Category: Primordial Soup

Missives from the most primitive place on earth.

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“Authority” on Manliness Wimps Out

Every transgression, fictitious or real, against which self described “conservatives” rail on a daily basis pales in comparison to the utter hypocrisy, the pusillanimity, the dereliction of duty and the deliberate contravention of every principle of morality and decency that the purported leaders of this “conservative” faction display. No action combines every one of these character deficiencies as Ben Sasse’s abdication of his duties to accept a cush job clearly organized by political patrons in Florida. The man who went so far as to publish an entire book compiling his idiotic whining about the apparent immaturity of the “younger generations” refused to castigate a president who manifestly acted against the Constitution, summarily abandoned the position of power that enabled him to act against the corruption of the same presidency, and accepted an academic position clearly designed to win his support for the anticipated De Santis candidacy. The Sasse recipe for success is lick the boots of whichever snake that will support you. Ben Sasse leaves no doubt which generation has been infantilized. It’s the one that abandons its duty to the next generation as it enriches itself with bullshit jobs.

The Nebraska senator has often clashed with Donald Trump and other Republican Party conservatives

Source: Nebraska GOP Sen. Ben Sasse expected to resign to become University of Florida president

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No Trust, No Currency

Currency is the medium of accountability that is accepted by a community in order to facilitate transactions. If the crypto “currency” world is to survive, it behooves the remaining exchanges to ensure that they are not plagued the lack of accountability that has predictably brought FTX to its unceremonious demise. The demise of cryptocurrency is almost as predictable as the 2008 financial meltdown of the US. Both are schemes to generate apparent economic activity through huge numbers of transactions over nothing, and in both instances, the apparent growth was based entirely on speculation. It is unknown whether the criminal masterminds of the crypto pyramid scheme will get away as the masterminds of the subprime bubble of the 2008 did. It will be a real shame if they do.

The new CEO of the collapsed cryptocurrency trading firm FTX, who oversaw Enron’s bankruptcy, said he has never seen such a “complete failure” of corporate control. John Ray III, in a filing with the U.S.

Source: Exec who cleaned up Enron calls FTX mess “unprecedented”

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Brett Favre Exposes How Rich People Define Charity

Brett Favre has justified every brutal joke standup comedians have told about football players. The poignant side of the story, however, is the sinister side of charity that Favre’s abject stupidity exposes. Favre, whose net worth is easily in the hundreds of millions of dollars (as judged by the $100 million contract extension he received in 2001), had the audacity to accept, willingly, welfare money from his home state of Mississippi in order to erect a volleyball court at his alma mater. Such financial dealings expose the typical understanding of the people in his tax bracket of charities–namely, that they are vehicles for self enrichment–but his obliviousness to protocol will likely lead to his being ostracized by the billionaire community for being a stupid jock. It will not effect any change in which way charities operate in the US.

Therein lies the real tragedy of this allegory. Favre gets singled out while the rest of the nonprofit industry continues to be used as a vehicle to enable the ultra-wealthy to bilk everybody else’s funds to create appearances of beneficence, like the paradigmatic Trump charity that was shut down by the state of New York for not accounting for the funds it received from donors. Given the excesses documented in the Panama Papers, it is difficult for one to resist cynicism every time one discovers that every charitable organization operated by the extremely wealthy is solely a vehicle designed either to enrich themselves or to avoid taxes. It is entirely obvious to everybody that the wealthy elite who control the political system through their patronage are the least qualified to operate it. Those who are complaining about millennials are oblivious to the world outside that hole in which their head is lodged.

Source: Texts: Mississippi governor knew of welfare payment to Favre

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Newly revealed text messages show how deeply involved a Mississippi governor was in directing more than $1 million in welfare money to retired NFL quarterback Brett Favre. Instead of the money going to help low-income families in one of the nation’s poorest states, as intended, it was funneled through a nonprofit group to Favre and spent on a new volleyball facility at a university that the football star and the governor both attended.

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Why? Because They Can.

AP News | How do Mass Murderers Obtain Guns?

In the end, there is no difference between New York and Texas or any other state. What all American states have in common is that they allow anyone to act on that most primitive whim of desiring to kill. Over 10,000 years of civilization have inculcated a certain tolerance and civility in mankind, but the outrageously permissive gun laws of the past twenty years have enabled and empowered those few among us who cannot control their primitive instincts to act on them without hesitation. When it is this easy to kill someone, it is not a mystery why people keep killing. They do it because they can.

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How Facebook and Google Fund Global Misinformation: the “Free” Internet is Much too Expensive

The advertising scheme that fuels the profits of the “free” internet giants like Google and Facebook is now used by terrorists to fund their activities.

In thrillers like The Odessa File by Frederick Forsyth, the books of John Le Carre, and numerous movies like The French Connection, one learns of the ways in which rogue groups (terrorists, especially) would raise funds: they would rob banks. burglarize rich people, hijack cash transfer trucks, etc. The article below from the MIT Technology Review details how fringe and rogue groups dedicated to disinformation use the Google and Facebook advertising systems to generate revenue for their activities, and this article from the Associated Press details how the same fringe groups–white supremacists in particular–are using cryptocurrencies (1) to receive funds anonymously from people who do not wish it be known that they are racist and (2) to avoid paying financial judgments rendered against them in civil trials. As Shoshana Zuboff has reminded us over and over, regulation is designed to eliminate businesses that threaten the marketplace and erode trust in capitalism. The “free internet” meets both of these criteria, and it must be regulated.

Source: How Facebook and Google fund global misinformation

The tech giants are paying millions of dollars to the operators of clickbait pages, bankrolling the deterioration of information ecosystems around the world.

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No Better Time than Now to Revisit the No Asshole Rule

It has been about 15 years since Robert Sutton, currently at Stanford, published his seminal work on workplace behavior, The No Asshole Rule, detailing how assholes cost companies huge sums of money and make detrimental contributions to the bottom line. He has since followed it up with The Asshole Survival Guide and Good Boss, Bad Boss because, apparently, assholes are exceptionally tenacious at keeping their positions.

This Reddit survey, by way of Gizmodo, reminds us that the no asshole rule must be extended to all personal relationships because being a rude asshole has gained substantial cachet and purchase globally and in American society, in particular, since 2015 for reasons that are obvious to you if you’re not a member of the offending crew.

Please, distribute this widely so that–perhaps, just perhaps–rude people may find the awareness, mindfulness and motivation to exercise tact.

We can dream, no?

Whatever your age, gender, or background, you’ve probably talked like a jerk at least once in your life.

Source: 13 Things Only Assholes Say, According to Reddit

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Cryptocurrencies Must Be Regulated

The greatest vehicle for wreaking havoc is money without provenance. Therefore, terrorists rob banks, drug cartels go to exceptional ends to launder their moniesand billionaires use offshore accounts and onshore vehicles to hide the money trail in order to avoid taxes. Cryptocurrencies are clearly the new vehicle of choice for criminals to obscure their financial. The Associated Press story linked below reveals the horrifying means by which white supremacists are using cryptocurrencies to raise funds and to evade the law. Clearly, the criminal web site the Silk Road, which used cryptocurrencies to mask the identities of the criminals it supported, was not an anomaly but a harbinger of the criminality that is supported by cryptocurrencies.

Cryptocurrencies are legal tender only to criminals. They are exotic commodities to the rest of us. By investing in them, we are supporting an exorbitantly energetically wasteful commodity that supports the vilest criminals. This is almost as bad as investing in Facebook.

BRUSSELS (AP) — The Daily Stormer website advocates for the purity of the white race, posts hate-filled, conspiratorial screeds against Blacks, Jews and women and has helped inspire at least three racially motivated murders.

Source: Far-right cryptocurrency follows ideology across borders

 

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Requiem for Truth

Not too long ago, I wrote about how Facebook’s flagship products, Facebook and WhatsApp, have been usurped by malicious actors to decimate the truth and to instigate mass action bordering on genocide. Now, as the article linked below demonstrates, we may have the first quantitative measure of how successful such disinformation campaigns are on US soil. If it is correct that 40% of Republicans are as gullible as Burmese, then it is a sad day for the USA: we were done in by our own technologies.

A survey finds a false conspiracy theory about vaccines implanting tracking microchips is popular among Fox News viewers, Republicans and Trump voters.

Source: Over 40% of Republicans wrongly believe conspiracy theory about Bill Gates and COVID-19 vaccines – CNET

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Darwin Awards II: Suicide by Facebook

Louisiana police officers fired over post suggesting Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez should be shot

Like it or not, the evolution of humans seems to be marked by the migration of a substantial portion of human existence into cyberspace. The Darwin awards, consequently, need to evolve–or perhaps they have–to account for the new follies therein. The two officers in this story are certainly not the first nominees or laureates of the cyber edition of Darwin awards, but perhaps this blog post can serve as the nomination that elevates them to the models to avoid during this brief period when the dire consequences of digital public stupidity persists in the public’s vanishingly brief short term memory.

Perhaps more puzzling than the fact that two police officers can’t grasp the impropriety of publicly joking about killing a politician is the fact that they target a politician who champions the cause of public servants, which is what police officers are. It is a remarkable feat of marketing that has convinced the great masses that they are better off with busted unions and underfunded pensions than they are with them. So far, only teachers have spoken up against this status quo. These cops don’t seem to have learned much from teachers.

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Facebook to Use AI to Alleviate Its Greed

Facebook plans to use artificial intelligence and update its tools and services to help prevent suicides among its users.

Artificial intelligence is touted as the solution to everything these days, but with respect to suicides committed on or because of Facebook,  AI feels like a band-aid. The only way Facebook can really help prevent suicides is by making its service less addictive so that users can spend more time in real social circumstances with real people instead of being trapped inside a cold illusion of a social experience spawned from their smart phone. Making FB less addictive, however, will make FB lose revenue because its revenues are tied intimately to the number of eyeballs that are glued to the FB web site. Hence, progress is not profitable. The only benefit to society may be the development of an AI baby sitter. As FB and the rest of “social” media infantilize us all, the market will be briskfor such a product.

Source: Facebook turns to artificial intelligence to tackle suicides