Are We On The Road to Civilization Collapse?
February 24th, 2019Via: BBC:
Collapse is often quick and greatness provides no immunity. The Roman Empire covered 4.4 million sq km (1.9 million sq miles) in 390. Five years later, it had plummeted to 2 million sq km (770,000 sq miles). By 476, the empire’s reach was zero.
Our deep past is marked by recurring failure. As part of my research at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, I am attempting to find out why collapse occurs through a historical autopsy. What can the rise and fall of historic civilisations tell us about our own? What are the forces that precipitate or delay a collapse? And do we see similar patterns today?
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Think of civilisation as a poorly-built ladder. As you climb, each step that you used falls away. A fall from a height of just a few rungs is fine. Yet the higher you climb, the larger the fall. Eventually, once you reach a sufficient height, any drop from the ladder is fatal.
With the proliferation of nuclear weapons, we may have already reached this point of civilisational “terminal velocity”. Any collapse – any fall from the ladder – risks being permanent.
U.S. Navy Buying Autonomous Submarines
February 24th, 2019Via: U.S. Naval Institute:
The Navy awarded Boeing a $43-million contract to build four Orca Extra Large Unmanned Undersea Vehicles (XLUUVs) that will become multi-mission for the service, according to a Wednesday Pentagon contract announcement.
Boeing based its winning Orca XLUUV design on its Echo Voyager unmanned diesel-electric submersible. The 51-foot-long submersible is launched from a pier and can operate autonomously while sailing up to 6,500 nautical miles without being connected to a manned mother ship, according to the Navy. Eventually, the Navy could also use the Orca XLUUV for mine countermeasures, anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, electronic warfare and strike missions, according to a Navy outline of the system’s capability development.
German Police Lose All Evidence Against Two Pedophiles Who Allegedly Raped More Than 30 Children at Least 1,000 Times
February 23rd, 2019Via: Daily Mail:
German police have admitted to losing almost all the incriminating digital evidence against two paedophiles accused of sexually assaulting least 31 children as young as four, allegedly raping their victims more than 1,000 times.
China’s Powerful Surveillance State Has Created at Least Four Billionaires
February 23rd, 2019Via: Bloomberg:
Before he became a billionaire, Dai Lin would ride his bike to work, pedaling through the streets of Tianjin to the headquarters of Tiandy Technologies Co., the camera maker he built with support from China’s government.
When Dai started his company in 1994, roadside surveillance cameras were rare in China. Now they’re everywhere — part of a high-tech surveillance state that’s stoking privacy and human-rights concerns in the world’s most populous nation, raising thorny questions for international investors, and making well-connected entrepreneurs like Dai extremely rich.
Warning Issued Over Attacks on Internet Infrastructure
February 23rd, 2019Keep this in mind: Russia to Disconnect from Internet to Test Cyber Defenses.
Via: AFP:
Key parts of the internet infrastructure face large-scale attacks that threaten the global system of web traffic, the internet’s address keeper warned Friday.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) declared after an emergency meeting “an ongoing and significant risk” to key parts of the infrastructure that affects the domains on which websites reside.
“They are going after the internet infrastructure itself,” ICANN chief technology officer David Conrad told AFP.
“There have been targeted attacks in the past, but nothing like this.”
The attacks date back as far as 2017 but have sparked growing concerns from security researchers in recent weeks, which prompted the special meeting of ICANN.
The malicious activity targets the Domain Name System or DNS which routes traffic to intended online destinations.
ICANN specialists and others say these attacks have a potential to snoop on data along the way, sneakily send the traffic elsewhere or enable the attackers to impersonate or “spoof” critical websites.
AI Taking Fast Food Orders
February 22nd, 2019Via: San Francisco Chronicle:
“The system takes a lot of friction out of interactions between customers and employees,” Carpenter said, noting that the AI was designed to sound like an amiable woman’s voice. “The AI never gets offended and it will just keep talking to you in a very calm and friendly voice.”
There’s an immediate benefit for employees as well, Carpenter maintains.
“Over the course of an eight-hour shift, they don’t have to repeat the same welcome language hundreds of times,” he said.
Intelligent, interactive machines, once the stuff of sci-fi movies and futuristic fantasy, are quickly becoming a reality, especially in the fast food dining world, where repetition rules and improvisation is limited. In restaurants around the globe, machines are already taking orders, flipping burgers, preparing pizzas, pouring stiff drinks and cooking entire meals in full view of hungry customers.
China’s CRISPR Twins Might Have Had Their Brains Inadvertently Enhanced
February 22nd, 2019Via: MIT Technology Review:
The brains of two genetically edited girls born in China last year may have been changed in ways that enhance cognition and memory, scientists say.
The twins, called Lulu and Nana, reportedly had their genes modified before birth by a Chinese scientific team using the new editing tool CRISPR. The goal was to make the girls immune to infection by HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Now, new research shows that the same alteration introduced into the girls’ DNA, deletion of a gene called CCR5, not only makes mice smarter but also improves human brain recovery after stroke, and could be linked to greater success in school.
“The answer is likely yes, it did affect their brains,” says Alcino J. Silva, a neurobiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, whose lab uncovered a major new role for the CCR5 gene in memory and the brain’s ability to form new connections.
“The simplest interpretation is that those mutations will probably have an impact on cognitive function in the twins,” says Silva. He says the exact effect on the girls’ cognition is impossible to predict, and “that is why it should not be done.”
Federal Prosecutors Broke Law in Jeffrey Epstein Case, Judge Rules
February 22nd, 2019Via: Miami Herald:
Federal prosecutors, under former Miami U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta, broke the law when they concealed a plea agreement from more than 30 underage victims who had been sexually abused by wealthy New York hedge fund manager Jeffrey Epstein, a federal judge ruled Thursday.
While the decision marks a victory for crime victims, the federal judge, Kenneth A. Marra, stopped short of overturning Epstein’s plea deal, or issuing an order resolving the case. He instead gave federal prosecutors 15 days to confer with Epstein’s victims and their attorneys to come up with a settlement. The victims did not seek money or damages as part of the suit.
It’s not clear whether the victims, now in their late 20s and early 30s, can, as part of the settlement, demand that the government prosecute Epstein. But others are calling on the Justice Department to take a new look at the case in the wake of the judge’s ruling.
“As a legal matter, the non-prosecution agreement entered into by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Florida does not bind other U.S. Attorneys in other districts. They are free, if they conclude it is appropriate to do so, to bring criminal actions against Mr. Epstein and his co-conspirators,’’ said lawyer David Boies, representing two of Epstein’s victims who claim they were trafficked by Epstein in New York and other areas of the country.
David Icke Banned from Australia
February 22nd, 2019Via: David Icke:
Heavily Armed Foreigners Arrested in Haiti Sent to United States
February 21st, 2019Via: Reuters:
A heavily armed group of foreign nationals, who were arrested in Haiti on Sunday after days of massive anti-government protests, were handed over to U.S. authorities on Wednesday, Haitian and U.S. authorities said.
It was unclear if all the members of the group, which reportedly included five Americans, a Serb and a Russian, were flown to the United States.
“The return of the individuals to the U.S. was coordinated with the Haitian authorities,” a State Department representative for Western Hemisphere Affairs said in an emailed statement, without providing further details.
A spokesman for Haiti’s Justice Ministry also confirmed that the individuals were “were handed over to U.S. authorities this Wednesday.”
Media reports said that, at the time of their arrest, the men were armed with semi-automatic weapons, rifles, pistols, drones and satellite phones in their two vehicles.
Videos circulating on social media alleged to show at least six men being escorted through the airport in Port-au-Prince toward a plane bound for the United States.
