Happy Bicycle Day!
Happy Bicycle Day!
Liebe, Wahrheit und Mut versus Kriegspropaganda - talk by Dr. Daniele Ganser (2019, DE Only)
Mind Virus
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - "Who watches the watchmen?"
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? ("Who watches the watchmen?") is a Latin phrase found in the work of the Roman poet Juvenal from his Satires (Satire VI, lines 347–348). The original context deals with the problem of ensuring marital fidelity, though the phrase is now commonly used more generally to refer to the problem of controlling the actions of persons in positions of power, an issue discussed by Plato in the Republic. It is not clear whether the phrase was written by Juvenal, or whether the passage in which it appears was interpolated into his works.
Finland became the forerunner of understanding and accepting digital culture in general and the Demoscene in particular as cultural heritage. Right before the Easter weekend the Finnish Heritage Agency announced, that the Ministry of Education and Culture listed the Demoscene on proposals from the National Board of Antiquities and the Intangible Cultural Heritage Expert Group as national cultural heritage of humanity together with eleven other cultural practices.
Microsoft’s new mixed reality headset, the HoloLens 2, was featured in a commercial and campaign starring artist Marina Abramović, who is known for promoting and practicing arts such as Spirit Cooking.
Climate change: The rich are to blame, international study finds (BBC)
The rich are primarily to blame for the global climate crisis, a study by the University of Leeds of 86 countries claims. The wealthiest tenth of people consume about 20 times more energy overall than the bottom ten, wherever they live. The gulf is greatest in transport, where the top tenth gobble 187 times more fuel than the poorest tenth, the research says. That’s because people on the lowest incomes can rarely afford to drive. The researchers found that the richer people became, the more energy they typically use. And it was replicated across all countries. And they warn that, unless there's a significant policy change, household energy consumption could double from 2011 levels by 2050. That's even if energy efficiency improves.
Deadly olive tree disease across Europe 'could cost billions' (BBC)
Researchers say the economic costs of a deadly pathogen affecting olive trees in Europe could run to over €20 billion. They've modelled the future worst impacts of the Xylella fastidiosa pathogen which has killed swathes of trees in Italy. Spread by insects, the bacterium now poses a potential threat to olive plantations in Spain and Greece. The disease could increase the costs of olive oil for consumers.
Joe Brewer: Global Revolution in Alternate Reality? - by Kevin Carson (p2pfoundation)
Back in the late ’90s, cyberpunk writer Neal Stephenson introduced the concept of “phyles” in The Diamond Age. Phyles filled the void left after encryped commerce and digital currencies had deprived the Westphalian nation-state of most of its revenues, and most of the world’s states were either substantially hollowed out or had collapsed altogether into Balkanized collections of city-states. The phyle was a distributed, non-geographically-based, global civil society, providing — much like the medieval guilds at the height of their vigor — a range of support platforms for its members: reputational rating systems and quality certification, cooperative buying and marketing, assorted benefits like health and unemployment insurance, legal and security services, encrypted currencies and virtual marketplaces, and so forth.
Untitled (Train Passengers) - Art by Saul Steinberg (1952)
The COVID-19 pandemic is a global public health emergency that requires a coordinated and large-scale response by governments worldwide. However, States’ efforts to contain the virus must not be used as a cover to usher in a new era of greatly expanded systems of invasive digital surveillance. We, the undersigned organizations, urge governments to show leadership in tackling the pandemic in a way that ensures that the use of digital technologies to track and monitor individuals and populations is carried out strictly in line with human rights.
Increased Technology Doesn't Increase Situational Awareness
The Totalitarian Dystopia of the World Economic Forum is Becoming Reality - by Norbert Haering
In January 2018, a pilot project for the surveillance of air travelers, commissioned by the World Economic Forum, was agreed upon in Davos. At the time, I presented the Known Traveller Digital Identity (KTDI) project as a “totalitarian dystopa”. A follow-up report shows that the multinational corporations are successfully involving governments and the EU in their plans. Covid-19 is speeding up implementation tremdendously and Bill Gates inadvertently lets us know how.