Igor Delovski Board

[delovski]

LA Weekly: Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451 Misinterpreted

"He says the culprit in Fahrenheit 451 is not the state — it is the people. Unlike
Orwell’s 1984, in which the government uses television screens to indoctrinate
citizens, Bradbury envisioned television as an opiate. In the book, Bradbury
refers to televisions as “walls” and its actors as “family,” a truth evident to
anyone who has heard a recap of network shows in which a fan refers to the
characters by first name, as if they were relatives or friends."

[XNote]

Digg - Incarceration rates across selected countries

"If the countries were ranked by overall prison population instead of per capita,
China would still be at #2, right behind you-know-who."

[Ike]

reddit - Woman is stripped naked with force by police
after accidentally handing over the wrong driver license

youtube.com video!

[delovski]

“The End of America”: Feminist Social Critic Naomi Wolf Warns U.S.
in Slow Descent into Fascism

"But I guess the book really began with a very personal story, because I was
forced to write it, even though I didn’t really want to, by a dear friend who
is a Holocaust survivor’s daughter. And when we spoke about news events,
she kept saying, “They did this in Germany. They did this in Germany.” And
I really didn’t think that made sense."

[delovski]

High School Project on Genocide Was a Portent of Real-Life Events

“The Holocaust is taught too often purely as a historical event, an anomaly,
a moment in time,” Mr. Walz said in a recent interview, recalling his approach.
“Students understood what had happened and that it was terrible and that the
people who did this were monsters.”

“The problem is,” he continued, “that relieves us of responsibility.”

[delovski]

reddit - Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks out

"What we have to understand in this country, is that the domination of busi-
ness by government is called Communism, and the domination of government
by business is called Fascism, and our job is to walk that narrow trail in between,
which is free market capitalism and democracy, and hold big govt at bay with
our right hand, and hold big business at bay with our left. And in order to do
that, we need an informed public who can identify all the milestones of tyranny,
and we need an aggressive and independent press, who can stand up and speak
truth to power, and we no longer have that in the United States of America."

[delovski]

Wikipedia: Neil Postman

"Orwell feared those who would deprive us information. Huxley feared those
who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and ego-
ism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared
the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance."

[Ike]

reddit.com - WTF: UK police are teaching children to spot terrorists

"More than 2,000 10 and 11-year-olds will see a short film, which urges them
to tell the police, their parents or a teacher if they hear anyone expressing ex-
tremist views!"

[Ike]

You’re living in a computer simulation, and math proves it

"It actually explains a few of the trickier things about quantum physics, like
why particles have an indeterminate position until they're observed.

Even more disturbing, it may be a much smaller simulation that you think.
There could be just a few active simulation inhabitants, with the rest of the
world filled with "non-actor" or NPC characters controlled by the computer."

[Ike]

slashdot - Search the World's Smartphone Photos

"Researchers have devised and tested a system called Theia that can per-
form an efficient parallel search of mobile phones to track down a target
photo. It could be used to perform a realtime search for a missing child
accidently caught in a photo you have just taken or the location of a cri-
minal or political activist. You might think that the security and privacy
aspects were so terrible that you just wouldn't install the app. However
exceptional photos of a sporting or news incidents are worth money and
the profit motive might be enough for you to install it."

[Ike]

cnn - Are jobs obsolete?

"Our problem is not that we don't have enough stuff -- it's that we don't have
enough ways for people to work and prove that they deserve this stuff."

[delovski]

reddit - Was anyone here living in a communist country before 1989? If so, what has it been like before, during, and after the revolutions?

"Yugoslavia,... Romania,... USSR,... Kazakhstan,... Cambodia,... "

[Ike]

extremetech.com - Do humans dream of android prostitutes?

"In the next five years or so it will be possible to build lifelike robots. The-
se robots will look, move, and feel like fellow humans — but, unless the
technological singularity comes early, these robots won’t be excellent con-
versationalists. According some recent research, though, they will make
fantastic prostitutes."

[Ike]

http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1k37el/the_pirate_bay_releases_its_own_web_browser/cbl2sjh

For anonymity, disable any and all subsystems that 'call home'. Software update, email checking, connecting to chat services, etc. Every one of them links your IP address to your identity. If you want to be truly anonymous, set up a linux netbook that does none of these things, and has no cellular connection of its own, that you bought with CASH, and go out to an open WiFi place. NEVER turn it on at home. NEVER connect it to your home network. There are the router logs that you can see. There are the router logs that you can not. That MAC address can be tracked, and your ISP may be tracking. Just because you didn't connect to a Wifi router does not mean it hasn't noticed you. Don't log in with accounts that you EVER use at home or work. Don't let any browser or OS 'remember' a password for you. Don't be a creature of habit who goes to the same place every time.

[Ike]

lifebuzz - Restaurant Watches Old Footage Of Customers And Uncovers
A Shocking Truth

"The firm we hired suggested we locate some of the older tapes and analyze
how the staff behaved 10 years ago versus how they behave now.

Given in most cases the customers are constantly busy on their phones it
took an average of 20 minutes more from when they were done eating until
they requested a check. Furthermore once the check was delivered it took
15 minutes longer than 10 years ago for them to pay and leave."

[Ike]

wp - The open-office trend is destroying the workplace

"These new floor plans are ideal for maximizing a company’s space
while minimizing costs. Bosses love the ability to keep a closer eye on
their employees, ensuring clandestine porn-watching, constant social
media-browsing and unlimited personal cellphone use isn’t occupying
billing hours. But employers are getting a false sense of improved
productivity."

[Ike]

r - If the artists starve, we’ll all go hungry

"We're becoming a post-scarcity society at an alarming rate, and our go-
vernments are allowing the richest in the world to create artificial scarcity
by hoarding money and strangling the economy in the process."

[Ike]

This guy’s light bulb performed a DoS attack on his entire smart house

"When Rojas let local media tour the home after it was first built, they
were wowed by the screen-controlled home—and the robots that vacu-
umed, patrolled the house and mowed the grass. But it wasn’t just a lab
experiment. Rojas has actually lived in the two-story home in the outskirts
of Berlin for the last five years."

[delovski]

thedailybeast.com - How Umberto Eco Tagged Today's Fascists

"Every one of Eco's 14 points is worth keeping in mind as we study the
global political landscape today, even if chills run down our spine when
the comparisons leap out at us."

[delovski]

nyt - In the Apple Case, a Debate Over Data Hits Home

"This is one of those moments that defines what's next," she said. "Will
technology companies protect the privacy of their users or will they do
work for the U.S. government? You can't do both."

[Ike]

Jean-Louis Gassee - The Internet of Poorly Working Things

"Then there's the truly ugly side of Consumer IoT: security, or the lack of
it. The lackadaisical, to be polite, approach to software leaves many con-
nections open to hackers who can see passwords exchanged in clear text
on home WiFi while they sit in a car parked outside the house. Or we see
that 100M Volkswagen cars are open to wireless hacking. Using the One
Cockroach Theory, how many more other makes of cars will be found to
be insecure?"

[delovski]

rafaelkino - Capitalism is failing

"If you have a decent paying job in a developed country, those needs are
pretty much fulfilled. It's the rest of the pyramid that we are now making
products for. The problem with that is simple: consumers have no idea about
their psychological needs, and can be easily manipulated into thinking they
need something when they actually don't. That wasn't as true for physical
products."

[Ike]

https://np.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/5jtfan/coal_jobs_were_lost_to_automation_not_trade/dbjjslr/?

[delovski]

FT - Soros: Capitalism versus Open Society

"I first encountered the agency problem in connection with the so-called
resource curse. By resource curse I mean that countries that are rich in
natural resources are often cursed with corrupt or repressive governments,
insurrections, and civil wars so that the people are even poorer and lead
more miserable lives than in countries that are less well-endowed by nature.
Think of the Congo, Sudan, Sierra Leone, and Liberia."

[delovski]

George Orwell - Politics and the English Language

"Political language - and with variations this is true of all political parties,
from Conservatives to Anarchists - is designed to make lies sound truthful
and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."

[Ike]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/02/03/in-trumpistan-things-fall-apart.html

In Trumpistan, Things Fall Apart

Welcome to Trumpistan, a country two weeks into the tumultuous rule of a miserable, cruel and seemingly captive president. He spends his days glowering in his too small, too old, not gold enough, non-penthouse, columned prison in Washington, furiously flipping through cable news channels to see what the pundits are saying about him, watching his past interviews with the sound off and barking at his aides to change that tie! ... dress more feminine! ... sound more confident when you defend the president! ... and damnit, Make The People Love The Donald! Sell, sell, sell!!!

[delovski]

100posto.hr - Kako u samo pet dana odgojiti nacista

"Srednjoskolski profesor sociologije u kalifornijskom Palo Altu 1967. je
proveo eksperiment u jednom razredu kako bi ucenicima na praktican
nacin pokazao kako lako ljudi padaju pod utjecaj opasnih vodja i ideo-
logija."

wiki - The Third Wave Experiment

[Ike]

Artificial intelligence is ripe for abuse, tech executive warns: 'a fascist's dream'

All of these movements have shared characteristics, including the desire to centralize power, track populations, demonize outsiders and claim authority and neutrality without being accountable. Machine intelligence can be a powerful part of the power playbook, she said.

[Ike]

https://www.vox.com/2017/10/13/16431502/america-democracy-decline-liberalism

20 of America's top political scientists gathered to discuss our democracy. They're scared.

If current trends continue for another 20 or 30 years, democracy will be toast.

[Ike]

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/14/social-media-influence-election-countries-armies-of-opinion-shapers-manipulate-democracy-fake-news

Thirty countries use 'armies of opinion shapers' to manipulate democracy ? report

[delovski]

r - The real danger to civilization isn't AI. It's runaway capitalism

"Musk gave an example of an artificial intelligence that's given the task of
picking strawberries. It seems harmless enough, but as the AI redesigns
itself to be more effective, it might decide that the best way to maximize its
output would be to destroy civilization and convert the entire surface of the
Earth into strawberry fields. Thus, in its pursuit of a seemingly innocuous
goal, an AI could bring about the extinction of humanity purely as an
unintended side effect.

The first example that occurred to me is the oil industry. Over a century ago,
it must have sounded brilliant to create a legal device called a 'corporation'
that would optimize for the extraction of dinosaur juice that'll help everybody
get to work and travel the world. But now that these corporations got their
people into the White House and invaded Iraq, now that they're paying lob-
byists to deny global warming at the same time that they explore for more
oil under the receding Arctic ice shelf, we have to consider 'the extinction of
humanity purely as an unintended side effect'."

[Ike]

https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/7lojww/the_world_divided_into_3_regions_of_equal/drolxyz/

The World Divided into 3 Regions of Equal Population

The upper class of our world is convincing the lower class they do not need the middle. Why do you think Trump and Putin are so popular with people? And those people are so anti-liberal? Liberalism is the political party of the middle class. Trump and Putin (of course there was collusion) successful enacted a prolitariot revolution in America. We are living in that world. Orwell was exactly right. It's all bankers and the global financial sector that make the three super States.

https://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/7ltxl5/user_explains_the_parallels_between_1984_and_our/

[delovski]

wp - A Sundance filmmaker has made a movie about the Russian propaganda machine, and it is terrifying

"Dan Cogan, one of the feature film's producers, noted that 'it plays like a
horror comedy - you're laughing even as you're scared.' Among the more
amusing bits is the suggestion that anti-Trump protesters are paid hundreds
of dollars to take to the streets."

[Ike]

https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/83f2tq/the_grim_conclusions_of_the_largestever_study_of/

The Grim Conclusions of the Largest-Ever Study of Fake News : Falsehoods almost always beat out the truth on Twitter (theatlantic.com)

[Ike]

https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/889o5j/when_the_dream_of_economic_justice_died/

When the Dream of Economic Justice Died


https://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/889ojs/uzoffat_uses_multiple_quotes_from_adam_smith/

[worldnews]/u/Zoffat uses multiple quotes from Adam Smith, "Inventor of Capitalism", to show that Smith intended the free market to achieve "enrichment of the laborer and the happiness of the poor". His original view was that capitalism could only work if regulated "in favor of the workmen".

[delovski]

r - China's new 'social credit system' is an dystopian nightmare

"The worst part I feel about this system is that your score is lowered if you are
in contact with people with lowers scores (through their social media and online
sites etc), they are trying to get the people to exclude others who don't follow
their government."

[Ike]

medium - A Game Designer's Analysis Of QAnon

"It's easy for people to forget that they are not discovering the story, but
creating it from random data.

If the ideas are generated by us, however, then these are the ideas we
defend. If we 'create' the ideas in our own minds, they become fused much
more intently into our personality. They're OURS. There is no friction. Guiding
people to arrive at YOUR conclusions is a perfect way to get people to accept
a new and conflicting ideology."

[Ike]

yt - Why the UK is in the EU (Yes, Minister)

"1980: Telly comedy
2012: YouTube clip
2019: REALITY"

[Ike]

theatlantic.com - The Evangelical Church Is Breaking Apart

"Through the 2000s, even though the religious right drew its energy from the
culture wars -- as it had for decades -- it abided by some civil restraints. Then
came Donald Trump.

The dominance of political religion over professed religion is seen in how, for
many, the loyalty to Trump became a blind allegiance. The result is that many
Christian followers of Trump have come to see a gospel of hatreds, resent-
ments, vilifications, put-downs, and insults as expressions of their Christianity,
for which they too should be willing to fight."

[Ike]

r - Rusian soldier' mother explains why Russia attacked Ukraine

"The kid talks to his mother and after the journalist gets the phone starts to
basically argue with the brainwashed woman. She keeps on saying what they
show on TV in Russia and the journalists tries to counter, but it's futile. The
kid at the end almost starts to cry because his mother doesn't believe him
and asks her to talk with his father since he is more reasonable."

[Ike]

smallwarsjournal.com - Nine Lessons of Russian Propaganda

"First impressions are known to be extremely sticky. They persist even
after subsequent evidence is conclusive. Consequently, Russian propa-
ganda seems to fight hard for the first impression and then relent.

When opposition politician Boris Nemtsov was assassinated, they quickly
spun several elaborate theories which played on Russian news.

Their propaganda about neo-Nazis dominated coverage of Ukraine's
revolution, even after multiple statements and an open letter from the
leaders of Ukraine's Jewish community. In support of the Nazi narrative,
Russian state television even reported fake results of Ukraine's 2014
election, stating that now-President Poroshenko lost the race to Right
Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh. (In reality Yarosh received about 1.5%
of the vote.) Obviously, anybody paying attention would find out this
was nonsense within days, if not hours, but being proved wrong does
not seem to matter to them."

[Ike]

The New Voice of Ukraine - From the archives: Kremlin's mouthpiece
RIA publishes Russian fascist manifesto

"The original manifesto was published in April. NV is republishing it now to
counter the existing Russian propaganda narrative that if Ukraine stopped
fighting Russia would not kill anyone in Ukraine."

[Ike]

Y! - Why Does No One Understand the Real Reason Trump Won?

"And this year, Fox and the rest of the right-wing media elected him. I
discussed all this Thursday with Matthew Gertz of Media Matters for America,
who watches lots of Fox News so the rest of us don't have to. He made the
crucial point--and you must understand this--that nearly all the crazy
memes that percolated into the news-stream during this election came not
from Trump or JD Vance originally, but from somewhere in the right-wing
media ecosystem.

The fake story about Haitian residents of Springfield, Ohio eating cats and
dogs, for example, started with a Facebook post citing second- and third-
hand sources, Gertz told me; it then 'circulated on X and was picked up by
all the major right-wing influencers.' Only then did Vance, a very online
dude, notice it and decide to run with it. And then Trump said it himself at
the debate. But it started in the right-wing media.

To much of America, by the way, this is not understood as one side's view of
things. It's simply 'the news.' This is what people--white people, chiefly--
watch in about two-thirds of the country. I trust that you've seen in your
travels, as I have in mine, that in red or even some purple parts of the
country, when you walk into a hotel lobby or a hospital waiting room or even
a bar, where the TVs ought to be offering us some peace and just showing
ESPN, at least one television is tuned to Fox. That's reach, and that's power."

[Ike]

theguardian.com - A new era dawns. America's tech bros now strut their stuff in the corridors of power

"Another message arrives from Maria Ressa, the Nobel prize-winning Filipino
journalist. In the Philippines, the government is modelled on the US one and
she writes about what happened when President Duterte controlled all three
branches of it. 'It took six months after he took office for our institutions to
crumble.' And then she was arrested."