Talk about the dangers of artificial intelligence, actual or imagined, has become feverish, much of it induced by the growing world of generative chat bots. When scrutinising the critics, attention should be paid to their motivations. What do they stand to gain from adopting a particular stance? In the case of Geoffrey Hinton, immodestly seen as the “Godfather of AI”, the scrutiny levelled should be sharper than most.
Hinton hails from the “connectionist” school of thinking in AI, the once discredited field that envisages neural networks which mimic the human brain and, more broadly, human behaviour. Such a view is at …
Eleven months ago a critical education case came before the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in North Carolina (Peltier v. Charter Day Sch., Inc., 37 F.4th 104, 116, 4th Cir. 2022). A main issue in the case pertains to the dress code at “Charter Day School” in Leland, North Carolina, specifically, whether the privately-operated but publicly-funded charter school had violated the rights of female students by stipulating what they could and could not wear. The ACLU reports that, “Girls at Charter Day School, together with their parents, challenged the skirts requirement as sex discrimination under the Equal …
The 372-page book that the European Center for Populism Studies published in March 2023, The Impacts of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine on Right-wing Populism in Europe, opens its Chapter (p. 200-209) on “The Russia-Ukraine War and Right-Wing Populism in Latvia” by saying something that has broad applicability across all U.S.-and-allied nations,
Right-wing populism, and populism more broadly, has long been a feature of Latvia’s political landscape. Indeed, in December 2021, a few months before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Latvia’s president, Egils Levits, a former judge at the European Union Court of Justice, warned that populism was …
The story of the ongoing Nakba is the story of Khader Adnan, who spent eight years of his life in Israeli prison without charge or trial and died last week on hunger strike in solitary confinement.
Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Charlie Munger recently said that everything that increases tensions between China and the U.S. is “stupid, stupid, stupid.” Microsoft Founder Bill Gates believes the U.S. will not “be successful at preventing China from having great chips.” Even American businesses try to get around the country’s export controls and protect their own interests. So what exactly have Washington’s tech sanctions against China achieved? Just like the current debt ceiling crisis, letting U.S. politics bury logic and reason time and time again is rather stupid.
Wang Wenbin, China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson, held his regular press conference in Beijing, on May 11th, and answered a reporter’s question: “It was reported that the G7 Summit to be held in Japan will ask China to abide by international rules. Do you have any comment?” by saying that those countries are hypocritical for accusing others of violating the never-defined stock phrase of the U.S. Government “international rules.” He said:
The US has spied indiscriminately on countries globally, not least its G7 allies, strong-armed countries diplomatically, and applied economic coercion and military interference. The US has blatantly invaded …
Imran Khan poses the greatest threat to Pakistan’s military monopoly on political power.
The arrest of former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan and leader of the Pakistan Movement for Justice (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI) caused thousands of Pakistanis to take to the streets and protest. However, Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordered on May 11 his release, offering a significant victory for the onetime leader responsible for bringing Islamabad closer to Moscow and away from US dominance until his removal from power.
On May 9, Khan was detained and arrested for the alleged embezzlement of 50 billion …
For the first time that scientists can recall, sea surface temperatures that always recede from annual peaks are failing to do so, staying high
by Robert Hunziker / May 12th, 2023
Global warming and extensive overfishing have damaged ocean ecosystems well beyond recognition from only a few decades ago. Still, on its own accord, the ocean stood tall for over 3 billion years. But, alas, in less than one human lifetime it is teetering like never before, and credible studies claim the world’s oceans could be devoid of life within only three decades. This is one of the most troubling transformations of all time, nothing compares to it, absolutely nothing!
The ocean heat bomb is all about the impact of global warming and overfishing, neither of which is high enough on …
I am grateful to you for reading this newsletter, which has been coming to you since March 2018 and which now – thanks to the efforts of our movements – reaches over a million people. Our first newsletter posed a problem that remains at the heart of our institute’s work:
The Left has before us a serious challenge: people think that we are good and sensitive people, but that we are utopian and fail to provide reasonable answers to practical problems. We have to overcome this penalty. We …
First of three parts: what's love got nothing to do with it in Wisconsin
by Paul Haeder / May 12th, 2023
“Are you the people with that black pick-up with the white camper?”
He’s a short red-bearded white cop standing over me and my friend, KK (initials to be revealed soon). We are in KK’s hometown, Merrill, Wisconsin, population 9,300.
“What’s up, officer?”
“We have a complaint from a resident who says you were on his property taking pictures of his house and a juvenile daughter.”
So begins the morning in Merrill, or at least, after a few hours of photographing KK’s old haunts with …
Europe is joining a number of other regions on the planet in suffering a prolonged water crisis; and it is one that shows little sign of abating. To this can be added the near catastrophic conditions that exist in other parts of the globe, where ready and secure access to water supplies is more aspiration than reality.
Since 2018, according to satellite data analysed by researchers from the Institute of Geodesy at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz), the continent has been enduring increasingly dire drought conditions. Groundwater levels have been, according to the institute, low, despite the …
Tomorrow marks one year since veteran journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was murdered by the Israeli military while covering an Israeli invasion of Jenin refugee camp. The brutal silencing of her voice, and the images of Israeli riot police beating mourners at her funeral, will be remembered as defining moments exposing the cruelty of Israeli apartheid.
As part of our ongoing series on freedom of expression, we recognize that Shireen’s case is not an anomaly, but reflects decades of Israeli impunity for the systemic targeting of journalists. This visual honors the journalists who were killed simply because their voices exposed the …
The Haiti/Americas Team of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) and BAP member organization, MOLEGHAF, request the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) launch a serious and in-depth investigation into the assassination of former Haitian de facto President Jovenel Moïse. We demand to know the truth concerning U.S. and other foreign countries’ complicity in plotting to kill Moïse, as well as to assassinate activists and ordinary Haitian citizens.
The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) recently published information based on newly obtained evidence from the ongoing U.S. prosecution of the alleged assassins. It reveals the seeming complicity …
Raising the federal debt limit over the years has secured unconditional routine Congressional passage and was endorsed by presidents Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump. After all, it allows the U.S. Treasury to pay past and existing bills, not expand future spending.
Routine, that is, until the recent arrival of the mad-dog Republicans with their monetized brains indentured to the war-making military industrial complex and Wall Street speculators gambling with other people’s savings.
It wouldn’t have mattered if the Democrats campaigned in 2022 as did vigorous New Deal Democrats instead of campaigning like willing servants of corporate cash and political/media consultants conflicted with …
It looks like 2008 all over again. Economic and financial mismanagement feature in scorching, consuming brilliance. The culpable, bungling banksters, have returned with their customary, venal incompetence. In the customary script, they habitually seek the role of the public purse to socialise their losses. Along the way, they will avoid richly deserved prison sentences, lie low, and return to repeat their sins.
A number of big ships in the banking industry have already sunk into oblivion, sold off and made footnotes in financial folklore. Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and most …
by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead / May 10th, 2023
There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.
—James Madison
How far would you really go to secure the nation’s borders in the so-called name of national security?
Would you give the government limitless amounts of money? Surround the entire country with concrete walls and barbed wire? Erect a high-tech, virtual wall of AI-powered surveillance cameras and drones that does a better job of imprisoning those within its boundaries than keeping intruders out? …
By the lake’s lapping shore above the town and the railroad tracks, my wife and I stopped and marveled, struck stone silent by two dazzling Baltimore Orioles, clawed together as they tumbled, wrestling in the green morning breeze above our heads. They perched upon a branch and sang a morning hymn, an ode to joy and the spring’s morning glory. Their black and orange throats vibrated amid the green quaking aspen’s leaves as the lake’s low lapping sounds lent counterpoint. They were sublime.
I too felt a quake, a shiver down my spine as associations tumbled through my mind. Poems, songs, …
May 9! Moscow Celebrates Victory Over Nazi Germany’s Invasion, but with incomprehensibly little or no public condemnation of American corporations having earlier heavily rearmed Hitler’s Nazi Germany as British and French armies stood down in cooperation and in violation of the Versailles Treaty’s prohibition of German rearmament.
With the world of the plundering Colonial Powers deep in the chaos of the Great Depression, a disastrous failure of rule by the banks of the capitalist countries and the United States internally threatened by local organizations of socialists and communists, US capital flowed into weaponizing Nazis.
It’s believed that, for thousands of years, certain members of human clans would wield some kind of magic stick. For example, here’s one — carved to look like a viper — that was found in Finland. They claim it’s over 4,000 years old:
In some cultures, if the shaman or medicine man pointed such a stick at someone, that person would be immediately stricken dead. Stories abound — across the globe — of precisely this happening.
It is indeed a tale of many cities, worlds, perspectives, and then we have beliefs and morals. Add to that alternative and ulterior modes of realities, and we have a virtual Babel’s Tower of conflicting, contradicting and confusing form of “discourse,” or debate. Never mind the Matrix angle of things! In today’s Western Culture (sic), where I am firmly rooted (USA, West Coast, Rural Oregon, Tourist By-way, Retired & Service Economy), there is not so much nuance anymore, inside the souls — hearts and minds — of my fellow Americans. When you really look at it, nuance (deep thinking, considering …
It’s a lose-lose situation for Ukrainians. While they are dying to defend their land, financial institutions are insidiously supporting the consolidation of farmland by oligarchs and Western financial interests.
So says Frédéric Mousseau, Policy Director of the Oakland Institute, an independent think tank.
Depending on which sources to believe, between 100,000 and 300,000 Ukrainian soldiers (possibly more) have died during the conflict with Russia. That figure, of course, does not include civilian casualties.
The mainstream narrative in the West is that Russia grabbed Crimea and then invaded Ukraine. Russia is portrayed as the outright aggressor which wants to restore its control over large …
I was recently reminded of the incredible story of the “rescuing hug” photo (above). To sum up the basics:
Kyrie and Brielle Jackson were born on October 17, 1995 — 12 weeks ahead of their due date. Kyrie weighed only 2 pounds, 3 ounces. Brielle was even smaller and far more frail.
As per hospital policy, they were placed in separate incubators to reduce the risk of infection. Kyrie slowly began to thrive but Brielle did not. She experienced heart and breathing problems and was put in critical …
In Britain, pageantry has always been a palliative and plaster for the dark and dismal. Be it in times of crisis, the chance to put on an extravagant show, usually at vast expense, is not something to forego. Central to this entertainment complex is the Royal family, that archaic vestige of an era that refuses to pass into history.
The Coronation of King Charles III was yet another instance of that complex in action. It was a spectacle, redolent of ancient ceremony, aged ritual, punctuated by the monarch’s statements of “I do”.
While this delighted a goodly number of punters, the whole …
For decades, I’ve been writing articles, essays, blog posts, books, and more. Two of my books are annotated history texts.
I’ve given public talks and run a podcast. I’ve been interviewed more times (TV, radio, online, print, etc) than I can remember.
You’d think by now, I’d be aware that most folks are unmoved by documentable evidence.
This proclivity hit hyperdrive with the invention of the public relations industry in the early 1900s. However, a more recent example really nails the …
