PP NewsBrief: 2021-06-09

We need to begin to reclaim control over the institutions which have such oversized roles in our lives. As you read this people work tirelessly to see to it that you are dumb and docile. Let's stop them.

========

Elon Musk’s girlfriend Grimes argues that embracing AI could lead to communist utopia

"According to Grimes, “correctly” implementing AI into all aspects of life would be the “fastest path to communism”, creating “abundance” for all.

“Like, we could totally get to a situation where nobody has to work, everybody is provided for with a comparable state of being, comfortable living,” she argued.

Artificial intelligence could automate work such as farming and eliminate corruption, “thereby bringing us as close as possible to genuine equality,” Grimes theorized. "So basically, everything everybody loves about communism but without the collective farm. Because, let’s be real, enforced farming is really not a vibe.”"

I mean maybe the most fascinating aspect of this is the way we've managed to turn the production of food, a key survival activity, into this unappealing endeavor that obviously should be handed off to autonomous machines.

I suspect what has made modern farming most unappealing is the increasing powerlessness of the small farmer in relation to Big Ag. Any gardener can attest that there's nothing quite as satisfying as eating what you helped usher into being. But I imagine an endless push for evermore efficient operations and narrow profit margins, on top of the usual farming problems of pest, weather, etc, make it a stress-filled affair to attempt at larger scales.

This is why direct purchases from local farms is one of the most important acts you can take to protect farmers & yourself from Big Ag. Cut Big Ag out of the picture as much as possible and eliminate their ability to siphon off the value produced by the farmer themselves.

========

Journalist tricks Matt Gaetz & other Republicans into retweeting image of JFK killer Lee Harvey Oswald on Memorial Day

"Ken Klippenstein, a journalist for the Intercept and a notorious internet prankster, tricked several leading Republicans into retweeting a photo of John F. Kennedy's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, on Memorial Day.

Klippenstein reached out to Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), American Conservative Union Chairman Matt Schlapp, and conservative author Dinesh D’Souza with a picture of his “veteran grandpa” on Monday, as Americans were celebrating Memorial Day, a federal holiday for honoring fallen US military personnel.

“Sir, my grandpa’s a big fan of yours and is a veteran, he would be thrilled if you could RT this photo of him for Memorial Day,” Klippenstein wrote, attaching a military photo of Lee Harvey Oswald – who served as a US Marine before assassinating President John F. Kennedy in November 1963.

Though Klippenstein has become known online for his pranks – which include tricking former Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell into thanking a convicted war criminal for his service – Gaetz, Schlapp, and D’Souza all fell into his latest trap and enthusiastically complied with the request.

...

Klippenstein – who worked at the Nation and the Young Turks before joining the Intercept this year – has become known for his political trolling. In addition to his three Monday victims, he has previously also tricked former Rep. Steve King (R-IA), and author Naomi Wolf with similar Twitter pranks."

If you doubt your own ability to write & analyze just remember that this clown is a paid "professional journalist." Some may be inclined to criticize the three fellows but what are we really criticizing them for? That they do not assume everyone is lying about every little thing they encounter? It's an impossible standard to live. No one does it. This is clearly just some immature "Gotcha, made you look stupid" thing that an 8-year old could have come up with.

========

Ariz. audit completes recount of more than 60 percent of ballots

"Election auditors in Arizona are wrapping up the hand-recount of ballots as they expect their work to be complete soon. According to the auditors, more than 60 percent of all 2020 ballots have been counted as of last Friday. That’s out of the 2.1 million ballots that were cast in Maricopa County, Arizona last November.

Reports estimate auditors have seven pallets of about 50,000 ballots each left to count, which means no more than 350,000 ballots are left to examine....

...

Auditors will analyze the results after the ballots are all counted and verified and they will then present the conclusions in a report later this month."

========

Autonomous drones may have ‘hunted down’ and attacked troops in Libya without human control – UN report

"According to the report, anti-government Libyan National Army fighters, under military commander Khalifa Haftar, were retreating last March following an unsuccessful attack on Tripoli, when they ran into a swarm of terrifying aerial opponents.

They were “hunted down” by unmanned drones, as well as “lethal autonomous weapons systems,” the latter of which can be programmed by controllers to seek out and attack targets, and carry out these instructions even if communications with the controllers are severed.

...

It is unclear whether the drones were in contact with human controllers during these reported attacks, or whether they were directly responsible for any casualties or deaths. Were they operating autonomously, the scenario described in the report would likely mark a horrifying milestone: the first recorded incidence of truly independent robots attacking humans on the battlefield. However, the report does not specify what level of autonomy the robots were functioning under.

The drones, known as “loitering munitions,” are quadcopter-type vehicles outfitted with cameras and carrying small explosive devices. Left in an area to operate, they identify targets and dive from the air, blowing themselves up upon impact. The devices identified in Libya were ‘Kargu-2’ loitering munitions, deployed on the Libyan battlefield by Turkish forces allied with the UN-backed and Tripoli-based Government of National Accord."

========

Barack and Michelle Obama team up with Netflix to deliver the animated civics lesson nobody asked for

"It’s a love letter to the politics and themes Obama espoused on the campaign trail in ‘08: people power, diversity, and a belief in the core goodness of America’s institutions. Needless to say, the show likely won’t feature a drone pilot bombing a Yemeni wedding, and definitely won’t explain the ins and outs of politically-motivated wiretapping or cross-border gun-walking through the medium of rap. Some defining moments of the Obama presidency will be omitted from this civics lesson.

That aside, it is uncertain how well the Obamas’ message will resonate in 2021. Just as the 2008 financial crisis killed off Obama’s slogan of ‘Hope’ in the eyes of many voters, the Trump presidency – and the Democrat reaction to it – has permanently changed American politics.

The trailer promises an episode on ‘checks and balances,’ featuring red and blue characters soaring atop an eagle together, and the sage justices of the Supreme Court literally handing power down to the people. Though young viewers may be fooled, adults in the room will likely experience some cognitive dissonance between the wholesome images on screen, and a reality in which Republicans obstruct court appointments for their own political aims, and Democrats are busy attempting to shred the checks and balances preventing them from ramming legislation through Congress with the slimmest of majorities.

Likewise, an episode on activism features plucky characters marching against a line of dour figures in suits. Reconciling that with a reality in which some ‘activists’ spent the last year looting and burning cities and on one occasion shooting a political opponent dead, will take some mental gymnastics.

The show will likely be received well by Obama’s friends in the liberal media, and panned by conservatives. Such a split reaction is par for the course in an America riven by political and cultural warfare – a country in which the civic-mindedness and cooperation portrayed in ‘We The People’ has long since departed."

Isn't the whole argument for giving presidents a pension so that they won't be thinking about their future needs while in office (ideally acting as a hedge against corruption (lol, theory vs. practice though))? Why isn't Barack just sitting quietly in some hole away from the limelight.

At least George Bush had the decency to go sit in a bathtub and quietly paint after he was done orchestrating the actions which would result in the death of maybe a million Iraqis & stripping Americans of their civil liberties. And who helped drag him back into the spotlight & rehabilitate his image? The Obamas.

========

Brain-Computer Interfaces: Don't Worry, It's Just A "Game"

"Valve, the company behind Life and Counter-Strike, has just announced that the video games giant is ushering humanity into a Brave New World. How so? By merely including new technologies called brain-computer interfaces in its games.

...

The head of Valve, Gabe Newell, has stated that the future of video games will involve “Brain-computer interfaces.” Newell added that BCIs would soon create superior experiences to those we currently perceive through our eyes and ears.

Newell said he envisions the gaming devices detecting a gamer’s emotions and then adjusting the settings to modify the player’s mood. For example, increasing the difficulty level when the player is getting bored.

Valve is currently developing its own BCIs and working on “modified VR head straps” that developers can use to experiment with signals coming from the brain. “If you’re a software developer in 2022 who doesn’t have one of these in your test lab, you’re making a silly mistake,” Newell said.

...

The data collected by the head straps would consist of readings from the players’ brains and bodies. The data would essentially tell if the player is excited, surprised, bored, sad, afraid, or amused and other emotions. The modified head strap will then use the information to improve “immersion and personalize what happens during games.”

...

Newell also discussed taking the brain-reading technology a step further and creating a situation to send signals to people’s minds. (Such as changing their feelings and delivering better visuals during games.)

“You’re used to experiencing the world through eyes,” Newell said, “but eyes were created by this low-cost bidder that didn’t care about failure rates and RMAs, and if it got broken, there was no way to repair anything effectively, which totally makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, but is not at all reflective of consumer preferences.”

“So the visual experience, the visual fidelity we’ll be able to create — the real world will stop being the metric that we apply to the best possible visual fidelity.

...

“One of the early applications I expect we’ll see is improved sleep — sleep will become an app that you run where you say, ‘Oh, I need this much sleep, I need this much REM,'” he said.

Newell also claims that another benefit could be the reduction or complete removal of unwanted feelings or brain conditions.

...

Newell briefly mentioned some potential negatives to the technology. For example, he said how BCIs could cause people to experience physical pain, even pain beyond their physical body.

“You could make people think they [are] hurt by injuring their tool, which is a complicated topic in and of itself,” he said.

From the TVNZ article:

"Game developers might harness that function to make a player feel the pain of the character they are playing as when they are injured — perhaps to a lesser degree.

Like any other form of technology, Newell says there’s a degree of trust in using it and that not everyone will feel comfortable with connecting their brain to a computer.

He says no one will be forced to do anything they don’t want to do, and that people will likely follow others if they have good experiences, likening BCI technology to cellular phones.

“People are going to decide for themselves if they want to do it. Nobody makes people use a phone,” Newell said.

“I’m not saying that everybody is going to love and insist that they have a brain-computer interface. I’m just saying each person is going to decide for themselves whether or not there’s an interesting combination of feature, functionality, and price.”"

But Newell warned that BCIs come with one other significant risk. He says, “Nobody wants to say, ‘Remember Bob? Remember when Bob got hacked by the Russian malware? Yeah, that sucked. Is he still running naked through the forests?'”

...

The truth is we will continue to be told to ignore the implications for this type of technology and the direction in which we are heading. Because, of course, they ARE developing prosthetics, and this is an advance in scientific discovery. Still, one step forward by an agenda and a plan created long ago only brings us that much closer to losing our ability to remember."

========

Coronaball? Australian health official WALKS BACK Covid advice urging football fans to ‘duck’ incoming ball to curb transmission

"The state’s chief public health officer Nicola Spurrier made the strange recommendation during a press conference on Wednesday, when she also announced that an Australian Football League team from Melbourne would be permitted to enter South Australia for an upcoming match, despite ongoing Covid-19 restrictions.

“We’re looking at the ball… I have noticed occasionally the ball gets kicked into the crowd, we are working through the details of what that will mean,” Spurrier said confidently, after she was asked about the potential of exposure for ground-level spectators at the Adelaide Oval stadium.

...

Spurrier appeared for another press conference on Thursday to clarify the previous day’s advice, taking the mockery in her stride after being briefed by more “football knowledgeable” colleagues.

“Just to reiterate: I am not a football player and, in fact, whenever a ball comes to me – whatever sort of ball, whether it’s a football, a basketball – my inclination is to duck,” she joked.

...

Fortunately for spectators at Adelaide Oval, AFL players are screened for the coronavirus prior to every match, while the stadium will keep the first two rows from ground level empty to avoid potential exposure. The latter move was done at the health chief’s behest, telling reporters that this “was a little bit of an ask for the AFL but they’ve managed to accommodate that.”"

Here's a fun illustration of how silly all these restrictions are and that the people making them are clueless. But they've got the special titles so obviously democracy means submitting to their whims.

========

Debt Is A “Financial Weapon” Used to Subordinate Developing Countries

"“The total amount of third world debt has already been repaid six times over in interest.”

As of 2020, the total amount of debt owed by developing countries was $11 trillion. The cost of interest on this debt was hundreds of billions of dollars per year, or over $1 billion per day. This is many times greater than the aid given by rich countries. This post summarises the main reasons why countries should not have to repay all of their debts.

...

A close look at the reasons for lending in specific cases highlights the unfairness of the system. It has been estimated that from 1960-1987, developing countries borrowed $400 billion to spend on weapons. Much of Iraq’s debt was due to money lent to finance Saddam Hussein’s war with Iran in the 1980s. We saw in earlier posts that most money spent on weapons by the poorest countries comes straight back to much richer countries, lining the pockets of shareholders and executives of weapons companies. The Indonesian dictator, Suharto, received loans for tanks and warplanes that were used to slaughter hundreds of thousands of people. The Indonesian people are expected to repay those loans. The same is true of many countries that used to be run by dictators. Britain and the US helped to keep these dictators in power, against the wishes of their people, yet the people are still expected to repay their dictators’ debts.

...

Large amounts of money has been lent to finance huge projects that are of little value to ordinary people. These are known as white elephants. The most obvious of these would be nuclear power plants that were finished 20 years behind schedule and cost many times their original estimate, producing some of the most expensive energy on Earth. Forty-five thousand dams have been built, displacing fifty million people and costing $2 trillion. Many went way over budget, such as a South American dam that was expected to cost $3.6 billion but ended up costing $21 billion. It was described by the former Paraguayan minister of energy as “possibly the largest fraud in the history of capitalism.” Some dams were designed so badly that they unexpectedly flooded thousands of square miles of land, and produce much less energy than expected. Where private contractors are running these powerplants, governments have ended up with contracts where they have to pay for energy that is not used.

...

When a developing country borrows money from international lenders, it usually does so using an established currency, such as US dollars. The exchange rate with its own currency can fluctuate. Some borrowing countries are actually encouraged to change their exchange rate (this is known as devaluing their currency) making loans more expensive to repay. The interest rate is often high and can also fluctuate.

Some loans are used to grow crops for export, but the price of these crops also varies. In 1999, Nicaraguan coffee sold for $1.44 per pound. By 2002, this price had dropped to $0.40 per pound. This means they have to sell three times as much coffee to pay their debts. All three of these factors, exchange rate, interest rate and prices, are beyond the control of the borrowing country – they are controlled by traders and banks in rich countries. In theory these rates can go either way, but in practice poor countries have repeatedly lost out. Conditions can easily change sufficiently that poor countries can no longer afford to repay debts, through no fault of their own.

If the price of coffee drops below the price of production, then it does not matter how much coffee is sold – there is zero profit, and coffee sales cannot be used to repay the debt. Most developing countries have provided enough coffee, cocoa, cotton, cobalt, gold, oil and diamonds (and everything else that they export) to pay back their original loans many times over, yet they still have huge debts. Unlike businesses, countries cannot declare bankruptcy. Banks try not to write-off debts, so they keep lending ever-more money to borrowers to pay off their earlier debts, together with the interest on those debts. The debt just keeps getting bigger. An observer in Nigeria pointed out:

“We borrowed $5 billion. We have paid back $16 billion, but we still owe $28 billion”.

...

Nigeria provides a good case study of debt and capital flight. The best estimate of the total wealth stolen by corrupt dictators and their cronies since 1960 in Nigeria is $120 billion. This is enough to repay their debts many times over. The same is true in many poor countries. Two leading experts wrote:

“Of the money borrowed by African governments in recent decades, more than half departed in the same year, with a significant portion of it winding up in private accounts at the very banks that provided the loans in the first place”

...

The system of excessive interest on international loans is a deliberate mechanism to transfer wealth from poor countries to rich ones, or from governments to rich people. In the 1980’s and 1990’s, many South American countries experienced serious problems due to excessive interest on their debts. In an extreme example, the Argentinian government was paying 45% interest on loans (known as dollar bonds). Many of these bonds were owned by wealthy Argentinians. The leading expert on the system, Michael Hudson, has explained that these bonds are actually a complex mechanism to help the rich take their money out of the country.

...

Most people think of loans as having two parts, the capital and the interest. In the international world there is a third part – the conditions that come with the loan. This is arguably the most important part. Countries that want to borrow can be more easily persuaded to follow the guidance of advisors from rich countries, to privatise their industries, and to open up their markets for further exploitation by big corporations. In order to qualify to have the debts written off, countries have to implement these same policies. The manipulation of these debts is a means of helping rich countries and their corporations take control of resources and trade in poor countries. Many of these countries have effectively been conquered economically.

...

If we write off all debts that were spent on weapons, that were used to support murderous dictators, that were stashed in personal offshore bank accounts in tax havens, that were spent on grand schemes of little benefit to the population, that lined the pockets of Western consultants, or that have grown enormously due to excessive compound interest, the amount outstanding would be very much less than the amount that rich countries still want repaid. If we then deduct the amount already repaid, it would almost certainly be less than zero. Governments and banks in rich countries do not want to do these calculations, because they do not want to admit that the whole system is so corrupt. When researchers examine in detail what happened to the original money that was loaned to specific countries, they conclude that much of the outstanding debt should be canceled. For example, when loans to Ecuador were analysed, some of them violated international law, as well as domestic laws in lending countries, and laws in Ecuador. In total, $3 billion of Ecuador’s debt was illegitimate. The technical term for this is odious debt.

Writing off debts is nothing new. This has been a regular process for thousands of years, and various multi-billion dollar loans to the US and Europe have been written off over the years. Our politicians occasionally write off some of the debts of the poorest countries, but they are rarely as generous as they claim. In some cases, aid is reduced by the same amount as the debt written off, so poor countries get no real benefit. Some schemes do not end debts altogether. They merely reduce them to a level that rich countries consider ‘sustainable.’ What this really means is the greatest amount of interest that can be extorted each year without quite tipping a country into revolution and civil war. The debt written off in recent years is just a small fraction of the amount owed.

The propaganda related to debt is very powerful. Most people have been conditioned to believe that we all have a moral obligation to repay debts. The idea that debts are a powerful mechanism for controlling or exploiting others is rarely discussed. We need to change the whole framework of discussions around debts, and force lenders to accept responsibility for their criminal or unethical practices. In business, it is accepted that debts can be written off. Lenders accept that when they make a loan, there is a risk that they will not get their money back. The same should be true of international lending.

...

A golden rule for all countries should be to borrow as little as possible in foreign currencies. If a country can create its own currency, it can be used to pay local people to do most of the things needed for development. It is straightforward to set up a national healthcare network, to set up a national system of schools and universities, to train doctors and engineers, to build a country’s infrastructure, or to begin the process of industrialization. It has been done successfully even in very poor countries...."

========

'Going off BIOLOGY, not IDEOLOGY': Florida Governor DeSantis signs bill banning biological males from girls' sports

"DeSantis signed the bill into law on Tuesday in a ceremony at Trinity Christian Academy in his native Jacksonville. It was perhaps no coincidence that the Republican governor enacted the law on the first day of Pride Month, pushing back against LGBTQ activism in his latest appeal to conservative voters.

“We're going to go based off biology, not based off ideology, when we're doing sports,” DeSantis said on a stage with female student athletes standing behind him. He added,

"In Florida, girls are going to play girls' sports and boys are going to play boys' sports."

...

The Florida legislation goes a step further than merely banning transgender females from girls' sports. It also allows for civil remedies, which DeSantis referred to as "enforcing fairness and equality on behalf of girls and women."

Any girl or woman who is deprived of an athletic opportunity because of the new law being violated can sue for damages, as can anyone who suffers retaliation for reporting a violation. A school that suffers harm because the law has been violated by a government entity, accrediting organization, or athletic association also can sue. Athletes will compete based on the biological sex on their birth certificate.

DeSantis noted that corporations “get spun up” and athletic organizations threaten to cancel events when states enact legislation opposed by LGBTQ groups. “In Florida, we're going to do what's right,” he said. “We'll stand up to corporations. They are not going to dictate the policies in this state. We will stand up to groups like the NCAA, who think they should be able to dictate the policies in different states. Not here. Not ever.”

The governor added that if events are canceled, hurting the state economically, “I would choose to protect our young girls every day of the week and twice on Sunday.”"

========

How We Got Omnipotent Government

"We have all been born and raised under a government that wields the power of assassination. State-sponsored assassinations at the hands of the U.S. government — and specifically the Pentagon and the CIA — have become a rather ho-hum affair. They have become fully accepted as part and parcel of American life.

Yet, when we stop to reflect on this phenomenon, we can’t help but come to the realization that this is truly an extraordinary power. It is an omnipotent power that enables the federal government to snuff out a person’s life simply on a determination that he is a communist, a terrorist, a threat to “national security,” or whatever other designation the government establishes.

The Framers and the American people in 1789 were totally opposed to living under a government that wielded the power of assassination. Don’t forget, after all, that after the break from England, Americans had lived under the Articles of Confederation for some ten years. Under the Articles, the federal government’s powers were so weak that it didn’t even have the power to tax, much less the power to assassinate.

...

When the delegates met in Philadelphia in what became known as the Constitutional Convention, it was with the purpose of simple amending the Articles to make the system work more efficiently. Instead, they came up with a proposal for a different type of governmental system — a limited-government republic — which would replace the Articles.

The American people were leery because the federal government under this new system would have more powers, including the power to tax. They were concerned that this new government would end up destroying their freedom and their well-being.

But proponents of the Constitution assured Americans that this would not be a government that wielded general powers — that is, powers that would enable federal officials to do whatever they wanted in the best interests of the nation. Instead, its powers would be limited to the few powers enumerated in the Constitution itself.

...

Americans ended up approving the deal and accepting the new government under the assumption that its powers would be limited to those enumerated in the Constitution, which did not include the power of assassination.

To ensure that federal officials got the message, however, Americans demanded the enactment of the Bill of Rights, which included an express prohibition against assassination within the Fifth Amendment, which reads in part: “No person shall be deprived of life without due process of law.”

Due process of law is a term that stretches all the way back to Magna Carta in the year 1215. Over many centuries of resistance by British subjects against their own kings, due process came to encompass two principles: notice and trial.

Thus, under the Fifth Amendment before the federal government could assassinate someone, it would be required to provide him with formal notice of the offense for which they wish to assassinate him and then guarantee him a trial to determine whether he in fact was guilty of committing the offense.

Notice something important about the Fifth Amendment: Its protections apply to everyone, not just American citizens.

With the Sixth Amendment, the accused could elect to have a jury of ordinary citizens, rather than a judge or tribunal, determine his guilt or innocence. Our American ancestors simply didn’t trust judges or tribunals to make that decision.

Since a jury’s verdict of acquittal was final and non-appealable, juries were also empowered with the ability to judge the law itself in criminal cases. If they found the purported offense unconscionable, they could elect to acquit even if the accused had actually committed it, in which case there was nothing the judge or the government could do about it. The accused would walk out of the courtroom a free person.

After World War II, the federal government was converted into a third type of governmental system — a national-security state. Under this type of government, the federal government — specifically the CIA and the Pentagon — acquired the omnipotent power of assassination.

The conversion to a national-security state was justified under the rubric of the Cold War....

...

The conversion to a national-security state was done through legislation, not through constitutional amendment. Nonetheless, owing to the overwhelming and ever-growing power of the national-security establishment — i.e., the military, the CIA, and the NSA — the legislative conversion to a national-security state was held to operate as a nullification of the Fifth Amendment."

========

Inhaled nanobodies could be new secret weapon against severe Covid cases, animal trials suggest

"In search of ways to complement jabs or to treat patients who can’t be vaccinated, scientists have tested inhalable anti-Covid nanobodies on hamsters, saying they’re effective in fighting the virus by targeting its spike protein.

The promising new findings came courtesy of researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, marking the first time nanobodies have been tested for inhalation treatment of the coronavirus disease.

Nanobodies are similar to monoclonal antibodies, widely used in certain cancer treatments, but are smaller in size and boast a lower cost of production, which may prove key to a global rollout should the treatment gain regulatory approval in future.

...

Their aerosolized nanobody, named Pittsburgh inhalable Nanobody-21 (PiN-21), is said to have reduced the number of infectious virus particles in the test subject hamsters’ nasal cavities, throats and lungs by a million-fold.

“We are very excited and encouraged by our data suggesting that PiN-21 can be highly protective against severe disease and can potentially prevent human-to-human viral transmission,” said co-senior author Yi Shi."

I'm sure there's no way to use this on a mass scale to medicate people against their will. After all, scientists are smart people and they always consider the ramifications of their research before engaging in it.

========

Lived Experiences Aren’t Special

"Some time ago I found myself in the middle of a discussion about race relations and minority experiences. When it was my chance to speak, I mentioned some statistical data that appeared to challenge the common narrative that racism is widespread and systemic. My interlocutor’s reply was that he simply did not care about the data—his own experiences as a person of color were more important and trumped any appeal to statistics. Another party to the discussion agreed, saying that people matter more than numbers.

The title of a recent article by Dawn Butler, a British MP, echoes this sentiment: “Unless you have lived experience of racism there’s no guarantee you’ll understand it.” A host of other politicians have leveraged appeals to lived experience in support of their policy goals. Elsewhere, a reporter for Time describes her lived experiences as a “source of expertise” as opposed to an “emotional bias.” Lived experiences have taken on a near-sacred status under which they cannot be questioned. Case in point: the Facebook group for the news website Vox bans “comments that invalidate the lived experiences of group members.”

But are lived experiences really that special? No. Quite simply, appeals to “lived experiences” are exercises in bad statistical reasoning.

To see why, let’s suppose that I made the argument that smoking causes cancer, and that I backed this up with a mountain of scientific data and peer-reviewed studies. Now suppose that someone responded to all of this with the following: “But my grandpa Bob smoked cigarettes all of his life and never developed cancer! So smoking doesn’t cause cancer after all!”

Would you be convinced by this reply? I hope not. Smoking is a contributory cause of cancer: those who smoke have a much higher likelihood of developing certain cancers than those who don’t because the act of smoking contributes something toward that outcome, even though that outcome doesn’t always happen. So, just because some smokers don’t develop cancer doesn’t mean that smoking plays no role in causing it.

...

...it’s an easy error to make when it concerns something you’re invested in, which might explain why it’s so widespread. We see it present in the appeal to “lived experiences” as a special source of knowledge. These are the experiences of minority groups who live under oppressive power structures. They are said to hold special epistemic weight because they offer unique insight into the nature of oppression and structural injustice from the standpoint of those who are dominated.

Lived experiences are often vividly used by progressive activists as evidence of widespread injustice, accompanied with a call for action and social change. Yet basing one’s entire case for widespread injustice and sweeping social change on lived experiences is, quite simply, bad statistical reasoning. Why should one’s personal experience of (say) racism carry any special weight? Should the experience of the smoker who never developed cancer also carry special weight?  What about the experience of the unvaccinated person who never got a preventable illness? Or the experience of the chronic gambler who managed to keep his life intact?

The point is not that experiences of racism are like these other experiences or to cast real experiences of racism in a negative light. The point is that one cannot prove or disprove generalizations simply based on personal experiences. This is a pretty basic rule of statistical reasoning that seems to have been lost on many people who should know better. Just because one experiences racism (as I have) does not show that racism is widespread or deeply ingrained, any more than one’s experience with a smoker who did not develop cancer shows that smoking doesn’t cause cancer.

Even if one redefines racism, sexism, and the like (as critical theory does), the point remains: lived experiences cannot be used to make (or disprove) statistical generalizations about the prevalence of social injustice, whether it be police violence, sexual harassment, or economic disparities.

...

To be fair, it’s not just progressive activists who will build cases on experiences or anecdotes. When others do it, the reasoning is equally flimsy. But progressive activists are unique in that they view these experiences as sacred and unquestionable. While most recognize that experiences are useful illustrative tools, lived experiences take on the status of quasi-divine revelation for them.

...

Now critical theorists might object to what I’ve said on the grounds that we have ignored the proper context for considering lived experiences. That is to say, we cannot understand the “logic” behind lived experiences without understanding their role in the larger postmodern epistemic framework upon which critical theory is based. They argue that there is a difference between mere experiences and lived experiences.

But this response makes things worse, for it means that lived experiences lose their persuasive power. Here’s why: critical theory starts with a set of postmodern “axioms” from which lived experiences are supposed to derive their special weight. Only those lived experiences which are in harmony with these axioms can “count” as legitimate sources of knowledge. Now this setup might be fine if we’re reasoning from within the critical theorist’s own internal system among those who already accept it, but it is obviously circular reasoning if used as a means of persuading those outside the critical theorist’s framework to accept its claims about oppression, structural injustice, and the like. Why? Because those who don’t already accept the critical theorist’s radical postmodern framework (which is most people) will have no reason to treat lived experiences as authoritative. Yet this is exactly how many activists will use lived experiences when arguing about their pet issues.

...

So those who wish to accord special argumentative weight to lived experiences face a dilemma. Either lived experiences have special weight on their own merits, or they have special weight within the context of a larger postmodern epistemic system. If the former, then according special weight to lived experiences amounts to nothing more than fallacious statistical reasoning. If the latter, then it is circular reasoning, which is also fallacious."

========

Oblivious to hypocrisy, ‘democracy scholars’ want Biden and Dems to strong-arm election reform through Congress

"A collection of 100 “scholars of democracy” have warned that the Republican Party is threatening democracy itself in the US. Ironically, they demand that the Democratic Party fix this by trampling over its opposition.

In a “statement of concern” published on Monday, these “scholars” – political science, government, and journalism professors from American universities – warn that Republican-controlled state legislatures “are transforming several states into political systems that no longer meet the minimum conditions for free and fair elections.”

These include Texas, where a bill will likely pass that would allow more observers into polling places, criminalize the mailing of unsolicited ballots, and prohibit ballot drop boxes – the latter of which have been associated with so-called “ballot harvesting.” The bill would also restrict after-hours voting, purge voter rolls of dead or inactive voters, and add more ID requirements for absentee ballots.

...

The letter calls for a federally legislated expansion of voting rights and access, such as those outlined in HB1, a bill introduced by House Democrats earlier this year. The bill, supported by President Joe Biden and refused a vote by Senate Republicans in 2019, would automatically enroll voters, expand mail-in voting nationally, and prohibit election officials from using certain methods to question someone’s eligibility to vote or remove a person from voting rolls.

The bill would also prohibit “onerous voter identification requirements,” which Republicans and multiple governments across the developed world argue are necessary, at least on some level, to prevent fraud.

...

...the scholars reckon that the filibuster needs to go, in the name of securing “our democracy.” Republicans, they argue, gave up their right to resist this when they backed former President Donald Trump’s claims of a stolen election.

“We urge members of Congress to do whatever is necessary - including suspending the filibuster - in order to pass national voting and election administration standards,” they conclude, arguing that “our democracy is fundamentally at stake.” A Washington Post writeup on the letter echoes this sentiment, reading: “our democracy’s long-term viability might depend on whether Democrats reform or kill the filibuster to pass sweeping voting rights protections.”

The phrasing here is important. “Our Democracy” is a term popular among Democrats and their allies in the media, and should be considered distinct from “democracy” writ large, and from the idea of the US as a democratic republic. When the term is invoked by Democrat lawmakers, it’s usually in defense of policy compatible with an expansion of that party’s power, not with the democratic objections of Republicans.

Election interference by foreign powers – the kind Democrats spent four years claiming aided Trump in 2016 – is considered a threat to “Our Democracy.” Interference by Big Tech and the liberal media, which actually happened and arguably influenced the 2020 election, “fortifies” it."

========

“A Matter Of Public Concern”: Virginia Judge Orders Reinstatement of Teacher Who Criticized Gender Policy

"...In a major victory for the free speech rights of teachers, Twelfth Circuit Judge James E. Plowman ordered LCPS to restore Cross’ position as a physical education teacher at Leesburg Elementary School. In a letter, the court found a basis for a temporary injunction to allow Cross to return until Dec. 31 pending further orders of the court.

Cross ran into trouble when he appeared at a meeting of the school board. He began by stating “My name is Tanner Cross and I am speaking out of love for those who are suffering from gender dysphoria.” He goes on to reference that he is a teacher but would not follow the policies...

...

Cross was making reference to a “60 Minutes” program interviewing people who were diagnosed with gender dysphoria as young children and quickly put through gender changing procedures with little time or serious review. Those interviewed described how they were harmed by the transitioning procedures and felt that little was done to protect them.

Cross’ statement appeared to refuse to comply with Policy 8040, which requires Loudoun staff to use preferred pronouns.

...

...The ruling in his favor required a finding that he was likely to prevail in seeking the injunctive relief.

The county notably stressed that the basis for the suspension was the disruption caused by Cross’ comments.  That was a major blunder by the county and its counsel. Notably, the school district did not find that the national controversy surrounding the remarks of another teacher presented similar disruption. Loudoun County teacher Andrea Weiskopf called for book bans and attacked those supporting classics like To Kill A Mocking Bird as advocating harmful “White Saviorism.”

...

...Accordingly, “[T]he Court has found … that the disruption relied upon was insufficient.” Plowman further found that  Cross’ “interest in expressing his First Amendment speech outweigh the Defendant’s interest in restricting the same and the level of disruption that Defendant asserts did not serve to meaningfully disrupt the operations or services of Leesburg Elementary School.”

The Court also noted that at least five teachers submitted declarations that they would like to speak publicly but are afraid to do so because of the retaliation against Cross.  By focusing on the likely “disruption” caused by Cross’ views, the county undermined its position by focusing on the content of his views. The suspension occurred within 24 hours of his remarks, so there was little time to establish his position on carrying out his duties in light of the policy. The court distinguished between the “expectations” and the “mandate” of the policy.  It found that Cross may not satisfy the expectations but still not violate the policy. Thus, the suspension was viewed as premature and the evidence insufficient."

========

10 Things We Have Learned During the Covid Coup

"1. Our political system is hopelessly corrupt. Virtually all politicians are hopelessly corrupt. No political party can be trusted. They all can be, and have been, bought.

2. Democracy is a sham. It has been a sham for a very long time. There will never be any real democracy when money and power amount to the same thing.

3. The system will stop at nothing to hold on to its power and, if possible, increase its levels of control and exploitation. It has no scruples. No lie is too outrageous, no hypocrisy too nauseating, no human sacrifice too great.

4. So-called radical movements are usually nothing of the sort. From whatever direction they claim to attack the system, they are just pretending to do so, and serve to channel discontent in directions which are harmless to the power clique and even useful to its agendas.

5. Any “dissident” voice you have ever heard of through corporate media is probably a fake. The system does not hand out free publicity to its actual enemies.

6. Most people in our society are cowards. They will jettison all the fine values and principles which they have been loudly boasting about all their lives merely to avoid the slightest chance of public criticism, inconvenience or even minor financial loss.

7. The mainstream media is nothing but a propaganda machine for the system and those journalists who work for it have sold their sorry souls, placing their (often minimal) writing skills entirely at the disposition of Power.

8. Police are not servants of the public but servants of a powerful and extremely wealthy minority which seeks to control and exploit the public for its own narrow and greedy interests.

9. Scientists cannot be trusted. They will use the hypnotic power of their white coats and authoritative status for the benefit of whoever funds their work and lifestyle. He who pays the piper calls the tune.

10. Progress is a misleading illusion. The “progress” of increasing automisation and industrialisation does not go hand in hand with a progress in the quality of human life, but in fact will “progressively” reduce it to the point of complete extinction."

========

The ‘Great Reset’: A Technocratic Agenda that Waited Years for a Global Crisis to Exploit

"The great reset agenda was already in place long before the coronavirus pandemic, and the WEF was just waiting for a crisis to exploit it.

Prior to this year, implementing worldwide lockdowns that destroy businesses, wreck the economy, and leave people destitute and stripped of their constitutional rights while trying to enact invasive contact tracing, immunity passports, and otherwise massive bio-electronic surveillance apparatuses would never have been accepted by the citizens of a free society

The so-called great reset is an old ideology touted for decades by globalists like Henry Kissinger, who opined in 2014, “Never before has a new world order had to be assembled from so many different perceptions, or on so global a scale.”

The great reset is the proposed mechanism for setting in motion a new global order, but it wouldn’t be possible to bring forth such a bold plan without a global crisis, be it manufactured or of unfortunate happenstance, that shocks society to its core.

“The pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world to create a healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous future” — Klaus Schwab, WEF

In this story, I will attempt to dissect:

--What types of invasive surveillance technologies will be required by the great reset

--Why the great reset is being re-branded and pushed in 2020

--How the Davos crowd is trying to sell the great reset Utopia

--Who will be asked to give up their privacy for the common good

--When humans become hackable

--Where you have the power to choose

...

In order to bring about the great reset, it will require trust in the technology, and to be more specific, the WEF would like to have greater trust in “crisis-relevant tech,” which includes developing digital health passports and contact tracing, under a new form of internet governance.

...

“The Great Reset will require new institutions and business models, and new digital technologies to build them,” wrote the WEF Head of Corporate Governance and Trust, Daniel Dobrygowski, in a blog post. “The necessary collaboration, however, is only possible if we solve the digital trust problem,” he added.

According to the Dobrygowski, “The use of digital technology during the COVID-19 crisis offers clear lessons,” one of those being, “Target mistrust broadly to enable specific crisis-relevant tech.”

...

Ask yourself, would the idea of being forced to electronically prove your current health status in order to travel or even leave your own home have been acceptable 10 months ago?

Why is this happening now?

The die was cast years ago, but only now do the Davos elite see a shrinking, yet golden opportunity, to create a new world order out of the coronavirus chaos.

...

Prior to this year, implementing worldwide lockdowns that destroy businesses, wreck the economy, and leave people destitute and stripped of their constitutional rights while trying to enact invasive contact tracing, immunity passports, and otherwise massive bio-electronic surveillance apparatuses would never have been accepted by the citizens of a free society.

But the coronavirus pandemic has opened a “narrow window” for a “golden opportunity,” and once this crisis is over, the Davos club fears that the window may be shut forever.

The WEF admits in its own contact tracing governance framework that “Contact tracing apps can be powerful weapons against the virus – but they can also be tools for state surveillance.”

Yet, the WEF believes that people should balance certain freedoms to serve the common good. It is a global vision without a clear end, and it is one that flies in the face of constitutional republics that protect certain unalienable rights.

...

Just about every proponent of contact tracing and health passports, including the WEF, all declare that technology should be used and governed ethically, but you hardly see any mention of winning the consent of the people.

Instead, they lobby stakeholders and policymakers to carry the torch in imparting the global vision from the top of the capstone and on-down.

...

When you combine biological data with advanced computing power, what you get is the ability to hack humans.

Speaking in Davos over the past few years, historian Yuval Harari has stated that “organisms are algorithms” and that “new technologies will soon give some corporations and governments the ability to hack human beings.”

“The power to hack human beings can of course be used for good purposes like provided much better healthcare,” said Harari, adding, “but if this power falls into the hands of a 21st Century Stalin, the result will be the worst totalitarian regime in human history, and we already have a number of applicants for the job of 21st Century Stalin.”

“In Stalin’s USSR the State monitored members of the Communist elite more than anyone else. The same will be true of future total surveillance regimes.”

...

Those who pull the strings have been begging for a global crisis to unleash their worldwide restructuring of society and the economy.

This year, in the face of a global pandemic, an un-elected body of global lobbyists based in Davos, Switzerland has asked you to have faith in their vision of a technocratic Utopia, knowing full well they could never issue such a request had it not been for the golden opportunity they had all been waiting for.

And that is where your power lies, dear reader. It’s your choice.

You can believe the WEF vision shared by some of the world’s most influential bureaucrats, or you can be skeptical of the whole establishment agenda that asks you to just trust the plan."

========

UN report pushes global government to “prevent future pandemics”

"The report is titled Covid19: Make it the Last Pandemic and are the published findings of the Independent Panel on Pandemic Preparedness and Response, which focuses on how the world can look to prevent “pandemics” in the future.

This “independent” panel is chaired by ex-New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, ex-President of Liberia Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and other political figures (including noted globalist David Miliband), and was established last May by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. (How a report commissioned by the WHO, calling to give more money and power to the WHO can be called “independent” I don’t know.)

...

There’s a lot to unpack in the report’s eighty-six pages of bureaucratic double-talk, but their main conclusions are:

--Elevate leadership to prepare for and respond to global health threats to the highest levels to ensure just, accountable and multisectoral action

--Focus and strengthen the independence, authority and financing of the WHO

--Invest in preparedness now to create fully functional capacities at the national, regional and global level

--Establish a new international system for surveillance, validation and alert

--Establish a pre-negotiated platform for tools and supplies

--Raise new international financing for the global public goods of pandemic preparedness and response

--Countries to establish highest level national coordination for pandemic preparedness and response

...

Each section of their recommendations contains several bullet points of its own, far too many to go through all of them, but there’s definitely some paragraphs that should cause any attentive reader to raise an eyebrow:

"WHO to establish a new global system for surveillance, based on full transparency by all parties, using state-of-the-art digital tools to connect information centres around the world and including animal and environmental health surveillance, with appropriate protections of people’s rights"

…Which means essentially legalising global surveillance programs on a massive scale, with – of course – “appropriate protections

of people’s rights” (and shame on you for thinking otherwise).

And then there is:

"Future declarations of a PHEIC by the WHO Director-General should be based on the precautionary principle where warranted"

…Which calls for the Director-General of the WHO to have the power to declare a global “pandemic”, not because there definitely is a new disease killing people, but because they think there might be.

...

Further, the report goes out of its way to praise the countries which engaged in the most authoritarian “anti-Covid” measures.

Specifically, China is praised both for their “fast identification” of the virus, and their incredibly stringent lockdown measures. Another country held up as a good example is New Zealand, which was likewise very strict.

Conversely, the countries with allegedly “poor results” in dealing with Covid – though never named – are universally criticised for “denial of scientific evidence”, “eroding trust in healthcare measures” and having leaders who “appeared sceptical or dismissive” of the pandemic.

...

Throughout the overblown coronavirus “pandemic” narrative we’ve seen national governments all over the world use the phoney crisis to “temporarily” expand their powers.

Now the United Nations is getting in on the act, hoping to expand its global power mandate."

========

Joints! Jackpots! Burgers! States offering gimmicky incentives only make those suspicious of Covid-19 vaccines more concerned

"Washington state has become the latest to offer incentives for residents to get vaccinated against Covid-19, this time handing out marijuana joints, the latest desperate attempt to sell to unwilling buyers.

Considering the ridiculous amount of prizes being offered from state to state as vaccine incentives, one would think the country would be well past President Joe Biden’s July 4 goal of 70% of US adults being vaccinated against Covid-19.

That is simply not the case. Vaccination rates have plummeted in recent weeks. Daily vaccinations in the US have dropped below one million after hitting a peak of 3.4 million shots daily in mid-April. These rates show that much of the country will likely not hit Biden’s 70% goal.

Polling shows the plummeting of vaccinations has nothing to do with a lack of supply, but rather lack of demand.

...

Washington, as well as other states such as Maryland, have also offered to enter vaccinated Americans into lotteries for prizes that are often worth millions.

Gambling seems to have become essential to numerous states’ selling points on the vaccine. The Kentucky Lottery, for instance, offered a free lottery ticket to those who could prove they had been vaccinated. The Kentucky Cash Ball game being offered has a maximum nightly payout of $250,000.

Other incentives offered have not been as glamorous, but are just as questionable. In New York City, for instance, Mayor Bill De Blasio told residents, while wearing a Brooklyn Nets jersey and stuffing his own face, that Shake Shack would be offering free food to the vaccinated.

...

It’s worth noting too how poor these schemes make public officials look. They are, on the one hand, selling us science and health-first narratives by promoting getting vaccinated, but they are also, on the other hand, promoting gambling habits, greasy fast food that can lead to serious comorbidities, and a drug that the federal government itself refuses to recognize as non-threatening enough to legalize.

This dual salesmanship and tacky promotion does not help ‘sell’ vaccines, nor does it convince people with concerns to throw caution to the wind. They simply feed into anti-vaccine narratives and hesitancy. Perhaps it’s best to drop the tricks, offer the vaccine, and then accept whatever medical choices people decide are best for them. If they want fast food or scratchers, that can be another choice they make that the government takes its nose out of."