Episodes
Wednesday Nov 25, 2020
Wednesday Nov 25, 2020
Has Apple or Google uploaded a COVID-19 tracking app to your phone without asking first? One million Coloradans have opted in to receive COVID-19 exposure notifications - now what? Could voluntary apps become part of unalterable operating systems? How exactly does Bluetooth work and what are the security risks with Bluetooth communications? What’s the deal with homemade PPE? How do biological teachings or OSHA classes differ from the cascade of health-preservation advice or directives issued by governments, hospitals, and even talk show hosts? Environment / Health / Safety & Data Systems Expert Carl Hopf guides us to the granular level of these matters. Read the full blog post for this episode at safetyphd.com ABOUT CARL HOPF. Carl has worked in Environment, Health and Safety, and facility management for over 25 years. He started working as a technician in laboratories, then evolving into managing academic clinical and basic laboratories in NJ. He was also an academic IT manager, educational video conferencing manager and has been involved in emergency response for many years. Carl has also worked in emergency management, HAZMAT/BIOMAT/RADMAT for eight years. He has also worked in EHS and data management in a corporate and manufacturing setting for six years. Currently, he is a contractor for multiple companies that are involved in management systems, EHS, and safety. COVID PHONE APP and BLUETOOTH. Carl noted that New Jersey was overt in notifying residents about the COVID19 tracking app downloaded to their phones. The app opt-in is voluntary and it functions by using the phone's Bluetooth feature, which constantly scans for nearby channels and is a big drain on battery life. Walking in public, Bluetooth has a radius of about 15 feet. The tracking app will immediately notify the phone’s owner if they are in close contact with another app user who has tested positive for coronavirus. Close contact is defined as spending 15 minutes for longer near someone who tested positive for the virus. The app won’t identify the infected person (HIPPA) and prompts the user to call a contact tracing team for additional directions (contact tracing). COULD VOLUNTARY APPS BECOME PART OF THE PHONE OS? Carl stated that if the COVID19 tracking app was embedded in a future version of his phone’s operating system, he would choose to no longer use the phone. There was an uptick in flip phone sales prior to the pandemic as people attempted to break from addiction to their smartphones and concerns about tracking existed well before 2020. PROBLEMS WITH HOMEMADE PPE (and all PPE). Carl describes micron ranges and questions the effectiveness of homemade PPE which has been made from both yarn and underwear. He recounts the PPE he wore while working in virology labs and the stringent security protocols to ensure that PPE never left the “gray” zone - which was the area proximal to bacteria or viruses. This is a huge contrast to people around us carrying their masks with them from place to place and shoving them into the car’s cup holder until the next time they “need it” to enter a building. WHAT A PPE AWARE SHOPPING EXPERIENCE WOULD BE LIKE. Imagine the entrance of a grocery store in which the incoming shopper was required to gown up and wear a store-issued mask. And, when they exited the store, they would deposit their PPE into a secure disposal unit. Carl states that the CDC manuals for biohazards are in conflict with recent guidance - and that guidance was also changing often and not standardized across locations - resulting in safety fatigue. COMPLIANCE SAFETY vs. BEHAVIOR BASED SAFETY. Carl unpacks two prevailing psychological approaches to safety. The first is compliance safety, or people performing an act in order to be compliant with a rule. For example, crossing a street at the crosswalk when the “WALK” light turns white. Behavior based safety is more centered to the person surveying their setting and making decisions that they deem matches the situation and context. For example, deciding which side of the street that they will walk on. Carl cautions that an over-abundance of compliance safety devolves to people complying just to get the outcome, and losing sight of the deeper rationale for their actions. These are also known as “check box” activities. He urges people to question why they are being asked to do things - to seek to understand the fundamental purposes. FOLLOW DR. PERRODIN: Twitter @SafetyPhD and subscribe to The Safety Doc YouTube channel & Apple Podcasts. SAFETY DOC WEBSITE & BLOG: www.safetyphd.com. The Safety Doc Podcast is hosted & produced by David Perrodin, PhD. ENDORSEMENTS. Opinions are those of the host & guests. The show seeks to bring forward scholarly thought on topics relevant to personal or community safety. This is episode 152 of The Safety Doc Podcast published on 11-24-2020.
- Purchase Dr. Perrodin’s Book: School of Errors – Rethinking School Safety in America www.schooloferrors.com
Friday Nov 13, 2020
Friday Nov 13, 2020
Doc unpacks how 2020 was the year that mass media and big tech fogged the American people and became the gatekeepers of the First Amendment. People are measuring their words or waking up to an unchallengeable revocation of their social media platforms (just ask Mike Glover). It’s time for a sober reckoning of considerations and consequences for expression and “the marketplace of ideas” in the social media age. This is episode 151 of The Safety Doc Podcast. Read the full blog post at safetyphd.com THE FIRST AMENDMENT. The First Amendment protects freedom of religion, speech, press, petition, and peaceful assembly. It doesn’t actually promise you the right to say whatever you want. It simply states the government can take no action that interferes with those rights. Per David Hudson, Jr., “The First Amendment only limits governmental actors—federal, state, and local—but there are good reasons why this should be changed. Certain powerful private entities—particularly social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and others—can limit, control, and censor speech as much or more than governmental entities. A society that cares for the protection of free expression needs to recognize that the time has come to extend the reach of the First Amendment to cover these powerful, private entities that have ushered in a revolution in terms of communication capabilities.” (AmericanBarAssoc, 2019). SECTION 230 OF THE COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY ACT. Passed in 1996, before social media, Section 230 protects websites from lawsuits if a user posts something illegal. In the United States, the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting most forms of speech, which would include many proposals to force tech companies to moderate content. A law that required companies to moderate content based on the political viewpoint it expresses, for example, would likely be struck down as unconstitutional. However, private companies can create rules to restrict speech if they so choose. This is why Facebook and Twitter ban hate speech, for example, even though it is permitted under the First Amendment. IS ANYTHING BEING DONE TO EXPAND FIRST AMENDMENT TO SOCIAL MEDIA SITES? In January 2020, Joe Biden proposed revoking Section 230 which would make tech giants and online platforms responsible for knowingly allowing content on their platforms that promotes and facilitates violence. Nothing was done, however. EXPANDING FIRST AMENDMENT TO PRIVATE COMPANIES? The American Bar Association argues that it’s time to expand First Amendment The point here is that when an entity like Facebook engages in censorship, individuals don’t get to participate in the marketplace of ideas and are not allowed the liberty to engage in individual self fulfillment— just like when a governmental entity engages in censorship. When a private actor has control over online communications and online forums, these private actors are analogous to a governmental actor. HOW AN HOA RULING MIGHT EXPAND FREE SPEECH. The state high court wrote: “In New Jersey, an individual’s affirmative right to speak freely is protected not only from abridgement by government, but also from unreasonably restrictive and oppressive conduct by private entities in certain situations.” (Mazdabrook Commons Homeowners Association v. Khan, 2012). This ruling impacts posting flyers to hanging flags. SOCIAL MEDIA AND BIG TECH TERMS OF USE. You accepted the terms to use social media. These sites are free BECAUSE they harvest your data, analyze everything you put on their sites, and sell it to marketers and governments. FUTURE OF FREE SPEECH IN A SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD. Algorithms and complaints will lead to more deplatorming. A pandering government is unlikely to challenge big tech monopolies and big tech would have much influence over public perception if suddenly limiting individuals’ access to its services or implementing fees for traditionally free services such as email. GMAIL and Google suite are not public goods. YES, THE COVID19 TRACKING APP WAS INSTALLED ON YOUR PHONE. Seemingly overnight, millions of phones around the world got a feature to help track and slow down the spread of Coronavirus. Google and Apple partnered on the system, which is technically called “contact tracing” but goes by the less intimidating “exposure notification.” This app is now passively on most of the world’s smartphones. FOLLOW DR. PERRODIN: Twitter @SafetyPhD and subscribe to The Safety Doc YouTube channel & Apple Podcasts. SAFETY DOC WEBSITE & BLOG: www.safetyphd.com. The Safety Doc Podcast is hosted & produced by David Perrodin, PhD. ENDORSEMENTS. Opinions are those of the host & guests. The show seeks to bring forward scholarly thought on topics relevant to personal or community safety. This is episode 151 of The Safety Doc Podcast published on 11-13-2020.
- Purchase Dr. Perrodin’s Book: School of Errors – Rethinking School Safety in America www.schooloferrors.com
Tuesday Nov 10, 2020
Tuesday Nov 10, 2020
Doc burns down the birthday candles as he speculates how a Biden presidency might influence chaos behavior and regression to the mean. In addition, the sudden and complete de-platforming of tactical survivalist Mike Glover sends a cautionary message to all people that produce content in the prepper / survivalists genre. Finally, with Google seemingly out of the woods from a monopoly hearing, will the company slice Adsense revenue to content producers or begin charging for traditionally free services, such as GMAIL? This is episode 150 of The Safety Doc Podcast. Read this full blog post at safetyphd.com REGRESSION TO THE MEAN. In episode #149, Doc referenced his graphics to illustrate that American society was failing to regress to the mean following the March, 2020 black swan COVID19 event. Although typically viewed as precipitating disaster and chaos, a black swan event can also have the opposite effect. Doc ponders if the Biden victory was perceived by many Americans as an event that would usher in political changes that would bring substantial stimulus funding and a pivot that would somehow return people to what they remember as pre-COVID19 times. Biden’s win disrupted Finite Voltage, but, as Doc cautions, regression to the mean is rarely swift and lasting. HOW SCHOOL FUNDING WILL CHANGE. School choice will grind to a halt with the appointment of a Secretary of Education. These battles will intensify at the state level and be settled by the courts. School safety funding will be front and center in the next stimulus package with the emphasis on updating HVAC and air filtration systems and an array of antivirus devices and products. Most of these will be vetted with nothing more than customer perceived value and social proof. Doc argues that this spending will have little practical impact on student health other than implementation of more hand washing stations. DE-PLATFORMING MIKE GLOVER. Former U.S. Army Special Forces Sergeant Major Mike Glover is CEO and owner of Fieldcraft Survival Inc. He was the recipient of a rapid, organized social media platforming campaign in early November which also resulted in the disabling of his company’s website and interference with family member’s social media accounts. Aware of Mike’s work, Doc disputes claims that Glover’s training, apparel, and gear warranted any form of censorship. Although Mike has restored his core sites, he’s aware that his social media sites could be suspended at any time. Doc ponders if Mike will lose customers who might be apprehensive that their association with him will result in being added to some double secret probation list. AOC’S LIST. AOC put a nation on notice when suggesting that “someone” should assemble a list of individuals and organizations that supported the Trump administration. She added that the list should become a public record. Doc noted that her declaration hinted at truth and reconciliation hearings after WWII and had a more contemporary tone of ushering in a Social Credit Score similar to the one posted to YouTube by Tom Scott. Doc added that Americans are already assigned social credit scores and anticipates the process will become announced and overt within the next 2 years. Ironically, he believes 70% of Americans would willingly embrace personal social credit scores if they were told it was a step that would return them to life similar pre-COVID19. FOLLOW DR. PERRODIN: Twitter @SafetyPhD and subscribe to The Safety Doc YouTube channel & Apple Podcasts. SAFETY DOC WEBSITE & BLOG: www.safetyphd.com. The Safety Doc Podcast is hosted & produced by David Perrodin, PhD. ENDORSEMENTS. Opinions are those of the host & guests. The show seeks to bring forward productive discourse on topics relevant to personal or community safety. This is episode 150 of The Safety Doc Podcast published on 11-07-2020.
- Purchase Dr. Perrodin’s Book: School of Errors – Rethinking School Safety in America www.schooloferrors.com