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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 5, 2017)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Thursday, January 5, 2017 Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN Publisher DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor MARISSA WILLIAMS Regional Advertising Director MARCY ROSENBERG Circulation Manager JANNA HEIMGARTNER Business Office Manager MIKE JENSEN Production Manager OUR VIEW Improving data security must be a top priority Russian meddling in the U.S. For would-be world leaders, they election certainly should make were blindingly stupid. Unlike the all Americans angry, no matter Watergate burglary that required our political differences. Moving physically entering an office and forward, it’s important to learn trying to steal papers, we live in an from it and incorporate these age when electronic information lessons throughout our personal, is spread throughout the world on professional and political lives. computer servers, protected (and Despicable as it was to hack into unprotected) in ways few of us understand. Nothing should ever be Democratic National Committee sent in an email or computers and stored electronically selectively leak Far more important that you would information want to have in a way that than a physical fence not read aloud in a undercut the along a peaceful court deposition or party’s candidate, report. For such shenanigans international border, news ordinary citizens, couldn’t have been effective if the DNC defending our elec- the corresponding had not engaged tronic frontier ought lesson is to zealously in embarrassing to be at the forefront safeguard financial acts and stockpiled damaging data in its of the U.S. national information, credit card numbers and files. agenda passwords. Any Three keys points time such data is to note about this: exposed in an email • The DNC or other unencrypted form, it is and, presumably, the Republican susceptible to being skimmed off National Committee are guilty and misused. of trying to skew the presidential • Government and corporations selection process in ways that owe an enormous responsibility support favorites already anointed to better protect electronic behind the scenes. Many in the information. Our democracy, DNC believed Hillary Clinton was economy and security hang in the owed her party’s nomination by balance. Far more important than acclamation. They resented Bernie Sanders’ spirited opposition. To the a physical fence along a peaceful extent they are capable of doing so, international border, defending our electronic frontier ought to be at the national political committees the forefront of the U.S. national must resolve to be honest brokers agenda. If the world tips into that provide a level playing field chaos — as it has often done in for all credible candidates. Citizen the past — in today’s world it may resentment about being force-fed political dynasties — in the form of be because a madman, tyrant or criminal enterprise deliberately or the Clintons and Bushes — partly accidentally crashes the information precipitated the Trump surprise. systems on which we rely for so • If the DNC was incapable of many vital services in modern life. withstanding or resisting efforts We’ve been delivered a by Clinton stalwarts to skew the stinging rebuke about sloppy data selection process, it should at a management. Let’s never allow it to minimum have been much smarter about protecting its inner workings. be repeated. Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of publisher Kathryn Brown, managing editor Daniel Wattenburger, and opinion page editor Tim Trainor. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian. OTHER VIEWS Retirement foresight is lacking, but default contributions unfair The (Bend) Bulletin, Dec. 31 T he Oregon Retirement Savings Plan, created by the 2015 Legislature, is supposed to be up and running by July 1, rolled out in stages by the treasurer’s office. While the state is still in the process of creating the final rules for the plan, part of the law that created it should be changed. That rule requires businesses to enroll employees in the plan unless those employees take the trouble to opt out of it. It’s expected to apply to roughly 64,000 employers in the state. There’s no doubt too few Oregonians are saving for their retirement years. In fact, about 60 percent of those working for pay in this state have no retirement plan available to them at their workplace, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. That’s about 1 million Oregonians who, if nothing changes, will retire with only their Social Security checks to keep them warm. That’s a thin blanket, indeed. The Oregon plan should change that. Governed by the new Oregon Retirement Savings Board, the plan will allow uncovered workers to put money into professionally managed investment accounts regularly. Employers must make it possible for employees to participate, and that will mean some cost of employee time, if nothing else. But as it’s now written, the law governing the plan has a flaw. Uncovered Oregonians will be enrolled automatically, and 5 percent of their paychecks deducted as contributions to the plan. They may choose to leave, but it will take action on their part to do so. The automatic enrollment provision is there, no doubt, to ensure that as many Oregonians as possible participate. The 2017 Legislature should make enrollment optional. It’s one thing to require employers to make the plan available to workers. It may also be reasonable to require them to actively inform workers of the option. It’s another thing to make participation the default option, no matter what the workers themselves might think. The Legislature should treat working Oregonians as the adults they are, and give them the option to choose to take part in the plan. LETTERS POLICY The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual services and products or letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Submitted letters must be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime phone number. The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send letters to managing editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com. OTHER VIEWS From hands to heads to hearts S oftware has started writing I have a purpose, therefore I am. I poetry, sports stories and pause and reflect, therefore I am.” business news. IBM’s Watson is We will still need manual labor, co-writing pop hits. Uber has begun and people will continue working deploying self-driving taxis on real with machines to do extraordinary city streets and, last month, Amazon things. Seidman is simply arguing delivered its first package by drone to that the tech revolution will force a customer in rural England. humans to create more value with Add it all up and you quickly Thomas hearts and between hearts. I agree. realize that Donald Trump’s election Friedman When machines and software control isn’t the only thing disrupting more and more of our lives, people Comment society today. The far more profound will seek out more human-to-human disruption is happening in the connections — all the things you workplace and in the economy at large, can’t download but have to upload the as the relentless march of technology has old-fashioned way, one human to another. brought us to a point where machines and Seidman reminded me of a Talmudic software are not just outworking us but adage: “What comes from the heart, enters starting to outthink us in more and more the heart.” Which is why even jobs that realms. still have a large technical component To reflect on this rapid change, I sat will benefit from more heart. I call these down with my teacher and STEMpathy jobs— jobs friend Dov Seidman, CEO that combine STEM of LRN, which advises (science, technology, companies on leadership engineering, math) skills and how to build ethical with human empathy, like cultures, for his take. the doctor who can extract “What we are the best diagnosis from experiencing today bears IBM’s Watson on cancer striking similarities in and then best relate it to a size and implications to patient. the scientific revolution No wonder one of that began in the 16th the fastest-growing U.S. century,” said Seidman. franchises today is Paint “The discoveries of Copernicus and Galileo, Nite, which runs paint-while-drinking which spurred that scientific revolution, classes for adults. Bloomberg Businessweek challenged our whole understanding of the explained in a 2015 story that Paint Nite world around and beyond us — and forced “throws after-work parties for patrons us as humans to rethink our place within it.” who are largely lawyers, teachers and tech Once scientific methods became workers eager for a creative hobby.” The enshrined, we used science and reason artist-teachers who work five nights a week to navigate our way forward, he added, can make $50,000 a year connecting people so much so that “the French philosopher to their hearts. René Descartes crystallized this age of Economies get labeled according to reason in one phrase: ‘I think, therefore I the predominant way people create value, am.’” Descartes’ point, said Seidman, “was pointed out Seidman, also author of the that it was our ability to ‘think’ that most book “How: Why How We Do Anything distinguished humans from all other animals Means Everything.” So, the industrial on earth.” economy, he noted, “was about hired The technological revolution of the hands. The knowledge economy was about 21st century is as consequential as the hired heads. The technology revolution scientific revolution, argued Seidman, and is thrusting us into ‘the human economy,’ it is “forcing us to answer a most profound which will be more about creating value question — one we’ve never had to ask with hired hearts — all the attributes that before: ‘What does it mean to be human in can’t be programmed into software, like the age of intelligent machines?’” passion, character and collaborative spirit.” In short: If machines can compete with It’s no surprise that the French people in thinking, what makes us humans government began requiring French unique? And what will enable us to continue companies on Jan. 1 to guarantee their to create social and economic value? The employees a “right to disconnect” from answer, said Seidman, is the one thing technology — when they are not at work machines will never have: “a heart.” — trying to combat the “always on” work “It will be all the things that the heart culture. can do,” he explained. “Humans can love, Leaders, businesses and communities will they can have compassion, they can dream. still leverage technology to gain advantage, While humans can act from fear and anger, but those that put human connection at the and be harmful, at their most elevated, they center of everything they do — and how can inspire and be virtuous. And while they do it — will be the enduring winners, machines can reliably interoperate, humans, insisted Seidman: “Machines can be uniquely, can build deep relationships of programmed to do the next thing right. But trust.” only humans can do the next right thing.” Therefore, Seidman added, our highest ■ self-conception needs to be redefined from Thomas L. Friedman became the New “I think, therefore I am” to “I care, therefore York Times’ foreign affairs columnist in I am; I hope, therefore I am; I imagine, 1995 and has been awarded three Pulitzer therefore I am. I am ethical, therefore I am. prizes. If machines can compete with people in thinking, what makes us humans unique?