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Ephrat Livni As People Loose Their Shit BUMMERo you ever scroll through your social media feeds and feel gross? If so, you’re not alone. It’s D a common response. And yet we go back, day after day, over and over and over, endlessly scrolling, like addicts hooked on a drug that we once loved but now kind of hate and cannot or will not even try to escape. Technologist and philosopher Jaron Lanier, a virtual reality pioneer and early internet evangelist who isn’t on Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, contends that you should just quit social media. Go cold turkey. In his book, USA Suddenly Realizes... Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, Lanier argues that engaging on the internet makes us feel bad because systems are designed to manipulate us by measuring our interests, anticipating our desires, modifying our behavior, and creating opportunities for advertisers. He’s developed a simple acronym to sum up the sinister purpose of tech companies that brought us the platforms we’re hooked on and their effect on us—BUMMER. It stands for Behaviors of Users Modified and Made into Empires for Rent. According to Lanier, social media platforms need us to keep coming back, so they’ve designed tools that accumulate data about us, then give us more of what moves us most to create wealth for the platforms. BUMMER platforms are more than just a bummer from Lanier’s perspective—they’re eroding health and happiness and political and social discourse, curbing our free will, and turning us into, well, “assholes.” Theoretically, Lanier believes, we could have better, healthier social media that wouldn’t have this deleterious effect on individuals and societies. However, since the business models of the platforms rely on a negative feedback loop, the result of engagement with the platforms we do use now is ever-worsening disease, an anxious, angry, and divided culture. Or, as Claire Lehmann, founding editor of Quillette magazine puts it in an Oct. 17 tweet (of course—where else might she express herself?), “Social media satiates our appetite for moral disgust and tribal conflict.” Since fear, loathing, anxiety, and outrage tend to drive more engagement, the platforms serve us more and more of this negativity. In turn, in an effort to generate as much engagement with our own posts and accounts as possible, we mimic the platform model on an individual level, creating— as Mark O’Connell puts it in a story about “the deliberate awfulness of social media” in the New Yorker—a “toxic miasma of bad vibes.” In an interview in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Lanier explains that you can spot a BUMMER platform by examining whether Russian intelligence warfare units like the Internet Research Agency targeted it and used it to manipulate people. The list includes Facebook, Google, YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, and Instagram. “There are a few others out there, but those are the primary ones,” Lanier argues. “Snapchat is… sort of an edge case; they’re better, but they still have some problems. Another example is LinkedIn, which has some addictive techniques but doesn’t seem to bring out the worst in people.” The technologist contends that we’re mesmerized by social media because it’s been designed for precisely that. “We’re being hypnotized little by little by technicians (Excerpt) we can’t see, for purposes we don’t know,” Lanier writes in his book. “We’re all lab animals now.” To disengage from the experiment is simple enough, he Alfred McCoy says. All you have to do is stop using BUMMER platforms. A Ghost From 2010 That’s the best way to undermine the systems designed to This article is an excerpt from “How America Will Collapse underdeveloped legal systems, denying them key instruments manipulate us and, he argues, the only way to force tech by 2025” written in 2010 for global dominion. At the moment then, no single companies to change the platforms’ fundamentally flawed superpower seems to be on the horizon likely to succeed the business model. ....Economic Decline: Scenario 2020 U.S. Lanier concedes, however, that it’s not easy to break After years of swelling deficits fed by incessant warfare in the addiction, in part because many of us feel we need to be distant lands, in 2020, as long expected, the U.S. dollar finally In a dark, dystopian version of our global future, a coalition of engaged with social media. It can seem as if there is no other loses its special status as the world's reserve currency. transnational corporations, multilateral forces like NATO, and way to be in the world now. And he says he wants people to Suddenly, the cost of imports soars. Unable to pay for swelling an international financial elite could conceivably forge a succeed, not to self-sabotage by deleting their social media deficits by selling now-devalued Treasury notes abroad, single, possibly unstable, supra-national nexus that would accounts. But he points out that he manages to have a Washington is finally forced to slash its bloated military make it no longer meaningful to speak of national empires at successful career as a public intellectual without being on budget. Under pressure at home and abroad, Washington all. While denationalized corporations and multinational elites any platforms and can’t believe he’s the sole exception. slowly pulls U.S. forces back from hundreds of overseas bases would assumedly rule such a world from secure urban Indeed, novelist Zadie Smith avoids social media to to a continental perimeter. By now, however, it is far too late. enclaves, the multitudes would be relegated to urban and rural protect her writing from being influenced by the negative wastelands. feedback loop Lanier discusses. And writer Jonathan Franzen Faced with a fading superpower incapable of paying the bills, is also a critic of technology generally and Facebook and China, India, Iran, Russia, and other powers, great and In "Planet of Slums," Mike Davis offers at least a partial vision Twitter in particular. He calls Twitter “unspeakably regional, provocatively challenge U.S. dominion over the of such a world from the bottom up. He argues that the billion irritating” and says it stands for everything he opposes. Like oceans, space, and cyberspace. Meanwhile, amid soaring people already packed into fetid favela-style slums worldwide Lanier, Smith and Franzen are doing just fine not being on prices, ever-rising unemployment, and a continuing decline in (rising to two billion by 2030) will make "the 'feral, failed these platforms. But also like him, they made their names real wages, domestic divisions widen into violent clashes and cities' of the Third World… the distinctive battlespace of the before social media was a thing and before every writer was divisive debates, often over remarkably irrelevant issues. twenty-first century." As darkness settles over some future told they must promote themselves online to be read. Riding a political tide of disillusionment and despair, a far- super-favela, "the empire can deploy Orwellian technologies Still, Lanier contends that it’s time for change and that right patriot captures the presidency with thundering rhetoric, of repression" as "hornet-like helicopter gun-ships stalk we overestimate the importance of these tools, in part demanding respect for American authority and threatening enigmatic enemies in the narrow streets of the slum districts… because they’ve been designed to make us feel they matter. military retaliation or economic reprisal. The world pays next Every morning the slums reply with suicide bombers and “I think there might be a degree to which people are afraid to no attention as the American Century ends in silence. eloquent explosions." that if they did anything different, their life would be completely destroyed, but they may not be correct. It might A New World Order? At a midpoint on the spectrum of possible futures, a new global actually be fine,” he tells Harper Simon in the Los Angeles Even if future events prove duller than these four scenarios oligopoly might emerge between 2020 and 2040, with rising Review of Books. suggest, every significant trend points toward a far more powers China, Russia, India, and Brazil collaborating with And Simon is convinced—he quit Twitter and striking decline in American global power by 2025 than receding powers like Britain, Germany, Japan, and the United Instagram before reading Lanier’s book and planned to make anything Washington now seems to be envisioning. States to enforce an ad hoc global dominion, akin to the loose his interview with the tech guru and philosopher his final alliance of European empires that ruled half of humanity circa post on Facebook. Still, he told Lanier it takes “real bravery” As allies worldwide begin to realign their policies to take 1900. to delete accounts. cognizance of rising Asian powers, the cost of maintaining 800 If you do go boldly where Lanier and Simon have gone or more overseas military bases will simply become Another possibility: the rise of regional hegemons in a return and abandon the tech platforms everyone else seems to be on, unsustainable, finally forcing a staged withdrawal on a still- to something reminiscent of the international system that rest assured, it might not have to be for long. Lanier says he unwilling Washington. With both the U.S. and China in a race operated before modern empires took shape. In this neo- is currently working on creating healthier social media to weaponize space and cyberspace, tensions between the two Westphalian world order, with its endless vistas of micro- Jaron Lanier Saysplatforms Delete Your Social Media Accounts For GOOD, that And He Wrote won’t A Book About It... be such a BUMMER. powers are bound to rise, making military conflict by 2025 at violence and unchecked exploitation, each hegemon would least feasible, if hardly guaranteed. dominate its immediate region -- Brasilia in South America, Washington in North America, Pretoria in southern Africa, and Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Complicating matters even more, the so on. Space, cyberspace, and the maritime deeps, removed Accounts Right Now economic, military, and technological trends from the control of the former planetary "policeman," the outlined above will not operate in tidy United States, might even become a new global commons, By Jaron Lanier isolation. As happened to European empires controlled through an expanded U.N. Security Council or some after World War II, such negative forces will ad hoc body. A timely call-to-arms from a Silicon Valley undoubtedly prove synergistic. They will pioneer. combine in thoroughly unexpected ways, All of these scenarios extrapolate existing trends into the create crises for which Americans are future on the assumption that Americans, blinded by the You might have trouble imagining life without remarkably unprepared, and threaten to spin arrogance of decades of historically unparalleled power, your social media accounts, but virtual reality the economy into a sudden downward spiral, cannot or will not take steps to manage the unchecked erosion pioneer Jaron Lanier insists that we’re better off consigning this country to a generation or of their global position. without them. In Ten Arguments for Deleting more of economic misery. Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, If America's decline is in fact on a 22-year trajectory from Lanier, who participates in no social media, As U.S. power recedes, the past offers a 2003 to 2025, then we have already frittered away most of the offers powerful and personal reasons for all of spectrum of possibilities for a future world first decade of that decline with wars that distracted us from us to leave these dangerous online platforms. order. At one end of this spectrum, the rise of long-term problems and, like water tossed onto desert sands, a new global superpower, however unlikely, wasted trillions of desperately needed dollars.(....) cannot be ruled out. Yet both China and Russia ISBN-13: 978-1250239082 evince self-referential cultures, recondite non- ISBN-10: 1250239087 roman scripts, regional defense strategies, and How do you feel about this article? Americaur democracy hangs This in the balance. This is not an IsWe must face our Your racial history and our racial present. We Chance Michelle Alexander (2020) overstatement. As protests, riots, and police violence roiled the cannot solve a problem we do not understand. Donald Trump would We must reimagine justice. The days of pretending that Onation last week, the president vowed to send the military to not be the president and George Floyd would not be dead if, after the tinkering with our criminal injustice system will “fix it” are over. The quell persistent rebellions and looting, whether governors wanted a Civil War, our nation had committed itself to reparations, system is not broken; it is functioning according to its design. As military occupation or not. John Allen, a retired four-star Marine reconciliation and atonement for the land and people that colonizers Mariame Kaba, Alex Vitale and many others have persuasively general, wrote that we may be witnessing the “beginning of the end of stole, sold and plundered. Instead, white people who enslaved blacks argued, reform efforts typically prove futile, pouring money into the American experiment” because of President Trump’s catastrophic were granted reparations for the loss of their “property” while police departments without removing their capacity to engage in failures. formerly enslaved blacks were given nothing — not even the 40 acres systemic violence. A recent Op-Ed article in The Times, “No More Trump’s leadership has been disastrous. But it would be a and a mule they were promised. Ever since, our nation has been Money for the Police,” underscored the point: “More training or mistake to place the blame on him alone. In part, we find ourselves trapped in a cycle of intermittent racial progress followed by fierce diversity among police officers won’t end police brutality, nor will here for the same reasons a civil war tore our nation apart more than backlash and the emergence of new and “improved” systems of racial firing and charging individual officers. Look at the Minneapolis 100 years ago: Too many citizens prefer to cling to brutal and unjust and social control. These cycles have been punctuated by various Police Department, which is held up as a model of progressive police systems than to give up political power, the perceived benefits of movements, uprisings and riots, but one thing has remained constant: reform. The department offers procedural justice as well as trainings white supremacy and an exploitative economic system. If we do not A majority of whites persistently deny the scale and severity of racial for implicit bias, mindfulness and de-escalation. It embraces learn the lessons of history and choose a radically different path injustice that people of color endure. It’s not enough to learn the community policing and officer diversity, bans “warrior style” forward, we may lose our last chance at creating a truly inclusive, broad outlines of this history. Only by pausing long enough to study policing, uses body cameras, implemented an early intervention egalitarian democracy. Over the years, many have said that “the the cycles of oppression and resistance does it become clear that system to identify problematic officers, receives training around degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its simply being a good person or not wishing black people any harm is mental health crisis intervention, and practices “reconciliation” prisons.” Today, the same can be said of our criminal injustice not sufficient. Nor is voting for Democrats or diversifying police efforts in communities of color. system, which is a mirror reflecting back to us who we really are, as forces. In fact, those efforts have not made much of a dent in ending George Floyd was still murdered. The focus on training, opposed to what we tell ourselves. abusive policing or mass incarceration. diversity and technology like body cameras shifts focus away from Millions of us watched a black man in Minnesota lie on the the root cause of police violence and instead gives the police more ground for nearly nine minutes, begging for his life and calling out to There are many excellent books, articles and films that can help power and resources. The problem is that the entire criminal justice his dead mother, while a white police officer pressed his knee into his to put our racial moment in context. A good place to start if you are system gives police officers the power and opportunity to neck, killing him, with his hand casually resting in his pocket — all in new to racial justice history and advocacy is Ibram X. Kendi’s trio of systematically harass and kill with impunity.” After decades of broad daylight in front of people screaming for the officer to stop. books, “How to Be an Antiracist” “Stamped From the Beginning” reform, countless commissions and task forces and millions of dollars Everyone knows that the police officers who killed George Floyd and “Stamped,”his young adult book co-authored with Jason poured into “smart on crime” approaches, the police behave with never would have been fired or arrested if a courageous black girl had Reynolds. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor’s book “From about as much brutality today as they did in 1966 when a group of not filmed the incident on her phone and posted it to social media. #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation” and Ava Duvernay’s film young black men, so fed up with the abuse inflicted upon the black Deep down, we already knew this kind of thing happens to black “13th” are especially relevant now. And Andrea Ritchie’s book community, created an organization called the Black Panther Party people. All of us knew it when we watched Amy Cooper call the “Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and for Self-Defense. Given this history, it should come as no surprise police on a black man who calmly asked her to put a leash on her Women of Color” is essential reading, given the comparatively little that growing numbers of people are working to defund the police and dog. We knew it when we watched two white men in a pickup truck attention that police killings of black women typically receive. Paul reimagine justice. Our nation has the highest rate of incarceration in ambush Ahmaud Arbery and shoot him to death while he was jogging Butler’s book “Chokehold” is an excellent exploration of police the world. More than 95 percent of arrests every year are for in a neighborhood outside Brunswick, Ga. And we knew it before violence against black men — past and present. The documentary nonviolent offenses like loitering, fare evasion and theft. Some are George Zimmerman stalked and murdered a black teenager named “Whose Streets?,” depicting the aftermath of Michael Brown’s arrested for selling loose cigarettes (which resulted in Eric Garner’s Trayvon Martin. We know these truths about black experiences, but murder and the uprisings in Ferguson, Mo., will open your eyes to the being choked to death by the police) or minor forgery (which resulted we often pretend we don’t. As Stanley Cohen wrote in “States of tragedies and triumphs of that period, as well as “blatant racism and in George Floyd’s being suffocated to death by the police). Denial,” many people “know” and “not-know” the truth about hypocrisy on display from the powers that be,” in the words of a People are right to wonder — is this justice? Can’t we design oppression and suffering. He explains: “Denial may be neither a writer in Rolling Stone magazine. alternative approaches to poverty, drug abuse, mental illness, trauma matter of telling the truth nor intentionally telling a lie. There seem to No matter your race, ethnicity, class, gender, age, sexual and violence that would do less harm than police, prisons, jails and be states of mind, or even whole cultures, in which we know and orientation or background, you have much to gain by deepening your lifelong criminal records? Fortunately, the extraordinary protests don’t know at the same time.” understanding of how we got to this place. I recommend reading sweeping the nation and the globe are beginning to have an impact. classics like James Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time,” Angela Davis’s The Minneapolis school board unanimously approved a resolution on In 1963, images of racist white police officers spraying fire “Women, Race and Class” and the autobiography of Frederick Tuesday to stop using police officers to provide school security, citing hoses and siccing police dogs on young black protesters in Douglass, as well as books like “The Radical King,” which feature the department’s culture of violence and racism. And on Wednesday, Birmingham shocked the world and propelled many white Americans writings and speeches of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that the the mayor of Los Angeles announced that city officials may cut up to to join civil rights activists in challenging racial segregation. A mainstream media is inclined to ignore. $150 million from the city’s police budget “so we can invest in jobs, similar dynamic has occurred with the images of George Floyd’s Read and organize study groups or book clubs. Begin the process of in health, in education and in healing.” By Friday, the Minneapolis death. Our nation suddenly caught a glimpse of itself in the mirror racial reckoning in your city, neighborhood, school, workplace and City Council president announced that the council was preparing to and people of all races poured into the streets to say “no more.” Now family. Demand that your school district adopt a racial justice “dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department and replace it with a the president seems to be itching for another civil war. I will not curriculum. Join grass-roots organizers working for racial justice or transformative new model of public safety.” These developments pretend to have a road map that will lead us to higher ground. But for donate to them. Insist that your social justice organization or faith reflect a long-overdue paradigm shift in our approach to race and those who are serious about rising to the challenge, I will share a few community follow the lead of grass-roots groups like the Dream criminal justice. of the key steps that I believe are necessary if we are to learn from Defenders and commit to the political education of its members and our history and not merely repeat it. the community they serve. Raise your voice and march with your We must fight for economic justice. We cannot achieve racial feet. justice and create a secure and thriving democracy without also transforming our economic systems. James Baldwin knew this back in 1972 when he wrote: “The necessity for a form of socialism is based on the observation that the world’s present economic King during a February 1968 trip to Mississippi: arrangements doom most of the world to misery; that the way of “It didn’t cost the nation one penny to integrate lunch life dictated by these arrangements is both sterile and immoral; and finally that there is no hope for peace in the world so long as these counters….but now we are dealing with issues that cannot be arrangements obtain.” solved without the nation spending billions of dollars and Dr. King understood this reality even earlier, noting in a letter to his wife in 1952 that “capitalism has outlived its undergoing a radical redistribution of economic power.” usefulness” and later urging his staff to move beyond civil rights to human rights and democratic socialism. W.E.B. Du Bois, a founder of the N.A.A.C.P., became a socialist and gave a speech sponsored by the Wisconsin Socialist Club in 1960 noting: “Many of us believe and hope that socialism will and must come to this land. We see no other way.” Before that, a host of other prominent people we revere embraced democratic socialism too, like Albert Einstein, Helen Keller and Paul Robeson. Einstein published an essay in 1949 titled “Why Socialism?” in which he states: “I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils [of capitalism], namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.” We celebrate these people as heroes today, yet Dr. King’s we’ve been encouraged to forget that they all believed we must move toward some form of socialism. No matter what you think about Bernie Sanders as a man or as a candidate — and I wish he Why is no one allowed to question WHO? Why is YouTube censoring professionals who hold PhDs in virology? was much better at addressing racial issues like reparations — we all owe him and countless organizers a debt of gratitude for pushing universal health care, paid family leave, free college education, a $15 minimum wage and many other economic rights into the mainstream. As Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor has explained, the coronavirus crisis proved that Mr. Sanders was right all along — that health care and other economic rights should be considered part On white liberals: of our social contract, not special benefits for those who are lucky “I have been gravely disappointed with the white enough to be employed by companies that grant discretionary benefits. Nobody would have benefited more from Mr. Sanders’s moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable political revolution than black people, and yet the generational conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block divide among black voters affected his campaign. in the stride toward freedom is not the White Younger black people seem to understand that the neoliberal Democratic politics of the past will not take us where we need to Citizen’s Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but go, and they supported Mr. Sanders by significant margins in polls. the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” We must work to create an economic system that benefits us all, not just the wealthy. If our nation was not so deeply divided along than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which racial lines — and if so many white people were not revolted by the is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is idea of their tax dollars helping poor people of color obtain On the Vietnam war: education, housing and social benefits — we would most likely the presence of justice…” have a social democracy like Norway or Canada. Achieving “And I am sad to say that the nation in which we live is economic justice requires we work for racial justice, and vice versa. the supreme culprit.…God didn’t call America to There is no way around it. If we fail to take these obvious steps, our HOT TAKES democracy will remain in peril even if Mr. Trump is defeated in engage in a senseless, unjust war, as the war in November. Police killings, uprisings and riots will remain a Vietnam. And we are criminals in that war. We have recurring feature of American life. The black-white economic divide is as wide today as it was more than 50 years ago. And the committed more war crimes almost than any nation in same divide-and-conquer tactics that were used to prevent the world, and I’m going to continue to say it…” multiracial alliances for economic justice in the 1800s and 1900s were employed yet again in 2016 with spectacular results, as white Americans fearful of losing political power because of profound demographic changes elected a former reality show billionaire to the presidency, a man who unleashed racist tirades against immigrants on the campaign trail and vowed to “make America great again” by taking us back to a time we supposedly left behind — perhaps the time of civil war. Unless we choose a radically different path now, our persistent racial divisions and oppressive political and economic systems may unravel our democracy sooner rather than later. Frankly, I find it difficult to call our nation a “democracy” in light of the rampant voter suppression, the denial of voting rights to millions of people with felony records and our pay-to-play political system that allows billionaires and corporations to more or less buy On self-hatred: On Black Education and school integration: politicians and elections. But if you’re tempted to believe that “There are Negroes who will never fight for freedom. “White people view Black people as inferior. A large voting Mr. Trump out of office isn’t urgently necessary in November because the system is already rigged, please read Astra There are Negroes who will seek profit for themselves from percentage of them have a very low opinion of our race. Taylor’s book, “Democracy May Not Exist but We’ll Sure Miss It the struggle. There are even some Negroes who will People with such a low view of the Black race cannot be When It’s Gone.” Our only hope for our collective liberation is a politics of deep solidarity rooted in love. In recent days, we’ve seen cooperate with their oppressors. The hammer blows of given free reign and put in charge of the intellectual care what it looks like when people of all races, ethnicities, genders and backgrounds rise up together, standing in solidarity for justice, discrimination, poverty and segregation must warp and and development of our boys and girls. I don’t see school protesting, marching and singing together, even as SWAT teams corrupt some. No one can pretend that because a people integration successfully happening right now and being and tanks roll in. We’ve seen our faces in another American mirror — a reflection of the best of who we are and what we can become. may be oppressed, every individual member is virtuous beneficial.…It will be disastrous.” These images may not have dominated the media coverage, but I’ve and worthy.” glimpsed in a foggy mirror scenes of a beautiful, courageous nation struggling to be born.

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Credit: NOI Research Group Winter is on the way.... Are you prepared for the worst?

hat worries you about the coming world of artificial lower-paying jobs, but some higher-paying ones, too. This intelligence? transformation will result in enormous profits for the companies that WToo often the answer to this question resembles the plot of a develop A.I., as well as for the companies that adopt it. Imagine how The Real sci-fi thriller. People worry that developments in A.I. will bring about much money a company like Uber would make if it used only robot the “singularity” — that point in history when A.I. surpasses human drivers. Imagine the profits if Apple could manufacture its products intelligence, leading to an unimaginable revolution in human affairs. without human labor. Imagine the gains to a loan company that could Or they wonder whether instead of our controlling artificial issue 30 million loans a year with virtually no human involvement. Threat Of intelligence, it will control us, turning us, in effect, into cyborgs. (As it happens, my venture capital firm has invested in just such a These are interesting issues to contemplate, but they are not pressing. loan company.) They concern situations that may not arise for hundreds of years, if We are thus facing two developments that do not sit easily ever. At the moment, there is no known path from our best A.I. tools together: enormous wealth concentrated in relatively few hands and Artificial (like the Google computer program that recently beat the world’s best enormous numbers of people out of work. What is to be done? Part of player of the game of Go) to “general” A.I. — self-aware computer the answer will involve educating or retraining people in tasks A.I. programs that can engage in common-sense reasoning, attain tools aren’t good at. Artificial intelligence is poorly suited for jobs knowledge in multiple domains, feel, express and understand involving creativity, planning and “cross-domain” thinking — for Intelligence emotions and so on. example, the work of a trial lawyer. But these skills are typically This doesn’t mean we have nothing to worry about. On the contrary, required by high-paying jobs that may be hard to retrain displaced the A.I. products that now exist are improving faster than most people workers to do. More promising are lower-paying jobs involving the Kai-Fu Lee realize and promise to radically transform our world, not always for “people skills” that A.I. lacks: social workers, bartenders, concierges the better. They are only tools, not a competing form of intelligence. — professions requiring nuanced human interaction. But here, too, (2017) But they will reshape what work there is a problem: How many bartenders does a society really need? means and how wealth is created, The solution to the problem of mass unemployment, I suspect, will States and China have already amassed the talent, market share and leading to unprecedented economic involve “service jobs of love.” These are jobs that A.I. cannot do, that data to set it in motion. inequalities and even altering the society needs and that give people a sense of purpose. Examples For example, the Chinese speech-recognition company iFlytek and global balance of power. include accompanying an older person to visit a doctor, mentoring at several Chinese face-recognition companies such as Megvii and It is imperative that we turn our an orphanage and serving as a sponsor at Alcoholics Anonymous — SenseTime have become industry leaders, as measured by market attention to these imminent or, potentially soon, Virtual Reality Anonymous (for those addicted capitalization. The United States is spearheading the development of challenges. to their parallel lives in computer-generated simulations). The autonomous vehicles, led by companies like Google, Tesla and Uber. What is artificial intelligence volunteer service jobs of today, in other words, may turn into the real As for the consumer internet market, seven American or Chinese today? Roughly speaking, it’s jobs of the future. companies — Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, Baidu, Alibaba technology that takes in huge and Tencent — are making extensive use of A.I. and expanding amounts of information from a Other volunteer jobs may be higher-paying and professional, operations to other countries, essentially owning those A.I. markets. It specific domain (say, loan repayment such as compassionate medical service providers who serve as the seems American businesses will dominate in developed markets and histories) and uses it to make a “human interface” for A.I. programs that diagnose cancer. In all some developing markets, while Chinese companies will win in most decision in a specific case (whether cases, people will be able to choose to work fewer hours than they do developing markets. to give an individual a loan) in the now. The other challenge for many countries that are not China or service of a specified goal Who will pay for these jobs? Here is where the enormous wealth the United States is that their populations are increasing, especially in (maximizing profits for the lender). concentrated in relatively few hands comes in. It strikes me as the developing world. While a large, growing population can be an Think of a spreadsheet on steroids, unavoidable that large chunks of the money created by A.I. will have economic asset (as in China and India in recent decades), in the age trained on big data. These tools can to be transferred to those whose jobs have been displaced. This seems of A.I. it will be an economic liability because it will comprise mostly outperform human beings at a given feasible only through Keynesian policies of increased government displaced workers, not productive ones. task. spending, presumably raised through taxation on wealthy companies. So if most countries will not be able to tax ultra-profitable A.I. This kind of A.I. is spreading to As for what form that social welfare would take, I would argue for a companies to subsidize their workers, what options will they have? I thousands of domains (not just conditional universal basic income: welfare offered to those who have foresee only one: Unless they wish to plunge their people into loans), and as it does, it will a financial need, on the condition they either show an effort to receive poverty, they will be forced to negotiate with whichever country eliminate many jobs. Bank tellers, training that would make them employable or commit to a certain supplies most of their A.I. software — China or the United States — customer service representatives, number of hours of “service of love” voluntarism. to essentially become that country’s economic dependent, taking in telemarketers, stock and bond To fund this, tax rates will have to be high. The government will not welfare subsidies in exchange for letting the “parent” nation’s A.I. traders, even paralegals and only have to subsidize most people’s lives and work; it will also have companies continue to profit from the dependent country’s users. radiologists will gradually be to compensate for the loss of individual tax revenue previously Such economic arrangements would reshape today’s geopolitical replaced by such software. Over time collected from employed individuals. alliances. this technology will come to control This leads to the final and perhaps most consequential challenge of One way or another, we are going to have to start thinking semiautonomous and autonomous A.I. The Keynesian approach I have sketched out may be feasible in about how to minimize the looming A.I.-fueled gap between the hardware like self-driving cars and the United States and China, which will have enough successful A.I. haves and the have-nots, both within and between nations. Or to put robots, displacing factory workers, businesses to fund welfare initiatives via taxes. But what about other the matter more optimistically: A.I. is presenting us with an construction workers, drivers, countries? opportunity to rethink economic inequality on a global scale. These delivery workers and many others. They face two insurmountable problems. First, most of the challenges are too far-ranging in their effects for any nation to isolate Unlike the Industrial money being made from artificial intelligence will go to the United itself from the rest of the world. Revolution and the computer revolution, the A.I. revolution is not States and China. A.I. is an industry in which strength begets taking certain jobs (artisans, personal assistants who use paper and strength: The more data you have, the better your product; the better typewriters) and replacing them with other jobs (assembly-line your product, the more data you can collect; the more data you can workers, personal assistants conversant with computers). Instead, it is collect, the more talent you can attract; the more talent you can poised to bring about a wide-scale decimation of jobs — mostly attract, the better your product. It’s a virtuous circle, and the United How do you feel about this article? Surveillance they come true: “to tune and herd and shape and push us in the direction that creates the highest probability of their business success”. There’s no way “to dress this up as anything but behavioral modification”. In 2012 and 2013, Facebook conducted “massive- Capitalism scale contagion experiments” to see if they could “affect real-world t’s a beautiful day on Hampstead Heath, the last weekend of summer – parliament is still emotions and behavior, in ways that bypassed user awareness”. Iprorogued. In a festival tent at the HowtheLightGetsIn festival, Professor Shoshana There are crux points in the lives of societies and individuals. Is Zuboff is talking about her recent book,The Age of A revelation in a gallery. A cataclysmic fire, and a salvaged Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human notebook. Zuboff argues that we are now at one more crux point: Future at the New Frontier of Power. Zuboff stands “The age of surveillance capitalism is a titanic struggle between Behavioral economists such as Thaler legitimated the nudge, on a low stage, making eye-contact with her audience. capital and each one of us. It is a direct intervention into free will, an empowered and increased the audacity of the surveillance capitalists. She spies someone who seems unconvinced, invites assault on human autonomy.” It is the capture of our intimate Thaler got the Nobel prize.” An them to raise their concerns. “When this book was personal details, even of our faces. “They have no right to my face, Why does she care so much? “I gave up a lot of time to write published in January, I left home for three weeks on to take it when I walk down the street.” this book, over many years,” she says. “I gave up time with my the road,” she says. “I’m still going.” Such violations threaten our freedom, Zuboff says. “When we husband, my children. I gave up my health. Everything I had I gave, The audience laughs. Because The Age of think about free will, philosophers talk about closing the gap because I felt I was up against the clock of social amnesia, psychic Surveillance Capitalism – a 700-plus page between present and future. We make ourselves a promise: I’ll do numbing – people were losing their sense of astonishment.” Yes, she Assaultsociological analysis of the digital era – has become an something with that future moment – go to a meeting, make a phone agrees that “Snowden made a huge contribution to waking people up. epoch-defining international bestseller, drawing call. If we are treated as a mass of ‘users’, to be herded and coaxed, The tech companies were implicated.” Leaked documents showed comparisons to revolutionary works such as Rachel then this promise becomes meaningless. I am a distinctive human. I the NSA collecting data from Yahoo, Google, Facebook and Carson’sSilent Spring. Naomi Klein has urged have an indelible crucible of power within me… I should decide if Microsoft. And the Cambridge Analytica scandal? “Carole Oneveryone to read it “as an act of digital self-defense”. my face becomes data, my home, my car, my voice becomes data. It Cadwalladr’s work is heroic. And Chris Wylie [the Cambridge should be my choice.” Analytica whistleblower] revealed that every aspect of Cambridge It describes how global tech companies such as Born in New England in 1951, Zuboff is the daughter of a Analytica’s operations was simply mimicking a day in the life of a Google and Facebook persuaded us to give up our pharmacist and a homemaker. Her maternal grandfather, Max Miller, surveillance capitalist.” Instead of behavioural modification for privacy for the sake of convenience; how personal was a self-made entrepreneur, who invented the servomechanism for commercial ends, the ends become political? Voting instead of Human information (“data”) gathered by these companies has the vending machine. In her youth, she “did lots of growing up in buying? “Democracy is on the ropes in the UK, US, many other been used by others not only to predict our behavior Argentina, living on the Altiplano, with people who lived very countries. Not in small measure because of the operations of but also to influence and modify it; and how this has simple lives”. She is passionate about the natural world; her surveillance capitalism.” had disastrous consequences for democracy and analogies often invoke farming and the rural environment. The only Every time Zuboff speaks in public, she asks the audience: freedom. This is the “surveillance capitalism” of the time she pauses mid-sentence is when a magpie with iridescent blue “What are the concerns that bring you here?” People call out words: Autonomy title, which Zuboff defines as a “new economic order” feathers alights beside us. “What a beautiful bird!” Zuboff tells me privacy; dystopia; control; monopoly; manipulation; intrusion; and “an expropriation of critical human rights that is that at the start of the Industrial Revolution persuading farmers to exploitation; democracy; misinformation; fear; freedom; power; (2019) best understood as a coup from above”. work in factories was like trying to get a deer to pull a plough. It was rebellion; slavery; resistance. Everywhere the words are virtually the Joanna Kavenna Later, in an unglamorous spot by some parked vans, Zuboff too incongruous, they wouldn’t do it. “Then after a while, the deer same. What can be done? People object, but nothing happens. explains why she wrote her book. She has dark eyes behind horn- took the plough. There’s a brief window before social amnesia sets Doesn’t that lead to lassitude? “Regulation,” she says, firmly. “This rimmed glasses; abundant black curls; a low, resonant voice. She is in.” is what the tech companies fear most. We say that markets that trade brilliantly erudite and outlines her argument in trenchant, honed When I ask how deliberate this all was, if Mark Zuckerberg, in human futures are illegal – like the slave trade was made illegal.” phrases, as if reading aloud. Her work on the themes ofThe Age of Larry Page and Sergey Brin were just a bunch of happy tech- Then we design “programs as a closed loop” and “reclaim the idea Surveillance Capitalism began as far back as the late 1970s. She was utopians who accidentally opened Pandora’s box, she smiles wryly. that we can have the digital without surveillance capitalism”. This a postgraduate at Harvard, writing a doctorate on the Industrial “This was world-historical wealth creation.” Surveillance capitalists will require the “indignation” of citizens, journalists, scholars and Revolution. To earn money, she became an organizational change have “many strategies to protect themselves from the law. Lobbying, law-makers. “Surveillance capitalism has had 20 years unimpeded by consultant, working in offices that were “computerizing” for the first political capture, other economic methods that we associate with law. But it is very young.” time. “They were expecting immediate productivity, growth, cartelisation.” They have also claimed that the internet is a new efficiency. But it was chaos, disaster. Crazy stuff was happening. reality with different protocols; “Larry Page has said how could The following day Zuboff is to give another speech, asking People were saying ‘My work is floating in space!’” Google follow any law that came into being before the internet? This another audience: “What are the concerns that bring you here?” like In 1978, Zuboff was working at the Washington Post, with is propaganda.” In her talk at the festival, Zuboff dismisses another a reclaimed version of that old Facebook question: “What’s on your linotypists who were converting to cold type. “One day I had just proposition, that these are innovative companies that occasionally mind?” Zuboff has now been on the road for nine months. The finished the graveyard shift, and I wandered into the National Gallery make mistakes. “Yes, like Google Nest [Google’s home security alternative, doing nothing and being “subsumed in unadulterated of Art, where I saw these hulking, dirty, dark entities in the pit of a system]: ‘Oh we’re so sorry, we put a microphone in the Nest power” is not an option for her. “We are not simply users. We are bright white amphitheater.” It was the Voltri-Bolton series by David surveillance system and we forgot! We forgot to put it in the much used. We have to awaken to our shared future.” Smith – an American sculptor who in the 1960s created sculptures schematic.” (This story broke in February, and Google described its from old factory machinery and debris. “I realized then the process of failure to put the microphone on tech specs as “an error”.) computerization would be the next industrial revolution, and it would What about Zuckerberg’s claims that “privacy is no longer a change everything – including how we think, and feel and how we social norm”, or the advice of Eric Schmidt (Google CEO, 2001- create meaning. I had a notebook, and I started writing. This has been 2011): “If you have something that you the agenda for my intellectual life since then.” don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first The Age Of Surveillance Capitalism On the strength of her first book, Zuboff became one of the first place?” Zuboff has, of course, heard tenured women at Harvard Business School. She later became one of this line a thousand times. It has been By Shoshana Zuboff the youngest professors to receive an endowed chair. With her repeated not only by surveillance husband, Zuboff went to live in rural Maine; they raised their capitalists, but also by governments children, farmed deer. In 2009, their home was struck by lightning advocating the mass surveillance of The challenges to humanity posed by the and burned to the ground. The family escaped, but lost all their civilians. She is brisk in response: “I digital future, the first detailed possessions - books, research materials, passports. “One odd thing: tell people, if you have nothing to hide examination of the unprecedented form of when the house burned, that old notebook from DC survived.” Not then you are nothing. This isn’t about power called "surveillance capitalism," long after this, Zuboff began to writeSurveillance Capitalism. Hayekian individuality, libertarianism and the quest by powerful corporations to It is the story of the digital revolution, and how the early – it’s a historical process of predict and control our behavior. utopian prospects of the web darkened into “a rogue mutation of individuation that has developed hand capitalism marked by concentrations of wealth, knowledge and power in hand with political freedom and unprecedented in human history”. Gmail was launched in 2004; democracy.” It’s also not Orwell, not Google subsequently admitted that it has scanned private Big Brother. “There’s no one coming ISBN-13: 978-1610395694 correspondence for personal information. In the same year, Facebook to take anyone away to the Gulag. It ISBN-10: 1610395697 was founded, its business model also based on the capture of and doesn’t want to kill us. It just wants to access to personal information. The metaphor Zuboff uses is one of move us in the direction of its conquest: “With so little left that could be commodified, the last predictions and get the data.” virgin territory was private human experience.” In 1986, 1% of the Although, “in China we see the attempt world’s information was digitized. In 2013, it was 98%. to annex these technologies to the It is a movement founded on predictive algorithms, repressive state”. mathematical calculations of human behavior. Surveillance capitalists “sell certainty to business customers who would like to know with Some have also proposed that “choice architecture” – nudges certainty what we do. Targeted adverts, yes, but also businesses want and coaxes – can be societally beneficial, if used wisely. Proponents to know whether to sell us a mortgage, insurance, what to charge us, of this argument include Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler (co- do we drive safely? They want to know the maximum they can authors ofNudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and extract from us in an exchange. They want to know how we will Happiness). Zuboff disagrees vigorously. “Once you legitimate the behave in order to know how to best intervene in our behavior.” The ex-machina nudge it is intolerable. It is an act of power over the best way to make your predictions desirable to customers is to ensure other – rather than educating or alerting. Nudging is paternalistic. Why are we voting for the same group of people every cycle in a nation of 300 million? Twin Cities Police+EMS Routinely Inject Arrestees With KETAMINE Causing Them To Panic, Provoking Use Of Excessive Force Krithika Varagur (2020) former paramedic with the Emergency Medical Services in marketed both to paramedics and law enforcement.” Woodbury, a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota, has filed a The typical dose of ketamine is based on a person’s weight, explained Awhistleblower lawsuit claiming that police pressured him to Baker. “The rule of thumb is 5 mg per kilogram of bodyweight, so administer ketamine, a fast-acting sedative, during an arrest. He you typically start at 250 mg and give more doses if needed.” It is claims that the incident is part of a larger trend among the region’s usually delivered as an intramuscular shot to the butt or forearm. But law enforcement. The paramedic, 32-year-old Joseph Baker, said that it’s possible to go overboard, said Baker.Elijah McClain, for he hopes to take a stand against police using ketamine “to gain instance, who was roughly 140 pounds, immediately received a 500 compliance.” mg shot and incurred a heart attack shortly thereafter. “It’s not an appropriate use of our jobs as paramedics,” he told “I’m not anti-ketamine,” said Baker. “There are a few The Intercept, in his first interview since the lawsuit was filed on situations where it is appropriate, like where a patient is actively August 17, in the District Court of Minnesota. In Woodbury, the trying to get out of restraints. … But even still, many other sedatives police, EMS, and firefighters all collaborate as part of the city’s that are available, like Ativan, don’t run such a high risk of people Public Safety Department. The lawsuit also addresses several alleged going unconscious or dissociating.”“The City of Woodbury instances of falsified EMS training credentials that Baker claims to allowed the custom of stifling any form of reporting wrongdoings have found among former colleagues in the department. by employees at the EMS, no matter the context.” Baker said he felt pushed out of his job after refusing to Beyond the ketamine incident, part of Baker’s whistleblower administer ketamine in an incident in September 2019. Prior to that, lawsuit deals with a number of falsified credentials he found among he had to give ketamine injections on three other occasions as part of his colleagues, which he claims threaten public safety. After Baker Woodbury EMS and recalled a trigger-happy mentality in the signed up to give refresher emergency medicine courses last year, he department around the drug. “The dispatchers would say: Get your alleges in his lawsuit, he learned that other emergency medicine ketamine ready, bring your ketamine,” he said. His lawsuit claims certifications obtained by several of his colleagues had misleading that the “symbiotic relationship between EMS and police officers has attendance records behind them. Meaning that people got their created room for police officers to coerce paramedics like Plaintiff credentials — which allowed them to receive higher salaries — Baker to administer Ketamine on unwilling subjects.” without actually attending all the required classes, which violates a “If a ruling like this comes from Minnesota, establishing that it Minnesota statute. is unlawful for paramedics to be coerced to use sedatives, all cops He escalated the complaint to his superiors but said it was will think twice about this.” Baker’s is the first whistleblower “swept under the rug” for months. (The city of Woodbury’s attorney complaint in the country to directly address ketamine-induced said that a review had been conducted and concluded “no training sedation in policing. There is not yet strong national data on ketamine records were falsified and Mr. Baker’s complaints were properly use in police arrests, but it is a relatively recent phenomenon. In addressed.”) An email provided to The Intercept between Baker’s Minnesota’s Hennepin County — which includes Minneapolis and is colleagues, dated November 2019, shows that Baker was placed on a adjacent to Washington County, which includes Woodbury — a punitive progressive improvement plan in response to his “being a civilian oversight board conducted a sweeping report on “Pre- ‘whistle blower’ for the EMS education matter.’” Hospital Sedation” in 2018 and found that ketamine use by the Udoibok connects the two parts of the lawsuit as part of a Minneapolis Police Department had sharply increased in just a few general “climate of cutting corners” at the EMS that ranges from years. improper certifications to overzealous calls for sedation. “The City of Woodbury,” per the lawsuit, “allowed the custom of stifling any form Before 2015, there were an average of about four mentions of of reporting wrongdoings by employees at the EMS, no matter the ketamine per year in police reports of detainees, but in 2017, there context.” were 62. (Minneapolis’s Deputy Police Chief Art Knight told The So far, Baker has been pleasantly surprised by the reception Intercept that since the report came out, police leadership had been from his previous colleagues at Woodbury EMS. “I thought I was informally recommending all officers in the force not to request going to get pushback, but it’s the reverse,” he said. “So many people sedatives from paramedics, though he was not sure how strict have messaged me and said thank you for speaking out.” officers’ compliance has been since then.)The most high-profile ketamine-related incident to date is the death of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old Black massage therapist, in Colorado last year. Officers placed him in a chokehold during his arrest and then injected him with a very large dose of ketamine, which rapidly led him into cardiac arrest. He died a few days later in a hospital. AI: Are We Ready Kenneth Udoibok, a Minneapolis-based lawyer who specializes in police brutality and is representing Baker, said his case could set a precedent in conceptualizing ketamine-induced sedation as a kind of excessive force. Usually, Udoibok said, “the actual victims of To Cease Control? ketamine injections cannot make a strong case.” Police officers outsource the injections to paramedics, and paramedics can plausibly claim that arrestees were being “belligerent” or that they presented Klark Jouss (2020) “safety concerns,” he explained. “What’s different now is that rtificial Intelligence (AI) has been a prevalent theme of science someone on the other side has come forward.” fiction for decades now. The idea that machines can exhibit “There are so many instances across the country now of police Asame level of intelligence as humans has kept writers and officers pressuring paramedics to administer ketamine,” said audience in the firm grip in all sorts of art, from top selling novels to Udoibok. “If a ruling like this comes from Minnesota, establishing blockbuster movies. But artists and futurists have a certain habit of that it is unlawful for paramedics to be coerced to use sedatives, all romanticizing the subject. Like frequent inclusion of robots similar to cops will think twice about this.” humans. And I get it, that is an easier method than expecting your audience to show empathy with long lines of code. But this artistic Baker resigned from his post at Woodbury EMS in December, image of AI is wrong. Portraying AI as humanoid robot is analogous after about 18 months on the job. He now lives in the suburb of Inver to creating chassis of car; even before invention of combustion engine. Grove Heights with his wife and daughter and works as a paramedic So why is there so much hype around AI now? Will it really for a private health services company in Minneapolis. He grew up in destroy the world or is it going to create a new Utopia where all of the Maryland and became a volunteer emergency medicine technician troublesome labor will be handled by intelligent machines? Over the when he was 16, he said, speaking from his home via Zoom. Baker years, great minds like Elon Musk and Stephen Hawkings raised served in the military as a police officer from 2007 to 2012, including genuine concerns about Artificial Intelligence. But AI has also shown a deployment in Baghdad from 2009 to 2010. After the military, he promising future in many fields like health where artificial limbs for went back to school for emergency medical care. handicap persons work with the help of this new technology. So where Coincidentally, one of the assignments he completed for his will AI take us in the future? bachelor’s degree from Eastern Kentucky University last year was writing up a protocol for “Continuous Communication and De- In 1960s, there was a similar hype around Nuclear Technology. escalation during Behavioral Emergencies.” Thus, Baker has been There were proponents of nuclear technology who dreamed of a future somewhat unusually focused on deescalation as a way to deal with powered by nuclear energy. Where cars would never run out of fuel detained people and patients, which he said put him in conflict with and all of human energy needs would be fulfilled by this seemingly the workplace culture of the Woodbury EMS and the Woodbury never-ending source of energy. And then there was an opposing side, police. which feared a dystopia, scared by the destructive power of nuclear “As a military police officer, they referred to deescalation as technology, as demonstrated by US in 1945. But look at us now. AI is ‘verbal judo,’” he said. “It sounds cliché, but my ability to not different; there are two extreme positions but as it is the case with communicate is my most powerful weapon. I can convince people to every issue with two extremes, truth lies somewhere in the middle. communicate about 90 percent of the time.” He said he tries to Progress in AI has seen an exponential growth over the years, humanize himself to excitable patients by talking about his family or thanks to the enabling variables such as computer processing power. bringing up light topics like sports. “I was also aware that my uniform As great minds around the world are in a race to mimic millions of was very similar to that of a police officer, which is inherently years of human evolution on computers, there are few things which stressful, especially to patients with mental illness,” he added. need to be addressed by policy makers and scientists alike. How far is When Baker responded to a call on September 22, 2019, too far? How much control we want AI to have? Can we trust AI to according to the lawsuit,Sgt. Tom Ehrenberg and other police officers hand over everything? Is AI even capable enough? There are many pressured Baker to administer ketamine. Baker said in an interview experts who believe that AI can never be at the level of human that the man being detained clearly had a mental illness but that he intelligence. also did not resist any directives to a degree that seemed to require And perhaps they are right. We cannot create intelligence in sedation. “He was on his feet and complied with all the officer’s machine which can match human intelligence. Perhaps, we are orders … and even had a conversation with me about the Vikings,” incomprehensibly complex and we cannot mimic nature. But then Baker recalled. He refused to sedate him, and the man was eventually again, if random mutations can result in human intelligence, what’s released. stopping AI to achieve the same level? In fact, AI has already “I was also aware that my uniform was very similar to that of a surpassed us in limited scope. Deep Blue and Alpha Go computer police officer, which is inherently stressful, especially to patients with systems has defeated best human players in popular board games like mental illness.” “You shouldn’t just jump to sedation because there Go and Chess. Think about it, even if you dedicate your whole life are plenty of situations where people will appear combative or mastering one of these games, you can never be as good as these disordered, but they are actually hypoxic, or their blood sugar is low,” computer systems. You can dismiss these achievements but AI is not said Baker. “Ketamine is especially concerning because when you going to stop at beating us in Chess. It is going to be far more than a administer it, it takes away the patient’s ability to cooperate with you. playing toy in near future. And we should be giving patients every opportunity to cooperate.” That day, said Baker, Ehrenberg waited for him at the But if AI is going to be capable enough to do all physical and station and berated him for not cooperating with the request. mental labor, what purpose would we as humans serve? If we, in this Baker soon felt pressure to leave his post. He was placed on a idealistic quest, render an entire species useless, would it stop AI to “progressive improvement plan” in November, which he was told recognize our obsolescence and taking control? If one day, AI is going was in response to his “insubordination,” and it included a list of to surpass human intelligence and we become ants in front of it, how check-ins and behavioral interventions that were to continue for will it treat us? Matter of fact, how we treat ants? Think of it in this an indefinite period of time.He decided to quit instead. way: You are going to build a new home, but there is a colony of ants on a land where your new home is going to be built. You wouldn’t care His lawsuit names the city of Woodbury, as well as the city’s less about those little ants. Try explaining immense benefits to animals, fire chief and two EMS commanders. Attorneys for the city told The of cutting those trees and destroying their natural habitats. What if AI Intercept that “with regard to the administration of any medications, needs something and we are in its way? Would it care about us? And such as ketamine, a medical professional determines whether the these are not scribblings of a paranoid mind, this is very much in realm intervention is medically warranted under the circumstances. No of possibility and according to experts, it is going to happen in next few employee of the City of Woodbury improperly administered any such decades. medications. Mr. Baker was never disciplined or subject to retaliation On October 5, 1960, an early warning system in Greenland and we categorically deny the allegations in the complaint.” issued a level-5 warning. Which meant a long range soviet missile is Ketamine, a synthetic drug discovered in 1962, is a fast-acting about to hit USA. The warning was quickly passed to the high general anesthetic that is typically used in humans as a sedative command but it was dismissed due to the fact that Nikita Khrushchev, before surgeries. It has been marketed in the U.S. as an anesthetic for head of the Soviet Union was in US at that time, you wouldn’t expect both humans and animals since the 1970s, according to the Drug him to be there at the time of nuclear attack. Later, it was investigated Enforcement Administration, and is also used recreationally for its that early warning system in Greenland mistook rising moon as Soviet dissociative effects.Its side effects include severe confusion, missile. But think about it for a second, had Nikita not been there in hallucinations, loss of bladder control, and shallow breathing. US? We were grazed by the apocalypse. We humans are fallible, we In a 2017 medical study conducted by several Twin Cities make mistakes and now, with the advent of destructive technologies on doctors on “ketamine as primary therapy for prehospital profound scale of extinction of all life on earth, we are right in our concerns agitation,” 57 percent of the patients had to get intubated after their about giving up control and handing it all over to the machines. ketamine injection. A 2016 study comparing ketamine to haloperidol, an antipsychotic medication also used to treat delirium, found that complications occurred in 49 percent of patients receiving ketamine, compared to only 5 percent for the haloperidol group. It concluded that while ketamine is a faster-acting sedative, it is “associated with How do you feel about this article? more complications and a higher intubation rate.” “Of course there are other, less intrusive drugs, but ketamine is fast-acting and powerful,” said Udoibok. “And it has been heavily The Catalyst Effect of COVID19(2020) e are, or will be, going through the most radical transformation the world has ever seen; people are justly terrified, excited, depressed, heartbroken and hopeful,W all at once. It is very tempting to stop everything and live in Heather Marsh the moment, but some things need us to be alert, careful and creative. ◆ The fact that pollution increases COVID-19 deaths has been used to limit vehicle traffic and reclaim city streets for physical distancing of One thing I have been saying for years is the US, China and Russia (and others) are all headed for a major crisis in 2020 (which is here bikes and pedestrians. Vehicle traffic has always increased deaths from pollution, not to mention the astronomical amount of deaths caused now!) and so is the world generally. While some states are by vehicle accidents; reclaim all city streets and never give them back. undergoing terror and totalitarianism, others are seeing unprecedented opportunities for healing. The key point is that we are scaling up into ◆ a mono-empire from a system of two rival economic ideologies (cold Pollution is so unhealthy every day that the COVID-19 shutdowns of industry have, in some regions, potentially saved more lives than war communism and capitalism). In terms already introduced in The were lost to the pandemic. Pollution needs to continue to be recognized and treated as a global health emergency on par with the pandemic. Creation of Me, Them and Us, this means our two dominant authoritative endogroups are being sublated to one transcendental ◆ Public transit is free in some places to reduce contact with bus drivers. Don’t ever let it be unfree again. Providing free streets for vehicles endogroup. There will be three major things to watch for in this transition. and charging for public transit is taxing the necessities of the poor for the autogenocidal luxuries of the wealthy. One, the economy is not going to be nearly as important as it was before. This may be unimaginable to people who have been ◆ Food banks are receiving more government funding in places; food stores ought to be free, filled with healthy, locally produced food. accustomed to framing all of our problems in terms of economics, but Think of the carbon footprint reduction, medical care reduction, and general increase in happiness and competence that would be caused by think of how religions and states faded as the dominant endogroups when new transcendental endogroups appeared. Things that appear universal access to fresh, healthy food and universal ability to grow and share food locally, perhaps in the laneways and parking lots freed essential to society can fade into irrelevance if they are based only on from vehicle traffic. Why should every child have a right to education but not food? How is free health care effective if healthy food, air and endoreality, as economics is. The crash we started the year off with water are unattainable? will not simply produce a depression and then recovery. Instead, it will illustrate the fact that economics now is simply an abstracted ◆ power structure with no underlying support in universal reality (like Evictions have been stopped in some places and those without homes are suddenly being housed to prevent COVID-19 deaths. Poverty all endoreality). Economics as we know it, is dead. This does not and lack of housing has always been lethal; eradicate poverty and universalize access to homes. mean it will disappear completely overnight, or that it will not remain in some form in some places, but, like religions, states, families, and ◆ Some people have acknowledged that releasing the majority of prisoners will create no social ill and prisons are inhumane. Some are even other formerly dominant endogroups, it will no longer be the dominant or authoritative power structure in our lives. This is acknowledging the extreme mental distress and increased tendency to violence caused by social isolation. Use this opportunity to re- explained in great detail in The Approval Economy which will be examine the goals and methods of archaic and cruel prison punishments and construct rehabilitative alternatives which focus on harm published one day. prevention. Two, in accordance with the law of the last circle, also explained in The Creation of Me, Them and Us, places like the US, ◆ and China are going to try to fall back to old real or imagined The Canadian government and others have rejected IP protection for necessary COVID-19 treatment and supplies; abolish IP while endogroups such as those around states, religions, etc. as the crediting creators and we will see an explosion in creativity and scientific advancement. COVID-19 is hardly the only emergency facing the economic endogroups weaken. We have already seen this in the world. global reversion to various forms of endogroups producing widespread nationalism, sexism, racism, religious cults and every ◆ other form of endosocial extremism. This will continue in some The vital need for knowledge emanating from transparent, two-way, epistemic communities and facilitated by knowledge bridges is regions, and we are still at risk of civil wars and other endogroup finally being recognized. Ignorance is lethal. Knowledge needs to be a human right. Establish protection and support for this right in all areas atrocities from this. of social collaboration, including corporate and governance activity. Three, and this is by far the most interesting – the world is attempting to transition into a mono-empire. It is already very ◆ evident, and has been for years, that the form of this mono-empire Health is, at least for a moment, being prioritized over industry. This is a sign of the weakening of industrial endo-idealism. This must be would feature totalitarianism beyond any of our wildest nightmares. recognized as the moment of sublation it is; do not allow this moment of victory over industrial endo-idealism to blind us to its potential This nightmare future has a very substantial implementation problem, replacement by a transcendental mono-empire. Be aware of these attempts, such as Google and Apple surveillance justified by the however. An endogroup, as explained in The Creation of Me, Them pandemic, and instead, seize the moment to establish exosocial collaboration. and Us, is an emergency power structure that humans instinctually create and support in response to external threat. One of the six components of every endogroup is an existential threat from external ◆ Transparent, collaborative knowledge with two-way epistemic communities are providing the information on health guidelines. All forces. Another is an identity which enables exclusive membership. science needs to be open and collaborative and unfiltered through political and corporate interests. Cancer and many other diseases could An empire which includes everyone cannot be exclusive or have also be greatly reduced with the same transparency and prioritizing of health over industry. plausibly threatening external forces. If there is no external threat, the equally inherent human tendency to egalitarianism creates a counter force which will dismantle any endogroup power structures created in ◆ We are seeing an example of governance by epistemic communities, Knowledge regarding the pandemic is global and transparent. Policy times of emergency. A mono-empire has no external endogroup to act implementation is under networked regional authority which consults and defers to regional experts informed by that global knowledge. as an existential threat and so a mono-empire cannot form or maintain This is the new method of collaborative governance that I described a decade ago and wrote in Binding Chaos. For this method to work, its defensive structure. It dissolves even as it attempts to form. This will become increasingly apparent this year as the last vestiges of knowledge (not simply speech or information) must be a human right. dominant economic ideology weaken. The projected and planned-for mono-empire will never be able to fully form or hold its power, ◆ Tourism has all but halted. Some states, such as the US, and China, will attempt to use this to entrench totalitarianism and greatly restrict although it will be dangerous as it fights to do so. ability to move. Let’s instead try to create a new habit of slow travel; let’s forfeit the social media selfies and work on creating true links of The response to the lack of an external endogroup threat has been to create, or use, anthropomorphized natural threats, similar to friendship, mutual aid, trust and discovery when we are guests in other people’s communities and homes. the recent War on drugs, War on terror or US president Trump’s anthropomorphizing of a virus into a ‘brilliant Invisible Enemy’. We ◆ Worry about supply chains is suddenly causing questioning of international forced dependency on trade. This is a window to encourage are certainly all facing plenty of existential threats from corporate collaboration through networked development of strength and support, not hierarchical development of enforced dependency. destruction, climate change, pandemics and more. We have definitely seen the usual suspects using all of these crises to institute more extreme totalitarianism. There is a difference that is becoming more ◆ Airbnb and others have taken a huge economic hit. This could be an opportunity to develop Getgee and networked control of our own obvious every week, however. service industries, instead of apps controlled in Silicon Valley. An external threat that is not a rival endogroup does not produce an endogroup power structure to combat it. A naturally occurring environmental threat creates widespread exosocial collaboration, as is seen in every disaster. The first thing that happens in a disaster is the breakdown of endogroups and hierarchy and the world has clearly understood for many years that we are facing endo-ideal from their own guilt and persecute the negative image. establishment of altruistic exosocial aid. This has happened around extinction, Genocides and atrocities, including caging children in Endoreality is the primary tool of tyranny and the means to keep the the world in response to all of our current environmental threats. concentration camps and state organ trafficking, have been ignored all world in chains of our own creation. Instead of helping to entrench endogroup power, these disasters are over the world. Everyone knows that corporations are killing people We are seeing the darkest part of the night before the dawn. It creating exosocial opportunity. and the earth for no apparent reason. The world is finally convinced helps to understand what we are seeing and the desperation driving the that every single institution of power is involved in atrocities towards current extreme actions of those upholding the last endogroups. The Given all of this, we have three goals we ought to pursue right the most vulnerable, such as child rape and trafficking. As was my most dangerous time in any endogroup occurs on its destruction. We now. One, consider collaboration free of trade economy norms. We worst fear, exposure simply normalized it instead of stopping it. It is are living in a time of potentially unprecedented global exosocial don’t need cryptocurrency, or even basic income, as much as we need not the size or horror of this pandemic that has brought social change. Why are the majority of Bill Gates video on YouTube about population control? collaboration but also a time of great danger. We need to understand institutions of sharing and free services like transit, medical care, The change is a direct result of the collapse of endosocialism under the danger but also to understand that it will pass. The world is living education, food and housing. Develop these ideas, even if they seem what was intended to be a global mono-empire. A mono-empire through a time of great pain but great pain is always a motivator for far-fetched right now – they won’t for long. We really do need Getgee cannot hold its shape as an endogroup, even with the support of the exosocial expansion. The tearing of endogroup bonds and former – it’s a shame it received no support because it would be very useful most extreme totalitarianism. euphoric connections results in a global need to create new right now. It is long past time to disrupt the Silicon Valley vapour As long as we are trapped in endogroups, people have proved connections. We have an opportunity to create those connections with capitalists and put collaborative economies under control of local throughout history that there is no atrocity or horror they will not discovery, with creation and with each other, through altruistic and networks. normalize and justify. The fact that this current pandemic is suddenly power-free interactions. Let’s care for each other, beware of dangers Two, watch out for and combat the still present and very creating sweeping changes in most populations is because of the and, at the same time, plant the seeds for the new world we want to dangerous endosocial extremism arising in places of collapsing lifting of the veil of endoreality. Those who were the invisible grow. economic power, including the desperate attempts at transcendental negative image of industrial or wealth endo-idealism are finally being totalitarianism. Do not confuse shared responsibility for keeping us seen as those endogroups weaken. The most industry-worshiping all safe with totalitarianism. Infecting your neighbours has nothing to states still devalue our elders and instantly cast all those who are ill How do you feel about this article? do with exosocial collaboration or combating tyranny. Autogenocide as the negative image. This has produced attempted terrorist attacks in the name of the old god Economy is a sign of endosocial extremism on hospitals and blocking access to them which we have seen in and cruelty, not exosocial connection and altruism. Brazil and the United States. As explained in The Creation of Me, Three, we have never in the history of humanity had an Them and Us, the act of falling ill is enough to cast a person as the opportunity like we do now to be free of endosocial extremism. This negative image in an industrial endogroup. This has been obvious for is the moment I have been waiting for, and hopefully you have as years through the condemnation of the ill to poverty and social well. We can prevent power structures from returning by establishing ostracization but it becomes more evident as hospitals are threatened exosocial collaboration and refusing to allow autogenocidal actions with bombs and hospital workers are evicted and shunned. The like pollution to be re-normalized. It is futile to weed without violence and disinformation attacks are a domestic escalation of the planting; now is our window to plant the seeds of a better world. Here attacks by foreign interests suffered by caregivers in organizations are a few of the opportunities we are being given in various parts of such as MSF and the White Helmets for years. The current domestic the world and which we can try to establish and defend in all parts. escalation is a sign of the extreme effort being expended in trying to hold the last endogroups together. Every threat to an endogroup These and many other opportunities for great social change are results in increased violence towards its own weakest members, the being presented where just a few months ago the same ideas were negative image. All externally directed atrocities eventually come dismissed as utopian and unrealistic. These aren’t even the biggest home to roost, including genocide. opportunities, however. The greatest social change of the last months Unfortunately, endogroups are not the only major social has been the redirection of social approval from endosocial destroyers problem we need to contend with. We have also created a large to exosocial creators. Instead of powerful endo-ideals and men with population of people who can only exist on secondary euphoria, that guns, the world is looking to actions coming from caregivers. The obtained from destruction and the suffering of others. Exosocial focus on essential services has highlighted the real contributors to collaboration greatly increases during times of disaster, but so does social health. Saving lives is finally being recognized as more the feeding frenzy of those who have an overwhelming craving for the valuable than ending them. suffering of others. The shame killings described in The Creation of The crisis conditions highlighted now have always existed for Me, Them and Us, and in much more detail in Abstracting Divinity, some. It is time for the world to see and acknowledge those that are are a feature of every endogroup collapse. always required to live in circumstances deemed unacceptable for the Those who crave the pain and destruction of others exist freely majority. In Canada, the federal government provided a temporary due to the cloak of endoreality which shields them from relief payment of $2000 a month for many people. Ineligible were the accountability. Their actions are depicted as necessary and majority of those who are always forced to live far below the poverty unavoidable instead of the simple cruelty they are. We can combat line on pensions, disability payments and social assistance. The latter these people by naming their actions and their guilt. Those that block are still expected to live on a payment as low as $593 a month transparent information and try to instigate an autogenocide of as (depending on the province). The poor are the negative image who are many people as possible through encouraging uninformed action are dehumanized every day under wealth endo-idealism. Also cruel for their own gratification. This applies not only to COVID-19 dehumanized are those who are victims of the industrial endo-ideal. but to all the branches of autogenocide we are facing. In Korea, that is victims of Samsung, and in Canada it is victims of Their reflectors, those who attribute all virtue to their endo- resource corporations. These victims are not only not compensated for ideal and reject all guilt by their endo-ideal will have a very difficult their injuries, they are silenced by media and the public and ignored time attributing the correct motivation to these lethal actions and will by government. In a world free of endosocial extremism, all have diminish such cruelty as much as possible. We are governed by equivalent value. information and our belief in and acceptance of that information. The pandemic we are facing is indeed a huge disaster. It is not Transparent, verified information and knowledge bridges are the most the reason we are seeing these great social changes, however. I have important tools available to us today. Endoreality, which assigns all been presenting huge social disasters in the hopes that people may be ownership, virtue, credit and victimhood to the endo-ideal and all inspired to social change for years, and it has never worked. The vice, guilt and punishment to the negative image, acts to shield the it had been well documented a year and a half earlier. When the earlier stories were pointed out to Greenwald by Wikileaks, he ignored and continued the same ill- placed hype around his friend that had led to his own (2014) success. Kony 2012, One Million Rising, and endless Reactionaries other NGOs and Thought Leaders made 2012 a lucrative Heather Marsh year for those selling other people’s tragedy and here are people in this world who do not want resistance. Other people are simply a product to sell for the systems of dissociation removed, the celebrity, wealth and power, activism is just the all T oligarchs dethroned and the principles that important panel seat. govern us rewritten. Some of those are people who know The NSA is hardly the only intelligence agency things are never so bad they can’t get worse. Some do not spying on The People if The People are the world. see the box they are in or a different way of living. Some Neither are the anti-NSA activists heroes if they are only are those advantaged by the current structure, now or in the disclosing that which violates their own privacy and recent past. keeping the rest secure in the name of ‘national security’. We can all spot reactionaries when they take the form Anyone supporting ‘national’ security of the corporate of extreme nationalists fighting against immigration or empire which terrorizes, murders and enslaves the world against anyone from a different ethnicity, religion, gender is an enemy of the people, not a hero. or similar, but today the loudest voices calling for People with massive platforms act as gates to keep revolution are equally reactionary. The very fact that their the real disadvantaged from power instead of bridges to voices are the loudest under the current system is reason ensure all voices are heard. This appropriation of the enough that they don’t want to change the paradigm. A voices and stories of others is called assistance but those longing for tradition and nostalgia for the good old days, they assist are really just marketing gimmicks to aid in advocacy for reform, and focus on issues instead of their own quest for celebrity, power and wealth. This underlying principles, all indicate the speaker is from a sickness is now spreading to every part of the world as demographic only lately inconvenienced by the system. the Great Men reach out to lesser Great Men who fight Anyone fighting for a reform or a reversal of the first for the uniqueness of their group and then beat back current system is a reactionary. Anyone objecting to one bill their comrades as if they are the only representatives of or victim at a time instead of universal principles is only that uniqueness needed. It is a ponzi scheme, if they rise, objecting to one manifestation of a problem and that is the the rest will not. Because these people see tragedy and one which affects themselves. The principles we are ruled need as a product to feed off of and a highly lucrative by were created to advantage an elite few and no matter how path to the all-important panel seat, they compete for far back their effects are rewound, if the principles remain causes like old corporate media competes for stories. the same the elite few will recur and the ponzi schemes of Victims are hoarded like sources, that so very apt term wealth, celebrity and power will continue. Anyone wanting for the vampire-like tendencies of narcissistic old an effect of the principles reversed but not the principles journalism. More online energy is devoted to wars over themselves is asking for a personal exemption to a situation who started a hashtag than the problem the hashtag was they have no problem seeing others living in. Their meant to highlight. Problems cease to be problems when objective is to go back far enough that the whole process they reach a level the reactionaries are comfortable with. can continue again in the same way, rewinding only the Noam Chomsky introduces the concepts of ‘normal parts where it became uncomfortable for them. As soon as torture’ and ‘serious torture’ and is happy that the levels other people’s problems are mentioned they become at Guantanamo have reached normal. ‘realists’ who don’t want to ‘tackle the whole world’ at once There are no sides, just a top and a bottom. No one (ever) just the part with them in it. They do not want to on the top is a friend of anyone on the bottom. People dismantle the structure or keep the door open, they just want from all the right demographics tweet that they are being to scuttle in themselves before it shuts. repressed to scratch their way up onto a panel but once they have themselves firmly planted in a panel seat they Exceptional lives will never look at anyone beneath them. They sigh and Those enjoying media spotlight for being questioned talk about ‘broke activists’ if confronted with others in at international airports without mentioning the stateless need when they are far less broke than all those they masses in prisons, floating on oceans and being murdered by claim to represent. If they were looking up before, they traffickers and fascists are co-opting and minimizing the will continue their gaze upwards, sitting on panels in global horror of militarized closed borders. US military suits and starting NGOs and using those below as personnel protesting US military force only when it is used marketing product. Once they have stolen the voices in the streets of the US are saying they fought for their below them to build their platform, they will defend it as exceptional position in the ponzi scheme and they want to their personal power and use it solely to present the most retain it. A US thermidor is far more likely than a US inoffensive pap to not lose their mainstream acceptance. revolution as anyone who has enjoyed the sight of Ponzi schemes don’t trickle down, they siphon up. ‘anarchists’ demanding allegiance to their constitution can tell. Anti-imperialism but not really Occupy Sandy was a grass roots campaign The global elite cry “We should fix our problems at which many inside the US Occupy movement considered home!” but empire, communist internationalists and the their greatest achievement and many outside considered so-called Islamic State are all borderless. Act local most illustrative of everything wrong with US Occupy. pretends that all goals are the same and what is good for Sandy was one hurricane, occurring in one region, and US one locality must bring good to others, but the nature of Occupy completely obliterated the voices of those dying in the ponzi scheme ensures that what feeds one, bleeds the Caribbean with their pleas for Hallowe’en candy for the others. Self-professed ‘anti-imperialists’ pretend the children of Manhattan. All efforts to expand the action to empire starts when bombs start dropping and ignore the include those outside the US with far greater need were bomb manufacturers and the trade economy created to ignored or dismissed as unrealistic and not their concern. prop up dictators against the people’s will. Global While regional actions like Opsafewinter are required and warming and environmental destruction by multi-national have local variants worldwide, to co-opt one issue and corporations don’t know borders but when their victims section off only the part that concerns your own state is as seek refuge in the states which destroyed their homes nationalist and reactionary as any fascist fighting they are killed and imprisoned and the reactionary immigration. population murmurs completely meaningless phrases like The exact same US based social media accounts who ‘it’s just not feasible’. built their platforms by appropriating everyone’s protests Nationalists pretending they are anti-imperialists and revolutions, broadcasting information from others as if pretend we live in a bi-polar, left-right world. We have a it was their own and fundraising to send themselves as war top down world with a core mafia cartel and outlying tourists to gain celebrity by broadcasting over top of local splinter mafias. Neutrality, especially by those at the top voices suddenly went into hard reversal when they had a who are supporting the ponzi scheme, does not just help protest of their own, calling for all of their hugely powerful the oppressor, it is neutrality by the oppressor. circle to attack anyone outside the US attempting to discuss If anti-imperialists are truly anti-imperialist they ‘their’ protest. The worst backlash was for those who dared will empty Coke products which were all violently stolen compare a struggle in the US with one outside. While every from others. They will stop Areva, the global blight conflict of any kind in the continent of Africa is happily which destroys Niger to power France. They will block billed by US pundits as ‘the next Rwanda’, pointing out that Zim, the Israeli shipping firm allowed to profit off of the Israeli trained police were throwing US produced tear gas in US funded Israeli occupation of Palestine, as the true the streets of both Palestine and the US was unacceptable anti-imperialists in the US have done. They will share co-opting of ‘their’ protest. They have no desire to stop tear copyrighted and patented material and dismantle their gas production or dismantle the US or Israeli military, they weapons industry. They will share their megaphone, not simply want their exceptional status back. When they fight to speak for others but to amplify them. Anyone who has against minimum wage, they identify with the workers in an exceptional life they are willing to risk could use it Australia, not those in Bangladesh. The policies of trickle not to collect donations and media attention for down economics they deplore for themselves are what they themselves to appropriate another’s cause but to attract prescribe for the rest of the world. attention to their cause for them. The international human Those in Ferguson fighting for the safety of their shields in the Gaza hospital who joined Gazans in neighborhood are part of a global movement against police solidarity as equals and risked their lives to attract a and military violence worldwide. Those furious that media spotlight showed international solidarity and Palestinians have pointed this out are imperialist respect. A UK live-streamer tastelessly exploiting Gaza exceptionalists demanding a global spotlight on them and tragedy and putting their lives at risk to feed his own only them. These are the same people, with the same celebrity did not. mindset, who feel that three killed in Boston is worth far Action to help people in need in a local more media than thousands in Nigeria, that thousands killed neighborhood is not reactionary until it is silencing in the US trade towers is worth hundreds of thousands killed others affected by the same problem. OpSafeWinter is not in Iraq. Self governance is choosing who and what to reactionary, it is part of a global autonomous resistance amplify. Those demanding or taking greater amplification network of similar local initiatives. Occupy Sandy, which seek to be part of the oligarchy, not to dismantle it. They are took all of the attention from the devastation of one not revolution, they are not resistance, they are simply hurricane and pulled the entire spotlight onto those least reaction. affected was embarrassingly reactionary. People in the streets of Ferguson and other US cities protesting police Panelists, the new politicians violence are acting locally. People in the US calling for The 2012 US NDAA caused an international uproar as the end of US military equipment being used on The exceptional lives used their exceptional media power to People, only themselves, instead of an end to US military convince the world of the importance of this bill, which being used on any people, are reactionary. extended to citizens of the United States the same threat of Anyone saying it is not realistic to look at others in indefinite detention that had been a fact for all non-citizens a worse position than themselves, or trying to partition of the US since the passage of the Patriot Act in 2001. In a the same problem to address only the part which affect wonderfully ironic twist, a very wealthy caucasian woman themselves, is a reactionary. Even if just in the rhetoric, from New York (employed by her very wealthy stepfather) solidarity with the full problem must be acknowledged gave laughably false testimony that her interview with and the megaphone must be shared or there is no global Guantanamo child detainee Omar Khadr (who she states is a solidarity. Instead of expending all their energy fighting member of al-Qaeda, with no evidence or background to protect their exceptional status they could recognize knowledge of the case whatsoever) put her at such risk that the common struggle they share with the exact same she refrained from publishing the interview out of fear of enemies as everyone else and instead of trying to lower the NDAA. Omar Khadr has yet to be interviewed by the bar just far enough to get themselves over it they anyone to this day and she had absolutely no authority over could remove it. The minimum wage workers in the US publication or anything else on the site she is claiming to could recognize their common struggle is not with the have censored. I was the person fully responsible for all minimum wage workers in Australia but those in editorial and administrative decisions on the site she Bangladesh, and instead of trying to scratch their way to references and also for assigning interviews. I actually did the top of the ponzi scheme they could use their position censor an explosive interview I conducted around Omar already near the top to remove support and dismantle it. Khadr which had absolutely nothing to do with her. Both The massive and disproportional megaphone given to Omar Khadr and myself were put at risk eleven years prior citizens of the US is to be shared. If it is not shared it by the Patriot Act, and he had spent the last decade in hell should be taken. due to the fact that this nightmare already existed for Endless fights to pass or block laws recognizes the everyone but herself and other US citizens. This fact was authority of the state and judiciary, exhausts activists and completely ignored along with all of her other easily is a losing game. There is no adjustment to a trade disproven false testimony in the hysteria surrounding the economy possible that will not recreate the exact same NDAA. An exceptional life appropriated the work and situation we are in now. There is no master that will be position of one and exploited the tragedy of another, both benevolent and no messiah who will save us. Reform is under real threat from the Patriot Act, and used it to wrap not possible. themselves in the aura of faux-persecution so essential to a To create a new paradigm, we have to start at the position on the speaking circuit. bottom. The bottom is where the principles we live under The Congolese who died fighting M23 in 2013 had failed first, it is the canary that predicts the future for all. their efforts neatly lifted and sold by the US based NGO We live in a world where some being delayed at the Falling Whistles, which told their donors that their Twitter airport is considered a gross violation of civil liberties campaign, funded by selling sterling silver whistles, was but others being tortured and killed so their own elected responsible for reclaiming the areas of the DRC overtaken leaders can use their body parts as a good luck fetish is by a well armed militia that was only eventually countered not a newsworthy topic. Invasion of privacy is a pimple by UN and state forces combined. In early 2011, I reported on the face of the beast killing children in ritual murders a story as it happened involving a Yemeni journalist ordered to bring good luck for heads of state. Both are imprisoned by Obama for publishing the truth about US manifestations of an empire that thinks it owns its drone strikes in Yemen. My sources for the story were citizens, that they are products to be used for whatever Amnesty and Yemeni bloggers, all well documenting the whim the powerful choose, from props in weapons case at great personal risk. A year and a half later, Jeremy advertising to product for the prison industrial complex. Scahill published the same story, celebrated by the old Hysterics over the pimple while leaving the dragon intact boy circle of US journalists as a coup of investigative will obviously lead to more pimples that will offend even journalism and an exclusive scoop. Scahill’s Wikipedia page the most privileged. contained almost nothing but this story with no mention that How do you feel about this article?

Doctors all over the Earth are speaking out about the COVID statistic inconsistencies. Bill Gates isn’t a doctor, he’s a billionaire business magnate. Think about that.

A System Un/Natural(2020) he highest aspiration possible for humans would be to design systems of governance in ways that mimic the natural systems Tof a healthy jungle. Ideas like Social Darwinism or “survival of the fittest” which attempt to justify racism, eugenics, oppression of immigrants, exploitation of workers, and massive economic disparity are woven into the very fabric of our current societal operating system.These deep-rooted ideologies still rule us today though they emerged over 500 years ago from feudalism and were brought to the Jacob Devaney New World merged together as colonialism and imperialism. This misguided ethos is embedded in centralized, top-down structures including government, monetary policy, healthcare, and more. In order to redesign these societal systems in a contemporary way that mimics the symbiotic networks in nature, we must first recognize that we have bought into an unnatural delusion, then change the way we Madagascar’s President Andry Rajoelina has implied that we see the world by addressing our core beliefs. are potentially witnessing medical imperialism, as his nation’s herbal According to Wikipedia, “Imperialism is a policy or ideology cure is discounted by wealthy nations. Why is vaccine research being of extending a country’s rule over foreign nations, often by military funded by the billions whereas natural approaches are not considered force or by gaining political and economic control of other areas.” or funded? Is it only worth investing in medicines that are profitable Meanwhile, “In the process of colonization, colonizers may impose to large corporations? These and many more questions are being their religion, economics, and other cultural practices on indigenous passionately debated across the planet right now. peoples.” These ideologies of domination, extraction, and Uncertainty is becoming more certain. The models of control exploitation are central to our relationship with the land, while also that have been used for centuries in the traditional top-down, ruling global markets, scientific institutions, corporate culture, centralized systems are imploding. There are more questions than academia, religion, healthcare, and governments. Worst of all most answers yet there is another way to look at this situation. The individuals have adopted and accepted this worldview of humanity indigenous perspective has been buried by centuries of conquest. It is being separate, in competition with each other, and pitted against nature-centric, and recognizes that humans don’t have all the answers, nature without even questioning it! it embraces the mystery while seeing all things as an interconnected When Columbus first looked out and saw the Caribbean Islands whole. of the “New World”, he brought with him the belief systems of colonialism and imperialism. His ethos had been cultivated over centuries of royal hierarchies, feudalism, oppression, privatization, Nature Conspires:The Latin roots of the word “Conspire” are and subjugation from the Old World. Looking from the islands “con”, meaning together, and “spire” meaning breath. Literally it outward to see Columbus’s ships on the horizon were the Native means to breathe together. When we look at and study how Taino People whose indigenous worldview, like all indigenous ecosystems work it is fair to say that nature is conspiring to sustain peoples, still sees the web of life as interconnected, sacred, commonly life. Even our very planet is the perfect distance from the sun, not too shared, and holistic. These two world-views clashed while the one hot or too cold, allowing life to flourish. There is a natural cycle of Phytoestrogen in with guns and superior weapons almost completely extinguished the life inherent in our planet that sustains every aspect of who we are perennial wisdom of the original people. and how we came to be. This is a conspiracy that I can get behind! Some say that the plagues and Dark Ages that Europeans went “These plants are not really individuals in the sense that through prior to the Renaissance played a role in shaping their Darwin thought they were individuals competing for survival of the cultural relationship with nature. Since so many people were dying fittest,” says Simard in the 2011 documentaryDo Trees from the Black Death, a belief system that humans were being Communicate? “In fact they are interacting with each other, trying to Burger King’s punished by God or being punished by nature began to take hold. help each other survive.” This entrenched two divergent world views: the sinner/redemption Recently I had the opportunity to watch the popular film by story of Christianity (religion) and the Newtonian Cartesian Paradigm Louie Schwartzberg,Fantastic Fungi. During the film I was (reductionist, mechanistic science). particularly struck by the research showing that fungus mycelium acts Yet the Taino People of the Caribbean descended from those as a sort of internet carrying information and nutrients to various “Impossible Burger” who had lived for centuries in the Amazon Jungle. They had plants, trees, and shrubs. This miraculous symbiosis between diverse witnessed the reciprocal, symbiotic networks of life that seamlessly species in the forests is not happening as the result of a top-down, flows between plants, centralized animals, mycelium, system. In the pollen, bacteria, air, fall-time there is water, and earth. for a shot? no “president Makes Man-Boob Though there is tree” who decrees pay much to know and that it is time for observe within the “We can not solve our problems all the trees to web of nature, there make their leaves (2020) is also a reverence change colors. A Possibility for the unknown, and These organisms the great mystery of are each life. The indigenous With the same level of thinking sovereign yet Tom Pappert worldview is based they are all on nature rather than responding to the doctor recently broke down the facts behind Burger King’s the political impulses of the vegan Impossible Burger, discovering that it may not be a hierarchies of seasons in healthier option when it comes to caloric or protein intake, and Europe’s ruling That created them.” unison. Bruce A families, their that it has a whopping 18 million times more phytoestrogen than the Lipton calls this regular estrogen found than a standard Whopper. monetary systems, phenomena, and religions. “conscious Writing for TSLN.com, Dr. James Stangle explains the evolution”. chemical process used to create Burger King’s Impossible Burger, Just as the -Albert Einstein We know and alludes to the possibility that the engineered vegetable burger lineages of Europe’s that we are made may be less healthy than a regular Whopper. Stangle starts by noting ruling families (along of bones, blood, that the Impossible Burger clocks in at 630 calories “mostly from the with the material wealth and political clout they have passed down cells, muscle, etc. and we tend to think that these are what makes us added oils,” compared to the original Whopper’s 660. “So, about 5% through the generations) are still with us today, so too are the human. However, we often overlook the Human Microbiome. This is less calories, this is not a huge improvement,” wrote Stangle. He goes descendants of the original people of the Americas. Natural, land- a naturally occurring community of microorganisms (microbes) in on to explain that the Impossible Burger’s protein, though seemingly based world views may fade from dominating society for a time but our body — including diverse viruses, fungi, and protozoa — that only three grams lower than the regular Whopper, is not equal to they will never vanish altogether because they are perennial. The outnumber human cells almost two to one! While this might sound animal protein: human species comes from the land, it is dependent on it for survival, scary, this thriving community of microbes in our body is working in it is completely intertwined with it, and it will return to the land upon harmony with our human cells to create life as we know it. “The impossible whopper has 25 grams of protein. The death. However we are also seeing the great natural places, forests, whopper has 28 grams. Seems pretty equal, only 11% less protein in oceans, and even the Amazon Jungle being decimated by humans Nature is dynamic and alive. She communicates if we listen the impossible whopper. However, not all proteins are created equal. under the spell of domination, extraction, and exploitation. and observe. The belief that humans are somehow above nature, like There are 20 amino acids. Nine of which are essential, meaning your Newtonian Science has become the golden calf of the day but a king is above his subjects, is pure delusion. We are not in an body cannot make them so they are required in the diet. Each of those few recognize that it was shaped by the same old-world beliefs that either/or situation, things are not black and white. We have gained essential amino acids must meet a certain level to make a complete influenced Columbus’s colonial world view. Science has helped much understanding through reductionist, mechanistic science but we protein profile. If any essential amino acid does not hit the required humans dominate the planet. In its infancy, Western Science was a must recognize that it is most potent when science observes, mimics, amount, it is said to be rate limiting. As an analogy, picture nine threat to the dominant power structure maintained by religion. We see and respects natural systems. Humans have a disease of the mind in chains connected in a line. All of the chains need to lift 100 pounds to this battle play out today as many religious people oppose climate the colonial, imperialistic ways we see each other, the animals, the Why isn’t the media pushing organic nutrition to boost health? Why are we waiting to carry the load. If one chain can only support 50 pounds, it doesn’t science and theories of evolution. In order for early science to not plants, and the very elements that sustain our lives. matter how much the others can support. The 50 pound chain is the tread on the territory of science it was forced into reductionism. We are approaching our response to COVID-19 from the same rate limiting chain.” Science was given the freedom to research “the parts” but not allowed materialistic, colonial, imperial, centralized, mono-cropped, to look at systems as a “whole” because the church deemed this as chemical-driven, profit-centered, privatized model that has birthed The doctor goes on to explain the being the realm of the spirit, of God and thus their domain. this crisis in the first place. Let’s take a good look at the outdated process used to make the Impossible Science has brought such great innovations yet it has operating system and human beliefs that are embedded in our current Burger have the look of meat, writing been trained for centuries to have blinders and only see the world as centralized systems. This is the model, born from feudalism and the that the beef-like appearance of the separate parts. This is evolving slowly with integrative science, and Dark Ages, that now rules our global markets, scientific institutions, vegetable-based burger is a product of holistic medicine but today it faces hurdles much bigger than the corporate culture, academia, religion, healthcare, and governments. genetic engineering. According to church. Today science and medicine are relatively beholden to There IS another way. Stangle, the red appearance of the research funding which usually comes from business investors If the word conspire truly means to breathe together then vegetable patty comes from genetically looking to turn a profit, corporate financial endowments, or collectively maybe we should all do just that. We are woven together splicing a soybean and yeast: government grants. It doesn’t matter which era we live in because the in this majestic web of life throughout all of time. We can create wisdom of, “not biting the hand that feeds you” still applies. systems that mimic the way that mycelium nourishes a healthy jungle “The bacterial enzyme that binds the Money and politics now shape science. All of the above shape allowing it to thrive. It will not be a centralized top-down system, it nitrogen is damaged by the presence of our belief systems yet we still find the common ethos of domination, will be a distributed network to empower all the disjointed parts to oxygen so the bacterium makes the imperialism, and colonialism at the root. It is amazing to consider that flourish. It’s time to upgrade our society’s operating system. leghemoglobin to bind oxygen to keep many of our world systems are still literally built on the foundations Let’s listen to the science so we can integrate the broken and it out of the way. To make enough of Dark Ages thinking born from feudalism, religious fanaticism, as disjointed pieces of the reductionist mindset to embrace a holistic leghemoglobin to add to the impossible well as the rule of kings and queens. Who will liberate us if we are approach. Nature has untold secrets but we have forgotten how to whopper, scientists spliced the gene for not willing to liberate ourselves from these underlying beliefs? listen. Indigenous people are keepers of nature and hold a very leghemoglobin into yeast. They can profound understanding for us in this time. They have been warning grow the yeast easily and separate the that this day would eventually come. Their voices and cultures have leghemoglobin and add it to the impossible whopper.” So the Welcome to Global Pandemic:Many historians believe that viruses, been squashed by a worldview based on conquest that is as invasive impossible whopper is technically a genetically modified organism germs, and disease brought by Europeans to the New World killed to humanity’s perennial wisdom as any virus. Perhaps it is time we (GMO). more people than guns and swords. Europeans, having lived in close take a moment and listen. quarters with each other and with domesticated animals, have Finally, the doctor explains the radically high amount of endured many plagues and developed antibodies. It could be argued phytoestrogen featured in each burger, “the impossible whopper has that COVID-19 is nature’s response to the failings of human systems 44 mg of estrogen and the whopper has 2.5 ng of estrogen,” wrote which are a reflection of cultural world views. Mono-cropped Stangle. “That means an impossible whopper has 18 million times as agriculture, abuse of pesticides, meat/dairy factory farms, much estrogen as a regular whopper.” Specifically, Stangle refers to deforestation, overuse of antibiotics, polluted water along with phytoestrogen, separate compound from estrogen created by plants poverty due to greed and economic disparity are just a few factors that may act similarly to estrogen when consumed by mammals. that contribute to a world prone to pandemics. Phytoestrogen is created by plants, while estrogen is created by Centralized, top-down structures are systems modeled after mammals. However, a man did suffer from gynecomastia as a kingdoms of the Middle Ages that require a central command that result of consuming unhealthy amounts of soy milk for a sustained everyone must fall in line behind. With that must come a narrative to period of time, in the case study over 6 months. rally the troops to protect the kingdom from invaders. Who do we turn to in a moment of global crisis like this? Apparently the top of Stangle went on to compare the level of phytoestrogen in the chain of command is the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board, an Impossible Burger to soy milk, writing that eating four of the organization created by the World bank and the World Health vegetable burgers daily would result in a human male growing Organization. This consortium of political leaders, lobbyists, bankers, breasts. “Just six glasses of soy milk per day has enough estrogen to billionaires, and pharmaceutical corporations utilizes “public and grow boobs on a male. That’s the equivalent of eating four impossible private partnerships” which funnel public funds from governments whoppers per day. You would have to eat 880 pounds of beef from an and foundations into private corporations for research. In the case of implanted steer to equal the amount of estrogen in one birth control COVD-19, billions of dollars have gone into research for a vaccine. pill.” Stangle’s estimate of four burgers per day may be low, as We have all witnessed the battle to control the narrative about research indicates it may be closer to an extremely unhealthy, and this process, the divide is exploding across social media. Are there potentially unrealistic, diet of 8-10 burgers per day to risk suffering conflicts of interest in this model? Are some banking on this crisis? from gynecomastia. Are governments using this to take civil liberties and increase surveillance? To wear a mask or not, to close down the economy or In short, the Impossible Burger is a genetically modified re-open it, to have mandatory vaccines or not, to have contact tracing organism filled with calorie-dense oils that can make a man grow or not? Doctors with dissenting opinions are being censored from breasts if eaten in overwhelming quantity. social media and politicians are trying to squeeze this crisis into the The standard Whopper, of course, is “a ¼ lb* of savory flame-grilled conventional partisan boxes. beef topped with juicy tomatoes, fresh lettuce, creamy mayonnaise, ketchup, crunchy pickles, and sliced white onions on a soft sesame With so much at stake there is a fatal flaw in the centralized, seed bun,” according to Burger King. top-down model. If there is an error, or corruption, then the whole system becomes poisonous. This is why keeping all eggs in one basket is never a good idea. In contrast, a diversity of viewpoints and approaches, available in a decentralized model, allows for best practices to emerge rather than forcing one course of action. Sadly How do you feel about these articles? there is no silver bullet. Every week since March we were all supposed to die..... But we didn’t. Why did media traumatize us?

“Just quit.” That’s the advice Alec gave a year and a half ago when I expressed concerns about my job. “You just quit. It’s that simple.” “Stay at MSNBC at least until the midterms,” Jeffrey said a couple years back. He advised to watch and see what happens. “Hang in there… you’re needed,” Elizabeth recommended last winter. “I was in your shoes when I was younger but I stuck it out.” A year and a half ago, simply quitting my job without knowing my next step sounded pretty radical. So I stuck it out a bit longer until we were in the middle of a pandemic to make a truly radical move. July 24th was my last day at MSNBC. I don’t know what I’m going to do next exactly but I simply couldn’t stay there anymore. My colleagues are very smart people with good intentions. The problem is the job itself. It forces skilled journalists to make bad decisions on a daily basis. You may not watch MSNBC but just know that this problem still affects you, too.All the commercial networks function the same – and no doubt that content seeps into your social media feed, one way or the other. It’s possible that I’m more sensitive to the editorial process due to my background in public radio, where no decision I ever witnessed was predicated on how a topic or guest would “rate.” The longer I was at MSNBC, the more I saw such choices — it’s practically baked in to the editorial process – and those decisions affect news content every day. Likewise, it’s taboo to discuss how the ratings scheme distorts content, or it’s simply taken for granted, because everyone in the commercial broadcast news industry is doing the exact same thing. But behind closed doors, industry leaders will admit the damage that’s being done. “We are a cancer and there is no cure,” a successful and insightful TV veteran said to me. “But if you could find a cure, it would change the world.” As it is, this cancer stokes national division, even in the middle of a civil rights crisis. The model blocks diversity of thought and content because the networks have incentive to amplify fringe voices and events, at the expense of others… all because it pumps up the ratings. This cancer risks human lives, even in the middle of a pandemic. The primary focus quickly became what Donald Trump was doing (poorly) to address the crisis, rather than the science itself. As new details have become available about antibodies, a vaccine, or how COVID actually spreads, producers still want to focus on the politics. Important facts or studies get buried. This cancer risks our democracy, even in the middle of a presidential election. Any discussion about the election usually focuses on Donald Trump, not Joe Biden, a repeat offense from 2016 (Trump smothers out all other coverage). Also important is to ensure citizens can vote by mail this year, but I’ve watched that topic get ignored or “killed” numerous times. Context and factual data are often considered too cumbersome for the audience. There may be some truth to that (our education system really should improve the critical thinking skills of Americans) – but another hard truth is that it is the job of journalists to teach and inform, which means they might need to figure out a better way to do that. They could contemplate more creative methods for captivating an audience. Just about anything would improve the current process, which can be pretty rudimentary (think basing today’s content on whatever rated well yesterday, or look to see what’s trending online today). Occasionally, the producers will choose to do a topic or story without regard for how they think it will rate, but that is the exception, not the rule. Due to the simple structure of the industry – the desire to charge more money for commercials, as well as the ratings bonuses that top-tier decision-makers earn – they always relapse into their old profitable programming habits. I understand that the journalistic process is largely subjective and any group of individuals may justify a different set of priorities on any given day. Therefore, it’s particularly notable to me, for one, that nearly every rundown at the network basically is the same, hour after hour. And two, they use this subjective nature of the news to justify economically beneficial decisions. I’ve even heard producers deny their role as journalists.A very capable senior producer once said: “Our viewers don’t really consider us the news. They come to us for comfort.” Again, personally, I don’t think the people need to change. I think the job itself needs to change.There is a better way to do this. I’m not so cynical to think that we are absolutely doomed (though we are on that path). I know we can find a cure. If we can figure how to send a man to the moon, if Alex Trebek can defy the odds with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, and if Harry Reid can actually overcome pancreatic cancer (he’s now cancer free), then we can fix this, too. “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” I know James Baldwin wasn’t thinking about MSNBC when he wrote that line in 1962, but those words spoke loudly to me in the summer of 2020. Unfortunately, many of the same ailments are still at stake today. Now maybe we can’t really change the inherently broken structure of broadcast news, but I know for certain thatit won’t change unless we actually face it, in public, and at least try to change it. Through this pandemic and the surreal, alienating lockdown, I’ve witnessed many people question their lives and what they’re doing with their time on this planet. I reckon I’m one of those people, looking for greater meaning and truth. As much as I love my life in New York City and really don’t By the way..... want to leave, I feel fortunate to be able to return to Virginia in the near term to reconnect with family, friends, and a community of independent journalists. I’m both nervous and excited about this change. Thanks to COVID-19, I’m learning to live with uncertainty. And so very soon, I’m going to be seeking you out, any one of you who also may sense that the news is fundamentally flawed and is frustrated by it. This effort will start informally but I hope to crystallize a plan for when better, safer days are upon us. On that front, feel free to reach out anytime if you would like to discuss any of this – whether in agreement or not. More than ever, I’m craving a full and civil discourse. Until next time, thank you for reading. I wish you all well. Ariana

..are you willing to take the Gates vaccine?