Category Archives: Human Behavior

John Bolton, Donald Trumps former National Security Adviser has been a familiar name throughout the impeachment inquiry. Bolton has played coy and hinted that he may have information that could be impactful during the upcoming trial.

While the former White House adviser has said that he would testify if subpoenaed, that it unlikely with a Republican majority. Shortly after leaving Washington DC, Bolton signed a book deal with Simon & Schuster. During Friday nights episode of Hardball, Chris Matthews and former Federal Prosecutor Glenn Kirschner talked about the possibility that Bolton could hold back important information for his book.

Matthews asked Kirschner, Lets talk about human behavior. Could it be I dont know Bolton personally, I know his politics, his ideology but could it be that he says, I thought for a while I wanted to save some of the goodies for my book, because people like to do that, people like to write the big story with the big news, but if history comes down that I sat on this stuff for a year while we didnt have a real trial, Im guilty of really withholding my citizenship here.

Kirschner pulled no punches with his answer. He told Matthews, Exactly, he said. If he had blockbuster evidence and he doesnt testify and then he puts in a book information that could have changed the course of a Senate impeachment trial, he will go down in history as a traitor and a villain.

Watch a clip of the exchange below, courtesy of MSNBC:

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Is John Bolton Withholding Impeachment Evidence so He Can Put It in a Book? - HillReporter.com

Human Behavior

Sustainable vs. Social Trails: Why You Should Ignore Psychology and Take the Road Most Traveled – Modern Conservationist

January 10, 2020 medical

Imagine a different interpretation of Robert Frosts famous poem The Road Not Taken a less romantic, more clear-cut version. The subject, instead of a young man beset by the decision of which direction to take in life, is simply a hiker tempted by the prospect of a spectacular view or befuddled by poor trail markings. The first trail is part of an established trail system; the second less traveled one, an informal trail created over time by lost or overly curious hikers.

The name given to informal trails created by erosion from human foot traffic, social trails have led even the most environmentally or conservation-minded among us astray when the prospect of a beautiful sight, or promising future in Frosts case, have been simply too tempting to ignore.

Social trails often begin with a recreationist attempting to meet a need that isnt being met by an existing trail, says Shawn Burn, a psychology professor at California Polytechnic State University whose research has focused on the psychology of environmental sustainability. That may be a desire for a special view or an intentional desire to follow a game trail or view wildlife. They can even begin by people going off trail to take a wee, she notes. But sometimes its an error. They mistake a game trail for the path, or trails are poorly marked.

A lack of education and differences in environmental values influence individuals decision around whether to follow these routes as well. People vary in their environmental values, Burn says. This affects their environmental concern and how they behave in natural resource settings.

Its also true that people might know its not the real trail but figure, Why should I lose out if everybody else is breaking the rule? I might as well benefit.

Well-established social trails may indicate to some hikers, especially those unfamiliar with an area, that they too should go that way or that its the correct route.

Perhaps FOMO (fear of missing out) is sometimes a factor. After all, the social trail may suggest that theres something good that way, explains Burn. But its also true that people might know its not the real trail but figure, Why should I lose out if everybody else is breaking the rule? I might as well benefit.

Such behavior, however, often has unnoticeable consequences on that natural setting. Research has shown that outdoor recreation in general not just social trails can and often does negatively affect wildlife. Human presence can startle animals, leading to increased stress levels and causing them to burn energy reserves, which are particularly dire during cold winter months. This can also result in animals displacement and reduced productivity and, in the worse cases, even decrease their chances of survival.

For plants, its a similar story.

As social trails are used more and more, the soil becomes increasingly compacted so that the plants that used to grow there are no longer able to.

When the native species arent able to come back because of that soil compaction, often the species that are best suited to grow in those situations are non-native, and as people continue to use the corridor to walk, ride their horse or bike, they start to transport those non-native seeds further into the area, says Scott Linnenburger, principal and owner of Kay-Linn Enterprises, a consulting firm that offers sustainable recreation and conservation planning, design and construction services.

If we start to play the choose-your-own-adventure game, and everybody goes wherever they want, however they want, we start to degrade that resource quality and the landscapes ability to function naturally and then it comes into question why it was conserved in the first place, Linnenburger says.

Sustainable Trails

While recreation and conservation often seem at odds with one another, thats only when viewed through a narrow lense. There is a way to reconcile both desires that allows for the conservation of the land and resources and our ability to enjoy them. Its about ensuring minimal impact while getting people where they want to go, Linnenburger notes.

One of my mentors in trail development often says, Its not people that need trails; its the land that does, he says. We are able to get to wherever we need to get to on the landscape, but if we do that in an unmanaged, unplanned way, the impacts that we have on that landscape are magnified by every unnecessary trail thats out there.

The negative effects of social trails underscore the importance of well-marked, maintained and sustainably built trail systems those that are purposefully developed. A designated trail system, [one thats] well planned, designed, constructed and maintained, minimizes the human impact on the landscape thats been conserved, Linnenburger says.

A sustainable trail system is one that is able to withstand the erosive powers of water and wind to provide a tread surface that will sustain over time without appreciable damage, he notes. More broadly, sustainable trails are in the social or managerial context trails that take people where they want to go, that are easily navigable, that can be effectively maintained over time by a land managing agency and volunteer stewards.

People want to have a sense of adventure and maybe even danger on their trails, so trying to buffer that human emotion is often unsuccessful.

Designing sustainable trails is Linnenburgers specialty. A masters degree in environmental management and a background in stream and wetland ecology have aided him in his work with the Professional Trail Builders Association (PTBA) for which his company Kay-Linn Enterprises provides the contractual staff. The only private sector group of professional trail contractors, designers and consultants, representing more than 100 member companies worldwide, PTBA emphasizes sustainable trail development, even hosting a Sustainable Trails Conference every spring.

So, what goes into planning and constructing a sustainable trail?

I think its probably easier to characterize what sustainable trails typically have not been over time, Linnenburger says.

The vast majority of the trail miles in the United States are actually converted industrial routes: logging or carriage roads, railroad grades or open utility corridors.

As industrial routes, those were meant to bring people and/or materials from point A to point B in the most expedited manner, Linnenburger says. That meant they typically went straight up and down hills or stripped through some place that was low and wet because it was the minimum distance needing to be covered to make that industry happen.

As such, they werent ever planned around aspects of natural resources or for sustainable design and water-shedding characteristics that a trail really needs, he explains.

The first step in developing a sustainable trail is determining what the purpose of said trail is and where its intended to take people. Then comes mapping the route so that it mimics nature as much as is possible i.e., it runs parallel to topographic contours rather than perpendicular. By doing so, Linnenburger says, you are placing the trail in a location where its hydrologically invisible, meaning it wont be capable of carrying much water or producing much erosion. Considering sensitive species and their habitat, such as wetlands and waterways, as well as migration routes is also critical.

But from the outset, Linnenburger notes, its imperative to understand that a trail needs to get people to where they want to go; otherwise, well lose the battle. Ultimately, people will get where they want to go (i.e., to beautiful sights and views, like waterfalls or canyons) whether a trail takes them there or not.

Balancing Interests

Creating sustainable trail systems is thus a delicate balancing act. Considering the desires of recreationists and the sites theyll want to see as well as environmental concern for plants and wildlife, in addition to balancing individuals safety with their thirst for adventure, can be tricky.

While maintaining public safety is important across all outdoor recreation activities, many people go outside for a sense of adventure and even a sense of a lack of safety, Linnenburger says. People want to have a sense of adventure and maybe even danger on their trails, so trying to buffer that human emotion is often unsuccessful.

Taming human desire is the hardest part, particularly when it comes to closing off existing social routes.

Theres a heavy psychology aspect to closing trails because people have kind of an inherent relationship with trails and they feel like its theirs, says Linnenburger.

Thus, closing off these routes requires more than just raking plant debris over an old social trail or putting up a No Trespassing sign, says Aaryn Kay, director of operations for PTBA. You have to make that social trail disappear from everybodys memory and vision as youre trying to create these more sustainable routes, she says.

We tell folks that with the redesign or re-location of a trail, that experience has to be better than what the experience of the closed trail was. If it doesnt provide the same experience or better, the old trail will be reopened.

Thats not to say that a fence shouldnt be installed temporarily while a trail is being restored to its natural state. It shouldnt, however, be the only approach taken by land managers, Linnenburger says. Research has demonstrated that a fence doesnt close a trail, but vegetation or a fenced barrier with some communication is the most effective way, he explains.

More than letting recreationists know that a trail is closed, land managers should explain the reason for the closure, the importance of re-creating the trail in a more sustainable way and the resulting benefits for plants, wildlife and people.

Often, we tell folks who are having to do these trail closures that with the redesign or re-location of a trail, that experience has to be better than what the experience of the closed trail was, says Linnenburger. If it doesnt provide the same experience or better, the old trail will be reopened.

Kay believes that interpretive signage, when done right, can help appeal to peoples better selves.

People want to do the right thing, says Kay. So if [a sign] just says Trail Closed, its like well, why? But if you have a reason, like due to wildlife concerns or for restoration, there are ways to craft effective language.

Traditionally, however, land management agencies approach has been more command-control, according to Linnenburger. They often think putting up a sign that says Trail closed. Trespassing punishable by this kind of a fine. is a good way to reach people, he says, but thats not really meeting the recreationists on their own terms.

Educating recreationists about the landscape that its not just an open palette to go wherever you want, says Linnenburger and that its being managed for multiple purposes, including conservation, is perhaps a better, more effective approach.

Interpretive signage and pamphlets should emphasize the fragility of the ecosystem and the importance of staying on marked trails so that the area can be preserved for human visitors and its non-human inhabitants, says Burn, who is the creator of the Proenvironmental Behavior Change Model, which she used to develop the Environmental Intervention Handbook.

A tool for resource managers, available from the USDA Forest Service, the handbook is designed to help resource managers apply psychological research on sustainable behavior to solve human behavior problems in natural resource settings.

Even with such resources available, Linnenburger says, you dont see a lot of educational outreach. He attributes this to dwindling budgets and, as a result, minimal ranger presence on the landscape not to mention a lack of psychological prowess.

Its a delicate psychological balance [in which], frankly, if youre trained to manage a forest or manage for wildlife on a piece of land, you dont likely have training in sociology and psychology that allows you to kind of parse those nuances for the people visiting your lands, Linnenburger says.

That is where volunteers and nonprofits have a role to play. For agencies struggling with dwindling budgets and staff, these groups can help serve as their boots on the ground a kind of peer-to-peer approach to responsible recreation.

Utilizing the folks who are most concerned and already drinking the Kool-Aid so to speak in terms of the goals of the trail system and managing the resources that are on those lands is a great approach, says Linnenburger. People talking to people is much more effective than somebody in a uniform talking to people and saying the same things.

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Sustainable vs. Social Trails: Why You Should Ignore Psychology and Take the Road Most Traveled - Modern Conservationist

Human Behavior

I met Samsungs artificial humans, and they showed me the future of A.I. – Digital Trends

January 10, 2020 medical

Andy Boxall/DigitalTrends

This story is part of our continuing coverage of CES 2020, including tech and gadgets from the showroom floor.

What is Neon? Shrouded in mystery leading up to CES 2020, all we knew was that Neon had something to do with artificial intelligence. Was it a Google Assistant competitor? A robot? Something more?

Its a preview of a wonderful technology we have, and a wonderful future we can create together, Neons CEO Pranav Mistry said at the start of his keynote presentation.

So what is it? Its not hyperbole, for a start. Neon is a step closer to living with a digital creation that not only understands and emotes with us in a meaningful and relatable way, but is also able to create valuable memories with us and truly share our lives.

Explaining exactly what Neon is, how it works, and the incredible depth of technology underlying it is a considerable challenge and one that Neon itself isnt quite sure how to tackle. To help introduce Neon, Mistry started out by saying he wants to change the way we interact with machines, and no longer say just, Stop, Next song, or even, Hey Google, Bixby, or Siri, because its not how we talk to humans.

Mistry said he wants to push the boundaries so machines understand more about us. Whether we are tired or happy, our expressions, and our emotions.

In turn, the more machines understand us, the more we will be able to connect with them on a deeper, human level. He believes the path to this means machines need to look and act more like us, and this is where Neons journey really began.

The CES demonstration came just four months after the project started. Mistry and the team began by creating a digital version of a friend, which closely emulated his facial movements during conversation. This evolved into larger, grander tests until eventually, the digital version began to do things on its own. It would make expressions the real person had not. It had learned, and become something individual.

The Neon booth in Central Hall at CES is covered in large screens showing people on them, all moving, smiling, laughing, or silently mouthing words to the audience. Except these arent videos. These are Neons. They are digital creations born from real people, and although they visually represent the model on which theyre based, the movements, expressions, and emotions are entirely automatically generated.

Once you understood this, it was surreal walking around the booth, looking at the Neons who in turn are looking at you, and now understanding the movements they made were of their own doing, not a repeating video or animation. What was powering the Neon, and what did Mistry have in mind for their future?

The Neons are generated by the companys own reality engine called Core R3. The R3 name refers to the principals on which the system is based reality, real time, and responsiveness, and its the combination of all these that bring the Neon to life. Its not an intelligent system, says Mistry, because it does not have the ability to learn or remember. Instead, its equal parts behavioral neural network and computational reality that independently generates the Neons personality by training it to emulate human behavior on a visual level how your head moves when youre happy, what your mouth does when youre surprised, for example.

Once it has been created, Core R3 does not then continually run a Neon. It generates it initially, then the Neon continually relies on its own information to react based on its interactions with the real world. However, it doesnt know you or remember you. It uses a combination of the Core R3-generated Neon, cameras, and other sensors to interact with us in the moment but once that moment is over, everything is forgotten. In the near future, the company has big plans to change that.

Despite only being worked on for four months, there was a live demonstration of what a Neon can do now. There are two states for Neons currently, an auto mode where it does what it wants, whether it is thinking, responding, idling, or greeting you, plus a live mode where the Neon can be controlled remotely.

The Neon has multiple ways to respond and can choose how to do so, even when instructed to do a particular action. Tell it to smile and be happy, and it does so, but it chooses the way it will look when it does. The level of granular control is impressive, right down to eyebrow movement and the closing of eyes, along with head movements and both visual and verbal responses. This all happens with a response time of 20 milliseconds (the real-time aspect of R3), which removes the barrier between human and machine even further during any interaction. Speech is not produced by Neon at the moment, and in the demo, voice was pulled from third-party APIs, giving life to artificially intelligent voice assistants and chatbots everywhere.

The Neon is domain independent, Mistry said. A Neon could teach you yoga or it could help bridge language gaps around the world, for example. Potential uses for a Neon in business are obvious, such as in hotels, at the airport, or in public spaces. The Neon is an evolution of the clunky robots or lifeless video screens seen in these places around the world at the moment. But thats not really very exciting, and certainly not the part of the Neon thats truly groundbreaking.

Right now, a Neon cannot know who you are or remember you. Once your interaction is over, your relationship with it is lost to the digital ether. However, over the next year, the Neon team will work on the next version of Core R3, along with a project called Spectra that will add these important traits to Neon, and arguably bring it to life.

Spectra will provide memory and learning, Mistry told us, revealing the true direction of Neon.

By adding memory and the ability to learn, along with the advanced human-like visuals, a Neon has the potential to become a true digital companion. Speaking to Mistry after the presentation, his eyes lit up as he talked about the characters he loved as a child, and that the connection he had with them was not affected by the fact they were not real. A fully fledged Neon could bring similar joy to people, in a stronger and even more personal way.

What Neon showed at CES 2020 is very much the beginning, but theres clearly a massive amount of investment, belief, and talent involved. Not many companies would have the guts to come to Las Vegas and show off a four-month-old demo after a few weeks of hyping it up. Mistry has worked with Microsoft on the Xbox, and with Samsung on the Gear VR in the past. Hes soft-spoken and charismatic, and everyone we spoke to at Neon had a similarly strong belief in what the company is doing.

It was contagious, especially if youve had sci-fi dreams about artificial humans and digital companions all your life.

However, there is a lot to consider before youre picking out a name for your first Neon pal. How will the Neon come to life for you and me? Mistry, in true visionary fashion, was not concerned by such things. In his presentation, when talking about the importance of thinking big to do something amazing, he said:

We dont understand whats the business model of something, or how we will bring something to market, lets figure that out later.

A Neon team member talked to us about how the company intends to create Neons in the future. They wont use real people as models, and instead generate their own looks for Neons. Think about that for a moment: An entirely artificial digital human, with its own unique looks, and the ability to speak, emote, learn, and remember. It gives me a shiver, its so exciting.

Given the pace with which Core R3 has evolved already, its no surprise to hear Mistry intends to show the first beta version of a Neon, as well as a preview of Spectra, sometime in the next 12 months at an as-yet-undefined event called Neon 2020. What Neon showed at CES is a huge leap forward in avoiding the uncanny valley, changing the way we should think about digital humans. Its a major step toward giving life to something that naturally does not have any. Theres a long, long way to go before the Neon reaches its potential, but the very fact the journey has started at all is thrilling.

Follow our live blog for more CES news and announcements.

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I met Samsungs artificial humans, and they showed me the future of A.I. - Digital Trends

Human Behavior

Stretched Too Thin by Social Media – Scientific American

January 10, 2020 medical

In the past two months, I received multiple invitations to leave Facebook and Twitter and join a new social network that promises to not destroy democracy. Im tempted. Im also tempted to delete my accounts and abandon social media altogether. The decision got me thinking, not about democracy but instead about how social media affect my behavior and relationships.

Social media promise and deliver social networks with better or at least bigger scale and scope. Essentially, this means you can connect to many more people from many different places to relate on a wider variety of interests. To socialize is a core human need. The difficult question is whether social media improve our capability to relate to each other.

The answer may seem obvious. Social media afford connectivity, engagement and relationship management at such incredible scale and in such a convenient manner. It must be a substantial improvement. Most social media users can attest to the power. Many will recall that thrill of finding lost friends, connecting with distant colleagues, or maintaining relationships that would otherwise be forgotten or just lost.

Yet, paradoxically, the feeling of power may, like the rush from an intoxicant, blind users to deleterious consequences. Social media can be vampiric on human attention, empathy and care. Consider the ad-based business model upon which most social media depend. Attention is bought and sold. Social media serve as the gateway to behavioral data extraction while delivering targeted stimuliwhether ads or inducements to keep you glued to the platform.

We only have so much time, energy and attention to devote to our relationships, to make them meaningful.

Social media change how we relate to each other. But are we better or worse off? To evaluate that question, we need baselines.

Without social media, people have many different social networks, from intimate to professional. Consider the most intimate social network, your family. Families are social networks where, in network lingo, family members are the nodes, and the ties (sometimes called links) between nodes may be stronger/weaker based on the relationship between nodes. Thus, parent-child and sibling ties are much stronger than distant cousin ties.

When my wife and I got engaged, we would tell folks that we planned to have a large family. I grew up with seven siblings, and that gave me a benchmark. My wife had two siblings and many close cousins, and she worked with children. We figured we would have six or more children!

We now have three boys and do not plan on having any more. After transitioning from man-to-man to zone defense, we realized that three was more than enough. We could only afford that many. And not just financially. Honestly, if we had infinite financial, emotional and other resources and we ignored broader environmental considerations, we would love to have more children. But scarcity is a fact of life, despite what some abundance evangelists preach.

My wife and I realized that with three children, our attention was spread as far as we thought was appropriate for us to be meaningfully in engaged in our childrens and our own lives. Our immediate family of five sustains strong ties. We worried that expanding our network would risk weakening them. Of course, we never used those words! We would say we didnt want to stretch ourselves too thin.

Lately, this is how I feel when I am use social media platformsstretched too thin, maintaining relationships with large numbers of weak ties, often though not always with superficial forms of engagement. Worse, I find myself devoting time, attention and effort to people with whom I have no actual tie at all. Even weaker than weak ties are the nonexisting relationships, the potential ties many of us find ourselves catering to on social media platforms. Potential followers, a potential audience, people who follow people who follow me who just might receive a shared post or tweet. It sounds ridiculous when actually written, doesnt it? Yet if you use social media platforms, you probably know what Im talking about.

Whats so bad about being stretched thin? Well, there are trade-offs, which vary for different people. In general, Im concerned with the impact on strong ties, our most important and meaningful relationships. Being stretched too thin may weaken strong ties, lead to fewer strong ties, or both. This is the most obvious effect to look out for, but there are other relationships that might be impacted. Consider, for example, your moderate ties, say your co-workers or neighbors. These important relationships might be sacrificed at the social media altar as people seek affirmation and attention from much weaker, less meaningful, but more plentiful ties.

Some might say Im old-fashioned for putting driveway and watercooler conversations on a pedestal and for denigrating emoji- and click-fueled communications. Thats not really the point though. I struggle with social media too. Evaluating the trade-offs isnt easy. But an important first step is recognizing that its about more than democracy writ large, the algorithms structuring what you encounter, or the specific content in your feed. It is fundamentally about the nature and strength of the relationships you cultivate.

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Stretched Too Thin by Social Media - Scientific American

Human Behavior

Self-sustaining space-inspired village is set to open in the Mojave Desert – Lonely Planet Travel News

January 10, 2020 medical

Construction on the self-sustaining, bio-regenerative village is set to begin next year 2020 Interstellar Lab

Working under the assumption thattechnologies designed for exploring other worlds should also improve life on Earth, Interstellar Lab has designed a self-sustaining, regenerative village of biomes inspired by the conditions on Mars and in tempting news for sustainably minded travelers, itwill eventually be open to the public for overnight stays for half the year. (Of course, such access comes at a cost potentially between $3000 (3531) and $6000 (7062) per week, CEO Barbara Belvisi told Venture Beat in November.)

A testing ground for astronaut training and space-settlement tech, the closed-loop village known as EBIOS (Experimental BIOregenerative Station) will produce and recycle water, food, and energy for 100 people, leaving a carbon-neutral footprint and creating zero waste.

From water treatment [and] waste management to food production systems, we are developing solutions that can be implemented right now on Earth, and we are preparing for future settlement on other planets, Belvisi said in a press release.

It took two years of research and development, plus close collaboration with NASA on water treatment, plant-growth systems, 3D printing, and an analysis of human behavior in tight quarters, before Interstellars plans for the village were revealed. Construction is expected to begin in the Mojave Desert in 2021, and a second location at Floridas Kennedy Space Center could follow soon after.

"A long-term, sustainable Mars or lunar settlement will only be practical if we do the researchon Earth and really test the viability of different systems, Greg Autry, director of the SoCal Commercial Spaceflight Initiative and former White House Liaison at NASA, said in a press release.

From a cave in Cantabria that mimics life on Mars to an island in the Canaries that bears an uncanny resemblance to the planet to a London museum exhibit detailing what, exactly, wed need to pack to move to Mars, the red planet is certainly capturing the public imagination thanks in no small part to the increasing havoc wreaked by climate change. "The two planets share a common ground, Belvisi said. "What we need to bring on Mars for life is what we need to protect on Earth right now. The only path to become a multi-planet species is to join our energy towards the same direction.

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Self-sustaining space-inspired village is set to open in the Mojave Desert - Lonely Planet Travel News

Human Behavior

Unwell Trump Rants About The Song YMCA At The White House – PoliticusUSA

January 10, 2020 medical

Donald Trump went off on a rant and claimed nobody remembers the name NAFTA, which is why he named his trade deal after the Village Peoples YMCA.

Trump said, Im good at names. USMCA. Like the song YMCA. Now everybody says it. They dont remember the previous name of the bad deal. Commonly known as NAFTA.

Video:

Trump thinks that he is good at names in the same way that a toddler thinks that they are good at hide and seek when they put their fingers over their eyes. USMCA is not a good name for a trade deal. Trump hasnt come up with a good name for either his programs or his political opponents since he was a candidate. Trump is still trying to make Sleepy Joe a thing, even though Biden is more active in a day than Trump is in a month.

The president is clearly not well. He sounded drugged as he slurred his words, snorted, and breathed heavily during his statement on Iran.

Trump has blown past the standard of not presidential behavior and descended to not normal human behavior.

The White House wont tell the American people, but there is overwhelming circumstantial evidence that something appears to be wrong with this president.

For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group.

Follow Jason Easley on Facebook

Mr. Easley is the founder/managing editor and Senior White House and Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA.Jason has a Bachelors Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association

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Unwell Trump Rants About The Song YMCA At The White House - PoliticusUSA

Human Behavior

The most insightful vision of the future at CES came from HBO’s ‘Westworld’ – Mashable

January 10, 2020 medical

When media folks received a cryptic invite to an HBO Westworld experience at CES, we knew we were in for it. But no one could've predicted that the night would end in the fifty or so gathered dinner guests erupting in shocked gasps.

By the end of the 2.5-hour interactive performance experience at Las Vegas' NoMad, the activation put together by creative agency Giant Spoon revealed itself to be much more than just a clue about Season 3 of HBO's dystopian TV series. It was also one of the most incisive commentaries on our real-world future to emerge from the biggest conference in tech.

This wasn't the first time Westworld made a big splash at a future-focused conference, either. In 2018, HBO shuttled attendees to a ghost town modeled after Sweetwater for one of the most talked-about experiences of South by Southwest.

This year's didn't disappoint one bit.

Promising that the "path to your future is here," the invitation to 2020's experience came from a company called Incite Inc. Each attendee was required to fill out a survey in advance with their dietary restrictions, social media accounts, as well as answers to questions like whether they experience guilt after eating animals or feel anxious about the future.

Earlier that month, HBO had launched an in-universe advertisement for the new fictional tech company, presenting it as an apparent rival to or evolution of the Delos Corporation from the first two seasons. Yet while Delos pedaled the ultimate choose-your-own-adventure fantasy future with endless possibilities, Incite instead posits a technological utopia where data chooses the best path for you.

And honestly, that felt way too close for comfort at a place like CES.

For days, attendees of the conference have been subjected to endlessly optimistic promises about what lies ahead when computing grows more powerful, the Internet of Things more ubiquitous, algorithms more precisely attuned to human behavior, and data gathering more expansive.

Meanwhile outside the blindly idealistic bubble of CES, unchecked technology continues to wreak havoc. A Facebook memo leaked yesterday revealing how the tech behemoth sees no issue with how targeted, data-driven ads played an enormous (and ethically dubious) role in electing the current president of the free world.

Not creepy at all.

Westworld's dinner was a confrontation with all the dystopian implications of tech that CES refuses to address.

As I walked into the line, a woman I did not recognize gave me a big hug, saying how nice it was to finally see me and asking how my dog and boyfriend were doing (by name). I couldn't tell if I'd either forgotten if we'd met before, or if the game had already begun.

Quickly, it became clear that it was the latter.

Throughout the night, random folks approached me and my coworkers to discuss personal details about our lives, our work, the articles we'd written, changes to our hair color, and in one case uncertainty about whether or not a move out of their current city was warranted. To be clear, there were some misses in what I later learned was a 600 page, personally tailored script for the evening. We noticed that those of us with little online presence were harder for them to pin down. Other times, details got switched around (like my boyfriend and dog's names.)

But it was enough. We got the game. Our over-sharing digital selves were being thrown back in our faces, as we were forced to dine with our choice to give up every ounce of our internet privacy.

Things got weird.

Then the real show began. A woman who called herself Barbara Quinlan, Incite's development co-chair, stood up to give us the pitch. It sounded eerily similar to the legitimate ones we'd been hearing all week at CES from countless tech innovators.

"Here at Incite, we're about choices, the choices that people make that define their life. Our mission is using new and powerful technology in order to empower individuals to make their best choices," she said. "We believe that by revealing the pattern and calming the chaos, Incite can lead each of us to a better life, to a better you. Now, life doesn't have to be as complicated and chaotic as it so often seems. Clarity is achievable and the possibilities are limitless."

After playing the Incite Inc. advertisement, each guest sat down at their assigned seat for dinner. At least half of my table were unknowns which, in retrospect, might mean there were a lot more actors than we were led to believe. But if they were, the illusion was near flawless.

We ate our predetermined three-course meal, each guest's order slightly different from the others. A quick survey of my table gave credence to my hypothesis that those who expressed extreme guilt over eating animals received irresistibly delicious streak.

In the midst of our lively discussions between complete strangers, Quinlan returned, spouting more hauntingly familiar tech speak.

"This can't be real," many people murmured under their breaths.

Sixty-seven percent of those gathered in that room said they felt stressed about making everyday decisions, she said. Nine out of 10 were anxious about the future. "That anxiety can be damaging. It can distract us, depress us," she said. "It can rob us of our very ability to make our best decisions."

The next slide is when the gasps and uncomfortable laughter began. Quinlan singled out one specific attendee at the dinner, calling her their "case study," and providing all her personal information age, hometown, marital status alongside her photo.

"This can't be real," many people murmured under their breaths as Quinlan proceeded to lay out every major life decision this woman at table 3 had ever made: going to college instead of backpacking through Europe, getting married, staying in Ohio instead of moving to California, having a child (photo of said child included).

As dinner guests continued to furiously debate over whether or not it was all real, Quinlan persisted, making it personal to everyone in the room.

"Decisions confront us every day of our lives. What'd you order for dinner? Well, clearly, we chose that one for you tonight. But wasn't it surprising how nice it was to give up that little bit of freedom?"

The room grew silent as everyone considered just how true it was. Deciding what to eat was always a chore. But at a conference with so few options and opportunities, it turned into an ordeal. I had indeed been relieved to have the best choice that delicious steak served to me without any alternative whatsoever, even alleviating me of the guilt I usually feel from eating meat.

"Big tech companies are profiting from your data. But what are you getting back in return? We have more data than ever, we have more computing power, yet we live with even more uncertainty. Our information revolution should make us more sure about the future, not less," she said in her soothing and assured voice. "At Incite, we believe that we can do just that. We believe that by making your information work for you, we can relieve you of this burden of uncertainty. With our new technology, we can make the decisions that you did not know you wanted to make."

"Our information revolution should make us more sure about the future, not less."

She had a point. In reality, people don't want more choices, more possibilities, more information. The future of tech is driven by convenience, thrives on providing us with more comfort rather than more opportunity.

That's often the first line of defense people give for why they don't care about data or digital privacy. Who cares if Facebook is listening or tracking my every move it just gives me more relevant ads! In the real world, we've proven all too ready to give up those little bits of freedom so tech companies can just make life a little easier or more interesting.

Embedded into this subversive commentary on the state of tech in 2020 was a hint at the fascinating places HBO's sci-fi series might be going. Because if Season 1-2 was about showing just how human robots could be, Season 3 appears to be about just how robotic humanity really is when you strip us down to our essentials.

In Season 2 of Westworld, (spoiler alert) it's revealed that Delos has been monitoring and scanning all the decisions of every human park-goer for decades through the iconic black or white cowboy hats. With that data, the corporation could do any number of nefarious evils: replace real people with identical robot clones, predict all their future behaviors, etc.

A creepy but delicious dinner.

But what if they didn't have to do any of that in secret or with any hostility? What if the next season of Westworld explores how we give away pieces of our humanity to evil tech corporations willingly rather than through any sort of coerced manipulation?

I mean, don't we already do that right now? Didn't all of us sitting in that dinning room give away all our data for free?

"If you give us your data, we'll give you certainty. If you give us your information, we can erase all doubt. The only way to get to this new world, the only decision that you need to make, is us. Thank you," said Quinlan.

Was the woman at table 3 whose life story we saw play out over a few presentation slides real or fake? Well, I realized, it didn't matter (though I did spend hours googling her name and every detail of her life, and came up empty). Like Westworld, the whole experience left me with the unshakable understanding that, ultimately, we're all just a bunch of data points in an interconnected network. Real or fake, it makes no difference.

What makes us human, actually, is what we choose to do with those data points that make up who we are who we entrust our information with, and who we trust to make the decisions for us.

UPDATE: Jan. 8, 2020, 12:15 p.m. PST A previous version of this story incorrectly named the creative agency behind the Westworld experience. It was Giant Spoon, not Big Spoon.

Human Behavior

Human Extinction Now Imminent and Inevitable? – Scoop.co.nz

January 10, 2020 medical

Thursday, 9 January 2020, 6:42 pmArticle: Robert J. Burrowes

Human Extinction Now Imminent and Inevitable? A Report onthe State of Planet Earth

Robert J. Burrowes

There is asignificant body of evidence that human extinction is nowimminent; that is, it will occur within the next few yearsand possibly this year: 2020. There is also a significantbody of evidence that human extinction is now inevitable;that is, it cannot be prevented no matter what wedo.

There are at least four distinct paths to imminent(that is, within five years) human extinction: nuclear war(possibly started regionally), biodiversity collapse(already well advanced and teetering on the brink), thedeployment of 5G (commenced recently) and the climatecatastrophe. Needless to say, each of these four paths mightunfold in a variety of ways.

In addition, it should benoted, there are other possible paths to extinction in thenear term, particularly when considered in conjunction withthe four threats just mentioned. These include the cascadingimpacts triggered by destruction of the Amazon rainforest(which is now imminent) particularly given its critical rolein the global hydrological cycle, the rapidly spreadingradioactive contamination of Earth, and geoengineering formilitary purposes (which has been going on for decades andcontinues).

Far worse, however, is the path to extinctionthat looms before us when we consider the impact of allseven of these paths in combination with the vast range ofother threats noted below.

These interrelated threats havegenerated a shocking series of points of no return(tipping points) that we have already crossed, themutually reinforcing set of negative feedback loops that wehave already triggered (and which we will continue totrigger) which cannot be reversed in the short-term, as wellas the ongoing synergistic impact of the variousextinction drivers (such as ongoing extinctionsbecause dependent species have lost their resource species)we have set in motion and which cannot be haltedirrespective of any remedial action we might take. Hence,taking into account all of the above factors, the prospectsof averting human extinction are now remote, at best.

Whyhas this happened?

Because long-standing dysfunctionalhuman behavior, which we have not even begun to recognize asthe fundamental driver of this extinction crisis, let aloneaddress, has now trapped us between a rock and a hardplace.

On the one hand, we are trapped by our grotesquelydysfunctional parenting and education models that massproduce individuals who are terrified, self-hating andpowerless (leaving them submissively obedient while unableto seek out and consider the evidence for themselves andtake powerful action in response) and who, as a result ofbeing terrorized during childhood, are now addicted tochronic over-consumption to suppress their awareness oftheir deep (and unconscious) emotional pain. See Love Denied: The Psychology ofMaterialism, Violence and War and Do We Want School or Education?with more detailed evidence in WhyViolence? and Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology:Principles and Practice.

On the other hand, also asan outcome of our dysfunctional parenting and educationmodels (as well as the political and economic systems thesegenerate), we keep reproducing and remain trapped by theglobal elite, and its compliant international organizations(such as the United Nations), national governments andcorporations, including its corporate media. This globalelite is utterly insane (and, hence, devoid of suchqualities as conscience, empathy, compassion and love) andintent on exploiting our desire to suppress awareness of ouremotional pain by over-consuming in order to feed theirinsatiable desire for profit, power and privilege no matterthe cost to humanity and Earths biosphere. See The Global Elite is InsaneRevisited.

Hence, this article does twothings.

First, in the hope of generating greaterconsideration of these two issues imminence andinevitability of human extinction I have presented instraightforward language and point form, a reasonablesummary of the nature and extent of our predicament (whichclearly indicates that we are on track for human extinctionbetween now January 2020 and 2025), as well asciting the relevant scientific and/or other evidence thatexplains each problem in more detail.

And second, thearticle outlines a powerful series of actions and strategiesthat individuals as well as community groups, neighborhoodsand action groups can take as part of a global effort tofight to avert human extinction even if, as mentioned above,it is now inevitable. See, for example, Extinction Foretold, ExtinctionIgnored in which the McPherson Paradox, whichexplains one key reason why we are doomed to extinction, isexplained.

The obvious question, which you might well askme, is this: If the overwhelming evidence that humanextinction is now imminent and inevitable isincontrovertible, why are you suggesting that we fight toavert human extinction? And my answer is simply this:Because, as I have done for several decades, I am committedto trying to do this one key thing that feels worth doing.Moreover, I am also hopeful that a miracle or two might justoccur if we humans commit ourselves fully to theeffort. I am only too well aware that anything less thana full effort, as outlined below, will certainly fail. Andwe will virtually certainly fail anyway. But I would rathertry, than give up. And you?

So, in noting the pointsbelow, each of which identifies one key way (or a set ofrelated key ways) in which the Earth and its inhabitantswere subjected to greater violence in 2019, it is painful toreflect that, as forecast this time last year and based on aclear understanding of the primary driver of human behavior fear that is generating this multifaceted crisis,2019 was another year of vital opportunities lost when somuch is at stake.

Because, in essence, whetherpsychologically, socially, politically, militarily,economically, financially, ecologically or in other ways, in2019 humanity took more giant strides backwards whilepassing up endless opportunities to make a positivedifference in our world.

Moreover, to highlight thedramatic nature of our failure, by the end of 2019, asubstantial number of countries and regions of the world notably including the Amazon basin, Australia, severalcountries in Central Africa, many European countries,Indonesia, Siberia and North America had eachexperienced (and/or were still experiencing) a huge seriesof wildfires (or fires that were deliberately lit), many ofthem out of wildfire season and breaking records fortheir unprecedented destructive impact, demonstratingthat the Earth is literally burning up. For just anoverview, see NASAs Fire Information for Resource ManagementSystem.

But this very visible symptom of our crisismasks a vast quantity of evidence, in many domains, that isvirtually unknown but far more damaging.

Oneacknowledgment of this crisis in Earths biosphere was thefact that the Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of the AtomicScientists remains poised at just two minutes to midnight,the closest it has ever been to doomsday (and equal to1953 when the Soviet Union first exploded a thermonuclearweapon matching the US capacity and raising the spectre ofnuclear war). See It is now two minutes tomidnight.

This status reflects the perilous stateof our world, particularly given the renewed threat ofnuclear war and the ongoing climate catastrophe. It didnteven mention the massive and unrelenting assault on thebiosphere (apart from the climate) and the rapidlyaccelerating biodiversity crisis nor, of course, the ongoingmonumental atrocities against fellow human beings.

So letme identify, very briefly, some of the more crucial backwardsteps humanity took during 2019 and, far too easily,unfortunately, forecast what will happen in2020.

Some Key Lowlights of 2019

1. Theglobal elite, using key elite fora such as the Group of 30,the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg Group and theWorld Economic Forum, and despite much rhetoric to thecontrary, continued to plan, generate and exacerbate themany ongoing wars, deepening exploitation within the globaleconomy, climate and environmental destruction, and thekilling and exploitation of fellow human beings in amultitude of contexts, in pursuit of greater elite profit,power and privilege. See, for example, Who Is Really in Control of US ForeignPolicy?, Giants: The Global Power Elite andThe Global Elite is InsaneRevisited.

2. International organizations (such asthe United Nations, the World Bank and InternationalMonetary Fund) and national governments and corporationsused military forces, legal systems, police forces andprison systems see The Rule of Law: Unjust andViolent around the world to serve the globalelite by defending its interests against the bulk of thehuman population, including those individuals andorganizations courageous enough to challenge elite profit,power and privilege who are being killed in record numbers.(See more in point 35 below.)

3. $US1.8 trillion wasofficially spent worldwide on military weapons tokill fellow human beings and other lifeforms, and to destroythe biosphere. This is the highest official (because thefigures are taken from open sources) annual militaryexpenditure ever recorded and the second consecutive year inwhich an increase occurred. Apart from military spending,weapons transfers worldwide remained high and both the USAand Russia were on a path of strategic nuclearrenewal. See SIPRI Yearbook 2019: Armaments,Disarmament and International Security;Summary.

However, as noted last year, soout-of-control is this spending that the United Statesgovernment has now spent $US21trillion on its military inthe past 20 years for which it cannot even account! Thatsright, $US1trillion each year above the official US nationalbudget for killing is lost. See Army General Fund Adjustments Not AdequatelyDocumented or Supported, Has Our Government Spent $21 Trillion OfOur Money Without Telling Us? and The Pentagon Cant Account for $21Trillion (Thats Not a Typo).

There has been noprogress reported in accounting for this lostexpenditure during the past year.

4. Under the directionof the global elite (as explained above), the United Statesgovernment and its NATO allies continued their perpetual waracross the planet wreaking devastation on many countries andregions, particularly in the Middle East and Africa. See,for example, Towards a World War III Scenario: TheDangers of Nuclear War, Dirty Wars: The World is aBattlefield and Understanding NATO, EndingWar.

As a result, whether in the US-sponsored andsupplied Saudi Arabian war against Yemen which the UNHCRcharacterizes as the worst humanitarian disaster in theworld see The Cost of Feeding Yemen as War RagesOn the result of the US use of depleted uraniumon top of its other extraordinary military destruction ofIraq over the past 29 years see Depleted Uranium and RadioactiveContamination in Iraq: An Overview or thecomplete dismemberment of Libya as a result of NATOsbombing of that country and the subsequent assassination ofits leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 see Endless War and Chaos in Libya the United States and its NATO allies have continued theirefforts to destroy entire countries (also includingAfghanistan, among others), at staggering cost to theirpopulations and environments, not because these countriesposed a threat to security anywhere but in order to maintaingeopolitical control and to facilitate the theft of theirresources (mainly oil) at great profit to the global elite.See, for example, Hillary Emails Reveal NATO Killed Gaddafito Stop Libyan Creation of Gold-BackedCurrency.

Moreover, of course, theperpetually-profitable perpetual war, by definition, has noend. But it still isnt quite acceptable to say, toopublicly and loudly, that The global elite has again usedthe United States military and its NATO allies to destroyIraq/Afghanistan/Syria/ (or, as is now the case, toattack Iran) to make a profit so what can be passed offas an excuse must be manufactured and promulgated by thecompliant corporate media. And, with a gullibly terrifiedhuman population disinclined to question authority, thisisnt a problem. The same unconvincing formula invariablyworks each time. For a fuller and insightful explanation ofthis point, see Edward Curtins article The war hoax redux.

Of course,Iran has long been in the crosshairs of the global elitebecause of its prodigious (and thus hugely profitable) oilreserves as well as the clear inclination of its leaders(both before and after the US-installed Shah) to makedecisions in the interests of Iranians, including foreignpolicy decisions such as those related to defense and therole of nuclear weapons. Thus, the global elite ensured thatthe US Congress, via removal by the Senate of a provisionexplicitly not authorizing the Pentagon to wage waragainst Iran or assassinate its officials see America Escalates its DemocraticOil War in the Near East in the recently passedNational Defense Authorization Act, effectively encouragedPresident Trumps recent assassination of General QassemSoleimani, Irans head of the foreign arm the QudsForce of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC),Irans elite military force and the key figure in thefight against terrorism in the Middle East, in clearcontempt of international law. See Trumps assassination of Soleimani:Five things to know, With Suleimani Assassination, Trump IsDoing the Bidding of Washingtons Most Vile Cabal,Why US assassinated General QassemSoleimani and US killing of Irans Qassem Soleimanian act of war.

This assassination, of course,raises a heightened possibility of war essentially, fromthe elite perspective, to achieve regime change andcapture control of Irans oil in one or more guisespossibly involving, as explained by Professor MichelChossudovsky, the use of tactical nuclear weapons,acts of political destabilization, confiscation of financialassets, extensive economic sanctions, electromagnetic andclimatic warfare, environmental modification techniques,cyberwarfare as well as chemical and biological warfare. SeeA Major Conventional War Against Iran Isan Impossibility. Crisis within the US CommandStructure and America, An Empire on its Last Leg: To beKicked Out from the Middle East?

Hence, much willdepend on the Iranian response to the insanity of thoseattacking it, which will unfold as this article is beingpublished. For further thoughtful analyses of this crisis,see War With Iran, Iran vs. US The Murder of GeneralQassem Suleimani and On the Brink of War?

5. Notcontent with the devastating impact of the military violenceit is inflicting already, during 2019 the global elitecontinued to plan how to cause more destruction in future.Key initiatives included ongoing work to employ advances inautonomous systems and artificial intelligence technologiesthat will undermine nuclear deterrence and increase thelikelihood of nuclear escalation see A Stable Nuclear Future? The Impact ofAutonomous Systems and Artificial Intelligence and the decision in the United States to create a SpaceForce, a sixth branch of the US military forces, just twomanifestations of this. See The Very Bad Space Force Deal andUS Making Outer Space the Next BattleZone Karl Grossman.

In its turn, the Russiangovernment has developed and just deployed a hypersonicweapon that travels at Mach 27 and which makes the USmissile defense installations in Europe obsolete. SeeAvangard changes everything: WhatRussias hypersonic warhead deployment means for theglobal arms race.

But other initiatives receivingrenewed attention hypervelocity guns, particle beamsand laser weapons onboard orbiting battle platforms withonboard nuclear reactors or super plutonium systemsproviding the power for the weapons also enhance thethreat that Modern society would go dark in the wordsof Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell. Why? Because any warin space would be the one and only. By destroying satellitesin space massive amounts of space debris would be createdthat would cause a cascading effect and even thebillion-dollar International Space Station would likely bebroken into tiny bits. So much space junk would becreated... that wed never be able to get a rocket off theplanet again because of the minefield of debris orbiting theEarth at 15,000 mph. See Trump Signs Measure EnablingEstablishment of a U.S. Space Force.

Of course,technological advances in weaponry reflect retrogradesteps in policy with the US Air Force Global Strike Command(AFGSC) which includes 20 B-2 stealth bombers, 76 B-52bombers and 450 Minuteman III intercontinental ballisticmissiles together capable of delivering thousands of nuclearwarheads along with the U.S. Navys submarine-launchedTrident ballistic missiles, are now capable ofextinguishing essentially all life on Earth within a matterof hours. See The Air Forces Global Strike CommandIs Preparing For A Delivery Of New NuclearWeapons.

6. Following the US withdrawal from theAnti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty in 2002 and afterwithdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (theIran nuclear deal) and the Intermediate Nuclear Forces(INF) Treaty (which limited the deployment of intermediaterange nuclear weapons) in 2018, the US government furtherand unilaterally signaled its intention to dismantle thelittle that remained of attempts during the Cold War andsince that time to contain the threat of nuclear war byfurther acting in violation of the Outer Space Treaty of1967 see Treaty on Principles Governing theActivities of States in the Exploration and Use of OuterSpace, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodiesand US Weaponizing Space in Bid to LaunchArms Race as explained in the point above, anddemonstrating its disinterest in extending New START: thesole remaining restraint on U.S.-Russian nuclear arsenalsthat caps deployed offensive strategic nuclear weapons to nomore than 1,550 each. See Russia says its already too late toreplace new START treaty and Global Zero Urges Trump to AcceptPutins Offer on Nuclear Treaty.

If you are inany doubt regarding the devastating consequences of nuclearwar, you will find Professor Steven Starrs thoughts see Nuclear Darkness, Global Climate Changeand Nuclear Famine: The Deadly Consequences of NuclearWar illuminating. In addition, the description byLynn Eden in City on Fire (based on her bookWhole World on Fire: Organizations,Knowledge, and Nuclear Weapons Devastation) iscompelling.

7. Another substantial proportion of globalprivate financial wealth conservatively estimated by theTax Justice Network in 2010 to already total between $US21and $US32 trillion has been invested virtually tax-freethrough the worlds still-expanding black hole of morethan 80 offshore tax havens (such as the City ofLondon Corporation, Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man,Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, Nauru, St. Kitts,Antigua, Tortola, Switzerland, the Channel Islands, Monaco,Cyprus, Gibraltar and Liechtenstein). This is just financialwealth. Additionally, a large share of the real estate,yachts, racehorses, gold bricks and many other assets thatcount as non-financial wealth are also owned via offshorestructures that make it impossible to identify their owners.See Tax Justice Network.

Tax havens arelocations around the world where wealthy individuals,criminals and terrorists, as well as governments andgovernment agencies (such as the CIA), banks, corporations,hedge funds, international organizations (such as theVatican) and crime syndicates (such as the Mafia), can stashtheir money so that they can avoid laws, regulation andoversight and, very often, evade tax. See Elite Banking at Your Expense: HowSecretive Tax Havens are Used to Steal YourMoney.

Controlled by the global elite, Wall Streetand other major banks manage this monstrous diversion ofwealth under Government protection. Their business isfraud and grand theft. Tax haven locations offer morethan tax avoidance. Almost anything goes on. Itincludes bribery, illegal gambling, money laundering,human and sex trafficking, arms dealing, toxic wastedumping, conflict diamonds and endangered speciestrafficking, bootlegged software, and endless other lawlesspractices. See Trillions Stashed in Offshore TaxHavens.

8. The worlds major corporationscontinued to inflict enormous ongoing violence (in a myriadof ways) in their pursuit of endless profit at the expenseof living beings (human and otherwise) and Earthsbiosphere by producing and marketing a wide range oflife-destroying products ranging from nuclear weapons andnuclear power to fossil fuels, junk food, pharmaceuticaldrugs (including health-destroying and sometimeslife-destroying vaccinations: see, for example, Vaxxed-Unvaxxed The Science),synthetic poisons and genetically mutilated organisms(GMOs).

These corporations include the following: weaponsmanufacturers, major banks and their industry groupslike the International Monetary Conference, asset managementfirms, investment companies, financial services companies,fossil fuel (coal, oil and gas) corporations, technologycorporations, media corporations, major marketing and publicrelations corporations, agrochemical (pesticides, seeds,fertilizers) giants, pharmaceutical corporations (with theirhandmaidens in the medical and psychiatric industries: seeDefeating the Violence in Our Food andMedicine and Defeating the Violence ofPsychiatry), biotechnology (genetic mutilation)corporations, mining corporations, nuclear powercorporations, food multinationals and water corporations.You can see a list of the major corporations in thisarticle: The Global Elite is InsaneRevisited.

9. More than two billion peoplecontinued to live under occupation, dictatorship or threatof genocidal assault often with the global elite sponsoringan oppressive national government or simply a local elitethat exercises power irrespective of the government inoffice. See, for example, 500 Years is Long Enough! Human Depravityin the Congo.

10. 36,500,000 human beings (mainlyin Africa, Asia and Central/South America) were starved todeath in 2019.

Are we serious about ending these totallyunnecessary deaths? Not even remotely, as thoughtfullyexplained by Professor George Kent in his article Are We Serious About EndingHunger?

As Professor Kent notes: currently, aroundthe world, around 800 million people suffer fromhunger and that global efforts to end hunger have notbeen serious: There has been no substantial commitmentof resources, no management group to control the process, norealistic timeline, and no means for mid-course correctionson the way to the goal. There [have been] no contracts withagencies that would work toward achievement of the goal.hoping for the end of hunger wont work. Hope is not astrategy. Moreover, The UN system offers little morethan vague aspirations.

11. 18,250,000 children werekilled by adults in wars, by starving them to death, bydenying them clean drinking water, and in a large variety ofother ways.

12. 8,000,000 children were trafficked intosexual slavery; executed in sacrificial killings after beingkidnapped; bred to be sold as a cash crop for sexualviolation, to produce child pornography (kiddie porn)and snuff movies (in which children are killed duringthe filming); ritually tortured and murdered as well asraped by dogs trained for the purpose. See Humanitys Dirty Little Secret:Starving, Enslaving, Raping, Torturing and Killing ourChildren.

13. Hundreds of thousands of individualswere kidnapped or tricked into slavery, which now denies46,000,000 human beings (more than at any time in humanhistory) the right to live the life of their choice,condemning many individuals especially women andchildren to lives of sexual slavery, forced labor or aschild soldiers. Needless to say, the global elite continuesto expand this highly profitable business while itscompliant governments do no more than mouth an occasionalobjection to the practice while doing nothing effective toactually end it, as was patently evident followingdisclosures about high-profile public figures during theyear. See The Global Slavery Index. For onerecent account of the life of a modern slave, see My Familys Slave. And for anaccount of the involvement of public figures in sex slavery,see Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein: whatyou need to know and the other articles listed at theend of this one.

14. Well over 100,000 people(particularly Falun Gong practitioners) in China, where anextensive state-controlled program is conducted, weresubjected to forced organ removal for the trade in humanorgans. See Bloody Harvest and The Slaughter.

15. 15,768,000people were displaced by war, persecution or famine. Thereare now 70,800,000 people, more that half of whom arechildren and approximately 10,000,000 of whom are stateless,who have been forcibly displaced worldwide and remainprecariously unsettled, usually in adverse circumstances.One person in the world is forcibly displaced every twoseconds. See Figures at a Glance.

16.Millions of people were made homeless in their own countryas a result of war, persecution, natural disasters(many of which, including hurricanes/cyclones and wildfires,were actually generated by dysfunctional human behaviorrather than nature), internal conflict, poverty or as aresult of elite-driven national economic policies. The lasttime a global survey was attempted by the United Nationsback in 2005 an estimated 100 million people werehomeless worldwide. In addition, as many as 1.6 billionpeople lack adequate housing (living in slums, for example).See Global HomelessnessStatistics.

17. Highlighting the unheraldedbiodiversity crisis on Earth, as a result of habitatdestruction and degradation as well as a multitude of otherthreats, 73,000 species of life (plants, birds, animals,fish, amphibians, insects, reptiles and microbes) on Earthwere driven to extinction with the worldwide loss of many ofthese species and certainly including insects, birds,animals and fish now at catastrophic levels. Tragically,many additional species are now trapped in a feedback loopwhich will inevitably precipitate their extinction as wellbecause of the way in which co-extinctions,localized extinctions and extinction cascadeswork once initiated and as has already occurred in almostall ecosystem contexts. See the (so far) five-part series Our Vanishing World. Have you seena flock of birds of any size recently? A butterfly?

18.Separately from global species extinctions, Earth continuedto experience a huge episode of population declines andextirpations, which will have negative cascadingconsequences on ecosystem functioning and services vital tosustaining civilization. We describe this as a biologicalannihilation to highlight the current magnitude ofEarths ongoing sixth major extinction event. Moreover,local population extinctions are orders of magnitude morefrequent than species extinctions. Population extinctions,however, are a prelude to species extinctions, so Earthssixth mass extinction episode has proceeded further thanmost assume. See Biological annihilation via the ongoingsixth mass extinction signaled by vertebrate populationlosses and declines and Our Vanishing World:Wildlife.

19. Wildlife trafficking, worth up to $20billion in 2019, is pushing many endangered species to thebrink of extinction. Illegal wildlife products includejewelry, traditional medicine, clothing, furniture, andsouvenirs, as well as some exotic pets, most of which aresold to unaware/unconcerned consumers in the West althoughChina is heavily implicated too. See, for example, Stop Wildlife Trafficking.

20.16,000,000 acres of pristine rainforest were cut or burntdown for purposes such as the following: acquiring timbersused in construction, clearing land to establish cattlefarms so that many people can eat cheap hamburgers, clearingland to establish palm oil plantations so that many peoplecan eat processed (including junk) foods based on this oil,clearing land to establish palm oil and soybean plantationsso that some people can delude themselves that they areusing a green biofuel in their car (when, in fact,these fuels generate a far greater carbon footprint thanfossil fuels), mining (much of it illegal) for a variety ofminerals (such as gold, silver, copper, coltan, cassiteriteand diamonds), and logging to produce woodchips so that somepeople can buy cheap paper, including cheap toilet paper.One outcome of this destruction is that 40,000 tropical treespecies are now threatened with extinction. See Our Vanishing World: Rainforests,Measuring the Daily Destruction of theWorlds Rainforests, Estimating the global conservation statusof more than 15,000 Amazonian tree species and Half of Amazon Tree Species FaceExtinction.

Another outcome is that the preciousAmazon is teetering on the edge of functional destructionand, with it, so are we. How long do we have? Thetipping point is here, it is now. Professor Thomas E.Lovejoy and his fellow researcher Carlos Nobre elaboratethis point: Bluntly put, the Amazon not only cannotwithstand further deforestation but also now requiresrebuilding as the underpinning base of the hydrologicalcycle if the Amazon is to continue to serve as a flywheel ofcontinental climate for the planet and an essential part ofthe global carbon cycle. See Amazon Tipping Point: Last Chance forAction.

21. Vast quantities of soil were washedaway as we destroyed the rainforests, and enormousquantities of both inorganic constituents (such as heavymetals like cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, nickel andzinc) and organic pollutants (particularly syntheticchemicals in the form of fertilizers, pesticides andherbicides) were dumped into the soil as well, thus reducingits nutrients and killing the microbes and earthworms withinit. We also contaminated enormous quantities of soil withradioactive waste. See Soil-net, Glyphosate effects on soilrhizosphere-associated bacterial communities and Disposing of Nuclear Waste is a Challengefor Humanity.

To briefly elaborate the evidence inrelation to earthworms: Given recent reports of criticaldeclines of microbes, plants, insects and otherinvertebrates, birds and other vertebrates, the situationpertaining to neglected earthworms was evaluated in anextensive investigation recently undertaken by Robert J.Blakemore. His research demonstrated an 83.3 percentdecline in earthworms in agrichemical farms that is,those that use pesticides, herbicides and syntheticfertilizers compared with farms utilizing organicmethods. Why? Because it is impossible to replace orartificially engineer the myriad beneficial processes andservices freely provided by earthworms which includesextensive burrows in pastures enriched with soil organicmatter that allow ingress of air & water and provide livingspace for other soil organisms. Moreover, given thatecological services overall have been given a median valueof US$135 trillion per year, which is almost double theglobal economic GDP of around $75 trillion see Changes in the global value of ecosystemservices and Valuing nature and the hidden costs ofbiodiversity loss Blakemore reaches an obviousconclusion: Persistence with failing chemical agriculturemakes neither ecological nor economic sense. See Critical Decline of Earthworms fromOrganic Origins under Intensive, Humic SOM-DepletingAgriculture.

Given that this multifaceteddestruction of the soil fundamentally threatens the globalgrain supply, when the ability to grow, store and distributegrains at scale is a defining element of civilization, asProfessor Guy McPherson eloquently explains it: Asignificant decline in grain harvest will surely drive thisversion of civilization to the abyss and beyond. See Seven Distinct Paths to Loss of Habitatfor Humans.

22. Despite an extensive and ongoingcoverup by the Japanese government and nuclear corporations,as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),vast amounts of radioactive waste were dumped into thebiosphere from the TEPCO nuclear power plant at Fukushima inJapan including by discharge into the Pacific Ocean killingan incalculable number of fish and other marine organismsand indefinitely contaminating expanding areas of thatocean. See Fukushima: A Nuclear War without a War:The Unspoken Crisis of Worldwide Nuclear Radiation,2019 Annual Report Fukushima 8thAnniversary, Eight years after triple nuclearmeltdown, Fukushima No. 1s water woes show no signs ofebbing and Fukushimas Three Nuclear Meltdowns AreUnder Control Thats a Lie.

But thechallenges to be overcome in safely handling and,ultimately, safely storing the radiation hazards (such asthe three melted nuclear reactors and the spent fuel rods)and the radioactive waste from the Fukushima disaster aremonumental, as touched on in this article outlining the40-year plan that the Japanese government hopes will deludeus into believing will deal with the many components of thisperpetual radioactive nightmare. See Japan revises Fukushima cleanup plan,delays key steps.

In addition, one critical legacyof the US militarys 67 secretive and lethal nuclearweapons tests on the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958is the eternally radioactive garbage left behind andnow leaking into the Pacific Ocean. See The Pentagons Disastrous RadioactiveWaste Dump in the Drowning Marshall Islands is Leaking intothe Pacific Ocean.

Is other nuclear waste safelystored? Of course not! See, for example, NRC admits San Onofre Holtec nuclearwaste canisters are all damaged, USAs Hanford nuclear site could sufferthe same fate as Russias Mayak or worse and,for a more comprehensive report, The World Nuclear Waste Report 2019:Focus Europe.

Of course, the Chernobyl nuclearcatastrophe in 1986 continues to inflict extensive damage onthe biosphere which you can learn more about from theresearch by Professor Kate Brown, author of Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide tothe Future Chernobyl Radiation Cover-Ups & DeadlyTruth, UN and Western countries covered up thefacts on the huge health toll of Chernobyl radiationand Unreported Deaths, Child Cancer &Radioactive Meat: The Untold Story of Chernobyl as well as the investigatory work of Alison Katz ofIndependent WHO: Chernobyl Health Cover-Up, Lies by UN/WHOExposed.

23. Human use of fossil fuels to poweraircraft, shipping and vehicles as well as for industrialproduction and to generate electricity (among otherpurposes) released 10 billion metric tons (10 gigatons) ofcarbon dioxide into Earths biosphere, a 0.6% increaseover 2018, with Chinas monstrous CO2 emissions for 2019totaling 2.6% greater than the previous year. See Global Carbon Budget 2019.

Asone measure of their contempt for the utterly inadequategoals of the Paris climate agreement, and with governmentapproval, over 400 of the 746 companies onthe Global Coal Exit List are still planning to expand theircoal operations. If built, these projects in 60countries would add over 579 GW to the global coal plantfleet, an increase of almost 29%. See CompaniesDriving the Worlds Coal Expansion Revealed: NGOs ReleaseNew Global Coal Exit List for Finance Industry and Proposed Coal Plants byCountry.

24. 72 billion land animals (mainlychickens, ducks, pigs, rabbits, geese, turkeys, sheep, goatsand beef cattle) were killed for food. In addition, between37 and 120 billion fish were killed on commercial farms withanother 2.7 trillion fish caught and killed in the wild. SeeHow Many Animals Are Killed for FoodEvery Day?

Apart from that, more than 100 millionanimals were killed for laboratory purposes in the UnitedStates alone and there were other animal deaths in shelters,zoos and in blood sports. See How Many Animals Are Killed EachYear?

In addition, according to Humane SocietyInternational, about 100 million animals (particularly mink,foxes, raccoon dogs and rabbits) were bred and slaughteredin fur farms geared to supplying the fashion industry. Inaddition to farming, millions of wild animals were trappedand killed for fur, as were hundreds of thousands of seals.See How Many Animals are Killed EachYear?

25. Farming of animals for human consumptionreleased 7.1 gigatons of CO2-equivalent into Earthsatmosphere; this represented 14.5 percent of allanthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. About 44% oflivestock emissions were in the form of methane (which was44% of anthropogenic CH4 emissions), 29% as Nitrous Oxide(which was 53% of anthropogenic N2O emissions) and 27% asCarbon Dioxide (which was 5% of anthropogenic CO2emissions). See GHG Emissions by Livestock.

26.Human use of fossil fuels and farming of animals releasedmore than 3.2 million metric tons of (CO2 equivalent)nitrous oxide (N2O) into Earths atmosphere. See Nitrous oxide emissions.

27.Despite largely successful efforts by the elite-controlledIPCC to delude people into believing that the global meantemperature has increased by only 1.0 degree celsius, infact, since the pre-industrial era (prior to 1750)greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have already caused theglobal temperature to rise by about 1.73 degrees celsius.See How much warmer is it now?

Amonga lengthy list of adverse outcomes, this has caused themelting of Arctic permafrost and undersea methane iceclathrates resulting in an incalculable quantity of methanebeing uncontrollably released into the atmosphere, includingduring 2019, with the quantity being released getting evercloser to exploding. See Anomalies of methane in the atmosphereover the East Siberian shelf: Is there any sign of methaneleakage from shallow shelf hydrates?, 7,000 underground gas bubbles poised toexplode in Arctic, Release of Arctic Methane May BeApocalyptic, Study Warns and Understanding the Permafrost-HydrateSystem and Associated Methane Releases in the East SiberianArctic Shelf.

In fact, the methanethreat is already so extreme that the forecast El Nioevent for 2020 could be the catalyst to trigger huge methanereleases from the Arctic Ocean precipitating humanextinction this year. See Very early warning signal for El Nio in2020 with a 4 in 5 likelihood and Extinction in 2020?

28. Glaciersand mountain ice fields whether located in Greenland orother regions of the far north, the Himalaya, at theEquator, in southern latitudes or Antarctica are allmelting at unprecedented and accelerating rates, losingbillions of tonnes of ice in 2019. For a discussion of thedetails and the implications of this, see Our VanishingWorld: Glaciers.

29. The ongoing destruction ofEarths oceans continued unabated and accelerated in keyareas.

An incalculable amount of agricultural poisons,fossil fuels and other wastes was discharged into the ocean,adversely impacting life at all ocean depths see Staggering level of toxic chemicals foundin creatures at the bottom of the sea, scientists say and generating ocean dead zones: regions that havetoo little oxygen to support marine organisms. See Our Planet Is Exploding With MarineDead Zones.

In addition, however, anotherproblem that has been getting insufficient attention is theresult of the expanding impacts of the rapidly increasinglevels of ocean acidification, ocean warming, ocean carbonflows and ocean plastics. Taken in isolation each of thesechanges clearly has negative consequences for the ocean. Allthese shifts taken together, however, result in a rapid andserious decline in ocean health and this, in turn, adverselyimpacts all species dependent on the ocean including fish,mammals and seabirds. Moreover, on top of these problems isthe issue of oxygen availability given that oxygen in theair or water is of paramount importance to most livingorganisms. As the recently released report Ocean deoxygenation: Everyonesproblem. Causes, impacts, consequences and solutionsdescribes in some detail, oxygen levels are currentlydeclining across the ocean, not just in deadzones.

And to elaborate the plastics problem briefly:at least 8 million metric tons of plastic, of which 236,000tons were microplastics, was discharged into the ocean. Sosevere is the problem that there are now five massivepatches of plastic in the oceans around the world coveringlarge swaths of the ocean; the plastic patch betweenCalifornia and Hawaii is the size of the state of Texas. SeePlastic waste inputs from land into theocean and Plastics in the Ocean.

30.Earths fresh water and ground water was further depletedand contaminated.

The depletion is a primary outcome ofthe ongoing deforestation of the planet and is manifestingin several ways including as localized droughts, which arebecoming increasingly common as a number of cities andregions around the world can attest. According to the WorldResources Institute, half of the surface water in somecountries mainly in Central Asia and the Middle East was depleted between 1984 and 2015, with agriculture usingan average of 70% of the water. 36 countries areextremely water-stressed and water is now a majorfactor in conflict in at least 45 countries. See 7 Graphics Explain the State of theWorlds Water.

Separately from depletion, freshwater was contaminated by bacteria, viruses and householdchemicals from faulty septic systems; hazardous wastes fromabandoned and uncontrolled hazardous waste sites (of whichthere are over 20,000 in the USA alone); leaks from landfillitems such as car battery acid, paint and householdcleaners; the pesticides, herbicides and other poisons usedon farms and home gardens; radioactive waste from nucleartests (some of it stored in glaciers that are now melting);and the chemical contamination caused by hydraulicfracturing (fracking) in search of shale gas, for whichabout 750 chemicals and components, some extremely toxic andcarcinogenic like lead and benzene, have been used. See Groundwater contamination, Groundwater drunk by BILLIONS of peoplemay be contaminated by radioactive material spread acrossthe world by nuclear testing in the 1950s and Fracking chemicals.

31. Thelongstanding covert military use of geoengineering spraying tens of millions of tons of highly toxic metals(including aluminium, barium and strontium) and toxic coalfly ash nanoparticulates (containing arsenic, chromium,thallium, chlorine, bromine, fluorine, iodine, mercury andradioactive elements) into the atmosphere from jet aircraftto weaponize the atmosphere and weather in order toenhance elite control of human populations, continuedunchecked. Geoengineering is systematically destroyingEarths ozone layer which blocks the deadly portion ofsolar radiation, UV-C and most UV-B, from reaching Earthssurface as well as adversely altering Earths weatherpatterns and polluting its air, water and soil at incrediblecost to the health and well-being of living organisms andthe biosphere. See Geoengineering Watch, including Engineered Climate Cataclysm: HurricaneHarvey.

For a discussion of the militaryimplications of geoengineering, see The Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction:Owning the Weather for Military Use.

And fordiscussions of the research, and implications of it, by Dr.Dietrich Klinghardt and Dr. Stephenie Seneff (SeniorResearch Scientist at MIT), which considers damage to thebiosphere and human health caused by the geoengineeringrelease of a synthesized compound of nanonized aluminium andthe poison glyphosate that creates a supertoxin thatis generating a crisis of neurological diseases, seeWorld-Renowned Doctor Addresses ClimateEngineering Dangers, Dr Stephenie Seneff, Autism Explained: Synergistic Poisoningfrom Aluminum and Glyphosate and Extinction is Stalking Humanity: TheThreats to Human Survival Accumulate.

32. Theincredibly destructive 5G technology, which a vast number ofscientists (currently totaling more than 188,000 individualsand organizations from 203 nations and territories: see International Appeal to Stop 5G on Earthand in Space) are warning will have catastrophicconsequences for life on Earth, is now being rapidlyintroduced without informed public consultation and despiteongoing protests around the world.

The following articlesand videos will give you a solid understanding of key issuesfrom the viewpoint of human and planetary well-being. See 5G Satellites: A Threat to allLife, 5G Danger: 13 Reasons 5G WirelessTechnology Will Be a Catastrophe for Humanity, 5G Technology is Coming Linked toCancer, Heart Disease, Diabetes, Alzheimers, andDeath, 20,000 Satellites for 5G to be LaunchedSending Focused Beams of Intense Microwave Radiation OverEntire Earth, Will 5G Cell Phone Technology Lead ToDramatic Population Reduction As Large Numbers Of Men BecomeSterile?, The 5G Revolution: Millions of HumanGuinea Pigs in Big Telecoms Global Experimentand 5G Apocalypse The ExtinctionEvent.

33. As one outcome of our dysfunctionalparenting model and political systems, fascism continued torise around the world. See The Psychology of Fascism.

34.Despite the belief that we have the right to privacy,privacy (in any sense of the word) was ongoingly eroded in2019 and is now effectively non-existent, particularlythanks to Alphabet (owner of Google). Taken together,Uber, Amazon, Facebook, eBay, Tinder, Apple, Lyft,Foursquare, Airbnb, Spotify, Instagram, Twitter, AngryBirds... have turned our computers and phones into bugs thatare plugged in to a vast corporate-owned surveillancenetwork. Where we go, what we do, what we talk about, who wetalk to, and who we see everything is recorded and, atsome point, leveraged for value. Moreover, givenGoogles integrated relationship with the US government,the US military, the CIA, and major US weaponsmanufacturers, there isnt really anything you can do thatisnt known by those who want to know it. In essence,Google is a powerful global corporation with its ownpolitical agenda and a mission to maximise profits forshareholders and it partly achieves this by expanding thesurveillance programs of the national security state at thedirection of the global elite. But Google isnt alone andit isnt just happening in the USA. See Everybodys Watching You: TheIntercepts 2019 Technology Coverage, Googles Earth: How the Tech Giant IsHelping the State Spy on Us, the articles by John W.Whitehead on Surveillance and the documentaryThe Modern SurveillanceState.

35. The right to free speech, accurateinformation and conscience-based nonviolent activism wasongoingly eroded in 2019 as efforts, by governments andcorporations particularly, to control speech, informationand political action accelerated. Whether this took the formof censorship, restrictions on access or violent actsdirected against those whose views or actions were seen asdangerous or wrong, Global Witness, Human Rights Watch andother organizations documented an endless series of setbacksfor free speech and political activity in a wide variety ofcountries around the world with individuals and journalistsimprisoned for telling the truth, nonviolent activistsassaulted and killed, critics silenced by defamation laws ordisappearance, and the closure of newspapers,television stations and the internet to prevent rapidpromulgation of information, among other infringements. See,for example, Free Speech, The supply chain of violence, Environmental activist murders double in15 years and Enemies of the State? How governments andbusinesses silence land and environmentaldefenders.

36. Believing that we know better thanevolution, and following the birth in 2018 of the firstgene-edited babies in China see Why we are not ready for geneticallydesigned babies and Chinas Golem Babies: There is AnotherAgenda in 2019, further human gene-editing wasdone as well as gene-editing experiments intended to explorepossibilities for more complex gene-editing of humans. Why?According to the authors of one report: To extend thefrontier of genome editing and enable the radicalredesign of mammalian genomes (emphasis added).This experiment allowed for the simultaneous editing of>10,000 loci in human cells. See Enabling large-scale genome editing byreducing DNA nicking.

Needless to say, at leastsome responsible scientists are well aware of the possiblyhorrific consequences of this technology in the hands ofthose without ethics and are calling for a moratorium of atleast five years on heritable human gene editing to allowtime to engage in proactive, rather than reactive,discussions about the future of such technology. Ofcourse, despite the calls for caution, some researchersare forging ahead. See NIH Director on Human Gene Editing: WeMust Never Allow Our Technology to Eclipse OurHumanity.

37. Incalculable amounts of waste ofevery conceivable kind including antibiotic waste,military waste, nuclear waste, nanowaste and geneticallyengineered organisms, including gene drives (ormutagenic chain reactions) were released intoEarths biosphere, with an endless series of adverseconsequences for life. See Junk Planet: Is Earth the Largest GarbageDump in the Universe?

Not content to dump our junkon Earth, an incalculable amount of junk was also dumped inSpace which already contains 100 trillion items of orbitingjunk. See Junk Planet: Is Earth the Largest GarbageDump in the Universe? and Space Junk: Tracking & Removing OrbitalDebris.

38. Ongoing visible, invisibleand utterly invisible violence against children see WhyViolence? and Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology:Principles and Practice ensured that more peoplewill grow up accepting (and quite powerless to challenge)our dysfunctional and violent world, as describedabove.

See the article here:
Human Extinction Now Imminent and Inevitable? - Scoop.co.nz

Human Behavior

Number of South Carolina human trafficking victims increased 360 percent in 2019 – WLTX.com

January 10, 2020 medical

COLUMBIA, S.C. The state's human trafficking task force announced the number of victims in South Carolina in 2019 increased 360 percent compared to 2018.

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson held a press conference with representatives from the more than 300 individuals and organizations on the state taskforce.

Wilson said in 2018 the state had 188 reported victims, but in 2019 the number of victims grew to 678.

The top five counties for reported human trafficking were Horry, Greenville, Richland, Dorchester, and Charleston.

If you see what you think is human trafficking behavior, you know, and you don't know the human trafficking hotline, or you don't have time to google human trafficking hotline or Polaris, you can call your local enforcement. I would encourage you to always- especially if it's imminent and you see someone potentially being trafficked. Call law enforcement immediately, Wilson said.

Wilson said the cases usually fell into labor or sex trafficking crimes.

In 2019, the state had 156 reported cases, also an increase from 2018, and Wilson warned it can happen to anyone.

One of the top five or two of the top five ways that kids or young people are being exploited are through familial or intimate partner relationships. So, this idea that you have to be an immigrant coming across a border, or you have to be overseas in a 3rd world country, or you have to be of a certain socioeconomic status, or you have to be a certain race or gender, it's a misconception, Wilson added.

RELATED: Mother, son duo arrested on charges of trafficking 13-year-old girl

RELATED: Woman who says she was sex-trafficked at age of 4 sues hotel chains

The taskforce credits people's awareness as the reason the number of reported cases and victims increased.

It's why the South Carolina Beer Wholesaler's Association is trying to help.

All of our vehicles will be equipped with special signage on the rear of the vehicles for the month of January, which is Human Trafficking Awareness Month. And the national human trafficking hotline will be displayed on those. What we hope is we have hundreds of vehicles that are on the roads throughout South Carolina. Hundreds of thousands of motorists are hopefully going to see these, said Lance Boozer, the associations executive director.

Boozer said theyre also installing posters in customer restaurants, bars, rest stops, and other locations. They also plan on training their employees on how to spot potential victims and urging them to report any suspicions to authorities.

Boozer said the company has 2,500 employees working or traveling through all 46 counties in South Carolina, so he said theyre hoping it gets the message out.

See the original post here:
Number of South Carolina human trafficking victims increased 360 percent in 2019 - WLTX.com

Human Behavior

Concept Cars of the Future Hyundai Mobis M.Vision S Can Predict Your Mood – autoevolution

January 10, 2020 medical

The car of tomorrow will only be good enough for you if its able to create some form of bond with you, and a rapport with everyone else. That seems to be the premise of the latest concept car from Hyundai parts supplier Mobis, the M.Vision S, unveiled at the 2020 edition of CES in Las Vegas.

If the name rings a bell, its because Mobis has been toying with the idea for a while, presenting the M.Vision at the previous edition of CES. M.Vision S is an upgrade meant to showcase the evolution of future mobility technology in the form of a pod for shared mobility.

The idea

Hyundai Mobis believes that the driver of tomorrow will want, in addition to the possibility of being ferried around by AI in autonomous vehicles, to have a more personalizable AI they can bond with.

In the past, reliability and comfort were the key values of a car. Since most cars sold today are reliable and comfortable, to be competitive todays cars need to evolve to become a machine which can understand and empathize with the people inside, Mobis says.

When AI is able to understand human behavior (which Mobis believes can be done through facial recognition software and complicated algorithms), it will also be able to cater to certain needs before people even voice their desire. It will be able to predict moods and offer interactions based on that.

A car to cheer you up, chat you up, keep you safe

M.Vision S is a concept pod for urban mobility than blends together technologies for autonomous driving, electrification and connectivity. The focus in on connectivity, though: this is a vehicle that connects to everyone inside, and cars and pedestrians around it, and also allows people to connect with one another during the ride.

M.Vision S uses communication technology to send messages to other drivers or pedestrians. When the light inside is blue, it means the car is in self-driving mode, while yellow indicates a human operator is at the wheel. Lamps and front and rear displays can show messages to other drivers or to pedestrians, like Be careful, Go ahead or even more polite Good-byes.

The same communication technology allows the cars AI to read the passengers mood, by scanning their face for tell-tale signs right before they step inside. Accordingly, it can change the light and the music inside, to suit that mood, or even offer a word of comfort or a joke if need be.

Suppose the driver is in a great mood for some reason. Then the system could throw a joke or respond in much more casual tone like an old friend to a voice command, Mobis says. For example, it could say something like Ive got it when asked to turn on the radio. It could make a silly remarks. Or it could keep silent when it seems like that is the best thing to do. Sometimes it is best to just say nothing, you know.A shared mobility pod designed like a lounge

M.Vision S is meant for shared mobility, so the space inside has been rearranged to resemble a lounge that works just as well for chilling and for work. The power components, suspension, braking and the steering are packaged at the 4 corners, so the floor is low and flat. This allows for changing seating arrangements, depending on the purpose of the ride (fun or business) and the driving mode of the car (self-driving or human-operated).

Put it differently, if one of the passengers wishes to take over, one of the chair detaches and moves to the dash, from where a wheel pops up. Seating arrangements can also be modified for business meetings or to enable passengers to view their favorite movie or TV show, for instance. The premium KRELL sound system was included with the latter purpose in mind.

Commands will be made through gestures (virtual space touch), and the car will connect to everyones smartphone the moment they set foot inside.

This is not the car of an Orwellian future, though

So much technology packed into a car, able to nearly peer into the human soul the thought is enough to send chills down the spine and put thoughts of an Orwellian future into the mind. Still, Mobis is not concerned about having their cars read peoples emotions like that.

A machine can learn everything there is to learn about a person, from how they feel to who they talk to on the phone, by email or on social media, and still not pose a risk.

Such concerns can be alleviated with powerful security technology but there could be people who just do not want to take such risks, Mobis concedes. Its researchers believe the benefits outweigh the risks.

Originally posted here:
Concept Cars of the Future Hyundai Mobis M.Vision S Can Predict Your Mood - autoevolution

Medical School

Category Archives: Human Behavior

Is John Bolton Withholding Impeachment Evidence so He Can Put It in a Book? – HillReporter.com

I met Samsungs artificial humans, and they showed me the future of A.I. – Digital Trends

Self-sustaining space-inspired village is set to open in the Mojave Desert – Lonely Planet Travel News

Unwell Trump Rants About The Song YMCA At The White House – PoliticusUSA

The most insightful vision of the future at CES came from HBO’s ‘Westworld’ – Mashable

Human Extinction Now Imminent and Inevitable? – Scoop.co.nz

Number of South Carolina human trafficking victims increased 360 percent in 2019 – WLTX.com

Concept Cars of the Future Hyundai Mobis M.Vision S Can Predict Your Mood – autoevolution