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July 2017

BLOCKCHAIN FOR GOVERNMENT: A CHEAT SHEET BY CHUCK BROOKS AND DAVID LOGSDON

Chuck Brooks serves as vice president for government relations and marketing for Sutherland Government Solutions and as chairman of the CompTIA New and Emerging Technologies Committee.

David Logsdon is the senior director of public advocacy for CompTIA.

The General Services Administration recently announced its plans to accept quotes from companies for implementing blockchain and other automated machine-learning technologies to enhance GSA’s Multiple Award Schedules FASt Lane program. The program focus is to speed up the process review time for adding products and services to contract vehicles.

The RFQ states, “GSA seeks to intelligently automate the current MAS FASt Lane contract proposal review processes by utilizing distributed ledger technology, automated machine learning, and/or artificial intelligence based technologies.”

Also, on July 18, the U.S. Federal Blockchain Forum, a program of GSA’s Emerging Citizen Technology program, organized in partnership with the Secretary of State’s Office of Global Partnerships and GSA’s Office of Information Technology Category, will be hosting a ground-breaking event. The event will:

Develop, share and discuss practical use cases for blockchain technology among federal government missions.
Identify resource, policy and compliance needs for the effective and efficient evaluation and implementation of blockchain technology in the federal government.
Develop a U.S. Federal Blockchain Atlas and road map for the next six months on how agencies can collaborate to achieve our goals and support the creation of shared services for blockchain technology.

What is Blockchain?

In a nutshell, blockchain is a technology and process for managing data and digital assets. It can be characterized as a public decentralized and distributed ledger technology that records historical transactions of any asset or currency. It functions as a peer-to-peer community network via a consensus-driven process. It is the technology behind cryptocurrencies.

Blockchain acts both as the information and the conduit. It also creates an audit trail that makes it appealing for reconciliation purposes of historical records, transactions and regulations that will impact a whole host of future government functions and services.

Most importantly, blockchain can offer government transparency and better efficiency.

A new white paper, “Realizing the Potential of Blockchain,” published by the World Economic Forum provides a good overview of the implications of blockchain for both the public and private sectors. The paper states that “blockchain appears likely to transform a number of important industries that supply or rely upon third-party assurance. It could prove to be a broader force for transparency and integrity in society, including in the fight against bribery and corruption. It could also lead to extensive changes in supply chains and governmental functions.”

The paper further says blockchain’s ability to generate unprecedented opportunities to create and trade value in society will lead to a generational shift from an internet of information to a new-generation internet of value.

EDWARD CLINE: THE FRAUD OF FAITH

“The main question here should be: Given Islam’s 14 00 year, rapacious, murderous rampage among Muslims themselves (the Sunnis vs. the Shi’ites and various Islamic sub-groups) and against the West, why would anyone want to save it as a “great” faith? Given Islam’s sociopathic and nihilist nature, how can it be called “great”?

Recently, a leading, pro-Brexit, and articulate critic of the European Union confessed that he has “faith”: Faith in what? In the existence of an all-knowing, all-powerful Deity. To judge by the encounters I’ve had with Christians (I do not have many discussions with Jews or Muslims on the subject of God), faith for people is a form of unquestionable certitude – almost synonymous with certainty – as an emotional means of knowing the truth about God etc. thanks to their unexamined feelings. Too likely their faith in the existence or condition of something not in the real world undercuts their profession of being reality-oriented. “I know that capitalism works and sets men free and that Britain can only become stronger if it leaves the EU.” How does he know that? Is his epistemology and metaphysics poisoned by faith? The mental compartmentalization of his faith and the real, of the provable or demonstratable of the real versus the unprovable, makes his fealty to reality untenable.

The position of most people is: “What else is there but faith in the Almighty, in miracles, in God’s goodness, and the sublime imperative handed down by God to treat all men as brothers? God created the universe, and everything. Sure, reason has its place in man’s existence but it must keep to its place – we’re not saying that doing the Hokey Pokey will start a car’s engine, in lieu of simply turning the ignition key – however , that is the limit of reason, logic, and of what we call cause and effect. Reason and reality are not substitutes for faith,” they aver with fervor. “The evidence of the senses and reason should not be the paramount measures of authentic knowledge.” So, they say; if the emotion is real and strong enough, so must be the object of that emotion.

An unexamined, spontaneous emotional appraisal is a dangerous thing. If one feels that something is true or right, then it must be true or right. What often stuns me is to meet someone who is otherwise completely rational and reality-oriented and then to hear him admit, in passing or unintentionally, that he believes in a Deity, or in a lucky rabbit’s foot. Faith in the reality of the non-existent and unprovable, to say nothing of the acceptance as “divine” handwork of the contradictory a (such as the destructive handiwork of earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions), becomes a substitute for knowledge.

Emotions are not causeless, rootless, or inexplicable. Love is not blind. Nor is hate. Even indifference to an artwork, a person, or thing, as a pre-conceptual appraisal, has an emotional base. An emotion is partly a physiological response to one’s values, or to non-values, to likes or dislikes, to attractions or fear. It is closely linked to the excitation of the nervous system, in various states and strengths, depending on the appraisal of the value seen and responded to; but it is a value one is responding to. It just does not well up within one, causelessly; the cause must be discovered and examined because it always has one. Rational introspection is a key to “knowing” whether or not one’s appraisal of a person or thing is correct or anchored in reality.