises of said establishment' ? I refused to sign the handbook, they threatened suspension, I laughed and brought in 3 lawyers (The wonders of having a mother in the legal business) bye bye freedom destroying student handbook clauses.
This was only one of the many protests I engaged in throughout highschool, following a grand family tradition. My father protested the conduct of one of the principals so well that he (the principal) was fired.
It IS possible to make a difference, provided you have more money and more lawyers than the school.
Of course you then get harassed by the administration and any time someone beats you shitless in a 2v1 fight you get suspended and they don't.... but those are the breaks, eh?
Kintanon
Re:John, please respond. (Score:4)
1. Teachers and Administrators must listen to complaints from harassed children and ACT ON THEM.
2. Teachers and Administrators must realize that not all students learn the same way and allow for intellectual differences, preferably by seperate, merit based classes.
3. No Dress Code. No stupid pointless meaningless rules about not chewing gum in class.
4. Pay the teachers 2x what they are getting now.
5. In order to perform #2, remove the football program from the school and instead funnel all of that money to the teachers.
6. Do not give special treatment to students based on sports.
7. Return to a institution of LEARNING instead of socializing and playing football.
8. Allow free discussion of relevant topics in the classroom. Less lecture, more learning.
9. Allow Teachers to have more personal contact with the students. Stop making the students switch teachers every class period, the subjects covered in high school are not so in depth that 1 person can not become profficient at all of them.
10. Evaluate disciplinary issues on a case by case bases. Do not suspend all parties involved in a fight if 5 guys attack 1 guy and hospitalize him. Only suspend the 5 that deserve it. Instigate police proceedings against violent offenders such as the above example.
I think these 10 points would EASILY reduce violence in school as well as raising the quality of our schools. But they MUST be instituted from kindergarten up to 12th grade. Not just in high school. We need to go back to educating our children instead of feeding them crap so they can regurgitate it for a test and forget it immediately afterwards.
Kintanon
Misconceptions (Score:5)
1. Students DO NOT ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS regarding Mosaic. The Administrators answer questions regarding known behavior and then program gives suggestions for how best to approach the person in questions.
2. Mosaic CAN NOT do anything on its own. All of the input and output will be determined by the same old biased administrators as far as Who to do things to. Mosaic just legitmizes that and tells them How to do what they would be doing anyways.
3. There is NO WAY to refuse to participate in this except by removing yourself from a school where it is present.
4. You CAN NOT fool this program without massively altering your exterior personality because you have no direct contact with the program.
5. This WILL be abused by the school system to stop parents from protesting their blatant formation of a militaristic regime.
6. The best way to stop this is to have your parents get in touch with some lawyers as soon as it gets implemented in the school system and GET A COPY of the program. Then make sure you ask the administrators what answers they gave to the questions asked, do it yourself and see what it comes up with. Also, check their answers since we know they don't know jack.
Hopefully this will stop a lot of people from screaming 'LIE TO THE TEST!' and whatnot.
Kintanon
Barking up the wrong tree. (Score:5)
Christ, this makes it sound like the questions being asked are similar to:
Do you like computers for more than the occasional game or internet and e-mail?
Do you play any role playing games?
Do you have acne?
Are you skinny or over-weight?
Do you play sports?
It is not that simple! If you have ever taken an abnormal psych, or even a college level psych class you would know this.
They are not looking for "geeks", they are looking for violently inclined kids. Most people realize that has little to do with geeks! There is something mentally wrong with violent students, and this profiling has, and does work in identifying them. It is not as simple as, "You are different or weird... therefore you must be violent and a danger to society". Gimem a break.
That a universal method for testing kids may be implemented is not what I am concerned with. The real concern should be what do they do with these kids if they have been profiled as violent?
When considering that, I believe we come to the real problem and potential for harm and abuse.
And who informs the machine? (Score:4)
This reminds me of the computer selection process used by a British university a while back. Because it was "computerized", it was believed it "couldn't discriminate"... until it was found that one of its rules was to mark down the scores of people with very long names. It was very non-discriminatorily weeding out people with names like Chandrasekhar and retaining people with names like Smith. Face it, Mosaic-2000 is just CyberSitter, only it will weed people.
Far from calming the nerves of worried parents, this thing will just reinforce the prejudices of the authors. Any school that lets it in the door should be subjected to a blizzard of FOIA requests to see exactly what they're doing with it, and then sue the district and the company into oblivion as soon as discrimination can be proven (either in actions or in recommendations). This thing has to be shut down.
--
Don't be too quick to judge, yet... (Score:3)
If this "Mosaic" software asks questions like "Do you spend more than 15 minutes a day on the Internet?", "Do you use IRC, MUDs, or chat rooms on a daily basis?" and uses the answers to those questions to judge whether or not a kid could be potential "trouble", that's a Very Bad Thing.
However, I've heard a little bit about these sorts of software before and from everything I've heard, they're the end result of years and years of reasonably well-designed and well-executed research and instead they ask questions like "Do you express your anger or frustration by torturing or killing small animals?", "Have you ever been physically abused by parents or family members?", "Do you feel more comfortable expressing your anger and frustration with violent acts?" These are questions that might legitimately be used to determine whether or not someone might "need help."
Even so, I'm still not convinced of the scientific validity of these tests because anyone of average intelligence can pretty well skew the results of the test by guessing what sorts of answers the test "wants to hear" since they are invariably of the "answer on a scale of one to ten whether you agree with this statement, with one being completely no and ten being completely yes." The "scoring" on these tests are simply average scores for the various answers from control groups and psychotic mass murderers (or whatever) and your tendency towards either "normalcy" or "psychotic mass murder" is simply based on who's scores yours most resembles.
(I've been forced to take these sorts of "Personality Assessment Tests" by annoying employers and potential employers in the past and at the very get-go make sure I inform them that I don't believe they are valid tests of ethics, morals or personality and that I *will* "fail" it and then proceed to answer in the most outrageous way possible. Employers who know me well then ignore the test; those who don't and rely on the test to judge me I don't want to work for anyway.
Some good skeptical analysis on these sorts of tests and links to more of same can be found here [skepdic.com].)
Further, there is still the troublesome point that these "survey" answers are going to go into some Permanent Record someplace, which just emphasizes the fact that I feel this is a horrible invasion of privacy to begin with.
-=-=-=-=-
"Pass the buck" as a one player game (Score:3)
I guess the idea is to dis-empower teachers and principals over the course of several decades, and then make up for that by providing a means of arbitrary decision-making (the computer). It's a great strategy, and I've seen it work very well at Universities. It has a tendency to leave the victim in a helpless state-- you have no person to complain to-- no one to blame.
Would you let a net-nanny watch your kids? Would you let a computer drive your car? (And if you were in an accident, would you sue the software company?)
The real Problem is that people have unrealistic and unjustified fears about school shootings.
Some facts:
1. The crime rate in America has been going down for the last 30 years or so. Don't look at the overall numbers like they report on the news! Look at the per capita rate. (i.e. crime/population)
2. You're more likely to get killed on your busride home than shot at your desk.
(btw.. missing children is the same story. By the time you weed out the kids who ran away, kidnapped by a parent, etc. it's only a handful that go missing each year.)
People need to face their fears and take responsibility for their actions, and not make computers do their dirty work for them. The media needs to stop pretending to be objective and start offering real solutions.
As usual with Katz... (Score:4)
Not surprisingly, there is a website, www.mosaic2000.com [mosaic2000.com], promoting Gavin de Becker Inc. and its products. The site describes Mosaic-2000 as follows:
This sounds good; they're not suggesting you run all the kids in the school through it to magically find all the killers. Instead, when threats are made, you use the system as an aid in trying to figure out how serious the situation is. This is even better; they're not just asking the machine to evaluate people. Instead, they're using it as one part of a process primarily conducted by humans (trained ones, one hopes). It sounds like Mosaic is really just an expert system intended to be used as a guide in a counselor's evaluation.In summary: typical Katz paranoia.
The Real Danger is Profiling (Score:5)
But I don't agree with Jon's assumption that this is tantamount to open season on Goths. I think this, instead, is something even more sinister.
This is profiling.
If you're an American you've seen the TV show. Breathless blonde babe bumbles across crime scenes developing "profiles" of serial killers. She's pretty, TV cops are always heros, isn't profiling a wonderful tool that the police can use to protect us from bad guys?
The profiling technique used by technologies like Mosaic depends upon the premise that answers to certain questions can be good (or even absolute) predictors of specific tendencies or behaviors. For example, consider the question I just asked: "Isn't profiling a wonderful tool that the police can use to protect us from the bad guys?" Your answer to the question is almost an absolute predictor of whether you are white or not.
Police departments across the U.S. have begun to use computers and statistics packages to study patterns of crime. In some instances it has been a tremendous boon to fighting crime. In other instances it has been a particularly heinous tool of racial oppression. Here's how:
Several years ago the Pennsylvania State Police noted a big increase in drug shipments through northeastern Pennsylvania. They examined their arrest records to identify common patterns--and from those common patterns they identified a "criminal profile" of a likely drug smuggler. Based on that profile, state troopers started stopping cars on I-80 that met the profile--and obtaining search warrants to search vehicles based on no other evidence than that the vehicle and the driver met the profile.
What was the profile?
That, argued the police, was sufficient probable cause to stop any and every single black man with an air freshener on I-80.
In recent months the New Jersey State Police have also admitted to specifically targeting black men on the New Jersey Turnpike. The crime of "DWB"--Driving While Black--has been a joke in the black community for many years. Based on discovery from a civil rights suit, the New Jersey State Police, and Gov. Christie Whitman, admitted that the cops were specifically targeting blacks.
In theory profiling can help identify potential suspects. In practice, profiling has become a synonym for leaping to conclusions based on scant evidence. And the ability of many police departments today to filter database lists makes the potential for baseless profiling positively scary.
For example, let's do a little profiling. Let's identify common characteristics of dangerous personalities, and see who fits. Here are some common characteristics of mass murderers:
Now--who might fit that profile? How about a white, male, 41-year-old man with a wife and no kids. He's a graduate of an Ivy League university, where he majored in Philosophy. He has not found work in his field, but instead has dabbled in several businesses. He runs a very small ISP (mostly as a labor of love) but depends upon his wife's income. He spends an inordinate amount of time online, playing games and emailing friends on the Internet. He is widely known on the Internet, and is viewed as a leading figure in an underground Internet community. He is regarded as a "hacker" and in his online writings he is proud of the term. He has recently become interested in guns, and right-to-bear-arms politics, and cheerfully characterizes himself as a "gun nut."
We're talking, of course, about that dangerous criminal monster, Eric S. Raymond.
In Pennsylvania you register with the county sheriff to get a license to carry a concealed weapon. (I do not own guns, but I am told by a gun-owning friend/employee that a "carry" permit and a handgun permit are the same price--so everybody gets the carry permit.) In Pennsylvania you also pay an income tax to your local municipality and/or your local school district. And, in Pennsylvania, utilities have to provide all sorts of information to the government about who they serve, in what counties, and so forth.
I don't think it would be much of a stretch for the Chester County District Attorney to get a list of gun owners, and cross-ref that list with a list of people with multiple phone lines. And it wouldn't take much effort after that to establish which of those multiple-phone line gun owners had web sites. And you can't spend much time on ESR's web site without noticing "Eric's Gun Nut Page". Given the profile, the DA would be justified (or so he might think) in telling the township police where ESR lives that a potential maniac is living nearby.
And since we're putting up posters about sex offenders (even one-timers convicted forty years ago) on every telephone pole, why not notify the community of gun-totin', Web-usin', multiple-phone-line-ringin' threats to society?
Or maybe--just maybe--we should conclude that computer profiling is not just bad, not just unconstitutional, but evil. And stop it, before we lose what "inalienable" rights we have left.
John Murdoch