Data as Menetekel 5: Measuring stations for NO 2 measurement

The measuring stations for NO2 measurement in Germany as defined in the DIRECTIVE 2008/50/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 21 May 2008 on air quality and clean air for Europe and the Neununddreißigste Verordnung zur Durchführung des Bundes-Immissionsschutzgesetzes (Verordnung über Luftqualitätsstandards und Emissionshöchstmengen – 39. BImSchV) Anlage 3 C. Kleinräumige Ortsbestimmung der Probenahmestellen, there are mostly locations that do not meet the requirements. See Holger Douglas: Große Leseraktion: Wie manipulieren Messstationen die Feinstaubmessung in Ihrer Stadt?, Tichys Einblick 23.03.2018.This means that some of the measured values are not valid and cannot be compared with each other.
While the problems were ignored or denied by the federal government and cities (e.g.Wiesbaden), the conference of transport ministers on April 19, 2018 under item 4.2 of the agenda: Air pollution control b) Valid NO2 measurements as a basis for legally compliant air pollution control plans demanded that the validity of measuring point locations be checked in accordance with European requirements. Among other things, it is demanded:
“The Conference of Transport Ministers considers it necessary for the installation of the measuring equipment to be carried out according to a uniform standard throughout Germany and Europe, because comparisons of the measuring results and the necessary legal requirements must be met.
equal treatment of those affected on the ground would otherwise be impossible. The Conference of Transport Ministers suggests that the review should in particular address issues such as
a) the prescribed spatial representativeness of the measurements for a larger area in a city, not only for a small room in the immediate vicinity of the measuring station,
(b) the temporal relevance with regard to the period during which the population is exposed to a relevant exposure,
c) the correct placement of the measuring inlet of the station,
(d) the prescribed avoidance of backwater measurements from crossings,
(e) the prescribed avoidance of measurements below obstacles such as trees.”

 

Data as Menetekel 4: The secret of the 400,000

In the political discussion, data form the basis of a rational discussion. Data as a warning disguise and manipulate this discussion. The example of a shortage of skilled workers in Germany. There should be a shortage of skilled workers
2005 400.000
2007 400.000
2008 400.000
2010 400.000
2017 400.000
2018 500.000
There will also be a shortage of skilled workers in Switzerland by 2030. It is – who could be surprised – 400,000.
400,000 are obviously a number with which one can form public opinion without having to enter directly into options for action. Some critical contributions already show that there are some concrete things to discuss.

„Fachkräftemangel ist ein Kassenschlager“
Jakob Osman: So führen uns Politiker und Lobbyisten in die Irre. Das Märchen vom Fachkräftemangel, Manager Magazin 09.03.2017

 

Analysis of the political Facebook discussion in Austria

“The digital report is a project designed to promote knowledge about digital topics. It was launched by Ingrid Brodnig as Austria’s Digital Champion, an independent function for promoting awareness of digitisation. The digital report provides data analysis, technical articles and teaching materials for teachers.” https://www.digitalreport.at/”
This Austrian project analyzed the structure of the political discussion in Austria on Facebook using Facebook’s programming interface (API) and a Python script developed in-house, which is made available as open source at Github github.com/Digitalreport. See also the interesting methodological approaches “Luca Hammer: Data Analysis in the Age of Social Networks. How easy and yet difficult it is to create data analyses” https://www.digitalreport.at/datenanalyse-im-zeitalter-sozialer-netzwerke/
Apart from the Austrian peculiarities, it must be said:
“On the political Facebook pages, a minority dominates the discourse. One fifth of users write almost three quarters of all postings (73 percent)”.
In a separate article, the postings during the 2017 National Council election campaign will be analysed once again. A minority of extremely active users as well as automated entries are found. “Our research shows that there are other simple ways to manipulate political discourse. Numerous websites sell deceptively real fake fans with names and photos. People offer their real accounts in forums. For money, liken or comment on the desired page.”
An exemplary analysis that is clearly presented and graphically well prepared.

 

Filter bubble at google?

The personalization of search engine results and the networking of social networks has advantages and disadvantages. If I am interested in golf as a sport and do not click hits related to the car or the Gulf Stream, the algorithms will show me similar hits and related advertisements in the future. The more I click on certain pages, the more often they will be displayed. In extreme cases, my own website is displayed in one of the first places of the search results, because it is constantly controlled and accessed, while it is almost invisible to all other users. The device, PC, tablet, mobile phone with operating system and browser are also read out. With the same search query you get different results with different devices and sometimes different prices in Internet shops and when booking trips.
Whether this results in a filter bubble is controversial. See, e.g. Sebastian Meinek: Deshalb ist „Filterblase“ die blödeste Metapher des Internets, motherboard 9.3.2018 
In any case, I can actively counteract this as a user by regularly deleting search history and cookies, protecting the browser with complementary tools such as Ghostery, or even better, from the outset in a virtual environment. In addition, I am actively required as a user and not the willless object of the search engine: Fuck the Bubble: So bringst du deine Filterblase zum Platzen
Concrete studies on the effects of personalization are unfortunately not convincing. The Research project „#Datenspende: Google und die Bundestagswahl 2017“  has now devoted itself to this problem. The investigation is based on the search for 9 politicians and parties in Germany, which were repeated at regular intervals. As a result, it turned out that the search results differ only marginally.
The problem with this study lies in the nature of the search queries. They limit themselves to what is referred to in retrieval known item search, the search for facts that you already know. The meaningfulness is therefore very limited. The consequences of personalization under which circumstances on the supply of information can not be clarified.

Data as Menetekel 3: 500000 immigrants

How to turn a spring report from the economic institutes into Menetekel- Fake-News

“We need a pension with 70 – or 500,000 immigrants per year” is the title of the WELT https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article175616647/Wir-brauchen-Rente-mit-70-oder-500-000-Zuwanderer-im-Jahr.html 19.04.2018 and continues in the article:
“In view of the government’s latest promises, researchers see only two options for keeping contribution rates stable: Either the Germans will work until they are over 70, or they will attract young, employed immigrants. In that case, it is calculated that more than 500,000 people would have to enter the country every year.”
With the corresponding tenor, this report went through the other media.
In the spring report of the economic institutes p. 61 the exact opposite is stated:
“An increase in the statutory pension insurance contribution rate could in principle be prevented by raising the retirement age beyond 67 years or by increasing immigration of younger workers, but both seem unrealistic in view of the necessary dimensions: the contribution rate to the statutory old-age pension insurance following the introduction of the planned pension scheme In the long-term, to cap performance increases to 20 percent, the retirement age would theoretically have to exceed 70 years, or the inflow of younger workers would exceed 500,000 every year. “
So they demand neither the one nor the other, but criticize the pension increase of the Federal Government.

The Web: Does it suck us dry – or does it soak us up?

Maurizio Ferrari’s Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Turin approaches the questions “What is the Web” and “What is our task on the Web? Neue Zürcher Zeitung of July 1, 2018, “Das Web: Saugt es uns aus – oder saugt es uns auf?” Neue Zürcher Zeitung vom 1.7.2018 outlining six dilemmas. Dilemma “means a situation that offers two possibilities of decision, both of which lead to an undesirable result”.
1. virtual or real?
The web as virtualization of the world simultaneously creates social reality as a productive medium and thus real: “There is nothing more real than the web, and that is precisely where its power comes from.
2. communication or recording?
“The web is not a passive means of communication, but an active recording tool, an archive and a system capable of constructing social reality and mobilising individual and collective intentionality.”
3.construction or emergence?
The web is not intentionally constructed, nor is it a collective intelligence, but rather a result of the interplay of the most diverse elements, “obscure and unpredictable”.
4. knowledge or mobilization?
The web is not a collective intelligence, but a “mobilization medium” that constantly invites us to act. “It has nothing to do with any kind of freedom. On the contrary, it nourishes voluntary submission and generates a microphysics of power whose limits are not yet known.” The web shows that “we are mobilized and subservient animals, ready to act on command without understanding the reason for our actions”.
5 Alienation or Revelation?
The web does not alienate man, but shows his true nature: “Man reveals himself as animals in need of technology and always ready to exchange imagined freedom for real security and real consolation.
6) Submission or emancipation?
The web reveals our helplessness, but it can also be an instrument of practical reason, with which technology can be used for a new beginning of culture, for practical reason: “It describes what becomes possible through freedom – freedom, which in turn is a technique, the most difficult of all techniques”.

An interesting analysis especially regarding recording and submission problems. However, in the conclusion itself there is a dilemma: the new beginning is to arise from submission, the instrument of practical reason from helplessness.

Can trust be generated digitally?

The blockchain hype relies on processes and data management to run safely and more effectively. Does this also make the content more credible? Can trust be generated digitally? Kai Stinchcombe, head of a financial services company, says no:

“Blockchain systems do not magically make the data in them accurate or the people entering the data trustworthy, they merely enable you to audit whether it has been tampered with. A person who sprayed pesticides on a mango can still enter onto a blockchain system that the mangoes were organic. A corrupt government can create a blockchain system to count the votes and just allocate an extra million addresses to their cronies. An investment fund whose charter is written in software can still misallocate funds.”

The real problem is still the prerequisites and the trustworthiness of the data at the beginning of the process chain.

 

Kai Stinchcombe: Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future, Medium 05.04.2018

Sieht so das Internet der Zukunft aus? Die Blockchain soll das Geschäftsleben revolutionieren und eine neue Ära der Demokratie einläuten. Nun gibt es erste Dienste, die erahnen lassen, wohin die Reise geht. Tagesanzeiger 10.07.2018 

Data as Menetekel 2: 100,000 fawns

In the article in the German newspaper FAZ by  Erik HechtTausende tote Rehe erfunden. Die Spur führt nach Hamburg vom 14.07.2018 “is proven that the number of 100,000 deer kids that die in Germany from mowing machines on meadows was invented by the German Wildlife Foundation. The real number can only be estimated and is probably half. As sad as the death of every single fawn is, it is normal in almost all areas to influence public opinion with purely invented data.

Data as Menetekel 1: 6000 dead

According to the German Umweltbundesamt, 6000 people in Germany die prematurely each year from nitrogen oxide. This number has been criticized in several articles, e.g. Jan Fleischhauer, Kampf gegen den Diesel. The fictitious dead, in: Spiegel Online 15.03.2018 Epidemiological studies can only show correlations, but cannot prove causalities.
The President of the Umweltbundesamt (UBA), Maria Krautzberger: “In office we discuss again and again how we can talk about complicated data that we collect. When do we have to simplify in order to be understood? Governments need such figures and their comparability to know the sum of health risks to people and where they need to do something”.
In short: the data has been invented. This handling of data shows a specific relationship to the citizen. It is not intended to give them an insight into the risks and then use political discourse to determine which risks could be reduced at what cost. He remains an object of propaganda and must not experience one thing: Cows may be more dangerous than cars when it comes to nitric oxide.

The construction of a fictitious reality with correlating data

Fictitious reality is constructed not least with the help of data. A popular method is to reinterpret correlations of statistical data into causal relationships. A very good article by Christian Stöcker: Bestseller author about “Einsamkeit Die Methode Spitzer”, in: Spiegel Online 11.03.2018 analyses the method, how bestseller authors set opinion trends without a factual or scientific basis. It’s about Manfred Spitzer’s book: Manfred Spitzer: Einsamkeit. Die unerkannte Krankheit. Droemer Verlag 2018 ISBN: 978-3-426-27676-1..

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