Take this algorithm and shove it!

Forty years ago Donald Lytle (a.k.a. Johnny Paycheck recorded ‘Take this job and shove it’. (http://tinyurl.com/kvnynlo)The country & honky tonk artist, (born in that hotbed of country music Greenfield, Ohio) was more than a one-hit wonder but only by a little bit. He sure had an impressive array of hats though. Just not so many cattle! You ranching-country folk will understand the meaning.

Unlike my fellow Beezer and friend Kevin Pashuk I won’t take until you’ve read 75% of the posting until I get to my point. I can’t afford the chance that you won’t get there whereas Kevin is so skilled he can maintain your interest. I think it has something to do with his raging introversion - we just are so damn patient with him ‘cause he always ends up somewhere smart and relevant.

Lately I’ve read so much on beBee about what constitutes a view, what makes up a relevant, what is a legitimate visit, and so on and so on and blah de freakin’ blah that I am adapting Paycheck’s song and retitling it Take this algorithm and shove it!

Lookit’, I like a good set of stats as much as the next person.

Actually, no I don’t.

They bore the pants off of me but I acknowledge that to true social media wonks and patrons of platforms they are the holy grail. It’s just I can’t imagine how folk get so riled up about them to the point where darts get thrown, knives are unsheathed, and tiny little bothersome grenades are tossed into someone’s trousers.

Some time ago I heard the author of an intriguing book on CBC Radio. Her name is Cathy O’Neil and her book is Weapons of Math Destruction. Here’s how her website (https://weaponsofmathdestructionbook.com/) describes the book:

We live in the age of the algorithm. Increasingly, the decisions that affect our lives—where we go to school, whether we get a car loan, how much we pay for health insurance—are being made not by humans, but by mathematical models. In theory, this should lead to greater fairness: Everyone is judged according to the same rules, and bias is eliminated.

But as Cathy O’Neil reveals in this urgent and necessary book, the opposite is true. The models being used today are opaque, unregulated, and uncontestable, even when they’re wrong. Most troubling, they reinforce discrimination: If a poor student can’t get a loan because a lending model deems him too risky (by virtue of his zip code), he’s then cut off from the kind of education that could pull him out of poverty, and a vicious spiral ensues. Models are propping up the lucky and punishing the downtrodden, creating a “toxic cocktail for democracy.” Welcome to the dark side of Big Data.

Tracing the arc of a person’s life, O’Neil exposes the black box models that shape our future, both as individuals and as a society. These “weapons of math destruction” score teachers and students, sort résumés, grant (or deny) loans, evaluate workers, target voters, set parole, and monitor our health.

O’Neil calls on modelers to take more responsibility for their algorithms and on policy makers to regulate their use. But in the end, it’s up to us to become more savvy about the models that govern our lives.

So here’s me, now, trying to become more savvy and I gotta tell you - I am a writer. Been doing it since I can remember. Been doing it professionally since 1977. That’s right, the same year Johnny recorded his seminal song and granted, it’s not as long as Jim Murray's been at it but hell, he picked up his first papyrus scroll just after Moses came down from the Mount.

Anyway, since Jim Murray lives too far away to sit down to have him explain, and Gerald Hecht lives waaayyy too far away, and Phil Friedman is totally occupied with either of the perfect Hollandaise or his Twitter storms, and John Vaughan would probably drag me out to some New Jersey swamp ‘cause I’m so stupid I’ve gone right to basics.

What the hell is an algorithm anyway? We toss the word around quite cavalierly. Even I have posed as being someone who had even an inkling of what I was writing about. I’m coming out right here and right now.

I wouldn’t know an algorithm if it slapped my bare ass and called me Betty!

So, here’s what whatis.com says:

An algorithm (pronounced AL-go-rith-um) is a procedure or formula for solving a problem, based on conductiong a sequence of specified actions. A computer program can be viewed as an elaborate algorithm. In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm usually means a small procedure that solves a recurrent problem.

Algorithms are widely used throughout all areas of IT (information technology). A search engine algorithm, for example, takes search strings of keywords and operators as input, searches its associated database for relevant web pages, and returns results.

An encryption algorithm transforms data according to specified actions to protect it. A secret key algorithm such as the U.S. Department of Defense's Data Encryption Standard (DES), for example, uses the same key to encrypt and decrypt data. As long as the algorithm is sufficiently sophisticated, no one lacking the key can decrypt the data.

The word algorithm derives from the name of the mathematician, Mohammed ibn-Musa al-Khwarizmi, who was part of the royal court in Baghdad and who lived from about 780 to 850. Al-Khwarizmi's work is the likely source for the word algebra as well.*

*Holy jumping Jehosaphat! Do you think Drumpf and his boss Bannon know about this whole thing being part of a Muslim conspiracy. Screw Obama’s wiretapping - or wire tapping as Sean Spicer prefers it - this clearly is the source of the River Nile of troubles plaguing the lying sack of ^&() currently occupying the White House.

But, I digress.

Before anyone else does it, I will point out that there is a complete separation in my perspective as a writer and as an entrepreneur. I have no expectation of commercial return from my involvement on beBee. It is well and truly my ‘social’ media. The joy and stimulation I get from interacting with fellow Bees from South Africa to Bali to Spain to Singapore to Australia to England and Ireland far outweighs any thoughts of gaining business.

So the 88,000 views my stories have gotten on beBee since I first posted one year ago, are representative of a whole hell of a lot of people reading my stuff that wouldn’t have anywhere else.

Are some duplicate visits? Probably. Are some included in the count my visits? Sure.

But I just don’t care about the unassailable validity testing that some seem determined to pursue.

If, I were using the platform as a cornerstone of my business building efforts I would probably feel differently and more compelled to dive into the thoughtful and thorough analysis that some have contributed here.

beBee works for me. It is pretty much ideal for my purposes. It gives me pleasure and intellectual stimulations. It offers the opportunity to engage in, at times spirited, conversation and yes some of the content does provoke in me reactions that may not be suitable for work.

I hope the platform succeeds. I believe that in our world any amount of international exchange and openness should be encouraged and supported. Parochialism and populism are the bane of modern-day discourse and beBee can help prevent the spread of isolationism that is counter-productive to our growth as people.

So, back to Johnny Paycheck, you can take this algorithm and shove it. And to the 88,000 or however many folks who’ve supported me by reading my stuff during the past year - THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

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