This Friday links post is free to all. It also contains a theme. Can you guess what it is?
Minneapolis police during the George Floyd protests
Links
The first link below contains a meta-thought. I don’t publish it lightly. Ian Welsh tends to be on-the-nose, and this is as close to a universal truth about today’s world as you’ll likely find anywhere. Yet few in the West believes this.
Thanks for reading God's Spies by Thomas Neuburger! This post is public so feel free to share it.
Here’s the thing about Iraq, or Palestine, or Libya: what your leaders will do in these countries is what they would do to you if they though[t] it would benefit them.
Israel has long used skunk-water, incredibly foul smelling stuff, on Palestinians.
In the last year they used them on Israelis who were protesting the war (not because they care about Palestinians, because they want the hostages back.)
But that’s minor league.
American elites, when they say, “we have to make hard decisions” always mean by that they have to hurt those below them. A hard decision for them is never about doing something against interest: say cutting their own compensation to keep employees working. Nope. [emphasis added]
File under “Words to the wise.”
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There is increasing concern that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) may collapse this century with a disrupting societal impact on large parts of the world. … The collapse time is estimated between 2037-2064 (10-90% CI [confidence interval]) with a mean of 2050[.]
The AMOC, the Atlantic Ocean part of the global oceanic circulation, is illustrated below.
The AMOC keeps northern Europe warm. If it collapses, expect average temperatures there to drop about 15°C (27°F). Highs in Paris in January range from the mid-50s Fahrenheit to just below freezing. Post–AMOC collapse, that range will move down about 25 degrees.
Billionaires are pretty confident that they can't be taxed – not just that they shouldn't be taxed, but rather, that it is technically impossible to tax the ultra-rich. They're not shy about explaining why, either – and neither is their army of lickspittles. …
Doctorow says no to all that. There are lots of ways to tax billionaires out of existence, including ways to deal with the “race to the bottom” effect.
Okay, but what if all those billionaires flee your state? Good riddance, and don't let the door hit you on the way out. All we need is an exit tax, like the one in California, which levies a one-time 0.4% tax on net worth over $30m for any individual who leaves the state [emphasis mine].
An excellent read. This is not speculative; these techniques are being applied now.
File under “The house is safer when you kick out the thief.”
The companies behind the streaming industry, including smart TV and streaming stick manufacturers and streaming service providers, have developed a "surveillance system" that has "long undermined privacy and consumer protection," according to a report from the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) published today and sent to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Unprecedented tracking techniques aimed at pleasing advertisers have resulted in connected TVs (CTVs) being a "privacy nightmare," according to Jeffrey Chester, report co-author and CDD executive director, resulting in calls for stronger regulation.
The 48-page report, How TV Watches Us: Commercial Surveillance in the Streaming Era [PDF] … provides a detailed overview of the various ways that streaming services and streaming hardware target viewers in newfound ways that the CDD argues pose severe privacy risks. …
"Not only does CTV operate in ways that are unfair to consumers, it is also putting them and their families at risk as it gathers and uses sensitive data about health, children, race, and political interests,” Chester said in a statement.
If you hate advertising (I think it’s propaganda), you’ll appreciate this article, especially the section on generative AI and “In-Scene” advertising.
It is hard to argue against the notion that the root of the problem is unregulated global capitalism; without limits. Now a single person can be worth tens or hundreds of billions of dollars. What if those people are mentally unstable, or sociopathic, and have all those resources to facilitate their "agenda"? It is not capitalism per se, it is the fact that modern capitalism has metastasized into The Blob, which kills or assimilates all in its path. It is the fact that sociopaths with billions of dollars can wreak havoc on the world and its people. Normal people don't start wars to enhance their revenue streams, but all of the donor-class would gladly do so.
It is hard to argue against the notion that the root of the problem is unregulated global capitalism; without limits. Now a single person can be worth tens or hundreds of billions of dollars. What if those people are mentally unstable, or sociopathic, and have all those resources to facilitate their "agenda"? It is not capitalism per se, it is the fact that modern capitalism has metastasized into The Blob, which kills or assimilates all in its path. It is the fact that sociopaths with billions of dollars can wreak havoc on the world and its people. Normal people don't start wars to enhance their revenue streams, but all of the donor-class would gladly do so.