The Rise Of The Algorithm Part Two
Advisory: The following article information and logical analysis that may be of little interest or no use to children.
Ok, children go out and play, the grown ups want to talk. As implied by the title I want to talk algorithms, but first, having established a beachhead with the first part of this article I'd like to plant a flag. This is my country Jack! I recited the pledge of allegiance at least five thousand times in my life and meant every word. I taught it to my kids, and they taught it to theirs. I worked on community projects, was a Boy Scout, trick or treated for U Thant, volunteered in every community I ever lived in and tithed to every churched I ever belonged to. My country, and I'll be damned if a jumped up ambulance chaser from Arkansas or a home grown Hitler are going to take it from me. It is my hope that through a better understanding of the forces of nature people will come together and WORK to take back what has been stolen. To that end I'd like to look at one of those forces, the algorithm.
Many people either do not know what an algorithm is, or have only a fuzzy notion of the word’s meaning. Most will have no idea what role the algorithm plays in everyday life or the future of our world. No shame in that whatsoever. I shall provide a brief explanation here, and as always I encourage you to open google, make use of their algorithm and start digging.
The dictionary describes an algorithm as a specific set of rules or directions which are to be followed using various statistical data and mathematical equations. In other words in a broad sense an algorithm is a bit like a recipe; but as I said, this is a very bare description and hardly where your understanding should stop.
Let us take a look at the origins of the algorithm. Our history credits an ancient mathematician and philosopher with the first use, and therefore discovery of the algorithm in his search for a reliable method for identifying the greatest common divisor of two numbers by using. a successive set of subtractions using two arbitrary locations in the numbers set (say, A and B) and simply going through the set allowing each b that is greater than a to replace a; once b equals zero, a is reliably the greatest common divisor. Without that, we don't have access to the kinds of shortcuts needed to perform geometric or algebraic equations, and we would still be living in the Bronze Age.If you don't understand it that's ok, I didn't at first, but in time I realized that, like all basic math formulas it represents the basis for logic.
So what's the big deal? Some old dude in history (way, way, way back stuff) invents some boring blah blah blah thing, why should I care? Well that my friend is what the keepers of such.things are counting on you to ask. It's the reason our language is chockablock with phrases like, “it is what it is”, or if it ain't broke don't fix it” or my personal favorite, “keep it simple stupid” (note that simple and stupid are words often used to describe the same person). The fact is, algorithms, while most often associated with computer science (yawn) have been used for centuries and by every science. So what's this “rise” of the algorithm? Simply put, algorithms used to be employed by government agencies NGO’s and all around smart people to create space travel, manage large populations, divert hunger, just about everything needed to make it possible for each successive generation to succeed as well or better than the last. In recent years though the use of algorithmic has been hijacked by means of patents and in large part the transformation of a nation’s educational system from that of number one in the world to one of its least adequate. Instead of developing formulas for insurance companies to determine what the cost of coverage should be, the formulas are now used to determine how to evade payment of benefits, and how best to invest the profits. Those algorithms found that investing that money, our money, in the countries of our enemies, or rather our frenemies. I heard that in doing so we would make them more like us. Yeah, like Iraq will someday thank us for the war.
Look, I could write s book about it, but I'll settle for this: Algorithms have unlimited potential for our achievement as a species, but only in the hands of leadership that is the most responsive, and responsible to me, that's always been the U.S.. Us, in other words. Or the same. Or whatever. Anyway, we haven't done well in the way of demonstrating that in some time. I give you yet again the 2016 election for president. Two of the most despised people in the country, and they are the only ones who could win. The lesser of two evils? Come on. In the third and last segment of this piece, The Ascension of the Actuary we will shed some light on who, why and how these powerful little formulas have been used to steal not just our children's futures, but ours as well.
Advisory: The following article information and logical analysis that may be of little interest or no use to children.
Ok, children go out and play, the grown ups want to talk. As implied by the title I want to talk algorithms, but first, having established a beachhead with the first part of this article I'd like to plant a flag. This is my country Jack! I recited the pledge of allegiance at least five thousand times in my life and meant every word. I taught it to my kids, and they taught it to theirs. I worked on community projects, was a Boy Scout, trick or treated for U Thant, volunteered in every community I ever lived in and tithed to every churched I ever belonged to. My country, and I'll be damned if a jumped up ambulance chaser from Arkansas or a home grown Hitler are going to take it from me. It is my hope that through a better understanding of the forces of nature people will come together and WORK to take back what has been stolen. To that end I'd like to look at one of those forces, the algorithm.
Many people either do not know what an algorithm is, or have only a fuzzy notion of the word’s meaning. Most will have no idea what role the algorithm plays in everyday life or the future of our world. No shame in that whatsoever. I shall provide a brief explanation here, and as always I encourage you to open google, make use of their algorithm and start digging.
The dictionary describes an algorithm as a specific set of rules or directions which are to be followed using various statistical data and mathematical equations. In other words in a broad sense an algorithm is a bit like a recipe; but as I said, this is a very bare description and hardly where your understanding should stop.
Let us take a look at the origins of the algorithm. Our history credits an ancient mathematician and philosopher with the first use, and therefore discovery of the algorithm in his search for a reliable method for identifying the greatest common divisor of two numbers by using. a successive set of subtractions using two arbitrary locations in the numbers set (say, A and B) and simply going through the set allowing each b that is greater than a to replace a; once b equals zero, a is reliably the greatest common divisor. Without that, we don't have access to the kinds of shortcuts needed to perform geometric or algebraic equations, and we would still be living in the Bronze Age.If you don't understand it that's ok, I didn't at first, but in time I realized that, like all basic math formulas it represents the basis for logic.
So what's the big deal? Some old dude in history (way, way, way back stuff) invents some boring blah blah blah thing, why should I care? Well that my friend is what the keepers of such.things are counting on you to ask. It's the reason our language is chockablock with phrases like, “it is what it is”, or if it ain't broke don't fix it” or my personal favorite, “keep it simple stupid” (note that simple and stupid are words often used to describe the same person). The fact is, algorithms, while most often associated with computer science (yawn) have been used for centuries and by every science. So what's this “rise” of the algorithm? Simply put, algorithms used to be employed by government agencies NGO’s and all around smart people to create space travel, manage large populations, divert hunger, just about everything needed to make it possible for each successive generation to succeed as well or better than the last. In recent years though the use of algorithmic has been hijacked by means of patents and in large part the transformation of a nation’s educational system from that of number one in the world to one of its least adequate. Instead of developing formulas for insurance companies to determine what the cost of coverage should be, the formulas are now used to determine how to evade payment of benefits, and how best to invest the profits. Those algorithms found that investing that money, our money, in the countries of our enemies, or rather our frenemies. I heard that in doing so we would make them more like us. Yeah, like Iraq will someday thank us for the war.
Look, I could write s book about it, but I'll settle for this: Algorithms have unlimited potential for our achievement as a species, but only in the hands of leadership that is the most responsive, and responsible to me, that's always been the U.S.. Us, in other words. Or the same. Or whatever. Anyway, we haven't done well in the way of demonstrating that in some time. I give you yet again the 2016 election for president. Two of the most despised people in the country, and they are the only ones who could win. The lesser of two evils? Come on. In the third and last segment of this piece, The Ascension of the Actuary we will shed some light on who, why and how these powerful little formulas have been used to steal not just our children's futures, but ours as well.
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