From the Scout Report: This fascinating collection of social hygiene posters (designed to inculcate certain social practices regarding hygiene, friendship, prostitution, and mental health) is culled from the fine holdings of the Social Welfare History Archives at the University of Minnesota Libraries.

There are some gems to be found here, and the collection is easily browsed. Consider "Beware of Chance Acquaintances" and "Danger in Familiarities".

American Social Hygiene Posters, ca. 1910-1970

... Tons of foreign technology is imported, but it's never really internalized ...

Tom Friedman on Arab society in the Sunday New York Times.

Courageous Arab Thinkers

Laying a broad basis for possible future prescriptions, the President's Council on Bioethics yesterday issued an analysis of how biotechnology could lead toward unintended and destructive ends.

I must express some suspicion of this given that we already understand what the administration's perspective of this is. Is this a search for answers, or a hammer looking for a nail?

Some of the NYT's quotes reveal a mixed bag:

For example, this makes sense to me:
"By medicalizing key elements of our life through biotechnical interventions," the report says, "we may weaken our sense of responsibility and agency."

We already do this in many different ways.

On the other hand, I cannot imagine a more foolish luddism then this statement:

It concludes that "the human body and mind, highly complex and delicately balanced as a result of eons of gradual and exacting evolution, are almost certainly at risk from any ill-considered attempt at `improvement.' "

While the wording here is carefully chosen, the message is clear. Obviously there are risks. Everything has risks. It is important to understand risks and avoid them. But by waxing about the perfection of the human being and placing the word improvement in quotes, the author is not really referring to risk management. He stops short of arguing that all activity in this space would be counterproductive only because he can't prove that. He is saying that biotechnology is bad.

What this perspective ignores is that every single technological development in the history of man, from the first wooden spear to the space shuttle, has been an attempt to escape the boundaries of what nature has given us. That is, in fact, fundamentally what makes us human and what differs us from most other animals. We invent technologies which help us adapt to environmental pressures that other species cannot adapt to because they adapt at random and without will.

To claim that we have no reason to continue to expand the boundaries of our capabilities is the same sort of narcissistic bullshit that lead Fukuyama, who made large contributions to this paper, to conclude that we are at the end of political history. This perspective is absolutely ignorant of human nature.

Bush's Advisers on Biotechnology Express Concern on Its Use

Hollywood frets that if top-quality copies of shows can be snared online, producers won't be able to sell them in syndication or overseas.

"Syndication" is broken. There is no "fix." Move on.

Rules would require recorders to encrypt TV shows

... "Japan and India have managed to blend traditional social structures with modern democracy, and Iraq could do the same." But it will take time and finesse, along with respect for traditions like women wearing the veil. "A key purpose of veiling is to prevent outsiders from competing with a woman's cousins for marriage. Attack veiling, and you are attacking the core of the Middle Eastern social system."

Iraqi Family Ties Complicate American Efforts for Change

Fukuyama argues that the United States, like Japan and Germany, has been a high-trust society historically but that this status has eroded in recent years. This well-researched book provides a fresh, new perspective on how economic prosperity is grounded in social life.

Trust: Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order

The Fall/Winter 2003 issue of CIO Magazine is a special issue that focuses on "technology's impact on everything."

They've assembled quite the team of contributors for this issue, including Ray Kurzweil, Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan, Bjorn Lomborg, Robert Reich, Howard Gardner, Jonathan Zittrain, Paul Saffo, Newt Gingrich, The Dalai Lama, Howard Rheingold, Robert Ballard, Barry Steinhardt, and more.

Here's how the Barry Steinhardt piece begins:

PICTURE THIS: You're attending a trade show in Las Vegas.

Strolling around the city one evening, you happen upon a sex shop and pause for a moment to snicker at the curious items in the store's window. Then you continue on your way.

However, unbeknownst to you, the store's Customer Identification System has detected a radio identification signal emitted by a computer chip in one of your credit cards, and is recording your identity and the date and time of your brief stop. A few weeks later, your spouse is surprised to find in the mail a lurid solicitation from the store mentioning your visit.

You've got some explaining to do.

Technology's Impact on Everything | CIO Magazine

From an article in Forbes magazine, circa January 1994:

Entertainment is becoming as mobile as money. In the 1950s, Hollywood moguls established hegemony by monopolizing U.S. movie theaters. Antitrust litigators forced a divestiture. Hollywood has since reinvested in theaters, but today's antitrust police just yawn, because theaters now account for barely 20% of movie revenues. Television deals generate just under 40%. The biggest single earner is tapes for videocassette recorders, those pernicious Japanese gadgets that Hollywood worked so hard to kill a decade ago. The VCR, it turned out, was a superhighway in a box -- just what Hollywood needed to double its profits. More recently, a Beatles movie was transmitted in highly compressed form over the Internet. Within a few years it will be as easy to download compressed movies by telephone as it is to unload the family fortune.

... Nobody has any clear idea what will be the dominant distribution medium for entertainment or wealth at the end of the decade. You can be pretty sure, however, that it won't be whatever culture police choose to guard most closely.

The New Maginot Line

INTERPRETER (In English, to Bob): Right side. And, uh, with intensity.
BOB: Is that everything? It seemed like he said quite a bit more than that.

This is the English translation of a very funny scene from Lost In Translation.

I saw an ad for this last night. I'm not sure if its going to be a great film, (looks like a romantic comedy) but the footage of Tokyo looks really nice. It might be worth watching simply as a way to experience a little of Japan.

What Else Was Lost In Translation

From news services to "blogs," the Internet has revolutionized the international news market -- opening it up to a broader and more active audience. Such technological innovations are rapidly changing the way people produce and consume news, making the traditional model of foreign correspondence obsolete.

This article appears in the September/October 2003 issue of Foreign Affairs. You can read a free preview online.

The New Foreign Correspondence