Follow-up: The misadventures of a prospective traveler

Recently, I had great problems booking an airplane ticket to Sweden, ultimately resorting to using a travel agency, which required both an unnecessary fee and a trip on foot.

For my return to Germany, my seasoned-traveler father booked the ticket from his computer.* While this worked in one go, the service that he ended up using (“supersavertravel”) was abysmal: The entire interface seemed geared at one thing and thing only—to coerce the user into buying expensive additional services that he did not need. This to the point that it was necessary to explicitly decline these many services and to do so individually—no, I do not want a hotel; no, I do not want extra insurance; no I do not want a rental car; no, …; no, …; no, …; no, …; no, …; no, …; no, …; no, …; no, …; … I even seem to recall (but could be wrong) that there was an additional query after submit along the lines of “You have not chosen this-or-that. Are you really sure that this is deliberate?”… Utterly inexcusable was the checkbox to decline spam: Where more main-stream businesses use a checked checkbox to imply “I consent to be spammed”, here the user needed to check the checkbox to decline spam…** The confirmation email, unsurprisingly, contained much more advertising and attempts to bring unneeded services to my attention than it did confirmation…***

*I had left my own computer in Germany in order to travel lightly; and only bought a one-way ticket to Sweden, because I did not know how long I needed to stay.

**Implying that the main idea almost certainly was to trick users into making the wrong choice.

***This in stark contrast to EuroWings below, where the confirmation email was informative, to the point, and did not even abuse HTML for the email text. (Portions of [1] contain some discussion of why HTML has no place in emails.)

A second trip turned out to be needed.* I tried EuroWings again, and this time everything actually worked.** However:

*My mother’s old house is being sold, and the time needed to sort through my own old books and whatnot turned out to be much longer than I originally thought.

**Contrast this with the original text. This time, I made sure to pay by credit card (3D-secure was not needed) instead of invoice. I do not know whether the old issue was a temporary server-side problem, a problem with a workflow somewhere, or whether there is some problem relating to invoices that I now ducked. (Regarding workflow: In my experience, most QA checks tend to run through fairly straight-forward scenarios, meaning that a scenario that involves the user e.g. going back to a previous step, responding to a validation error, actually reading the T-&-C’s, whatnot, is often left untested. These scenarios, however, are disproportionately likely to cause errors—especially when Ajax and other “state sensitive” technologies are used.)

1. EuroWings too tried to advertise additional services, if far fewer, in a manner that detracted considerably from usability and prolonged the process unnecessarily. Unlike with “supersavertravel”, they were all opt-in, but it would be so much better if they were all collectively moved to a separate and skippable step, especially since they will only ever be interesting for a small minority of the customers. (Be it because they have no need, already have made other arrangements, would lose points with some program by booking/buying somewhere else, …)

   Hotels are a potentially odd area. In the specific context of a flight, admittedly, I can see many cases where it would be helpful to “co-book” a hotel. However, hotels are offered more-or-less everywhere, including for e.g. train-travel. In most of these cases, booking a hotel together with the means of travel turns the reasonable workflow on its head: It is usually the hotel, not the means of travel, that is the bottle-neck, and a reasonable workflow would then involve finding and booking a hotel first and finding means of travel second.

2. Integrating a please-do-not-spam-me checkbox in the main pages would be trivial. Nevertheless, declining spam is only possible through visiting a separate page. On this page, moreover, the email address has to be added redundantly and manually, and it could be (depending on internals and the exact steps used by the customer) that the spam rejection only takes effect after the fact, e.g. in that the one click somewhere activates an unethical implicit consent to spam, while the other page only revokes this consent. This would leave a window of abuse open.

   Frankly, this is so common that legal measures are necessary: It must by law be forbidden both to use implicit consents and to require explicit rejections for any use of personal data (in general, but the more so for email data) that is not central to the process for which the data was provided. This, notably, from the customers perspective—not the data collector’s. (For instance, the data collector might see sending a news letter with advertising as a central part and having to send a confirmation email as an annoying negative, but for the customer it is the other way around.)

3. There are potentially redundant entries for email, including one for the actual transaction and one for please-notify-me-in-case-of-delays. It would be better to keep them as one per default (if in doubt by automatically filling the one with the other and allowing a manual change). Further, the entries are likely made in the wrong order for most users, with a non-mandatory entry of please-notify-me-in-case-of-delays on one page and the mandatory actual transaction address on a later page. Further, the former came with a pop-up upon submit that urged me to fill in this non-mandatory field anyway—which seems more like fishing for email addresses than an attempt to provide a service.

   Why had I left the email address out? Well, I knew from my earlier attempts* that if I did provide an email address for notifications, then I would also be forced to provide a cell-phone** number—absolutely idiotic.

   *The attempts in general are described in the original text, but details like the above were left out.

   **Note that I currently do not even have a cell-phone. Also note that cell-phones too can be abused for spam (through SMS).

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“The Crimes of Grindelwald” and recognizing evil

“The Crimes of Grindelwald” is a very disappointing* movie, but it does point to a few issues that I have addressed repeatedly in the past.

*My main criticisms: The otherwise weakish predecessor was carried by streaks of comedy and the dynamics between/charm of the four main protagonists, especially regarding wizard–muggle interaction. These aspects were largely lost. (The comedy aspect is even replaced by dread and dire and a too depressing visual tone.) The plot is unengaging, seems poorly though-through, and is confusing to boot. New characters and relationships are mostly too bland, boring, and/or unsympathetic to warrant interest and emotional investment, which is a particular negative for several “tragic characters”.

This includes the fact that there will be persons, usually very many, on both sides of a conflict who are convinced that they are “the good guys” and that their opponents are “the bad guys”—implying that even the strongest conviction of being right (that the opposing party is evil, whatnot) does not, in it self, justify extreme means. Indeed, looking at e.g. party programs from more-or-less any party, I can find a lot that makes sense in principle or, at least, is sufficiently plausible that I can understand that weak thinkers are swayed—thought, a knowledge/understanding of the issues, and/or insight into other positions is often needed to see why the program is flawed or would make a poor policy.* Calls for evil actions for “the greater good” tend to be particularly dangerous—it is no coincidence that this phrase is often used by madmen, terrorists, dictators, dystopian societies, whatnot in fiction. (But note that those who call for the greater good in real life rarely do so using the explicit phrase.)

*Consider e.g. a simplistic “women earn 77 cents on the dollar; ergo, the government must intervene to create justice”, which collapses on closer inspection. (See several older texts, including [1].)

It also includes that opinions (goals, ideals, …; I will use just “opinion[s]” below) must not be a primary factor when judging who is more or less evil in most* conflicts.** Instead, we have to consider the following (overlapping) issues:

*Exceptions are sufficiently rare that I cannot give a strong example of the top of my head. They are likely to exist, however. (Possibly, relating to a legally clear situation.)

**With the corollary that condemning an opinion as evil, because of evil methods used to enforce that opinion, is equally as bad as (cf. above) using an opinion perceived as good to justify evil methods.

1. What methods are used? Do the methods include e.g. unprovoked violence, censorship of dissent, character assassination, …?

   Overlapping with the above, I would even replace the common, misguided, claim that “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” with “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to use evil means”. (Where, at least, my “good” refers to self-perception, as demonstrated by many Soviet/Chinese/whatnot Communists and the Nazis.) Very many evils in this world go back to the use of evil means for purposes seen as good; and by refraining from evil means, such evils are considerably reduced or avoided altogether. Vice versa, a believer in the naive original might well take it as a reason to cause, not oppose, evil in the name of good.

2. How do the counter-parts interact with opposing opinions? Are the opinions evaluated neutrally and with an open mind or are they rejected as wrong, or even evil, in a blanket manner? Are the counter-parts willing to adjust their own opinions, should the evidence call for it? Are arguments engaged with counter-arguments or with insults? Etc.

   I note that this is not just a matter of fairness. Two other important implications is that (a) those who are more open-minded tend to be right more often, (b) a destructive attitude threatens the right of others to develop their own opinions and can limit both societal and scientific progress.*

   *Note e.g. the destructive effects of how parts of the PC movement denounce scientifically supported claims around I.Q., the influence of “nature”, whatnot—to the point that some scientists avoid certain research topics for fear of repercussions. The problems are so large that a pseudonymous journal is in planning to alleviate it (the linked-to article also contains several good illustrations of the problem).

3. What basis do the opinions originally have? Are they based in reason or wishful thinking, factual arguments or uncritical belief in what one is told, correct or incorrect interpretation of statistics, …?

   Again, those with a good reason tend to be right more often. I note that e.g. pushing policies based on faulty ideas or premises can do an enormous amount of harm to society, as with e.g. how an unduly positive belief in the benefits of school* and a wish for more school (to solve any number of problems) wastes enormous amounts of resources, takes large chunks out of the lives of the students, and often leads to only marginal improvements—or even has negative effects (e.g. through taking time away from self-studies among the bright or frustrating and over-taxing the dim).

   *As opposed to education—a very important differentiation. However, even more education is not always sensible, being dependent on the individuals interests, abilities, and goals in life.

4. With what degree of honesty do the counter-parts push their opinions and agendas? Do they believe what they say and say what they believe, or do they e.g. have a hidden agenda or do they use arguments that they do not hold-up to scrutiny?

   As a specific example: Was Grindelwald a true believer—or did he rather create and manipulate true believers for his own personal gain? (I strongly suspect the latter to hold.)

(Additional issues might be worthy of consideration, e.g. whether an agenda is driven by partisan benefit* vs. ethical principles or the good of society as a whole.)

*Not to be confused with the above case of e.g. having a hidden agenda of personal power: Here the issue is e.g. wanting to benefit a certain partisan group (say with a laborers’ party, a farmers’ party, a make-our-region-independent party, whatnot).

A particular interesting overlap between the movie and some texts is that the use of evil or disproportionate methods can drive people into the enemy camp, cause radicalization, or similar. This through at least two mechanisms, (a) that “mild” opponents might be left with no where to go but the camp of the “rabid” opponents, (b) that the use of evil methods causes a negative reaction. This, incidentally, appears to have some parallels in other areas, e.g. in that anti-drug legislation often does more to cause crime and worsen the life of the drug-users than to improve matters, or ditto for anti-prostitution* laws. Particularly the (b) case appears to have been working to Grindelwald’s advantage, when the government(s) used evil methods of its own.

*As claimed in an article I encountered a few days ago (note several links to further discussion).

Excursion on necessary evil means:
There might be situations where the use of evil means can be necessary even in a good cause. (A widely accepted example is using reasonable amounts of violence in self-defense against an unprovoked attacker.) However, here great care must be taken to not overstep a reasonable minimum, to minimize the effect on third-parties, etc. A more thorough discussion would be well outside the scope of this text, might be impossible without stipulating a number of ethical principles, and might have to include considerable analysis of individual examples. Consider e.g. questions like when and to what degree it might be allowable to interfere with civic rights for fear of terrorism or to accept civilian casualties during warfare.

Excursion on Grindelwald:
Is Grindelwald evil? In my opinion, “yes”—because I have the impression that he does let the end justify the means, is callous of the rights of others, has hidden agendas, … (Then again, my impression might be incorrect, seeing that the movie was not always explicit, that I might misremember previous information, and that earlier books, which mention him as evil, might have predisposed me towards this interpretation.)

Note that my reasons do not (at least consciously) include that he “looked evil”, that the main protagonists opposed him, that he was condemned as evil by officials, … Consider Professor Snape (from earlier books/movies) for someone who gave many superficial signs of being evil, but who was actually* a great hero and an important ally—and contrast him with several good-seeming-but-evil other teachers.

*Notwithstanding that an accusation of “being a mean bastard”, “having an unfair personal dislike of Harry”, or similar might have been true.

Here, as elsewhere, it is important not just to draw the right conclusion (X is evil; Y is good; …), but to do so for the right reasons. Evil in the real world often has a friendly face; good often does not—much unlike in children’s cartoons.

Hypocritical treatment of the Right and the Left / Yellow vests

I have often touched on issues like the hypocritical treatment of the Right* compared to the Left, the uselessness of the Left–Right scale, and how often various derogatory and debate killing labels** are thrown around by the Left (the PC crowd, whatnot).

*One of the aspects of the uselessness of the Left–Right scale is that the “Right” is too heterogeneous to be a truly useful term (unlike “Left”). I use it here for consistency with typical discussions.

**For instance, (more often than not) unfounded accusations of someone or something being “Fascist”, “sexist”, “racist”, … I note e.g. the use of “Fascist” by Soviet Communists to refer to other Communists or the condemnation of the entire West-Germany and/or the “Western Bloc” as such by the East-German leaders (e.g. by referring to the Berlin Wall as “antifaschistischer Schutzwall”—“Anti-Fascist rampart”).

The treatment of the Yellow-Vest movement (in at least German and Swedish) media is a good example:

The movement is based on a mixture of general or politically neutral dissatisfaction with dissatisfaction of a Leftist type. It has a strong analog in preceding German movements that were built around general or politically neutral dissatisfaction with dissatisfaction (dubiously) considered “Rightist”.*

*Notably, regarding e.g. immigration, which I consider narrow-minded to not view as neutral on the Left–Right scale (and/or as further proof of its uselessness).

The latter have often been strongly condemned as “Rightist extremists” or “Rightist populist” (“rechtsextremistisch” resp. “rechtspopulistisch”), despite having comparatively little overlap with most Right-wing opinions. They are first (misleadingly) classified as “Right-wing” based almost solely on issues like migration—and then the debate focuses strongly on their being “Right-wing” and “populist” or “extremist”.

Not so with the Yellow Vests, however: I cannot recall seeing a single instance of them being labeled as “Left-wing” (let alone ‘Leftist extremist” or “Leftist populist”). Instead they are discussed in terms of their more specific complaints, issues, and behaviors. In it self, this is good—this is how it should be. But: Why is the same courtesy of issue-based description not extended to movements considered on the “Right”? Why are they blanketed away as “Right-this” and “Right-that” without looking at what they actually believe in detail? Why are they blanketed away as “dissatisfaction movements”* without taking their concerns seriously?

*I am unaware of a corresponding English family of words, but e.g. the Swedish “Missnöjesparti” (“dissatisfaction party”) is long established as a derogatory way of dismissing concerns by the implication that the party just populistically rides dissatisfaction without anything to offer, that its adherents complain about things that are no big deal, that the adherents project their own dissatisfaction in life onto external issues, or similar. Label something as “Missnöjes[something]” and it can be ignored in a blanket manner.

This is the odder as the Yellow Vests have been more prone to e.g. violent behavior than their German counter-parts and do not trail in terms of dissatisfaction mentality and whatnot.

I actually have some fear that the Yellow Vests will be paradoxically condemned as “Rightist” (!) whatnots at some future time, because someone will eventually make statements that are or can be misconstrued to sound e.g. nationalist, xenophobe, or anti-Islam during a major protest—which will allow a pseudo-classification as “Right”…

Follow-up: Fraudulent product information/German DVDs/Koch Media

In January, I wrote about the fraudulent behavior of Koch Media regarding the 1980s/1990s Sherlock-Holmes series*.

On the same day, I sent an email to Koch Media with a demand for rectification. This received a near-immediate automatic confirmation of receipt, implying that Koch Media definitely received said email.

Nevertheless, there has been no further reaction in the almost month since then—despite an explicit dead-line set for the 21st of January.

Correspondingly, I will now put the matter in the hands of the police.

I have already (as explicitly mentioned in the email to Koch Media) taken the non-reaction as cause to download the missing episodes from the Internet, which I consider perfectly legal as a remedy of a defect product in light of an uncooperative counter-part*. I advise other victims to do the same, should Koch Media or the respective seller not respond appropriately to complaints.**

*A minor hitch is that, according to German law, the first point of contact and party required to provide remedy is the seller, not the producer, of a good. However, due to the time period involved, I can no longer safely say who the seller was, let alone provide proof of purchase from that seller. Further, it is obvious that the fraud has been perpetrated by the producer (Koch Media), with the sellers likely acting in good faith or even qualifying as victims. Nevertheless, fellow victims with a sufficient knowledge (and preferably a receipt) should turn to the seller first.

**I stress that any such attempt should be preceded by a complaint with a demand for remedy. This to (a) give Koch Media a fair chance, (b) reduce the risk of legal culpability on behalf of the downloader, (c) let Koch Media know that its fraudulent actions have had consequences, giving incentives for an improved behavior. I further stress that this recommendation only applies to purchasers of Koch Media’s product. I refrain from giving explicit download instructions, seeing that such instructions have been legally problematic in some other contexts (however, it is not hard to find out how).

Democracy failure in Germany

Shortly after a recent democracy failure in Sweden, following a German precedent, Germany is trying to pull ahead again:

Apparently, the Bundesland (“state”) of Brandenburg has pushed through a highly ill-advised law that parties must present alternating* male and female candidates on their election lists ([1]).

*As I read the source. It is possible, but less likely, that a 50–50 overall was intended.

This is negative and anti-democratic for at least two reasons:

Firstly, it is an illicit form of discrimination based on sex, which does not consider factors like appropriateness for the position, number of willing and suitable candidates available, how many supporters a party has of each sex, etc. I note in particular the complication that more men than women appear to have the interest/ambition and dedication to pursue a political career. The result on the state parliament is that the quality of the elected will take a hit through the smaller pool from which half the candidates come.* The effect on men is that many who would have made strong** members will be left out; the effect on women that many too weak will be forced in by necessity. The effect on parties is that they cannot pick the candidates they consider suitable, worthy, or attractive-to-voters freely, and those male-dominated will be particularly poorly off. Indeed, a party that is sufficiently dominated by women*** might see similar troubles.

*Even discounting a likely difference in ability distributions.

**Relatively speaking and using the word somewhat loosely: These are politicians, and the proportion of great thinkers will likely be on the low side either which way.

***The Swedish Feminist party “Fi” might be a candidate.

Secondly, this demonstrates a complete failure to understand and respect how a representative democracy works: The elected are not intended to be chosen to reflect the demographics of the people—they are intended to be chosen by the people, in order to best represent the interests of the people. Not only is this law a violation of the principles involved, but it also leaves the people worse off—if the people wants more women elected, it should vote for more women. Similarly, if it prefers to vote for men, people of a certain age or a certain background, whatnot, it is up to the people to do so. Limiting the people’s right to chose through such mechanisms is anti-democratic.* Further, the consequences of such “demography thinking” can easily be seen to be absurd: If sex is a valid quota criterion, then why not age, educational background, profession, country of origin, sexual orientation …? What about the demographics of the party?** How can we justify excluding those below (e.g.) eighteen, if demography is an important criterion? Etc.

*It could be argued that the list systems used in e.g. Germany and Sweden are themselves problematic for similar reasons, and it might be a good idea to move to another system entirely.

**Many parties (especially in multi-party systems) have a heavy tilt in several demographic directions and often see themselves as representing a particular group of people—how is that compatible with being forced to find candidates that reflect a different demographic?

If “demography thinking” is to be considered at all, a completely different system is needed, e.g. one based on random choice instead of election. Consider e.g. a pool of candidates consisting of the entirety of the population, or a portion of the population satisfying certain criteria*, and a computer picking out the “elected” based purely on chance from this pool.

*Notable possibilities are “is above eighteen” and “is a citizen”, but criteria that include e.g. a certain level of demonstrated accomplishment are conceivable. Great care must be taken, however, seeing that such criteria could easily lead to skew (“must be an Aryan”, “must not belong to the bourgeoisie”, “must be dedicated to diversity”). Indeed, even something as innocuous as “must be willing” could be problematic. On the other hand, having no additional criteria would lead to parliaments even less qualified and more easily manipulated than today’s.

Looking more in detail at the source, there are several disturbing claims made:

Personen, die sich weder dem männlichen noch dem weiblichen Geschlecht zuordnen, können frei entscheiden, ob sie für die Männer- oder die Frauenliste kandidieren.

Translation: Persons, who do not identify as male or female, can chose freely whether to candidate for the men’s or women’s list.*

*This in reference to internal lists, prescribed by the law, that are used as a basis for the final list of candidates presented to the voters.

This allows manipulation by dishonest candidates, e.g. in that a man claims to identify as a woman in order to be let in with less competition, or that some group (e.g. members of a Feminist faction) claim to identify as members of the “opposite” sex to skew the list away from 50–50 proportions.

(Quoting or paraphrasing the chair of the Leftist extremist “Die Linke”, Katja Kipping.)

Mindestens jeder zweite Platz bei der Listenaufstellung für die Bundestagswahl müsse von einer Frau besetzt werden

Translation: At least every second position on the lists for the (federal) parliament election must belong to a woman.

This demonstrates the typical hypocrisy and poorly hidden agenda: If more that every second position belongs to a woman (and by implication less belongs to a man) this is apparently not a problem at all.

(Quoting Ulle Schauws of the usually Left-leaning and often, without hyperbole, out-of-touch-with-reality Green Party.)

Das neue Gesetz sei “ein erster Schritt, um gleiche Zugangschancen für Frauen in der Politik herzustellen”.

Translation: The new law is “a first step towards equal opportunity for women in politics”.

Women already bloody well have equal opportunity in politics—by law. Furthermore, they have had so for a long time. Indeed, since more than half the voters are women, it would have been no problem for underrepresented women to turn things around, had they been blocked internally in some parties: Just vote for another party or found a new party. If too much of the female vote goes missing, any such recalcitrant party would be forced to adapt. The truth is that we have a long history of fewer qualified women being sufficiently interested and dedicated—if you want more women in politics, Frau Schauw, change that!

(Quoting Katerina Barley, member of the social-democrat SPD and current (federal) minister of justice.)

“Unser Ziel muss eine Reform des Wahlrechts* sein, die eine gerechte Beteiligung beider Geschlechter im Parlament unterstützt”

*Here and elsewhere, I translate with “election law”. It is possible that some other phrasing, e.g. “election legislation”, would be more accurate.

Translation: “Our goal must be a reform of the election law that supports a fair participation of both sexes in parliament”

The same as above applies, with an additional pointer to previous comments on representative democracy.

(Quoting Franziska Giffey, also a member of the social-democrat SPD and the current (federal) family minister.)

Auch [sie] plädierte dafür, […] Frauen verstärkt anzusprechen und für politische Beteiligung zu gewinnen. “Das Wahlrecht kann dabei ein wichtiger Hebel sein”

Translation: [She], too, pleaded* […]** that women be more strongly addressed and won for political participation. “Election law can be an important lever for this purpose”

*The English word might be stronger than its German cognate (“plädierte”).

**The deleted portion has only a marginal effect on meaning, but is hard to translate in context and consists of unnecessary political verbiage.

Unlike the preceding, Frau Giffey appears to have an eye on the ball—lack of female participation. However, this type of law is not suited to achieve an increase, and I doubt that there is any other law that would be suited. There can be a positive effect through women realizing that they would get a leg up compared to men,* should they participate, which might actually move some of them to do so. However, this comes as a cost to everyone else (cf. above) and I would view it as an abuse of law-making. If official measures are at all needed and/or justifiable,** better such would simply encourage women to participate, e.g. through pointing to how non-participation increases the risk of, in some sense, “too few” women being elected.

*Or on the outside, through some women who used to (incorrectly) believe that they were disadvantaged now (and now incorrectly) believing in a fair playing field.

**Which I doubt: It is not the government’s decision what people do with their lives.

Notably, no-one who disagreed was quoted, no man was quoted, and no-one not on the Left was quoted, which raises the suspicion of partiality and poor journalism on behalf of the source. It does, however, note that two parties (CDU, AfD) voted against the law and consider it unconstitutional.

Oh, and by the way: The German Chancellor (highest elected politician) for the past thirteen years has been Angela Merkel—a woman. The current cabinet appears to contain 9 men and 7 women (including the Chancellor), according to Wikipedia on Merkel IV. Those poor powerless women…