tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-70793436300255383782024-02-19T08:39:53.724-08:00LocalOrgLand Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comBlogger150125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079343630025538378.post-86197940937021369002019-11-14T22:53:00.001-08:002019-11-14T22:53:24.056-08:00From Legos to Rockets: Technology is Disrupting Western Monopolies <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>November 15, 2019</b> (<a href="https://journal-neo.org/2019/11/14/from-legos-to-rockets-technology-is-disrupting-western-monopolies/">Gunnar Ulson - NEO</a>) - At first glance the Danish toy company Lego doesn't seem to have much to do with paradigm shifts in technology. Yet a recent incident illustrates the march forward of modern technology and the threat it poses to not only well-established but inflexible companies like Lego, but to entire industries and their collective impact on global economics.<br />
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<b>Clinging to Antiquated Business Models</b><br />
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Lego has recently mounted an intellectual property (IP) crusade against 3D designers sharing Lego-style creations on free online 3D model libraries. People download these designs and 3D print them out. It should be pointed out that many of these designs are highly unique and are not merely replicas of products Lego sells.<br />
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Some online 3D model libraries immediately capitulated to Lego's legal notices to take down the various designs.<br />
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One online 3D model library, MyMiniFactory, not only initially ignored the take-down notices, <a href="https://www.myminifactory.com/competition/beyond-the-brick-183">it created a contest</a> challenging designers to come up with an alternative modular building block system (like Legos) that would be open source and free for others to download or base new designs off of. The alternatives developed will also be free from Lego's aggressive IP crusade.<br />
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ALL3DP, a 3D printing news website, reported <a href="https://all3dp.com/4/reinvent-the-brick-to-win-myminifactorys-lego-inspired-competition/">in a recent article</a> that:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>The "OGEL" beyond the brick competition is a playful dig at Lego, which recently sent infringement notices to popular maker hubs like Cults and MyMiniFactory.</i></blockquote>
Lego will most certainly survive the OGEL competition but the fact it pursued an aggressive legal campaign alienating enthusiastic fans of its products suggests 3D printing technology may have been at least perceived as eating into Lego's profits or impeding future growth.<br />
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Without doubt technology like 3D printing, especially as it improves and is more widely adopted, will pose as a growing problem for companies like Lego who produce relatively easy products to replicate. Lego's instinct to attack rather than adapt is a mistake repeated by many companies who refuse to accept waves of change.<br />
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<b>Technology Transforms Industry Dynamics </b><br />
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Before 3D printing, the Internet and file sharing transformed the media industry.<br />
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Movie studios and recording companies still claim to be making large profits after waging their own very aggressive legal wars and undergoing a painful, awkward transformation to adapt, but the fact is the Internet and file sharing has forever changed markets, consumer behavior, and the respective market shares of once prominent and uncontested media titans.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>Yes, big-media is still making profits but the percentage of those profits versus the vastly expanded media market the Internet made possible is relatively smaller. It is a market where individuals can just as easily promote themselves and reach millions as any large studio. Big-media still has a large piece of pie, but the whole pie itself is much larger with many more people getting their own piece.<br />
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<b>For-Profit vs. For-Purpose </b><br />
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As technology transforms different industries, large companies will have to accept that profitability and market share will shrink and the notion of perpetual growth for the sake of growth is no longer feasible. Profits are obviously important for a business but a business model that places purpose first will thrive as long as it is achieving that purpose and is profitable.<br />
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Such reformation will (and does) attract investors. These are investors who believe in the purpose of the company rather than see the company merely as a target to be strip mined until exhausted, discarded and moved on from.<br />
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Western corporations, having enjoyed supremacy in both profitability and market share, now face a growing number of similar businesses within their industries springing up not only in China but in virtually every developing nation as well. They face shrinking market shares, stagnant profits and stalled growth and because these three metrics define their purpose, they are panicking.<br />
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American auto companies, for example, who exist to maximize profits for their investors and just so happen to make cars as a means of doing this, should probably have been out of business years ago. Government bailouts have kept them alive artificially. But as nations around the globe begin making their own cars, the goal of perpetually expanding profits and market shares will no longer be feasible (and some can easily argue for Detroit, it already isn't).<br />
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Newcomers leveraging the latest in manufacturing technology will not only shrink incumbents' market shares, they will also outcompete them in a variety of ways.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRTQkaDZ4dPbqeEkg0pWURSmy4BLtOmgdZlaQ1ti97HUhuAGckSF2nJSw4TQS4m8lmXDTSpX4koZFcdjMHIlZX_6HFnvYNcB3Jt0GEunTyHMhWWrsRzP2jmsxwPR7cikdp2lDZPa-g7xjK/s1600/2n6c9848jpg.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="650" data-original-width="1300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRTQkaDZ4dPbqeEkg0pWURSmy4BLtOmgdZlaQ1ti97HUhuAGckSF2nJSw4TQS4m8lmXDTSpX4koZFcdjMHIlZX_6HFnvYNcB3Jt0GEunTyHMhWWrsRzP2jmsxwPR7cikdp2lDZPa-g7xjK/s640/2n6c9848jpg.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>
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A car company like Elon Musk's Tesla has a purpose; to make affordable electric vehicles and to spur the adoption of EV's worldwide. The company needs to make profits to survive and thrive, but Tesla's purpose has been put first. Tesla can and does brag about profitability when it reaches various milestones, but it demonstrably doesn't seek to achieve these metrics for expansion's and profit's sake, and especially so at the expense of Tesla's purpose.<br />
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Each Tesla car model released is the result of groundbreaking research and development and a leap ahead of previous models, unlike Detroit which basically sells the same model of car for years at a time with mainly cosmetic changes made annually for marketing purposes.<br />
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Tesla may not achieve spectacular results in terms of growth and profits, but it is a more sustainable business because of its approach. Tesla is a business that attracts much healthier investment, investment that believes in the company's purpose. As long as that purpose is being met, investors continue investing. Tesla also enjoys an almost fanatical consumer base because of these factors.<br />
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SpaceX, which is also headed by Elon Musk, is likewise a newcomer to an industry monopolized by deeply entrenched incumbents. The aerospace company went from going nearly bankrupt after struggling to get its first rocket into space to overtaking all industry competitors in annual launches.<br />
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SpaceX has not only outcompeted its competitors, it has developed innovations its competitors had declared "impossible." This includes innovations allowing for the recovery and reuse of SpaceX's Falcon 9 first stage rocket, a process that has become almost routine now and a process its competitors have so far failed to match.<br />
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SpaceX is not nearly as massive as competitors like Lockheed Martin or Boeing, both members of United Launch Alliance. Despite this, SpaceX is fulfilling its purpose, transforming the aerospace industry at a break-neck pace, reducing the cost of accessing space and is <i>still </i>profitable.<br />
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Again, because of SpaceX's revolutionary approach, it has attracted massive public support, something competitors have attempted to do, but by emulating superficial aspects of SpaceX's public relations strategy rather than adopting the for-purpose fundamentals determining SpaceX's overall direction. Just as in the auto industry, aerospace incumbents who faced no competition and driven only by profit see the notion of investing heavily in innovation as a needless expenditure.<br />
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<b>Complacency vs. Competition </b><br />
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As technology continues to advance, and the pace of advancement itself increases exponentially, antiquated approaches like hording intellectual property or placing profits ahead of purpose and innovation will increasingly threaten not only industries that continue to do so, but the local and national economies they reside in.<br />
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America's long-established auto manufacturers, aerospace industry, IT sector and many more are facing growing challenges both from local newcomers and emerging competitors abroad specifically because of this. Since many of these companies also exert significant influence over US foreign and domestic policy, the undermining and erosion of their businesses will ultimately transform the nature of their influence and US policy at home and abroad in profound ways.<br />
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The few US firms taking up the challenge, like Tesla and SpaceX, prove America is still capable of incredible things, but will continue to suffer until companies like Tesla and SpaceX become the rule rather than extraordinary exceptions.<br />
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Developing nations abroad have a unique opportunity to take advantage of emerging technology and the feet-dragging of old monopolies in nations like America and level the playing field globally. Whether it is something as mundane as plastic building blocks or something as cutting edge as rockets and electric cars, significantly disrupting even the largest most established monopolies on earth is now a possibility.<br />
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Much of the tangible change we have seen from unipolarism to multipolarism is owed to nations doing just that.<br />
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<i style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px; line-height: 18.48px;">Ulson Gunnar, a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “<a href="http://journal-neo.org/" style="color: #6fa8dc;">New Eastern Outlook</a>”.</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;"> </span></div>
Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079343630025538378.post-84209997352851319932019-06-05T00:36:00.003-07:002019-06-05T00:36:35.958-07:00US War on Huawei is a War on Tech Sovereignty <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>June 5, 2019</b> (<a href="https://journal-neo.org/2019/06/04/us-war-on-huawei-is-a-war-on-tech-sovereignty/">Gunnar Ulson - NEO</a>) - Unable to compete on equal terms with Chinese telecom giant Huawei, the United States and the corporations that influence its domestic and foreign policy have decided instead to simply cut Huawei off from its many monopolies including chip manufacturing and mobile phone operating systems.<br />
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But US measures come at a time when Huawei is already well on its way to unseating US tech monopolies. US measures may only spur Huawei (and many other companies and countries) to further work toward creating alternatives to current US tech monopolies and establishing enduring technological sovereignty from US control.<br />
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<b>US Cites False Pretext to Cripple a Competitor </b><br />
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The US Department of Commerce <a href="https://www.commerce.gov/news/press-releases/2019/05/department-commerce-announces-addition-huawei-technologies-co-ltd">claims</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>...Huawei is engaged in activities that are contrary to U.S. national security or foreign policy interest. This information includes the activities alleged in the Department of Justice’s public superseding indictment of Huawei, including alleged violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), conspiracy to violate IEEPA by providing prohibited financial services to Iran, and obstruction of justice in connection with the investigation of those alleged violations of U.S. sanctions.</i></blockquote>
Evidence (as is the case with most US allegations) is lacking, yet US measures prohibiting <i>"the sale or transfer of American technology"</i> to Huawei coincidentally gives a boost to US tech companies unable to compete against Huawei in free and fair global markets.<br />
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Fortune, in its article, "<a href="http://fortune.com/2019/05/25/huawei-google-microsoft/">Huawei Wants to Play Nice With Google and Microsoft, But Has Its 'Last Resort' Ready</a>," elaborates further on what this ban means to Huawei.<br />
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Microsoft removed Huawei laptops from its online store, while chip manufacturers including Qualcomm, Intel, Nvidia, Lattice and ARM are poised to stop supplying Huawei assembly lines.<br />
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Google is also reportedly preparing to cut Huawei off from its Android mobile phone operating system. Android and Apple's iOS, both US-based, currently dominate the markets and without access to either, Huawei would face significant challenges, giving US tech companies a chance to catch up. This, more than any sort of ambiguous "security threat" explains the motivations of the US Department of Commerce.<br />
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<b>Self-Inflicted Wounds Amid a Senseless Fight</b><br />
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US bans targeting Huawei will not be painless for US corporations involved. Huawei currently occupies second place, just behind Samsung, in the smartphone market. Depriving Huawei of US-made components will deprive US corporations of associated profits at least in the short-term. How fast other corporations fill the void left behind by Huawei, if a void appears, is hard to say. If US corporations are counting on US corporations and US-friendly nations and the respective telecom industries filling a potential void, it is a long bet.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>It is clear that Huawei, if accusations by the US of its close association with the Chinese government are true, will have the support, resources and impetus required to begin developing alternatives to Microsoft, US chip designs and Google's Android operating system. In the long-term, US corporations may find themselves faced by renewed competition, not only in terms of smartphones this time, but also in terms of everything in and on them.<br />
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Articles like, "<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/21/18632550/huawei-p30-pro-android-google-executive-order-us-phone-qualcomm-intel">Can Huawei make a phone without US parts?</a>," and "<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/14/18265646/huawei-operating-systems-android-windows-ban">Huawei developed its own operating systems in case it’s banned from using Android and Windows</a>," go into detail regarding all the alternatives Huawei already has at its disposal and possible future alternatives that will further mitigate US bans.<br />
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US bans aimed at maliciously targeting and eliminating competitors will only make these competitors stronger in the long run. US bans aimed at Chinese tech companies will also give other companies in other industries and even in other countries pause for thought when depending on the US for anything. This may be the beginning of a global move to hedge against other unpredictable moves made by the US Department of Commerce and US corporations.<br />
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It may also be the beginning of a move toward greater global technological sovereignty.<br />
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<b>Technological Sovereignty </b><br />
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For as important as technology is to a nation's economy and security, depending on foreign corporations to manufacturer and use it seems recklessly irresponsible.<br />
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This realization has prompted many nations to begin building up their own domestic alternatives and depending less on foreign corporations for their technological infrastructure. <br />
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Russia, for example, has its own mobile phone operating system <a href="https://www.osnews.com/story/129421/sailfish-os-becomes-aurora-os-in-russia/">called Aurora</a> it runs government devices on. Russia has also passed legislation to begin creating an independent Internet that can operate on its own entirely within Russia. Russia also has its own social media network, VK, as an alternative to US-based Facebook as well as its own alternative to Google, called Yandex.<br />
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Russian journalist Dmitry Kiselyov (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SizLBM8iZ7Q">video</a>) compared a nation's ability to develop and deploy its own technology to having a light switch either outside or inside a bathroom. When outside the bathroom, anyone for any reason, including spite, can switch the lights off leaving the occupant helplessly in the dark. With the light switch inside the bathroom, the occupant has full control.<br />
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This point rests at the very center of technological sovereignty.<br />
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Russia's moves illustrate a trend toward treating a nation's information space and technological capabilities with as much seriousness as it treats its physical territory and defense industry.<br />
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For China and Chinese companies, this process is also well underway, with US measures likely only to temporarily set back China's rise as a global leader in technology. If anything it is most likely helping pave the way for China's technological leadership to be more complete and even less dependent on the US.<br />
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The US has an opportunity to use its technology as a means of developing constructive and lasting partnerships as well as ensuring US influence over technology used globally, but instead it seeks to use its advantages as a means of coercion.<br />
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The US "flipping the bathroom lights off" on China is a warning for anyone else around the world who might become targets of US spite. Nations going along with US bans against China will only make it that much easier for the US to target other nations, any nation, in the future. For as important as technology is, there is no nation big or small that can afford to allow the US to continue wielding such power uncontested.<br />
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The US war on Huawei represents the opening salvo of a much wider US war on technological sovereignty. It is a war the world must win and a crucial building block toward establishing multipolarism in favor of America's current, unipolar international order.<br />
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<i style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px; line-height: 18.48px;">Gunnar Ulson, a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “<a href="http://journal-neo.org/" style="color: #6fa8dc;">New Eastern Outlook</a>”.</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;"> </span></div>
Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079343630025538378.post-70877898159063284472018-08-11T00:48:00.002-07:002018-08-11T00:48:42.406-07:003D Printed Guns: Debating Inevitability <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>August 11, 2018</b> (<a href="https://journal-neo.org/2018/08/08/3d-printed-guns-debating-inevitability/">Ulson Gunnar - NEO</a>) - 3D printing and other forms of computer-controlled manufacturing have allowed nations, companies and even individuals the ability to go from consumers to producers. As this technology improves and costs drop, access to this technology and the ability of the technology itself will increase, making it possible for virtually anyone, anywhere to make virtually anything.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_ymFtctmFR73YVCtxGzd1BAom67RZoXDFMo3yF6_OOiARaYRXI-MM_e_rr5xQ6Jz4ZCgawYK9vkoVrAyrYZsR7L_xgwO-WTQnYgvjtnXQdaftJsGYaldipuxkaPZxTOupS7nCGVpWuw7I/s1600/3dpGun.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="868" data-original-width="1440" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_ymFtctmFR73YVCtxGzd1BAom67RZoXDFMo3yF6_OOiARaYRXI-MM_e_rr5xQ6Jz4ZCgawYK9vkoVrAyrYZsR7L_xgwO-WTQnYgvjtnXQdaftJsGYaldipuxkaPZxTOupS7nCGVpWuw7I/s640/3dpGun.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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In May 2018, prominent US-based corporate-funded policy think tank, RAND Corporation, had published an article titled, "<a href="https://www.rand.org/blog/articles/2018/05/four-ways-3d-printing-may-threaten-security.html">Four Ways 3D Printing May Threaten Security</a>." In it, an argument was made about the dangers of 3D printing becoming more accessible, first by citing 3D printed guns as well as drones and other forms of technology it claimed criminals and terrorists could leverage. But then RAND would reveal a threat, particularly to its corporate sponsors, that <a href="https://journal-neo.org/2018/05/24/technology-turns-the-tables-on-global-hegemons/">highlighted the true fears</a> 3D printing invokes among the captains of established industries — decentralization.<br />
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The fear of 3D printing "taking jobs" for example, can more accurately be described as taking both jobs and revenue from large corporations and shifting them both to small companies or individual entrepreneurs. Along with this shift, goes the concentration of wealth and influence these large corporations have enjoyed, some since as early as the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.<br />
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RAND also feared nations targeted by US sanctions being able to easily circumvent them by acquiring the parts and systems required by simply manufacturing them themselves through the use of technology like 3D printing. In reality, RAND and other representatives of established industries seem more concerned about losing their wealth and influence than of any "threat" such technologies might or might not actually pose.<br />
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<b>3D Printed Guns </b><br />
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The notion of 3D printed guns has been around for a while. Cody Wilson of US-based Defense Distributed has promoted a vision of home-based gun manufacturing, leveraging 3D printing and a peer-to-peer (p2p) network of online files shared much the way other online 3D model libraries are organized.<br />
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Wilson had been fighting a legal battle to protect his and others' rights to manufacture and share the designs of their guns. In an article by Engadget titled, "<a href="https://www.engadget.com/2018/07/18/3d-printed-gun-designs-legally-download/">You can legally download 3D-printed gun designs next month</a>," the results of that legal battle were reported:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>3D gun printing advocate Defense Distributed has emerged triumphant in a legal battle to freely publish online blueprints that could allow users to manufacture firearms. </i><i><br /></i><i><br /></i><i>The victory spells the end of an ongoing lawsuit against the US Department of State -- which in 2013, forced Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson to pull down files from the DEFCAD website because they violated International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) protections. The State Department argued that blueprints of Wilson's 'Liberator' pistol, which had already been downloaded more than 100,000 times, were classified as 'exports' and could therefore not be distributed according to law.</i></blockquote>
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The article was shared by Grindhouse, a DIY biohacking group that specializes in human augmentation through the use of biotechnology, another field in which advances in technology are manifesting themselves, <a href="https://hacked.com/cyborgs-coming-biohackers-implant-leds-skin/">quite literally in the hands</a> of ordinary people. Under Grindhouse's Facebook post, a refreshingly complex discussion developed, far beyond the pro-anti gun debate typical in American politics.<br />
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The notion of greater personal responsibility was mentioned, but also the possibility of gun manufacturers having their monopolies and revenue threatened by distributed firearms manufacturing by individuals and small businesses. While the technology for individuals to do this today is still prohibitively expensive, it will not be in the near future as better 3D printers and printers capable of printing in metal find their way into homes around the globe.<br />
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Just as RAND and other representatives of corporate monopolies have tried to raise alarm over 3D printing in an effort to protect their respective industries, efforts to register, restrict and constrain the use of 3D printing by citing the possible widespread proliferation of homemade weapons seems very likely to follow Defense Distributed's legal victory.<br />
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<b>Push Back? </b><br />
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Manufacturing your own firearms is dangerous. Poorly constructed firearms, or even well-made firearms that are poorly cared for, can cause harm, even death to the operator and bystanders. It is possible that after Defense Distributed's legal victory, interests seeking to restrict 3D printing may use accidents involving 3D printed firearms as a pretext to finally implement stricter controls over 3D printing technology altogether.<br />
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Stopping individuals with 3D printers from printing anything is virtually impossible.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>Attempts to impose software and intellectual property controls on printers has been proposed and tried, but has proven impractical. Thus, interests seeking to impede the proliferation of 3D printing technology, because it threatens their non-firearms related business, may use fears of 3D printed firearms as a pretext to restrict the sale and ownership of 3D printers once and for all.<br />
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And while such legislation may be passed in nations like the United States or across Europe, it is unlikely such restrictions will pass everywhere, granting nations with more permissive laws to surpass the US and Europe in this key technological field. While industries may in short run protect their monopolies, in the long run they will find themselves far behind competitors elsewhere.<br />
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For many established industries, it is an inevitability that advanced manufacturing technology will redistribute their wealth and influence to individual entrepreneurs, meaning that attempts to slow down or stop 3D printing today is an exercise in futility tomorrow.<br />
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These industries should invest instead in reorganizing their business models and making an orderly transition toward a more distributed economy in the intermediate future.<br />
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3D printing, biotechnology, artificial intelligence and other forms of advanced and rapidly improving technology will all find their way into more hands and chip away at established industries and institutions. The advancement of technology is exponential, not linear and traditional planning and economic modelling to envision how this technology will shape civilization tomorrow will produce a distorted view and equally distorted decision making.<br />
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Instead of pushing back against 3D printing and other forms of technology making into the population's hands, policymakers and established industries should be preparing for this inevitability, or face having no say when it finally does come to be.<br />
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For those fearful of guns being 3D printed and then used by criminals, they should begin understanding and then addressing what actually drives certain individuals to violence.<br />
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Understanding that socioeconomic factors, not merely access to firearms drives violence, will open up the possibility to more practical solutions to diminish gun violence. Gun control efforts are already proven ineffective, and with 3D printing, soon to be rendered impossible. 3D printing will bring with it greater individual wealth and influence, but with it, society will have to learn to live with the greater individual responsibility that comes with it.<br />
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<i style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px; line-height: 18.48px;">Ulson Gunnar, a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “<a href="http://journal-neo.org/" style="color: #6fa8dc;">New Eastern Outlook</a>”.</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;"> </span></div>
Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079343630025538378.post-3684136479897664672018-05-24T10:53:00.000-07:002018-05-24T10:53:10.647-07:00Technology Turns the Tables on Global Hegemons <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>May 25, 2018</b> (<a href="https://journal-neo.org/2018/05/24/technology-turns-the-tables-on-global-hegemons/">Gunnar Ulson - NEO</a>) - Centuries ago, technology like sailing ships, guns, and steel armor enabled Europeans to appear on South American shores and appear godlike to the natives. Through a combination of spreading disease and wielding military, organizational, economic and of course technological superiority, Europeans subjugated the native populations and conquered an entire continent.<br />
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European and eventually American technological superiority granted each and every subsequent century to the West. As military and manufacturing technology began to proliferate more freely and more rapidly following the World Wars, nations found themselves finally armed, economically independent and organized enough to throw off Western colonization.<br />
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It is a process that is still ongoing, with brief instances of technological advances in the West providing an economic or military edge before quickly being mitigated by that technology's proliferation globally.<br />
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This decrease in lag time between Western technological breakthroughs and global catching up has put Western hegemony itself in danger. It is a danger Western policymakers have been spending greater amounts of time considering, and because of that, so should policymakers the world over on how to protect and even enhance the global balance of power this reduction in lag is creating.<br />
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<b>RAND Fears the Future</b><br />
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In a recent paper published by the RAND Corporation, a US policy think tank funded by, and working for the largest military and economic interests in the Western Hemisphere, fears of how technology may further erode the West's technological and thus economic and military edge over a world it seeks hegemony over are explained.<br />
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RAND published an article titled, "<a href="https://www.rand.org/blog/articles/2018/05/four-ways-3d-printing-may-threaten-security.html">Four Ways 3D Printing May Threaten Security</a>," which focuses specifically on computer-controlled manufacturing and in particular, 3D printing.<br />
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The article begins by claiming:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>3D printers already produce everything from prosthetic hands and engine parts to basketball shoes and fancy chocolates. But as with any technological advance, new possibilities come with new perils.</i></blockquote>
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The 4 ways include:<br />
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<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>Hackers Could Use Printers to Cause Real-World Damage;</li>
<li>Printers Could Enable New Criminal and Security Threats;</li>
<li>Printed Guns Are Not the Biggest Risk and;</li>
<li>New Manufacturing Capabilities Could Endanger Jobs.</li>
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While some of the concerns RAND covers are legitimate, particularly the danger of computer code being altered to produce sabotaged parts, these are fears that already exist across existing manufacturing industries worldwide with strategies already developed to test manufactured parts before their use for critical applications. </div>
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<a name='more'></a><b>3D Printed Firearms are Not a Real Threat </b><br />
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RAND cites the 3D printing of firearms by "terrorist groups," however as the ongoing gun control debate in the US and terrorist attacks across the world prove, determined terrorist groups often carry out attacks using explosives or hijacked vehicles that kill far more people than single or even coordinated gun attacks. And despite firearms being so ubiquitous in nations like the United States, homicide rates appear to be more affected by socioeconomic factors than merely access to firearms. </div>
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A person with access to a 3D printer who is not a murderer will not suddenly be compelled to murder because they can now "print" a firearm.<br />
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<b>Unemployment is also Not a Real Threat</b><br />
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The RAND report also waves the prospect of employment in front of potential readers to ratchet up fears. However while 3D printing will most certainly spell the end of factories in the intermediate to more distant future, what they have already proven is that localized manufacturing simply decentralizes manufacturing and the jobs that go along with manufacturing, as well as the profits.</div>
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To RAND's credit, they recommend training and education to prepare people to assume jobs in additive manufacturing (3D printing). </div>
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The real fear, however, is that networks of local manufacturers will replace industrial monopolies, like those that fund RAND's activities. These localized manufacturers will benefit from equally decentralized and localized profits. Power will shift from large corporations to local communities and individual entrepreneurs, enhancing the balance of socioeconomic power on a global, national and local level.<br />
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<b>The End of Sanctions and Western-Dominated Globalization </b></div>
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Thus it is what RAND considers economic threats that reveal the true context of fears among RAND and special interests regarding newer, more accessible and more localized manufacturing technology.<br />
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RAND's article claims:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Economic sanctions and trade embargoes would become far less effective if rogue states could simply print what they need. Isolated regimes or extremist groups could also use printers to manufacture weapons that previously required industrial expertise. </i><i><br /></i><i><br /></i><i>"Perversely," the RAND researchers wrote, "(3D printing) might indirectly support the survival and rise of such states as North Korea, which would no longer suffer the same costs of withdrawing from the international community."</i></blockquote>
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Here RAND lays down its cards. With localized advanced manufacturing technology, attempts to cut nations off from the US-European dominated international order will become increasingly ineffective. In fact many forms of more traditional manufacturing technology have already become cheaper and more accessible because of advances in technology, to nations once wholly dependent on Western corporations for technical expertise. </div>
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RAND also discusses fears over the end of globalization, claiming:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>At the same time, the trade ties that have held together nations—incentivizing cooperation over conflict—could fray. A car company, for example, might print and assemble the parts it needs on site, rather than making the parts in one country, shipping them to another for assembly, and selling the final product in a third. A recent report by trade analysts at ING predicted that 3D printing could wipe out almost a quarter of cross-border trade by 2060. Those trade ties and supply chains, the RAND researchers noted, have contributed to a dramatic decrease in interstate war since World War II.</i></blockquote>
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While it is true that these trade ties have "held together nations," it is important to note that they are being held together to the primary benefit of a small handful of US and European corporations, industrialists and financial institutions who dominate and direct modern globalization. </div>
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Such ties have not provided an incentive to avoid conflict in favor of cooperation, as RAND suggests. Instead, globalization, when viewed as a modern version of British colonial mercantilism, represents a system of monopoly and control, interconnecting nations that are beholden to the entire system, and of course, an entire system dominated, directed and which serves the US and Europe.<br />
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Sanctions wielded by the US and Europe provide a perfect illustration of how this system really works and what its true purpose is. Nations that do not accommodate US-European interests are penalized and unable to conduct business or maintain the economic health of their nations. </div>
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<b>Multipolar Manufacturing for a Multipolar World </b><br />
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3D printing and other forms of advanced, localized manufacturing technology will undoubtedly reverse globalization and revitalize nationalism and localism. However, the prospects of wars erupting in this age of new localized abundance will be less likely than it is today. This is because as socioeconomic and technological disparity decreases between the world's most powerful nations and its weakest, so too will military disparity. </div>
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The risk of initiating a war against a much weaker nation versus the benefits a nation will receive is what currently drives US and European military aggression around the globe.<br />
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As nations become increasingly independent of globalization and as they acquire or develop military technology that improves military parity with the West, the smaller the list of potential targets for Western military aggression becomes. </div>
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Expanding socioeconomic and military parity is the true fear of US and European policymakers employed by large corporations whose power and domination stems from global disparity. </div>
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The emergence of decentralized, advanced manufacturing is inevitable. Nations with realistic plans to usher in an orderly transition from traditional economics to a more localized future will reap the most benefits. Those who squander resources attempting to impede or even roll back the tide of technological change will be swept away by it. </div>
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For those determined to establish and maintain a truly multipolar world where national sovereignty holds primacy over international hegemons, creating a likewise multipolar industrial and economic foundation will be key. Additive manufacturing like 3D printing will be one of the pillars upon that foundation. </div>
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<i style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px; line-height: 18.48px;">Ulson Gunnar, a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “<a href="http://journal-neo.org/" style="color: #6fa8dc;">New Eastern Outlook</a>”.</i> </div>
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Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079343630025538378.post-34497950045174559512017-08-31T06:17:00.004-07:002017-08-31T06:17:55.612-07:00Big-Pharma Novartis to Charge $475,000 for $20,000 Cancer Cure Funded by Taxpayers and Charity<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>August 31, 2017</b> (<a href="http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2017/08/big-pharma-novartis-to-charge-475000.html">Tony Cartalucci - LD</a>) While Americans squabble over irrelevant political diversions, a revolutionary breakthrough in human healthcare has yielded its first FDA approval - a therapy that literally cures otherwise incurable leukemia.<br />
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It is the first of many therapies that re-engineer human cells in living patients to reprogram more resilient immune systems and even repair damaged or aging organs.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYvPxJmk_RZgLCY_ypPiC_IKb39Y5zQPi0hFFCUZaqTxs17AGlvfWADUDgbhvYIcM9nADD7UGFSmXAJAZ-__HzLne66j9GvVTLw57-bbUkNsczp1B8gitB2Hfsjovt-9yE1f8uvWUAfrEG/s1600/31GENE3-master675.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="675" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYvPxJmk_RZgLCY_ypPiC_IKb39Y5zQPi0hFFCUZaqTxs17AGlvfWADUDgbhvYIcM9nADD7UGFSmXAJAZ-__HzLne66j9GvVTLw57-bbUkNsczp1B8gitB2Hfsjovt-9yE1f8uvWUAfrEG/s640/31GENE3-master675.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: left;"><i><b>Image:</b> A virtual cure for leukemia - paid for by taxpayers and charity, hijacked and sold for nearly half a million dollars by pharmaceutical giant, Novartis. </i></td></tr>
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What would seem like headline news has instead squeaked through as a whimper - not because it is insignificant - but because of how this monumental breakthrough has been hijacked by special interests and how these interests plan on making Americans pay twice for its development behind a smokescreen of public ignorance.<br />
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Thanks to a media focused more on dividing and distracting Americans regarding irrelevant political charades, due diligence in researching the story was either sidestepped intentionally, or a result of unprofessional and incompetent journalism.<br />
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<b>Taxpayers and Charity Paid First</b><br />
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For the past 20 years, American taxpayers through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Leukemia &amp; Lymphoma Society (LLS) helped fund a revolutionary cancer treatment that sidesteps devastating and ineffective chemotherapy and instead, re-engineers a patient's own immune system to find and destroy tumors.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI3wx4Q7OWFTOjx3EVJ-sx0bHwg7fqVMLMlbYzs04G52SSNQVLlLh0N0AcqcrzeQksGEPwaFGID0PP5oWHR665jmmQw3qFaEa9sKPydgJc0J4XpilGEOkVqZNCR4iqJ6_rELd9TMygp2NB/s1600/LLS08040127.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI3wx4Q7OWFTOjx3EVJ-sx0bHwg7fqVMLMlbYzs04G52SSNQVLlLh0N0AcqcrzeQksGEPwaFGID0PP5oWHR665jmmQw3qFaEa9sKPydgJc0J4XpilGEOkVqZNCR4iqJ6_rELd9TMygp2NB/s640/LLS08040127.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: left;"><i><b>Image:</b> LLS supporters organize events all over the country to raise tens of millions of dollars for cancer research including the development of therapies and the funding of clinical trials. LLS money was key to what Novartis alleges is its own "breakthrough." </i></td></tr>
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In clinical trials, patients suffering from acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) who were not responding to traditional therapies and would otherwise die, were not only cured, but would enjoy permanent remission.<br />
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The most stunning success story was that of Emily Whitehead, a young girl who is approaching her sixth year in remission. At the time of her experimental treatment in 2012, she was estimated to only have days left to live.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZGv3cTTT5qqja-b64uSte6ODllv_Ez8BcU6epoLj6t0XwmioMdMYpWkhP_w38wKE-9FC3NTk527ScAJy9mvriG4TFZraD6trCqSFCDrog1R5rFtYzd3VicwyQ3hDuMPIiLDvLy6UhBHp4/s1600/4-YEARS-CANCER-FREE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="712" data-original-width="1140" height="398" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZGv3cTTT5qqja-b64uSte6ODllv_Ez8BcU6epoLj6t0XwmioMdMYpWkhP_w38wKE-9FC3NTk527ScAJy9mvriG4TFZraD6trCqSFCDrog1R5rFtYzd3VicwyQ3hDuMPIiLDvLy6UhBHp4/s640/4-YEARS-CANCER-FREE.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: left;"><i><b>Image:</b> Literally on her deathbed in 2012, Emily Whitehead has been cancer free after receiving treatment in clinical trials funded by charity. The media is now rewriting history, attributing the breakthrough and thriving patients like Emily Whitehead to Novartis. </i></td></tr>
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The revolutionary procedure has paved the way for similar "gene therapies" augmenting the human immune system to fight off and eradicate some of the most confounding diseases of our time.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>The therapies are designed in a laboratory and introduced to patients through a single infusion. For a pharmaceutical industry built on perpetually treating symptoms with refillable prescriptions rather than producing permanent and enduring cures, this new form of therapy represents the end of their business model.<br />
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MIT's Technology Review, in an article titled, "<a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608771/the-fda-has-approved-the-first-gene-therapy-for-cancer/">FDA Approves Groundbreaking Gene Therapy for Cancer: The treatment will be sold by Novartis for $475,000</a>," would report:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>David Mitchell, founder of an advocacy group called Patients for Affordable Drugs, said in a statement that the $475,000 cost is “excessive” and claims the federal government spent $200 million in early research on CAR-T therapy before Novartis purchased rights to the treatment. The group recently met with the company to appeal for a “fair” price for its therapy. Previous estimates predicted a price tag between $600,000 to $725,000.</i></blockquote>
Technology Review, along with other mainstream media sources including the New York Times, NPR, CNN, and the London Guardian have all categorically failed to mention the role of both the NIH and charity foundations like LLS.<br />
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It is either a matter of lazy journalism where press releases are mindlessly churned into "news articles," or deliberate disinformation to leave readers intentionally uninformed, protecting the interests of pharmaceutical corporations in the same manner the press has protected and promoted wars for the defense industry.<br />
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In most articles, concerted attempts are made to portray the $475,000 price tag as more reasonable than previous "expert" estimates. One article published by STAT even claimed the nearly half million price tag <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2017/08/30/novartis-car-t-cancer-approved/">was a "bargain</a>."<br />
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Few articles even mentioned David Mitchell, and fewer still mentioned his point regarding the role public funding played in "Novartis' breakthrough." LLS' role in developing the therapy was only mentioned <a href="http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/LLS-Investment-Pays-Off-FDA-Approves-Revolutionary-Immunotherapy-for-Blood-Cancer-Patients-1002295739">in one article returned by Google News, published by Markets Insider</a>.<br />
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<b>The Sick and Dying Will Pay Again </b><br />
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Novartis clearly did not develop this breakthrough. It merely bought the license to commercialize and market it to the public.<br />
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While Novartis claims the staggering price tag of $475,000 per patient represents the only way for it to recuperate its so-far undisclosed investment in commercialization, many suspect Novartis along with other pharmaceutical corporations of hijacking public and charity funded gene therapies to set a new precedent - one in which a single infusion that provides a lifetime of health is paid for by the patient, insurers, and taxpayers for a lifetime - regardless of the actual cost of producing it.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jQfFCC6i5_o?start=2792" width="560"></iframe></div>
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In reality, the cost of curing Emily Whitehead in 2012 under highly experimental conditions, using customized equipment cost under $20,000. The head researcher, University of Pennsylvania's Dr. Carl June, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQfFCC6i5_o&feature=youtu.be&t=46m32s">has repeatedly stated in public that while the cost was under $20,000</a> when he and his team provided the therapy, upon commercialization, with automation it should cost <i>even less</i>.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV4ZJ65O7E-y47TO_02-FyTm9tfE79_sg6O4krgw_3_QNNXbpv1G5nKMq3UdRkNfillYdhVxNv-s9VcNQO5otIK5a2a9aDzcVW3sDwzA1YTEqOzWdEtFqYPpGFwdTFnlAT1bSDOl6uVi9R/s1600/junex2100.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1109" data-original-width="1600" height="442" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV4ZJ65O7E-y47TO_02-FyTm9tfE79_sg6O4krgw_3_QNNXbpv1G5nKMq3UdRkNfillYdhVxNv-s9VcNQO5otIK5a2a9aDzcVW3sDwzA1YTEqOzWdEtFqYPpGFwdTFnlAT1bSDOl6uVi9R/s640/junex2100.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: left;"><i><b>Image:</b> Dr. Carl June headed the team that developed the CAR T cell gene therapy that saved Emily Whitehead's life. He has publicly stated that under experimental conditions, the therapy cost under $20,000, yet now Novartis is charging $475,000 per patient even after "commercialization." </i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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In a 2014 lecture by Dr. Carl June, published online <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcnzetT4ezY">by University of California Television</a>, he would also note specifically (emphasis added):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>We couldn't get funding from the National Cancer Institute to do that trial. You know, we're in a real problem, disarray right now in national funding of research. It was all done by philanthropy. <b>We received a lot of money over the last 15 years from the Leukemia [&amp; Lymphoma] Society and they've been the primary ones that developed this.</b> <b>There was no industry support available.</b> </i></blockquote>
While undoubtedly Novartis invested money in commercializing the therapy, it surely did not invest in producing the breakthrough. And if taxpayers and charity can fund the bulk of the research and development behind this revolutionary breakthrough, it certainly can create a trust to provide affordable public access to it.<br />
<br />
<b>Stealing from Charity</b><br />
<br />
It appears that Novartis and other pharmaceutical giants have used charity organizations like LLS as a means to subsidize their research and development budgets, shifting costs of development to the charitable, and keeping the profits to themselves.<br />
<br />
In an e-mail from LLS in regards <a href="http://localorg.blogspot.com/2017/08/no-matter-how-bad-you-thought-big-phama.html">to allegations that Novartis is using charity to pad its research and development budget</a>, representatives stated:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>At LLS, we work toward finding cures and ensuring blood cancer patients have access to treatments. Over our 68-year history, we have invested more than $1 billion in research to advance lifesaving treatments and cures.</i><i><br /></i><i><br /></i><i>Over two decades ago, LLS began investing in research conducted by Carl June, MD, and his team at the University of Pennsylvania and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. We funded the academic researchers working to develop this treatment, and had no role in Novartis’s licensing of the therapy. </i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Our partnership with Novartis is completely unrelated to CAR-T development. Novartis, as do other pharmaceutical companies, provides funding to LLS to support our patient education and support services.</i></blockquote>
Not only did the LLS representative fail to counter claims against Novartis and its abuse of charity, it appears that LLS is itself confirming Novartis licensed and is overcharging for a therapy it played no role in actually developing.<br />
<br />
When asked to clarify LLS' relationship with Novartis and what role - if any - Novartis played in developing a therapy it is now charging nearly half a million dollars for per patient, LLS representatives failed to respond.<br />
<br />
<b>Gene Therapy Will Change Everything - Once Big-Pharma is Out of the Picture </b><br />
<br />
Imagine a future where heart failure or cancer requires only a trip to a local clinic where healthcare professionals access a database of therapies, synthesize one for a patient and provide them with an infusion in a single day. Imagine only needing to come a day or week later for a follow up to check on the therapy's efficacy. Imagine paying as much for this as you would for treating a sore throat.<br />
<br />
This is a future quickly becoming a possibility - but for now - only a possibility.<br />
<br />
With pharmaceutical giants like Novartis wielding immense lobbying and media influence and seeking to protect their multi-billion dollar multinational monopolies over human healthcare, such a future will only ever be a possibility - not a reality.<br />
<br />
Demolishing these antiquated obstacles to human progress first requires raising awareness of not only the pharmaceutical industry's deep corruption and predatory abuse, but also the technical aspects of emerging technologies like gene therapy that do not cost "$475,000" to provide to patients and with genuine research, development, and commercialization, could be offered for less than current and ineffective therapies already on the market.<br />
<br />
So-called "professional journalists" have categorically failed to provide even the most basic information regarding the background and development of this latest breakthrough, giving Novartis a head-start in extorting the public the villain's sum of nearly half a million dollars for a therapy already paid for by taxpayers and charity.<br />
<br />
Such injustice can only continue as long as it goes unreported by the media and uncontested by activists and innovators. Increased awareness means a public more able to manage its resources and support for charity and private enterprise that is able to provide a complete, transparent, and equitable pipeline from research and development to providing affordable access to patients.<br />
<br />
Technology is offering modern civilization the tools to cure virtually any ailment for increasingly affordable sums, but only if we are able to move past the antiquated pharmaceutical industry attempting to horde and restrict access to them. </div>
Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079343630025538378.post-22410382444331464162017-08-17T08:21:00.000-07:002017-08-17T08:21:32.459-07:00GMOs and Big-Ag: Stop Being Scared, Start Getting Your Hands Dirty<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>August 17, 2017</b> (Tony Cartalucci - LocalOrg) - Urban farmer Curtis Stone who runs <a href="http://www.greencityacres.com/">a successful urban agriculture business</a> as well as workshops and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-BlDCX__nCLs_ZF9meYQbw">free online videos</a> to help others join the urban agriculture revolution, has recently put out a very positive message regarding GMOs (genetically modified organisms) in the context of big-agricultural monopolies and what we can do about it.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vAMF6A07Nao" width="560"></iframe>
</div>
<br />
His underling message is to stop being paralyzed by fear and to start making a real difference by simply getting out from behind our computers, getting our hands dirty, and making with our own two hands the sort of world we want to live in.<br /><br />He says so as part of a tangible movement producing alternatives to big-ag and big-retail that have turned the tide against monopolies and have given people a chance at building their own value for themselves and their communities.<br /><br />While his message was specifically about GMOs and the agricultural sector, his wisdom easily carries over to virtually all other aspects of modern socioeconomic activity.<br />
<br />
<b>Break the Wheel </b><br />
<br />
It is a positive message that has been gaining traction as more and more people become frustrated with circular political debates, endless protests, and paralyzing fearmongering, all while the same handful of powerful interests benefit - far removed from the chaos they sow below.<br />
<br />
Abusive monopolies are so, simply because they have the wealth and influence to be abusive. This wealth is gained by millions of people in the United States and around the world paying them for their goods and services month-to-month. This concentration of wealth was not accomplished overnight, and it will not be undone in an election, with the passage of a bill, or anything less than its undoing through decentralization and localization. <br />
<br />
Reducing the wealth and influence of monopolies - regardless of industry - thus reducing their ability to abuse, requires directing our monthly income away from them and toward local alternatives.<br />
<br />
Money channeled to local farmers around the world instead of a handful of ag-giants and retailers, means the wealth these current monopolies use to lobby, manipulate public perception, bribe, and otherwise coerce public policy with, no longer exists. It is wealth through local entrepreneurship that can be used as local people see fit.<br />
<br />
Local alternatives create a decentralized version of the centralized monopoly they seek to replace, meaning that no single business has in its own hands the sort of wealth and influence existing monopolies currently enjoy. This creates a better balance of power and deters the sort of abuses excessive disparity invites.<br />
<br />
Curtis Stone and others encourage people to create value and wealth for themselves instead of obsessing over political discourse, ideology, and fear. And the more people who choose self-empowerment over circular conflict, the more actual leverage we will have individually and collectively when actors such as agricultural monopolies, tech giants, or the defense industry attempt to coerce a people, a nation, or even a world into action that benefits none but a handful of monopolies. </div>
Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079343630025538378.post-64037160608171000232017-08-02T11:31:00.004-07:002017-08-02T11:31:57.245-07:00No Matter How Bad You Thought Big-Phama Was, This is Worse<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: medium;">A literal cure for cancer has been funded by charity, stolen by big-pharma, to be dangled over the head of the dying for profit. </span><br />
<br />
<b style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">August 2, 2017</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;"> (<a href="http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2017/08/no-matter-how-bad-you-thought-big-phama.html">Tony Cartalucci - LD</a>) - Impropriety among big-pharmaceutical corporations has ranged from multi-billion dollar bribery rackets, to marketing drugs to patients for uses they were never approved for by regulators, to covering up known dangerous side-effects of medications they produce and sell.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKJYZYGW8aQLRiu_UMn06ylw28ynw79-NfP_wyMWo-29a-UMUT7WdizNCnZQ68yxdhCqnuhlD9tEDtoiVFnHlm0jkz37AgBWmrGAYS_xwDBptUNi38ra7kzcoBc2oJuQoEArzRpecraLyg/s1600/4-YEARS-CANCER-FREE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #6fa8dc; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="712" data-original-width="1140" height="398" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKJYZYGW8aQLRiu_UMn06ylw28ynw79-NfP_wyMWo-29a-UMUT7WdizNCnZQ68yxdhCqnuhlD9tEDtoiVFnHlm0jkz37AgBWmrGAYS_xwDBptUNi38ra7kzcoBc2oJuQoEArzRpecraLyg/s640/4-YEARS-CANCER-FREE.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="640" /></a></div>
<br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">More recently, big-pharma has been embroiled in a series of price-gouging controversies over equipment and treatments. This includes the hijacking of and profiteering from a revolutionary new treatment called gene therapy.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Gene therapy, the process of re-engineering human cells to either include missing DNA to cure genetic conditions or to arm the immune system to seek and destroy disease, has been the latest hopeful technology scooped up and plundered by big-pharma. </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9wWPGkUeNB4zASR1zw3j_pWKiVitjMitLm72e0kvWk8X4jmV1MSENp6LsQU18nMJ3xZH_0OphDbGXN7M34Nl8hMn6yYVlmAXMFJmDCbnO_hNThqbjwAOo8nsavIk_loZBqLiiqZ1y4j4K/s1600/gene-therapy-10-638.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #6fa8dc; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="479" data-original-width="638" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9wWPGkUeNB4zASR1zw3j_pWKiVitjMitLm72e0kvWk8X4jmV1MSENp6LsQU18nMJ3xZH_0OphDbGXN7M34Nl8hMn6yYVlmAXMFJmDCbnO_hNThqbjwAOo8nsavIk_loZBqLiiqZ1y4j4K/s640/gene-therapy-10-638.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="640" /></a></div>
<br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Gene therapy promises a single shot cure to many of the diseases that have confounded humanity the most - everything from diabetes to cancer, to blindness, deafness, and even various effects of aging.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">At least two treatments using gene therapy have been approved for European markets.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">A third that has proven in clinical trials to provide permanent remission for leukemia patients who were unresponsive to chemotherapy, appears to be close to FDA approval.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">The Literal Cure for Cancer, Dangled Over the Dying </b><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">While the treatment - even under experimental conditions - costs approximately $20,000 to produce, pharmaceutical giant Novartis has swooped in and industry experts anticipate a markup leaving the price tag between $300,000-600,000.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl2k0Oo7SDN8EvmkNvmbXz9dXaWVVgHGyR1a8gNM5IZbg4AzXkt7wR-1-TGKTVA6cyX8kpqkK3l3t0R6T_cBGXI7atI_4CJGen7_IHtTfgMhICQlr8OiWS7DuQnZ_yBPCV_2G-RyGhcRXJ/s1600/s4.reutersmedia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #6fa8dc; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="434" data-original-width="728" height="380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl2k0Oo7SDN8EvmkNvmbXz9dXaWVVgHGyR1a8gNM5IZbg4AzXkt7wR-1-TGKTVA6cyX8kpqkK3l3t0R6T_cBGXI7atI_4CJGen7_IHtTfgMhICQlr8OiWS7DuQnZ_yBPCV_2G-RyGhcRXJ/s640/s4.reutersmedia.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="640" /></a></div>
<br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">The New York Times in a 2012 article titled, "</span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/10/health/a-breakthrough-against-leukemia-using-altered-t-cells.html" style="background-color: white; color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;">In Girl’s Last Hope, Altered Immune Cells Beat Leukemia</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">," reported that (emphasis added):</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">
<i><b>Dr. June said that producing engineered T-cells costs about $20,000 per patient — far less than the cost of a bone-marrow transplant.</b> Scaling up the procedure should make it even less expensive, he said, but he added, “Our costs do not include any profit margin, facility depreciation costs or other clinical care costs, and other research costs.”</i></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">More recently, in a July 2017 Washington Post article titled, "</span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/first-gene-therapy--a-true-living-drug--on-the-cusp-of-fda-approval/2017/07/11/bd7872a0-618a-11e7-a4f7-af34fc1d9d39_story.html?utm_term=.b3f8c0e34002" style="background-color: white; color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;">First gene therapy — ‘a true living drug’ — on the cusp of FDA approval</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">," its reported that:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">
<i>Novartis has not disclosed the price for its therapy, but analysts are predicting $300,000 to $600,000 for a one-time infusion. Brad Loncar, whose investment fund focuses on companies that develop immunotherapy treatments, hopes the cost does not prompt a backlash. “CAR-T is not the EpiPen,” he said. “This is truly pushing the envelope and at the cutting edge of science.”</i></blockquote>
<br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">But it isn't Novartis that's "pushing the envelop," or at "the cutting edge of science." Charity-funded university researchers are.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;"></b><br />
<a name='more'></a><b style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Stealing From Charity </b><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">The New York Times and the Washington Post both appear to give Novartis credit for this breakthrough in their article, with NYT claiming that the company invested some $20 million on a research center to bring the treatment to market. However, that appears not to be entirely true. </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGty-u1QkQWti4epV2yYUOp2_4Ag8nEzp1KQ6p7cU_2YyXvrhvUoN_yy14OfF1AMU1mlbSltXFxbR3Lhkqhlr2dAIIJh5K7EoezuJh0anqp58JCpM5Teoa4YEl4RdCUKbKgzwRxNcEBxp6/s1600/LLS08040127.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #6fa8dc; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGty-u1QkQWti4epV2yYUOp2_4Ag8nEzp1KQ6p7cU_2YyXvrhvUoN_yy14OfF1AMU1mlbSltXFxbR3Lhkqhlr2dAIIJh5K7EoezuJh0anqp58JCpM5Teoa4YEl4RdCUKbKgzwRxNcEBxp6/s640/LLS08040127.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="640" /></a></div>
<br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">It was, in fact, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) that funded the initial work toward this breakthrough, beginning in the late 1990's and committing some $21 million to the effort.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><a href="https://www.lls.org/who-we-are/our-partners-sponsors" style="background-color: white; color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;">Novartis is indeed a partner</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;"> of LLS, but according to LLS' own annual reports (</span><a href="http://www.lls.org/sites/default/files/National/USA/Pdf/LLS_SIT_AR_2016.pdf" style="background-color: white; color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;">2016, PDF</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">), it is listed under the second tier of donors - providing between $500,000-900,000 out of the total $35.6 million LLS received in direct gifts that year. In some years Novartis has donated even less. </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">LLS itself, </span><a href="https://www.lls.org/news/immunotherapy-study-funded-leukemia-lymphoma-society-demonstrates-remarkable-results" style="background-color: white; color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;">in a 2014 press release</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">, stated:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">
<i>LLS has invested in the work of June and colleagues since 1998 and has committed to investing a total of $21 million through 2017 to get this first treatment to more patients. LLS first funded Grupp in 1992 through its career development program. LLS has also been funding another member of the team, David Porter, M.D. of University of Pennsylvania since 1994.</i></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Elsewhere, LLS reports cite that this breakthrough in curing leukemia has "attracted" Novartis as a partner, never mentioning that Novartis is actually a long-term LLS partner.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">In reality, it appears pharmaceutical corporations like Novartis are using charities like LLS to fund research and development that corporations themselves should be investing in. Instead, Novartis and others are poaching public and charity-funded research and breakthroughs, profiting from what is often decades of dedicated and difficult work.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Beyond LLS' partners, it receives millions of dollars annually from other donors ranging from businesses unrelated to the pharmaceutical industry, to fundraising events held nationwide, to families and individuals who have experienced cancer either themselves or through a family member or friend.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">The research and breakthroughs LLS funds belong to all of its donors. How the work it funded has ended up in the hands of a single corporation, facing a mark up of anywhere between 15-30 times its cost during experimental trials demands scrutiny and a detailed explanation.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Why Big-Pharma is Gouging Gene Therapy </b><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Gene therapy overall threatens the fundamental business model pharmaceutical giants are built on - that is to perpetually peddle medication that covers up the symptoms of disease rather than outright curing it.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">It is a business practice that provides profits easily predicted quarter to quarter, with some medications leading to complications big-pharma also has a pill for. Something that treats a patient permanently with a single, inexpensive shot constitutes big-pharma's worst nightmare.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho_I1BtlEE9LgCsZB7u-Gc4MbjQVXTU1SRLmodWJsKvDPpaAFjWMIcW9Zn38Ah-Gi4fHNTlkS2AgEv1zYPtsxc-4Q_EUW3_J3Sb9dDxIvtfQSDWZuL55HKZIte4Ct3qNF95JCohhNkTrT7/s1600/2013-5-24_GSK.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #6fa8dc; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="719" data-original-width="1279" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho_I1BtlEE9LgCsZB7u-Gc4MbjQVXTU1SRLmodWJsKvDPpaAFjWMIcW9Zn38Ah-Gi4fHNTlkS2AgEv1zYPtsxc-4Q_EUW3_J3Sb9dDxIvtfQSDWZuL55HKZIte4Ct3qNF95JCohhNkTrT7/s640/2013-5-24_GSK.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="640" /></a></div>
<br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">MIT Technology Review in an article titled, "</span><a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608349/a-first-of-a-kind-gene-therapy-cure-has-struggled-to-find-a-market/" style="background-color: white; color: #6fa8dc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;">A First-of-a-Kind Gene Therapy Cure Has Struggled to Find a Market</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">," tells the tale of another pharmaceutical corporation - GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), of another revolutionary gene therapy it scooped up from research done by others, its $665,000 price tag, and why GSK - along with the rest of big-pharma - are disinterested in gene therapy.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">The article notes:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">
<i>[Alex] Pasteur [investor with F-Prime Capital Partners and interim CEO of Orchard Therapeutics] also says revenues for a rare-disease gene therapy might only ever add up to $100 million a year. Because GSK brings in $36 billion a year, Pasteur is not surprised the company is looking elsewhere for revenue. “These are pimples on the back of a whale,” he says. “But the assets could be very interesting for someone else.”</i></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Indeed, a single shot that costs only a few thousand dollars and permanently cures people of virtually every human health infliction not only isn't profitable, but will likely put these enormous, abusive monopolies out of business for good.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><b style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Obamacare vs Turmpcare: Nobody Cares, But Innovation Cures </b><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Education is the first step in combating the hijacking and burying of gene therapy and other innovations.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">At a time when people arguing over Obamacare versus Trumpcare are realizing that </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">no one</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;"> actually cares about their health more than they themselves, innovation like gene therapy offers to make healthcare so affordable and effective, insurance schemes and government subsidies would be unnecessary.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">But gene therapy will only gain traction if the wider public knows about it, including its implications for not only improving their own health, but improving the healthcare systems of their respective nations.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">The public must also understand the true costs behind gene therapy and where money for research has come from - often from public funding or charity. This knowledge allows the public to call out pharmaceutical corporations attempting to seize credit and profits entirely for themselves.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">While pharmaceutical corporations invest inordinate amounts of money attempting to convince the world that they are indispensable, university researchers funded by public money and charity prove they are more often than not setting breakthroughs back, not moving them forward. </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">If the good people involved in LLS are capable of raising the money to fund these breakthroughs, they are capable of creating a pharmaceutical trust that can bring these cures to market with greater transparency and oversight. </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Healthcare debates focused purely on political solutions and debates are frustrating. Getting behind gene therapy and other tangible healthcare innovations is something people can better invest their time, money, energy, and attention into instead. </span></div>
Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079343630025538378.post-60378112461368380482017-05-26T07:32:00.000-07:002017-05-26T08:02:03.535-07:00What's Really Behind Assault on Tesla Factory "Safety?" <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-size: large;">Fronts representing big-oil and big-auto are spearheading a widening PR campaign targeting electric car manufacturer and alternative energy company Tesla. </span><br />
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<b>May 26, 2017</b> (LocalOrg) - Alternative energy company Tesla which includes US-based electric car development and production, battery production, and now also includes residential solar panel and battery systems previously under SolarCity, represents a simultaneous threat to several cornerstones of Western corporate-financier monopolies.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrdBmdZllPpPsYKzoqLLSN_sbMBH2zMCkI_OHtabWuvErxLVfykyqp9pD1ekD7jfx2qeqR73qoPmeCXZ4PUk8zHDTsZWM3yOg4kR_0yQAqR8uxri8KQcvwnQRPPCtnpEvxwsDYJlM4BWE/s1600/tesla-tilburg-8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1013" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrdBmdZllPpPsYKzoqLLSN_sbMBH2zMCkI_OHtabWuvErxLVfykyqp9pD1ekD7jfx2qeqR73qoPmeCXZ4PUk8zHDTsZWM3yOg4kR_0yQAqR8uxri8KQcvwnQRPPCtnpEvxwsDYJlM4BWE/s640/tesla-tilburg-8.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Openly seeking to replace big-oil and big-auto, it was only a matter of time before Tesla's co-founder, CEO, and product architect Elon Musk attracted the negative attention of both of these deeply rooted and corrupt industries.<br />
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The genuine enthusiasm for Tesla and its products versus the paid-for media campaign to obstruct or even reverse Tesla's influence on energy and transportation has been a see-sawing battle unfolding just beneath the surface.<br />
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More recently, attempts to further complicate Tesla's US-based manufacturing facility in California have been spearheaded by the United Automobile Workers (UAW), an organization that attempts to pass itself off as a labor union.<br />
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Part of this campaign has included several "investigations" carried out by both the corporate media and various organizations like Worksafe - an opaque organization claiming to advocate workplace safety - which recently published a report regarding worker safety at Tesla's California factory. The report was widely promoted across the corporate media in what appears to be a concerted attempt to single out and undermine Tesla.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGnILrpYP9JkcC48rtq7_pRY8MGM8T7UxwNHjYeVgd3ngYBD8p4lFEOTRqmwOTeUbBTZnJEeVxVyerp7A7Ka2SPM0znTFvVlRX_HEMab2YUitrl2dF_dGAut6-T6kTnQIu-98FngyPRFk/s1600/tesla_worksafe_report-1024x503.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="504" data-original-width="1024" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGnILrpYP9JkcC48rtq7_pRY8MGM8T7UxwNHjYeVgd3ngYBD8p4lFEOTRqmwOTeUbBTZnJEeVxVyerp7A7Ka2SPM0znTFvVlRX_HEMab2YUitrl2dF_dGAut6-T6kTnQIu-98FngyPRFk/s640/tesla_worksafe_report-1024x503.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Attempts to ascertain Worksafe's affiliations and funding yielded only <a href="http://www.worksafe.org/support/index.html">an ambiguous disclosure on its website</a> stating:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Worksafe is allied with a advocacy groups, scientists and academic experts, unions and labor activists, diverse working communities, like nail salon technicians and car wash workers, environmentalists, legal aid programs - and you.</i></blockquote>
That UAW featured Worksafe's report <a href="https://uaw.org/report-worksafe-internal-tesla-data-shows-injury-rates-fremont-facility-significantly-higher-national-average/">prominently on the front of its website</a> gives us clues to just which "unions" Worksafe is "allied with." It appears to be part of a wider campaign by UAW to create a "union" at Tesla, described in a Bloomberg article titled, "<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-16/uaw-sends-organizers-to-aid-tesla-worker-push-to-unionize-plant">Tesla Workers' Union Push Gets UAW Support at California Plant</a>," which states:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>The United Auto Workers has sent organizers to help employees organize Tesla Inc.’s electric-car plant, a move that -- if successful -- would give the union the presence it’s long sought beyond legacy U.S. automakers’ factories. </i><i><br /></i><i><br /></i><i>A group of Tesla workers have contacted the union to seek assistance organizing, and the UAW is in discussion with them, Dennis Williams, the union’s president, told reporters during a roundtable Thursday in Detroit. He said union organizers have received complaints about long hours and potentially unsafe conditions at Tesla’s plant in Fremont, California.</i> </blockquote>
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<b>UAW is a Wall Street Trojan Horse Disguised as a Labor Rights Advocate </b><br />
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While UAW poses as a labor union, in reality, UAW is nothing of the sort.<br />
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It is an American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO) affiliate, with AFL-CIO representing perhaps the most successful Wall Street-devised attempt to date to infiltrate, co-opt, and commandeer legitimate labor unions and movements not only in the United States, but through funding and association with the US State Department's National Endowment for Democracy (NED), all across the entire planet.<br />
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A more in-depth example of this can be examined via Democracy Now's 2005 report, "<a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2005/7/26/unholy_alliance_the_afl_cio_and">Unholy Alliance? The AFL-CIO and the National Endowment for Democracy in Venezuela</a>," and specific mention of the UAW within NED programs can be found on NED's own webpages for <a href="http://www.ned.org/region/eurasia/russia-2006/">Russia</a> and <a href="http://www.ned.org/region/asia/asia-regional-2007/">Asia</a>. <br />
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<a name='more'></a>The National Endowment for Democracy represents <a href="http://journal-neo.org/2016/06/24/the-national-endowment-for-democracy-not-national-and-not-for-democracy/">some of the largest, deepest entrenched corporate financier interests on Earth</a>, including big-oil and big-auto. The conflict of interest - even at face value - should be prominently featured in any and all news regarding UAW's growing row with Tesla. Yet it is not.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgymDNv6fxLlFFuXI759j_paDU88nAKapa2L6foIxFJo4PGpWGIiq6zEBSOAfA36oP1jfx7riyv1OkISGPiJwV7I-CN1WyM2dLPCYhospPqiv7nEvkSklwgnaAvJrVdekid-D_L5SSE5Pw/s1600/NEDcorporateInterests_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1131" data-original-width="1600" height="452" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgymDNv6fxLlFFuXI759j_paDU88nAKapa2L6foIxFJo4PGpWGIiq6zEBSOAfA36oP1jfx7riyv1OkISGPiJwV7I-CN1WyM2dLPCYhospPqiv7nEvkSklwgnaAvJrVdekid-D_L5SSE5Pw/s640/NEDcorporateInterests_1.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><i><b>Image: </b>Big-oil and big-auto are both well represented by NED's corporate sponsors and chairpersons. That its affiliates through the AFL-CIO and UAW are applying pressure on up and coming competitor Tesla is precisely why NED and its network of faux rights and labor advocacy fronts were created for. </i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The UAW specifically is listed throughout the NED's various international programs as being in direct cooperation with NED in supplanting and dominating foreign labor movements.<br />
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Just as NED exploits and abuses human rights advocacy to advance US special interests across the globe, it uses AFL-CIO and faux-unions like UAW to exploit and abuse labor issues to hide its self-serving agenda behind. Key to the success of such schemes is complicity across the corporate media - which goes far in explaining why obvious conflicts of interests regarding UAW and entrenched big-auto corporations are never mentioned in corporate media reports.<br />
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Undermining a relatively independent, disruptive company like Tesla by leveraging alleged labor concerns is par for the course regarding AFL-CIO and UAW - and is in fact why fronts like NED, AFL-CIO, and UAW were created for in the first place.<br />
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While labor issues are a legitimate concern upon every factory floor on Earth, attempts to address them must be done in a transparent and honest manner via legitimate and independent third parties. The AFL-CIO and UAW attempting to push labor issues regarding Telsa, and even attempts by both to create a "labor union" at Tesla are neither legitimate nor independent. <br />
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The UAW - a faux-labor union created by and for the very special interests organized labor is supposed to serve as a check against - would be comparable to Elon Musk creating a labor union at a General Motors or a Ford factory. Wider public awareness of both this current attempt to target Tesla, and the wider corruption, exploitation, and abuse of labor advocacy by AFL-CIO and UAW will help remove this insidious tool from the hands of special interests and place labor advocacy back into the hands of the workers where it belongs. </div>
Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079343630025538378.post-66074943520498993992017-04-27T02:52:00.000-07:002017-04-27T02:52:38.653-07:00Putting Tesla’s EV Car Recall into Perspective<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>April 27, 2017</b> (<a href="http://wishful-thinking.org/index.php/2017/04/26/putting-teslas-ev-car-recall-into-perspective/">Wishful-Thinking</a>) - News coverage about electric car manufacturer Tesla’s recent recall of over 50,000 vehicles over potentially faulty parking brakes has followed a narrative summed up by articles like Ars Technica’s, titled, “<a href="https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/04/telsa-recalls-53000-vehicles-built-in-2016-over-faulty-parking-brake/">Its Always Some Else’s Fault — Tesla recalls 53,000 vehicles built in 2016 over faulty parking brake</a>.”<div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2gNu-QDZJEH63BHxDEeKXY-yaosyjGyvQfFmAgbjUE7PGRFYgSIlYHieSzU21Q4RFws4CHn11OiJIu_XOuFgzlyGRRfMHsGIRgNXBs00yated2kO0lE9PX7Gt-5GBjVLFp6MYv1R76sY/s1600/Front_Grill-1440.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2gNu-QDZJEH63BHxDEeKXY-yaosyjGyvQfFmAgbjUE7PGRFYgSIlYHieSzU21Q4RFws4CHn11OiJIu_XOuFgzlyGRRfMHsGIRgNXBs00yated2kO0lE9PX7Gt-5GBjVLFp6MYv1R76sY/s640/Front_Grill-1440.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<br />In it, Ars Technica claims:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Tesla is voluntarily recalling 53,000 Model S and Model X electric vehicles because of problems with the parking brake. As was the case for Tesla’s last recall, the company is blaming someone else for the issue. Specifically, the electric parking brakes installed on the EVs “may contain a small gear that could have been manufactured improperly by our third-party supplier.”</i></blockquote>
It also notes that:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Quality control issues have plagued the young carmaker. Both the Wall Street Journal and Consumer Reports lambasted the Model X, and many electric motors in early Model S sedans appeared unable to last more than 60,000 miles.</i></blockquote>
What Ars Technica and other publications have failed to do, however, is put the Tesla recall into context. According to a 2016 U.S. News article titled, “<a href="https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/biggest-car-recalls">The Biggest Car Recalls in History</a>,” such context is provided.<br /><br />Not only have other car manufacturers faced recalls many times larger (with millions of cars recalled at a time), the largest recall in automotive manufacturing history involved faulty parts used by multiple auto companies supplied by a third-party company, not unlike Tesla’s current recall.<br /><br />U.S. News would report:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>More than two dozen automakers were forced to recall close to 70 million vehicles in the biggest auto recall in U.S. history after receiving reports of a defect in airbags from Japanese supplier Takata. Honda recalled the most vehicles – more than six million – but Toyota, Fiat Chrysler, Nissan, Mazda, and others sent letters to owners while grappling with a supply shortage.</i></blockquote>
However, as Ars Technica pointed out, Tesla is a “young automaker,” while other companies have been established for decades, facing multiple gargantuan recalls in their respective histories, and still facing them regularly despite what many analysts have claimed Tesla lacks, “experience” with quality control.<br /><br /><a name='more'></a>Ars Technica does point out that Tesla owners are unphased by the recall, apparently immune to sensationalism dressed up as analysis. Tesla owners also appear capable of understanding the long-term value of both Tesla’s vehicles and the company itself.</div>
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<br />In terms of reliability, it seems recalls are simply a part of the auto industry. Tesla, which produces automobiles, is therefore bound to face its own series of recalls over the course of its doing business. What defines an auto company then, is not whether or not it experiences recalls, but how it handles them. Tesla, voluntarily recalling the vehicles, has made the right decision.<br /><br />Compare that to established automakers like Ford which produced the Pinto in the 1970s, knowing it had a potentially fatal fuel system flaw, but after cost-benefit analysis decided settling potential lawsuits (including those involving deaths) would be cheaper overall than a voluntary recall.<br /><br />It’s no mystery why deep-pocketed, well-established car manufacturers are often excused from the table when talk of recalls focus on younger car companies. Many of the former have deep ties to both political and media friends, extending to them benefit of the doubt they do not otherwise deserve.<br /><br />For Tesla, the unprecedented customer base that it is building is due in part to its commitment to a wider vision than annual profits. Producing electric vehicles and an entirely alternative paradigm to the current auto industry is something people can get behind, especially for a company committed enough to voluntarily recall its vehicles when reliability issues are uncovered.<br /><br />Should Tesla continue to adhere to that vision and a strict sense of ethics underpinning it, it will continue to weather relative setbacks common to the rest of the auto industry.</div>
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Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079343630025538378.post-13237192982564509812017-03-29T22:46:00.002-07:002017-03-29T22:46:29.382-07:00MakerBot: Trying (in vain) to Centralize Decentralization<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>March 30, 2017</b> (<a href="http://wishful-thinking.org/index.php/2017/03/28/makerbot-trying-in-vain-to-centralize-decentralization/">Wishful-Thinking</a>) - MakerBot is an American-based 3D printer company that gained prominence among the maker community with its originally opensource, consumer-friendly machines. Makerspaces, schools, institutions, and individuals around the world enthusiastically adopted MakerBot’s hardware and joined its online 3D model library, <a href="http://www.thingiverse.com/">Thingiverse</a>.<br />
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While MakerBot and the 3D printing industry it was a part of represented a paradigm shift in localizing manufacturing and liberating the masses from consumerism, the popularity MakerBot gained tempted its founders into a more traditional course of action; selling their company out to profit-driven investors who sought to turn the company into the “Apple of 3D printing.”<br />
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In reality, there can be no “Apple of 3D printing.” There can be no centralized monopoly of 3D printing because 3D printing itself is a function of decentralization.<br />
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3D printers are machines that can make virtually anything out of a wide and ever-growing variety of materials. For now, virtually anything you may buy made of plastic can be fabricated with 3D printing. In the future, everything including ceramics, glass, and even metal will be 3D printed as well with large, expensive machines already doing so, used by automotive, aerospace, and other heavy industrial companies.<br />
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With a 3D printer, you have what is essentially a miniature factory on your tabletop. With 3D design software, you are able to create your own designs. With an internet connection, you have access to one of many online 3D model libraries, many of which offer models for downloading for free. With a 3D scanner, you can capture the physical characteristics of real world objects and print them.<br />
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3D printing, thus represents the decentralization of manufacturing. 3D printers themselves are subject to their own disruptive nature, with printers being used to turn out the next generation of components for future 3D printer designs.<br />
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In such an industry, the notion of monopolizing and dominating the market is irrational, and not just theoretically, but tangibly.<br />
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Design-Engineering.com in a February 2017 article titled, “<a href="http://www.design-engineering.com/makerbot-restructuring-layoffs-1004025957/">Makerbot announces restructuring and layoffs</a>,” would report:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Makerbot’s new CEO Nadav Goshen announced a significant restructuring of the company in order to meet with growing challenges in the desktop 3D printing market.<br /><br />The Stratasys subsidiary will be cutting 30% of its workforce in an effort to reorganize the staff into small groups around specific product offerings.</i></blockquote>
The announcement is only the most recent in a series of setbacks for the company. It has suffered similar “restructurings” in years past.<br />
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<br />
<a name='more'></a>MakerBot, which began as an opensource hardware and software company, quickly switched over to a proprietary business model, much like Apple. The move was highly unpopular among mainstream 3D printing enthusiasts, and many of MakerBot’s users now are schools and individuals with little to no experience in 3D printing who are attracted to the supposedly consumer-friendly, albeit expensive, user experience MakerBot users receive.<br />
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In reality, virtually everything MakerBot does as a company and its printers do as personal manufacturing platforms can be done better by smaller niche 3D printing companies who, as an added bonus, use opensource software and hardware.<br />
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Companies like the Netherlands-based Ultimaker have inspired start-ups around the world building machines based on Ultimaker’s opensource designs. While Ultimaker will never become the “Apple of 3D printing,” it has secured its place within the 3D printing community as a valuable cornerstone.<br />
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The result of this opensource model is a distribution of wealth through localized entrepreneurship. There is no single “Apple” making billions off of 3D printing. Instead, there is a network of smaller companies filling niches and serving local communities, glued together by more prominent names and platforms globally.<br />
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MakerBot attempts in vain to dominate and monopolize what is essentially an indomitable market and it is visibly suffering because of it.<br />
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One can only hope that one of the “smaller groups” MakerBot has broken itself down into, considers its roots as an opensource hardware and software company which brought it to prominence in the first place; roots that when forsaken, began MakerBot’s slow and painful slide into the abyss.</div>
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Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079343630025538378.post-63410327563283929262017-03-28T23:32:00.001-07:002017-03-28T23:32:49.477-07:00Automation Threatens Jobs But Offers Financial Freedom<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>March 29, 2017</b> (<a href="http://wishful-thinking.org/index.php/2017/03/18/automation-threatens-jobs-but-offers-financial-freedom/">Wishful-Thinking</a>) - Despite sensational headlines and opportunistic politicking regarding the threat automation poses to socioeconomic stability, with a fully informed, properly educated population, more opportunities than threats lie ahead of us in the near future.<br />
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Automation has since the Industrial Revolution replaced human jobs with machines. As technology advances and automation evolves, the socioeconomic landscape of human civilization has evolved with it.<br />
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For instance, the initial Industrial Revolution disrupted centuries of multidisciplinary crafts and trades where cottage industry consisting of individuals or small groups of people carried out the entire process of production. As technology merges information with the physical world, processes like 3D design, personal manufacturing, business administration, marketing, and even logistics are beginning to merge again. <br />
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So are fears that automation will displace human labor and disrupt socioeconomic stability warranted? Yes and no.<br />
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In China, according to MIT Technology Review’s article, “<a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601215/china-is-building-a-robot-army-of-model-workers/">China Is Building a Robot Army of Model Workers</a>,” millions of workers face potential unemployment as factories replace thousands of jobs at a time as automation advances and robotics improve.<br />
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The article notes that:<br />
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<i>Millions of low-skilled migrant workers found employment in gigantic factories, producing an unimaginable range of products, from socks to servers.</i></blockquote>
And in here lies the problem, a poorly educated, low-skilled workforce. For low-skilled workers, robots are indisputably a threat. Once they lose their job, finding employment elsewhere becomes a necessity. As these workers continue to move away from companies replacing human labor with automation, competition for remaining jobs suitable for low-skilled workers increases.<br />
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To solve this problem, social, economic, and political elites have attempted to float the idea of a “universal basic income.” The Guardian in its article, “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jan/01/universal-basic-income-trials-being-considered-in-scotland">Universal basic income trials being considered in Scotland</a>,” would report:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>The concept of a universal basic income revolves around the idea of offering every individual, regardless of existing welfare benefits or earned income, a non-conditional flat-rate payment, with any income earned above that taxed progressively. The intention is to provide a basic economic platform on which people can build their lives, whether they choose to earn, learn, care or set up a business.</i></blockquote>
However utopian or empathetic such a concept may seem, it essential seeks to place millions, if not billions of people under the control of highly centralized special interests, many of which will simultaneously monopolize all means of production. Such a scenario invites immense abuse with a population so hopelessly dependent on these centralized special interests, should abuse take place, little or nothing could keep it in check.<br />
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<b>A Look at an Alternative Future</b><br />
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However, real solutions to expanding automation and the jobs it threatens do exist, offering an alternative future.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>In addition to expanding automation and advancing robotics, another trend should be noted. As advanced manufacturing improves, the cost of automation decreases while utilizing it becomes more accessible. For a properly informed and educated population, automation then offers an opportunity to take highly centralized industries providing a handful of investors immense profits, and decentralize both the industries themselves and the profits made within them.<br />
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Instead of the auto industry replacing all jobs with automation and providing unemployed, poorly educated workers with a universal basic income they will be hopelessly dependent for their lives and their children’s lives, properly educated workforces facing unemployment can simply utilize automation themselves to compete with and take a market share from auto monopolies.<br />
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Such a scenario was described in a special report published by USA Today titled, “<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/02/06/special-report-automation-puts-jobs-peril/96464788/">Automation puts jobs in peril</a>.”<br />
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It tells the tale of small companies and even individuals leveraging advanced automation technology to create their own businesses, sidestepping both inevitable unemployment working at larger firms and the servile dependence they would face sustaining themselves on a subsidized universal basic income. However, in order to do this, individuals must acquire the skills necessary to successfully adopt and apply automation.<br />
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The report states:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Maxi Cifarelli, 25, of Baltimore, peers through safety goggles at a flat screen, her left knee bent and heel resting on her chair.</i><i><br /></i><i><br /></i><i>Two years after earning a fine arts degree from Towson University with a specialty in interdisciplinary object design, she now spends her work days working with a personality-free machine with a name to match: a computer numerical control, or CNC, router.</i><i><br /></i><i><br /></i><i>With automation poised to sweep through the economy, some fear that it will kill more jobs than it creates.</i><i><br /></i><i><br /></i><i>But Cifarelli’s experience is the opposite. She befriended automation, instead of fighting it, and she has a job because of it.</i></blockquote>
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The report highlights industries under threat by robotics and artificial intelligence. Restaurant workers, journalists, bookkeepers, shelf-stockers all face unemployment. However, the means of automating these jobs could just as easily be adopted by individuals or small, local companies to make their own automated restaurants, news platforms, accounting firms, or logistical services.<br />
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Instead of a population of laborers toiling under centralized special interests, there lies the possibility of a population of entrepreneurs maintaining a highly decentralized mesh of small businesses leveraging automation, information technology, and other innovations.<br />
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But the same special interests floating the concept of a universal basic income are attempting to head this possibility off at the pass as well.<br />
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Quartz in an article titled, “<a href="https://qz.com/911968/bill-gates-the-robot-that-takes-your-job-should-pay-taxes/">The robot that takes your job should pay taxes, says Bill Gates</a>,” would report that:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Robots are taking human jobs. But Bill Gates believes that governments should tax companies’ use of them, as a way to at least temporarily slow the spread of automation and to fund other types of employment.</i></blockquote>
The article would also note that the money earned from the taxes would go to retraining unemployed laborers for other jobs, and “jobs” that likely exclude the utilization of automation for entrepreneurial enterprises. And like all other taxes, immense corporations heavily dependent on automation will inevitably find ways of influencing legislation and regulations to escape paying their fair share, meaning that those small and medium enterprises will be hit hardest. The consequence of this is an even faster acceleration toward highly centralized industry and a population dangerously dependent on subsidized incomes.<br />
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<b>Shifting Our Thinking</b><br />
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Avoiding this dystopian future requires a paradigm shift in current thinking. The employee-employer paradigm is dissolving before our eyes, and what ends up taking its place is entirely up to us.<br />
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Makerspaces, hackerspaces, design studios and small companies leveraging automation that provide internships all offer a starting point for establishing a wider effort to prepare the population to be liberated by decentralized automation rather than shackled by centralized automation and universal basic incomes.<br />
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Seeing through utopian talking points, and grasping the true implications of concepts like universal basic income and taxing robots is important in developing policy and paradigms that serve the majority’s best interests rather than the small handful of special interests attempting to move their own agenda forward.<br />
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Ultimately, self-interest will drive unfolding events. If special interests are able to efficiently implement the centralization of automation, prevent competition through robotic taxes targeting small and medium businesses, and create a population dependent on these interests through subsidized income schemes, it is likely a dystopia will emerge. <br />
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Should these schemes be exposed, their implementation delayed, hampered, or otherwise disrupted, self-interest across populations seeking socioeconomic security may begin shifting away from employee-employer paradigms and toward a future of decentralized, balanced entrepreneurship. </div>
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Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079343630025538378.post-31200457317580254872017-03-28T01:28:00.001-07:002017-03-28T01:29:41.627-07:00Using Organic Agriculture to Change Your Community (and the World) <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>March 28, 2017</b> (The Vin Armani Show) - Curtis Stone is a farmer, author, speaker and consultant. His area of expertise is in quick growing, high value annual vegetables for direct consumer market streams. His book, The Urban Farmer demonstrates organic intensive techniques with a focus on business and systems to streamline labour and production. He offers a new way to think about farming. One where quality of life and profitability coexist.<br />
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Read more about Curtis Stone at <a href="http://theurbanfarmer.co/">http://theurbanfarmer.co/</a>.</div>
Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079343630025538378.post-9374589687861882902017-01-29T02:31:00.001-08:002017-01-29T02:31:16.517-08:00What's Really Behind the Rise of the Cashless Economy? <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>January 29, 2017</b> (Tony Cartalucci - LocalOrg) - Geopolitical analyst, journalist, and activist James Corbett of the <a href="https://www.corbettreport.com/">Corbett Report</a> steps viewers through the real story behind India's recent, massive demonetization efforts - the story untold by prominent news agencies - and untold for a very good reason.<br />
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Corbett reveals the US develop agency <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/india/press-releases/oct-14-2016-usaid-launches-catalyst-drive-cashless-payments-india">USAID's role in preparing India for its demonetization campaign</a>, as well as the special interests both within and beyond India's borders driving the efforts. <br />
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India's financial and economic shake up is a warning shot for the world - that the battle of financial technology to either liberate us all through decentralized peer-to-peer blockchain currencies, or render us under a centralized, global financial control grid ruled by a small circle of corporate-financier special interests is coming to a head.<br /><br />For those to whom cryptocurrencies like BitCoin is a hobby, what has just transpired in India may provide the impetus to expand efforts to perfect and proliferate blockchain technology before cashless payment systems take over and displace all forms of currency, old and new.<br />
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For those who have yet to dig into cryptocurrencies or the details behind the emerging cashless global economy, Corbett's latest video is the perfect springboard into both.<br />
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<i style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms", trebuchet, verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><b style="font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><a href="http://localorg.blogspot.com/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration: none;">LocalOrg</a></span></b><span style="font-size: 15.4px;"> seeks to explore local solutions to global problems by empowering people locally with education and technology to not only survive, but to thrive.</span></i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;"> </span></div>
Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079343630025538378.post-65758818150942567292017-01-17T00:52:00.001-08:002017-01-17T00:52:16.668-08:00Agorist Challenge: Fixing Flint Michigan's Poisoned Water<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>January 17, 2017 </b>(Tony Cartlaucci - LocalOrg) - Did you know nearly 100,000 people in Flint Michigan <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/flint-water-crisis-continues_us_587c7f05e4b0b3c7a7b2026a">are still drinking poisoned water</a>?<br />
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That should be no surprise. The government and institutions charged and trusted to ensure the residents of this Michigan city had safe drinking water already demonstrated criminal levels of negligence and corruption, causing the problem to begin with. Expecting these same people and the system they represent to solve the problem lingers somewhere between the unreasonable and the absurd.<br />
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US President Barack Obama declared a federal emergency in Flint over a year ago - meaning that the problem isn't just corrupt, negligent, and criminal politicians in Flint - but that the incompetence and impotence goes all the way to Washington.<br />
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A year on and the "solutions" presented have ranged from simply forcing residents to buy bottled water and unsustainable charity providing those bottles, to superficial, even deceptive measures like replacing home faucets instead of the miles of poisoned plumbing running through the city.<br />
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As for actually fixing Flint's plumbing, government estimates range from "millions" to "billions" indicating no serious thought has been given to even so much as planning an infrastructure overhaul.<br />
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It is most certainly a showcase for the absolute failure of government. But could it be a showcase for something more positive?<br />
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<b>A Showcase For Alternatives </b><br />
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Anarchists and agorists propose that there is virtually no problem that cannot be solved through the market - voluntary exchanges between free citizens contributing to a better future. The few, semi-permanent solutions that have presented themselves in Flint have certainly leaned more toward this direction.<br />
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<br />
<a name='more'></a>Atmospheric water generator (AWG) company, EcoloBlue, <a href="http://www.abc12.com/home/headlines/First-wave-of-Ecoloblue-water-generators-setup-in-Flint-homes-392079821.html">donated 250 of their machines to the residents of Flint</a>. However, at 1,200 dollars a piece, and requiring proprietary filtration systems, it is hardly the right fit for this particular market. <a href="https://www.benzinga.com/news/16/06/8119620/ecoloblue-proposes-big-solution-for-flint-atmospheric-water-generators">Beyond charity or a large government subsidy</a>, these machines will not reach many more people.<br />
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However, AWGs produce water in precisely the same way a conventional dehumidifier does. It cools down a condenser so that moisture in the air condenses on it, then falls into a collection basin below. AWGs however include an additional filtration stage and a dispensing system. They also feature food-grade materials across all of their surfaces which conventional dehumidifiers may not.<br />
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The EcoloBlue units also include features that may not be as necessary and have helped contribute to their relatively steep price. These include hot and cold water dispensing capabilities and a computerized touch-screen monitoring and control system.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRGlkzGvpubOs0GkyHZWTvNjZroAtQkUJeidw7XTemexzR2nnrrcflF9xY6oMHI0JHPxIsXgiIw1M3sI24eY6v6W9DKd3aGikjXT-Q80tvzNLO95sq3VeKOzNaFA8wHvrVLa4AcRZsCh0/s1600/Atmospheric_Water_Generator_diagram.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRGlkzGvpubOs0GkyHZWTvNjZroAtQkUJeidw7XTemexzR2nnrrcflF9xY6oMHI0JHPxIsXgiIw1M3sI24eY6v6W9DKd3aGikjXT-Q80tvzNLO95sq3VeKOzNaFA8wHvrVLa4AcRZsCh0/s400/Atmospheric_Water_Generator_diagram.svg.png" width="400" /></a></div>
Creating a barebones design that both fits the market in Flint and provides reliable, decentralized, and most importantly clean water production for people, should not be a difficult challenge to meet for local entrepreneurs, innovators, and makers - or even EcoloBlue itself.<br />
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An opensource design, based on a simple dehumidifier with stainless steel condensers and a widely available, generic water filtration system could easily be developed and fabricated in virtually any machine shop or makerspace in the state. While the costs will need to be low, the market for efficient, simple, and opensource water generators may make up in volume what is lost in big-ticket sales. Small businesses that form around this project could branch out, building a line of products to target different markets and price ranges over time.<br />
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Larger units operated by business owners and community centers like churches and clubs, could bottle and dispense/deliver clean water to residents as a stop gap. There is a potential to create water-independence in Flint like some communities have created for food and energy elsewhere.<br />
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It is the prefect project for technologically informed anarchists and agorists to prove their principles in practice, facing and overcoming a challenge government has demonstrably failed to meet. It is also a perfect opportunity to gain a foothold in the area of water independence, a crucial but often overlooked aspect of moving from centralization to localization.<br />
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<b>Fighting a Forgotten Battle </b><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXBYhP7B-EDhAzOp3vZJuk3Pi8-Swv9NA8NQjTSCsQPVv9VLRnfxbPz8dfuW3pGTz0Ya3U3PV0MNZUxifdm1Eyjm4kW9Dk161zHgrx64NPXSsX878DQfmLHcPDn9s8w4grw2ZUgCsoE3U/s1600/dewpointe1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXBYhP7B-EDhAzOp3vZJuk3Pi8-Swv9NA8NQjTSCsQPVv9VLRnfxbPz8dfuW3pGTz0Ya3U3PV0MNZUxifdm1Eyjm4kW9Dk161zHgrx64NPXSsX878DQfmLHcPDn9s8w4grw2ZUgCsoE3U/s400/dewpointe1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Michigan-based Libertarian politician <a href="https://beinglibertarian.com/meet-tiffany-hayden-lp-congressional-candidate-detroit/">Tiffany Hayden</a> has spent a large amount of time attempting to draw attention to the Flint water crisis - with many people believing - thanks to the corporate media - that the crisis is long over.<br />
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She has also attempted to approach local charity organizations, lobby the government, and stir up public support for action - any action - to address the crisis.<br />
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She laments that even residents who are literally drinking poisoned water, have been lulled into apathy by handouts, superficial remedies, and an overall lack of awareness and leadership. Because lead poisoning is gradual, residents do not make an instinctive link between the poisoned water they are drinking and the problems it is causing in terms of health - both mental and physical.<br />
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While proponents of anarchy and agorism tell Hayden that asking the government to solve a problem of the government's own creation is futile - making a valid point - and "free market" solutions are the alternative - no tangible solutions have actually been proposed, let alone implemented.<br />
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Solving the Flint water crisis, however, would go far in validating anarchy and agorism as no longer ideologies, but an actual tool set used to solve real world problems when politics and politicians inevitably fail.<br />
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The problem facing free-market proponents attempting to prove their principles work better in practice than the existing system, is how to approach and "sell" clean, opensource, decentralized water independence to the people of Flint and beyond.<br />
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And if charity or crowdfunding is employed during the Flint water crisis, it should be focused on permanent solutions that provide permanent water independence - not bottles of water that are literally here today and gone tomorrow and benefiting only corporations like Nestle, Pepsi, and Coke instead of local businesses.<br />
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<b>Inspiration</b><br />
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Elon Musk has dedicated himself to two apparent goals - making humanity a multiplanetary species, and creating solar-electric infrastructure. His electric car company, Tesla Motors, approached enthusiastic people first, then with successive models, he made his cars both more appealing to regular people and more accessible.<br />
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Throughout the growth of all of his businesses, he carefully balanced market realities against his own ideals. In other words, ideals that ignore market realities will remain intangible ideals. And pursuing market realities without ideals becomes aimless and unsustainable. He has stated that he believes nearly all problems can be solved in the markets.<br />
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Luckily for those attempting to move into water independence, the technological hurdles are not quite as steep as launching rockets into space or designing and manufacturing thousands of electric cars. And because Flint is already undergoing a long-term water crisis, those making machines to address the crisis can likely find labs at local universities to help test the water their machines produce to ensure it is not only safer than Flint's poisoned water, but safer than anything available, even in a bottle.<br />
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<b>Resources</b><br />
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Below is a list of makerspaces in Michigan that likely have the tools and talent, and perhaps even the business acumen to approach and overcome this crisis. Solving it will not only provide them with viable small businesses, but will also highlight for a wider audience the growing role in their community their makerspaces play as important local institutions.<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>GR Makers: (Grand Rapids)<a href="https://www.grmakers.com/"> https://www.grmakers.com/</a></li>
<li>Geek Group: (Grand Rapids) <a href="http://thegeekgroup.org/">http://thegeekgroup.org/</a></li>
<li>Steamworks: (Flint) <a href="http://www.flintsteamworks.org/">http://www.flintsteamworks.org/</a></li>
<li>Jackson Makerspace: (Jackson) <a href="http://jacksonmakerspace.org/wp/">http://jacksonmakerspace.org/wp/</a></li>
<li>i3Detroit: (Detroit) <a href="https://www.i3detroit.org/">https://www.i3detroit.org/</a></li>
<li>Omni Corps Detroit: (Detroit) <a href="https://omnicorpdetroit.com/blog/">https://omnicorpdetroit.com/blog/</a></li>
<li>Maker Works: (Ann Arbor) <a href="http://maker-works.com/">http://maker-works.com/</a></li>
<li>All Hands Active: (Ann Arbor) <a href="http://www.allhandsactive.org/">http://www.allhandsactive.org/</a></li>
<li>Tech Shop: (Detroit) <a href="http://www.techshop.ws/ts_detroit.html">http://www.techshop.ws/ts_detroit.html</a></li>
<li>Lancing Makers Network: (Lancing) <a href="https://www.lansingmakersnetwork.org/">https://www.lansingmakersnetwork.org/</a></li>
</ul>
<div>
An introduction to atmospheric water generators via Wikipedia: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_water_generator">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_water_generator</a><br />
<br />
<i style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms", trebuchet, verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><b style="font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><a href="http://localorg.blogspot.com/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration: none;">LocalOrg</a></span></b><span style="font-size: 15.4px;"> seeks to explore local solutions to global problems by empowering people locally with education and technology to not only survive, but to thrive.</span></i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;"> </span></div>
</div>
Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079343630025538378.post-81317866760301496802017-01-15T22:01:00.000-08:002017-01-15T22:01:43.749-08:00Fake News: The Latest Weapon in Information Space <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>January 16, 2017</b> (<a href="http://journal-neo.org/2017/01/16/fake-news-the-latest-weapon-in-information-space/">Tony Cartalucci - NEO</a>) - The ability for technology and innovations to transform global economics and geopolitics is often underestimated, even sidelined in retrospect.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdJGWJXnxfKtMWnlb660lBQS91J3rP-YTQz__NnBreciIyEgTCNqib85olNYGIIViWZwQDFFCkvHpwMf0BBsOTYkYtN9voBS0LfNUhafyS6Kw7H0wbiAICAH_Ga-me9tl3NJ914yS9pKc/s1600/facebook.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="448" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdJGWJXnxfKtMWnlb660lBQS91J3rP-YTQz__NnBreciIyEgTCNqib85olNYGIIViWZwQDFFCkvHpwMf0BBsOTYkYtN9voBS0LfNUhafyS6Kw7H0wbiAICAH_Ga-me9tl3NJ914yS9pKc/s640/facebook.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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However, from the technological achievements that gave the British Empire mastery over the seas, to the industrial revolution that eventually disrupted and unraveled the empire's carefully constructed global system of mercantilism, the march of technological progress literally governors the rise and fall of global centers of power and the empires built around them.<br />
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<b>Disruptive Information Technology</b><br />
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With the advent of information technology (IT), what once required immense capital and a substantial workforce to disseminate information across large segments of the population can now be done by a single individual for virtually no cost at all.<br />
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It is no longer necessarily the amount of resources one has at their disposal, but rather the power of their ideas and words that determine the efficacy of their message and the impact it has on society.<br />
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IT has leveled the playing field. The United States and Europe for decades, monopolized the flow of information across various forms of media. During World War II, the Allies easily outsmarted Axis powers and their less sophisticated, clumsy propaganda efforts. Between World War II and the Cold War, the US and British ruling circles not only held uncontested influence over their own populations, but through Voice of America and the BBC, they were able to project that influence abroad.<br />
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The cost of opening a radio station, a television studio, or a printing press to produce newspapers was prohibitive for the vast majority of people who may have disagreed with the "consensus" created by those who had the resources to produce mass media.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3Ark9ZpQm_BWoovqnwuG6R1RioE6VeW_TLX4bX9x2mzimw5KYU5eA2nyvZ8lAKx0MD95xWTcqNgwSCFyU9nrRNfB6oXs1zJWft7iLs_w4JT5NL8by84Tbne0gFrsM1pmGstiO9mZ0cY4/s1600/uncle-sam-400x2971.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3Ark9ZpQm_BWoovqnwuG6R1RioE6VeW_TLX4bX9x2mzimw5KYU5eA2nyvZ8lAKx0MD95xWTcqNgwSCFyU9nrRNfB6oXs1zJWft7iLs_w4JT5NL8by84Tbne0gFrsM1pmGstiO9mZ0cY4/s400/uncle-sam-400x2971.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
However today, not only does IT allow states once targeted by Western propaganda to better protect political and economic stability within their borders, they are able to get their side of the story out to Western audiences.<br />
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Beyond that, independent activists, journalists, and analysts can now write and speak before audiences of millions, contesting "mainstream" narratives promoted by circles of political and economic power worldwide.<br />
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The effects of this are evident everywhere we look.<br />
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The "alternative media," has already significantly disrupted manufactured "consensus" across a wide variety of interests from big-agriculture and big-pharmaceuticals, to agendas surrounding geopolitical conflicts everywhere from Ukraine to Syria.<br />
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<b></b><br />
<a name='more'></a><b>Re-centralizing and Reasserting Control </b><br />
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Independent news, analysis, and activist networks have flourished on the Internet, primarily through blogs, websites, and video channels. However, special interests have invested much in reasserting control over narratives and information in general by re-centralizing media platforms.<br />
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This is being done in particular with social media, and especially Facebook. Facebook boasts nearly 1.8 billion users. Virtually every person one passes on the streets using their mobile device, is using Facebook to connect with their friends and to access news and information. Facebook's popularity has all but centralized the majority of online users' activities, thus reasserting control over information has begun here.<br />
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Facebook has used many different pretexts to roll out this system of control. In 2014, it claimed that it was changing the way it displays posts in user news feeds <a href="http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2014/09/facebooks-soft-censorship.html">because</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Rather than showing people all possible content, News Feed is designed to show each person on Facebook the content that’s most relevant to them. Of the 1,500+ stories a person might see whenever they log onto Facebook, News Feed displays approximately 300. To choose which stories to show, News Feed ranks each possible story (from more to less important) by looking at thousands of factors relative to each person.</i></blockquote>
However, it is not the user that determines what is most relevant to them, but rather an algorithm created by Facebook. In reality, the change meant that those disseminating information through Facebook and reaching large numbers of people now suddenly found their reach significantly shortened. To reach people that have already consciously decided to follow certain users, it is now necessary to pay Facebook money to "promote" posts.<br />
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In essence, the very obstacles of capital in relation to public reach dismantled by the advent of IT, have been reintroduced through Facebook's monopoly over social media.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3NrBsFYGCF-rrcrEy05PeiWA01PsFHjAto7_GtB-igTMtJ-zvmOh5MwiLmkYQke5-G011eUl5bKQoFkqBNLzFdB5RGig9GKOhuXut-MGoIpvkrSlKkYQiSdSIDDuDaCpsiUDPVMOW90Y/s1600/Fake-News-Key-Board-Computer-900-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3NrBsFYGCF-rrcrEy05PeiWA01PsFHjAto7_GtB-igTMtJ-zvmOh5MwiLmkYQke5-G011eUl5bKQoFkqBNLzFdB5RGig9GKOhuXut-MGoIpvkrSlKkYQiSdSIDDuDaCpsiUDPVMOW90Y/s640/Fake-News-Key-Board-Computer-900-1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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In 2016, Facebook would tighten the screws further - this time under the pretext of combating "fake news." "Fake news" is a term created by the very monopolies slowly diminishing in the face of expanding and ever sophisticated alternative media.<br />
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While hysteria is being created by linking "fake news" with "Russian propaganda" and "white nationalists," in reality the measures being put in place to "fact check" and subsequently censor information deemed "fake news" will target everything that contradicts narratives promoted by US and European special interests - everything from promoting wars, to promoting and expanding big-business.<br />
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<b>Time For Another Disruption </b><br />
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In any struggle, adaptation is required. With Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms joining the so-called war on "fake news," those who seek to maintain the rise of the alternative media and a balance of power across information space must identify the special interests driving this agenda, as well as various means to undermine and overcome it.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP9MHZ4kSVebKkkgKLh0AGOB3lgvcrZUVU1ybcnSD7yu988e-axGiKGbhZF02qmzIpxh1aSnQsFVP9WbUrz5fB9ayWmshQbhFirxZi1Un9v_BY1RDiAClr97BO-IeTI4WwkfB2U7YwcQk/s1600/VK.com-logo.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP9MHZ4kSVebKkkgKLh0AGOB3lgvcrZUVU1ybcnSD7yu988e-axGiKGbhZF02qmzIpxh1aSnQsFVP9WbUrz5fB9ayWmshQbhFirxZi1Un9v_BY1RDiAClr97BO-IeTI4WwkfB2U7YwcQk/s200/VK.com-logo.svg.png" width="200" /></a></div>
Russia, for example, has VKontakte (VK), which competes with Facebook and is widely popular across Russia. It diminishes Facebook's monopoly over social media and gives Russia the ability to control social media within its borders. VK is also a profitable company.<br />
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China, likewise, has its own domestic tech-giants that allow it to control media within its borders and among its population.<br />
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This creates a balance of power between nations within information space. To create a balance of power within nations, there are other alternatives.<br />
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Just like cryptocurrencies are disrupting traditional financial institutions and the control they exercise over global monetary systems, peer-to-peer (P2P) social media platforms may help solve the problem of monopolies like Facebook exercising control over the information we receive - or don't receive.<br />
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<a href="https://freenetproject.org/">Alternatives like FreeNet</a> are not centrally controlled. Users download a free program onto their computer and it connects them directly with others using FreeNet around the world. There is no centralized administrator. Rather than a hub to which all users connect like Facebook - P2P networks resemble a mesh in which everyone serves as a node.<br />
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Users are anonymous if they wish to be, and content cannot be controlled or censored, nor can access to information be throttled back as Facebook's news feed algorithms do.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPBK-MKYor6ls3zONgUtLUGtIqX9_5CyLS6C9lErKtvfTNqeiEJObezjpT7Ko1uY8P8iC05AQyQASI47n_w-N6Gn_CbVvnkQ4J2mnw5W1seR4NHjNpOaHlOVo172HWShhD7kPr4LKHgbM/s1600/p2p-network-vs-server.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPBK-MKYor6ls3zONgUtLUGtIqX9_5CyLS6C9lErKtvfTNqeiEJObezjpT7Ko1uY8P8iC05AQyQASI47n_w-N6Gn_CbVvnkQ4J2mnw5W1seR4NHjNpOaHlOVo172HWShhD7kPr4LKHgbM/s640/p2p-network-vs-server.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Enterprising states or individuals dedicated to establishing a balance of power across information space could make and promote their own P2P social media platforms. While they are not capable of being controlled like Facebook, VK, or China's centralized alternatives, they still help undermine foreign control - and in the long-term, help states adjust to technological decentralization that will inevitably unfold regardless.<br />
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While money will not be made in the same way as Facebook's founders are profiting from their control over social media, another form of profit results for the individuals or states that create such a platform.<br />
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Geopolitically, a successful, widely used, and disruptive P2P social networking platform that undermines or entirely breaks Facebook's control over social media evens the playing field and allows individuals and states to once again get their side of the story out to the public on equal footing to the "fact checkers" seeking to combat "fake news" on Facebook, Twitter, and other centralized platforms dominated by Western tech-giants.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn0XcTkQ2L6Tf-rU-9NWFtvYKy2rzPWgXlbrU6HDCZIfEapyCM3cBnoIigpdIXgFFZ_G_3NnLw8l5Nh9BhAleshJhaP1yJnULzMO0hw1o4T5t46ZebfqM5Vwz0_omi6Rdr-Fq_AQJPHsI/s1600/2011_Egyptian_protests_Facebook_%2526_jan25_card.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="454" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn0XcTkQ2L6Tf-rU-9NWFtvYKy2rzPWgXlbrU6HDCZIfEapyCM3cBnoIigpdIXgFFZ_G_3NnLw8l5Nh9BhAleshJhaP1yJnULzMO0hw1o4T5t46ZebfqM5Vwz0_omi6Rdr-Fq_AQJPHsI/s640/2011_Egyptian_protests_Facebook_%2526_jan25_card.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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P2P will not make billions in profits for its creators, but it could help avert a war, disrupt a foreign monopoly from undermining and destroying a nation's economy, or allow a socioeconomic alternative to take root and flourish that otherwise would be hindered by the West's attempts to reassert control over information space and eliminate competition both politically and economically.<br />
<br />
When we think of things like social media, we may not immediately link it to the profound impact it has on geopolitics, economics, and the rise and fall of nation states and even regions of the world. But if Facebook's role in the 2011 US-engineered "Arab Spring" serves as any kind of example or warning, it is that uncontested domination over information space can literally destroy not just an entire nation, but an entire region of the planet.<br />
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Creating alternatives to Facebook, then, is as essential to a state or individual's security as any traditional weapon system. To face the modern age without such alternatives is to take the battlefield unarmed, unprotected, and entirely unprepared.<br />
<br />
<i style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.56px;">Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine <a href="http://journal-neo.org/" style="color: #6fa8dc; text-decoration: none;">“</a><a href="http://journal-neo.org/" style="color: #6fa8dc; text-decoration: none;">New Eastern Outlook”</a>.</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.56px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.56px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px; line-height: 21.56px;"> </span> </div>
Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079343630025538378.post-6301356741761817112017-01-13T21:16:00.001-08:002017-01-13T21:16:04.684-08:00The Truth About Elon Musk’s "Corporate Welfare"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>January 14, 2017</b> (Vin Armani - Activist Post)<br />
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<em style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Vin Armani is the host of <a href="http://vinarmani.com/show" style="border: 0px; color: #005a8c; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 600; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.5s; vertical-align: baseline;">The Vin Armani Show</a> on <a href="http://www.activistpost.com/" style="border: 0px; color: #005a8c; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 600; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.5s; vertical-align: baseline;">Activist Post</a>, TV Star of Gigolos on Showtime and Agorist Entrepreneur. Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/vinarmani" style="border: 0px; color: #005a8c; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 600; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.5s; vertical-align: baseline;">Vin on Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/VinArmani" style="border: 0px; color: #005a8c; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 600; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.5s; vertical-align: baseline;">subscribe on YouTube</a>. Get the weekly podcast on <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-vin-armani-show/id1176246726?mt=2" style="border: 0px; color: #005a8c; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 600; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.5s; vertical-align: baseline;">iTunes</a> or<a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/activist-post/vin-armani-show?refid=stpr" style="border: 0px; color: #005a8c; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 600; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.5s; vertical-align: baseline;">Stitcher</a>.</span></em></div>
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Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079343630025538378.post-14822242682730886582017-01-11T09:13:00.000-08:002017-01-11T09:13:21.382-08:00The Cure for Everything and Why Things Are Different This Time <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>January 11, 2017</b> (Tony Cartalucci - LocalOrg) - The years between 2010 and 2020 may likely be remembered as the decade of gene therapy, and perhaps, the end of cancer, heart disease, blindness, deafness, and even aging - if this revolutionary technology is properly implemented and integrated into our healthcare infrastructure. But it will not happen without effort, or even without a fight - for gene therapy threatens to undermine and overturn some of the largest and most influential corporate monopolies on Earth.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO787zY2pPrmhT9QLbg894jMHLsoSo1Drohf_P7TuLU_5xamD4JHrc7LiXU2sspwGUDInUHFf8kRwy4l96-bNOW93_Fzy4fFZpTmUo0EhqwZb4TLPGAEVbEmYZETatlPMJJn1tVwNSXEk/s1600/dna_diagram_450x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO787zY2pPrmhT9QLbg894jMHLsoSo1Drohf_P7TuLU_5xamD4JHrc7LiXU2sspwGUDInUHFf8kRwy4l96-bNOW93_Fzy4fFZpTmUo0EhqwZb4TLPGAEVbEmYZETatlPMJJn1tVwNSXEk/s640/dna_diagram_450x300.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b>Gene Therapy is Already a Working "Miracle Cure" </b><br />
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In 2012, at the age of six years old, Emily Whitehead was enrolled in a phase I clinical trial at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia to treat her acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). She had failed to respond to all other treatments.<br />
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The clinical trial involved removing and genetically regineering her immune system's T-cells. Using viruses as a vector to insert new DNA into her T-cells, they were now able to recognize and destroy the cancer that was killing her. The cells were reintroduced to Emily's body intravenously, where they both fought the cancer, and replicated themselves just as all human cells do - with the difference being that the corrected DNA was replicated along with them.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Over time, the probability of ending up in the hospital nears 100%. When you finally get there, do you want to be greeted with a single injection cure and a new lease on life? Or an over-priced regiment of poison that will strip you of every dollar you have, your human dignity, and eventually your life?</i></span></blockquote>
Years later, Emily Whitehead is still cancer free. She went from literally lying on what would have been her death bed, to going into durable remission for years. The production of Emily's specialized T-cells cost 15,000 USD - or a fraction of what pharmaceutical corporations charge per year for medications that don't even cure cancer.<br />
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The 15,000 USD price tag was for what at the time was a highly experimental, customized clinical trial. With effort, the price can be reduced further. The research and trial was funded not by pharmaceutical corporations or even the US government, but by charity - the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. <br />
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Emily Whitehead isn't the only patient to survive otherwise incurable cancer thanks to gene therapy. By 2014, over 60 other patients were successfully given the same treatment. And while other cancers involve tumors of a different nature, scientists, including those involved in Emily Whitehead's survival, believe that similar techniques could be used to eradicate them just as effectively.<br />
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Research into everything from lung cancer to brain cancer is ongoing.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><b>There's a Catch... </b><br />
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Aside from permanently curing cancer, gene therapy is being investigated as a means of permanently curing diabetes, hemophilia, and other diseases in which cells are missing vital instructions required for normal biological function. The regeneration of aging heart tissue is also being investigated, as is the process of stopping - or even reversing - biological aging altogether.<br />
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While the gene therapy that saved Emily Whitehead's life is not an approved treatment yet, there are others that have been approved for use in China, the EU, and soon-to-be approved by the US FDA.<br />
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However, there is a catch.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4XMQfxShsKm5kSFc58paaOSUdSoLL0rKfUo0XCvCHLMgGXGq-AJWte316CQ_ZbPv-pJ96Twz2CFd8cy3xSfChbL4KMQqVdvhyu2y4fhtB2dVpHH1sUmjb04m6SvPULesF-9U9rkYsPjU/s1600/screen_shot_2012-07-24_at_10.10.37.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4XMQfxShsKm5kSFc58paaOSUdSoLL0rKfUo0XCvCHLMgGXGq-AJWte316CQ_ZbPv-pJ96Twz2CFd8cy3xSfChbL4KMQqVdvhyu2y4fhtB2dVpHH1sUmjb04m6SvPULesF-9U9rkYsPjU/s320/screen_shot_2012-07-24_at_10.10.37.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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Because gene therapy cures individuals by correcting a fundamental genetic factor that will continuously replicate itself after being corrected, most gene therapy treatments involve a single, inexpensive shot resulting in a lifetime of healthy biological function.<br />
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In other words, instead of treating diabetes with insulin injections everyday, providing corporations with a lifetime income based on selling insulin and the kits used to administer it, a single shot that in the future may cost only hundreds of dollars, perhaps even less, to fabricate and administer, will leave patients permanently cured at a genetic level and profiteering pharmaceutical monopolies virtually extinct.<br />
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That is why, despite the vast majority of the funding behind EU-approved gene therapies coming from public funding, the pharmaceutical corporations currently selling the handful of available gene therapies today have placed price tags on them for an absurd 1 million euros - not because they cost 1 million euros to produce and distribute, but to cover the lost income selling ineffective pharmaceuticals had provided these corporations in past years to "treat" now entirely curable conditions.<br />
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Tech magazines, the Western media, and even "scientific journals" have attempted to defend this practice - but are only able to do so as long as the public remains ignorant to both the realities of gene therapy today, and the implications it has to positively transform human healthcare tomorrow. <br />
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<b>Here's Where It Gets Interesting </b><br />
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Gene therapy can be carried out in a properly equipped university lab. Manufacturing technology, including personal manufacturing tech like 3D printing, CNC machining, laser cutters, and PCB design suites are making customized and cheaper medical and experimental equipment more accessible to a larger number of people.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfUFPcMFlHTpbQ6FFH5aBQAv1rr6z2qPAent7L7kFK-ycvOzS5kGc069aiR0wWWEH6VDZ_RNSD5l07xJBxISyQA_puNmok94UCE6nsDh-oeTee-7xKohXHrPxaZb8c9TRChvp3mKvgvfg/s1600/gt2BrianHanley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfUFPcMFlHTpbQ6FFH5aBQAv1rr6z2qPAent7L7kFK-ycvOzS5kGc069aiR0wWWEH6VDZ_RNSD5l07xJBxISyQA_puNmok94UCE6nsDh-oeTee-7xKohXHrPxaZb8c9TRChvp3mKvgvfg/s400/gt2BrianHanley.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
Opensource research and software used to study and manipulate genes and design vectors like those that delivered new genetic material to Emily Whitehead's T-cells are also a growing trend in the biotechnology community.<br />
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While it is not necessarily inevitable that individuals or a state will take advantage of these trends to disrupt and overturn current human healthcare paradigms anytime soon, it is currently very possible. Examples of researchers circumventing the very measures corporations and Western governments have placed in the way of such paradigm shifts are already unfolding. <br />
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MIT Tech Review has also covered self-funded self-experimentation using gene therapy. <br />
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In October 2015, MIT Tech Review's article, "<a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/542371/a-tale-of-do-it-yourself-gene-therapy/">A Tale of Do-It-Yourself Gene Therapy</a>," would report:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Can aging be slowed by using gene therapy to make permanent changes to a person’s DNA? </i><i><br /></i><i><br /></i><i>One Seattle-area woman says she has tried exactly that. Her claim has entangled some high-profile American academics in a strange tale of do-it-yourself medicine that involves plane flights to Latin America, an L.A. film crew, and what’s purported to be the first attempt to use gene therapy to forestall normal aging.</i></blockquote>
More recently, the same magazine, in a January 2017 article titled, "<a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603217/one-mans-quest-to-hack-his-own-genes/">One Man’s Quest to Hack His Own Genes</a>," reported:<br />
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<i>At Hanley’s request, a doctor had injected into his thighs copies of a gene that Hanley, a PhD microbiologist, had designed and ordered from a research supply company. Then, plunging two pointed electrodes into his leg, the doctor had passed a strong current into his body, causing his muscle cells to open and absorb the new DNA. </i><i><br /></i><i><br /></i><i>The effort is the second case MIT Technology Review has documented of unregulated gene therapy, a risky undertaking that is being embraced by a few daring individuals seeking to develop anti-aging treatments. The gene Hanley added to his muscle cells would make his body produce more of a potent hormone—potentially increasing his strength, stamina, and life span.</i></blockquote>
Both articles provide insight into the growing "underground" world of DIY gene therapy - a movement that if cultivated properly, could relieve immense human suffering worldwide and shift the very nature of human healthcare to a reality where states don't go bankrupt treating their populations because populations can afford to treat themselves with effective, nearly free gene therapy technology.<br />
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<b>Wanted: A Biotech Company Placing Purpose Before Profit </b><br />
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At one point in MIT's article about Brian Hanley's DIY gene therapy experiment, the author remarked:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>In many conversations and e-mails with Hanley, I frequently wondered what his deepest motive was, and whether he even knew it himself. Was it to “develop products people will love,” as he told me, as if he were the Steve Jobs of plasmids?</i></blockquote>
But what if Hanley, or someone like him doesn't want to become the proprietary-obsessed, profiteering Steve Jobs of plasmids, and instead wants to become the purpose-driven Elon Musk of gene therapy?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia1Om9z30PbPjJr6sh4wc9zi3SirCmrfGDEGluCXzi-MK9lizRRiQrWDoq6ZoNGu_LCFMrIvxsnQYIvS0nkt4NCz88liE6Nv57Jh492hsq8tKfn-qdMp8LGTFzLE6272kY57BvzHk0cR4/s1600/musk-car.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia1Om9z30PbPjJr6sh4wc9zi3SirCmrfGDEGluCXzi-MK9lizRRiQrWDoq6ZoNGu_LCFMrIvxsnQYIvS0nkt4NCz88liE6Nv57Jh492hsq8tKfn-qdMp8LGTFzLE6272kY57BvzHk0cR4/s640/musk-car.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Elon Musk, who heads aerospace company SpaceX and electric car and solar power combine Tesla-SolarCity, has been criticized for his prioritizing of purpose over profit. While Musk requires profits for his companies to be successful, for his employees to remain employed, and for capital to be available for future R&D, it appears he and his shareholders see the long-term purpose and prospects of both companies as more important than short-term profits.<br />
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What if someone possessing a similar mentality waded into gene therapy - seeing the potential to maximize a purpose-driven return on investment that benefited humanity in a historically unprecedented way instead of joining existing pharmaceutical monopolies in their profit-obsessed vision of holding cures over patient's heads for villain sums of "1 million euros?"<br />
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Elon Musk is not and may never be a leader among the Fortune 500 - but he doesn't need to be. His popularity and the impact he has on society already ensures his place in human history where others with net-worths many times his could never achieve, and could never buy.<br />
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He, she, or they who unleash gene therapy with purpose rather than for profit will likewise reap wealth immeasurable in dollars and cents.<br />
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<b>What Can I Do? </b><br />
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Until then, realize that everyday ordinary people can become directly involved in opening up gene therapy and the implications it holds for human healthcare starting today.<br />
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Everything from simply educating and informing others of the basic concepts behind gene therapy and recent breakthroughs, to working with local community labs to expand their capabilities, resources, and ambitions, to developing opensource software and hardware researchers could use to advance human knowledge of how gene therapy works, are within the reach of writers, tech enthusiasts, designers, and engineers.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh68Nl2si3-GiVgPh6PaB5vJij677kcGVPt3QzZtevV7_3t-qrc5Gja74HJvh6J-WY2gKn7Wd_niIBFRdOOmT6CXiWj4EuNUP6QPVZeR6HOXi7SSARDFD6vO1njft9GFqAUniqyu0opaU8/s1600/mit-comic2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh68Nl2si3-GiVgPh6PaB5vJij677kcGVPt3QzZtevV7_3t-qrc5Gja74HJvh6J-WY2gKn7Wd_niIBFRdOOmT6CXiWj4EuNUP6QPVZeR6HOXi7SSARDFD6vO1njft9GFqAUniqyu0opaU8/s640/mit-comic2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Finding and supporting organizations like Leukemia & Lymphoma Society who make resources available to researchers is also something anyone, regardless of background, can do.<br />
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Over time, the probability of ending up in the hospital nears 100%. When you finally get there, do you want to be greeted with a single injection cure and a new lease on life? Or an over-priced regiment of poison that will strip you of every dollar you have, your human dignity, and eventually your life?<br />
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When we're faced with that decision, it is already too late. Now is the time to get involved, even causally, even for a few hours a week, or even per month in raising awareness and shifting the current, unacceptable human healthcare paradigm.<br />
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<i style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms", trebuchet, verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><b style="font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><a href="http://localorg.blogspot.com/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration: none;">LocalOrg</a></span></b><span style="font-size: 15.4px;"> seeks to explore local solutions to global problems by empowering people locally with education and technology to not only survive, but to thrive.</span></i> </div>
Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079343630025538378.post-33025249547973030842016-11-29T22:45:00.002-08:002016-11-29T22:45:59.455-08:00The Imperative to Democratize Artificial Intelligence <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>November 30, 2016</b> (LocalOrg) - MIT Technology Review recently published an article titled, "<a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602958/an-ai-ophthalmologist-shows-how-machine-learning-may-transform-medicine/?utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=post">An AI Ophthalmologist Shows How Machine Learning May Transform Medicine</a>." In it, it describes how Google researchers at their DeepMind subsidiary used artificial intelligence (AI) to scan images of human eyes to detect a common form of blindness as well as, or better than trained experts can.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikMuurHY2w6supV8b-WH9nHPYHejbHtoM3oYCwNnVNYUJA5n2LC4TPGROpe1tl6M8xvoLQgI8oJTNCfKKHvxHNVw5654zUbUzkbiNdEsI2LEqxxzgjBgGdh_QblncPWpzx7IE1xipvyD0/s1600/deepmind-head.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="352" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikMuurHY2w6supV8b-WH9nHPYHejbHtoM3oYCwNnVNYUJA5n2LC4TPGROpe1tl6M8xvoLQgI8oJTNCfKKHvxHNVw5654zUbUzkbiNdEsI2LEqxxzgjBgGdh_QblncPWpzx7IE1xipvyD0/s640/deepmind-head.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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They achieved this by using the same machine learning techniques Google and other tech giants including Facebook use to analyze images that show up on their web platforms. Instead of creating complex programs to handle every conceivable detail in an image, researchers instead teach machines how to learn on their own when exposed to large volumes of pre-tagged examples.<br />
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In the MIT Technology Review article, DeepMind's algorithm studied some 128,000 retinal images that were already classified by ophthalmologists.<br />
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The breakthrough is only the latest in a long line of advances in AI. AI machine learning is already being widely used in real-world applications, including sifting through the United Kingdom's National Health Service's records, automatically tagging - and flagging - images, videos, and voice across vast social networks, improving efficiency at utility plants by spotting trends and automatically adjusting power consumption, inputs, and outputs, as well as developing protocols for both pharmaceutical production and genetic engineering.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCoHVRzfAqBUkVTaJ8c7XZxqlUbUaBb1Pf1SYkIvZnlJaJqNZ1hGeY-y0QSJOyM70KE5bFxkIkkSGe-pHhQzLI2Y1qyfgFOObuC09nMG7RtJhsd4KoNMUYVHd1-b6UNknymFdHRf0muRE/s1600/block_diagram-e1444082440229.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="532" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCoHVRzfAqBUkVTaJ8c7XZxqlUbUaBb1Pf1SYkIvZnlJaJqNZ1hGeY-y0QSJOyM70KE5bFxkIkkSGe-pHhQzLI2Y1qyfgFOObuC09nMG7RtJhsd4KoNMUYVHd1-b6UNknymFdHRf0muRE/s640/block_diagram-e1444082440229.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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DeepMind's research into analyzing medical imagery is already set to be integrated into its UK NHS collaboration, according to the Guardian in an article titled, "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/05/google-deepmind-nhs-machine-learning-blindness">Google DeepMind pairs with NHS to use machine learning to fight blindness</a>," which reports:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>Google DeepMind has announced its second collaboration with the NHS, working with Moorfields Eye Hospital in east London to build a machine learning system which will eventually be able to recognise sight-threatening conditions from just a digital scan of the eye. </i><i><br /></i><i><br /></i><i>The collaboration is the second between the NHS and DeepMind, which is the artificial intelligence research arm of Google, but Deepmind’s co-founder, Mustafa Suleyman, says this is the first time the company is embarking purely on medical research. An earlier, ongoing, collaboration, with the Royal Free hospital in north London, is focused on direct patient care, using a smartphone app called Streams to monitor kidney function of patients.</i></blockquote>
In essence, those who control AI technology have access to algorithms that can perform specific tasks better than any trained human can. This confers on those who control this technology an immense advantage and creates disparity those without AI technology have no means of competing against.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>Corporations and nations wielding this power, as the number of applications expands, represent an alarming, emerging disparity that may lead to the same sort of abuses and exploitation other forms of technological disparity throughout history have wrought.<br />
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<b>Democratizing AI </b><br />
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Effort into developing AI applications involves big-data. Training machines rather than merely programming them, means exposing them to large amounts of information they can sift through and train themselves with. In order to do this, not only do large amounts of information need to be collected, they need to be tagged or otherwise classified so machines have a baseline to improve against.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXplfOqHvP6ggB3jyFd_uR6LDn4YTyT8vCpZwNpHgmqg6VZlF9OludagMASvjOrBe1ZTR1u5Qp8rZFUp1-mzP6gc0KxcqcIwzDGXHWESY91CbDd6b1kfAEcoacVg7TWe-5stkk3-B37C8/s1600/deep_learning_developer_box_h425px.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXplfOqHvP6ggB3jyFd_uR6LDn4YTyT8vCpZwNpHgmqg6VZlF9OludagMASvjOrBe1ZTR1u5Qp8rZFUp1-mzP6gc0KxcqcIwzDGXHWESY91CbDd6b1kfAEcoacVg7TWe-5stkk3-B37C8/s400/deep_learning_developer_box_h425px.png" width="393" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Image:</b> A deep learning developer box, <a href="https://www.cadnetwork.de/de/solutions/deep-learning">via CADnetwork</a>.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The development of these large data sets, as well as developing algorithms to exploit them, requires (at the moment) large numbers of participants outside of corporations like Google and their subsidiaries like DeepMind.<br />
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Toward that end, opensource software libraries for machine learning, like <a href="https://www.tensorflow.org/">Google's TensorFlow</a> are available online for free. GitHub, an online development repository, <a href="https://github.com/showcases/machine-learning">offers access to a wide range of other available machine learning libraries</a> coders and programmers can use.<br />
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The physical hardware currently being used to build deep learning machines include GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) similar to those found in high-end gaming computers. <a href="http://graphific.github.io/posts/building-a-deep-learning-dream-machine/">Instructions are online</a> on how to build deep learning machines, including information provided <a href="https://developer.nvidia.com/devbox">by companies like NVIDIA</a> which make commercially available GPUs. <br />
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While it remains to be seen what individual or independent groups of developers can achieve in terms of democratizing this technology, it may be in the best interests of nation-states to begin developing their own AI programs rather than wait for Google, Facebook, and even China's Baidu to "share" this technology with them.<br />
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It may also be in their best interests to examine the merits of promoting the democratization of this technology. Where a lack of resources to acquire high-level researchers at an institutional level exists, democratizing and thus tapping a larger pool of talent to even the odds in the AI race while also raising public literacy regarding this increasingly pivotal technology may be an alternative option.<br /><br />Research into AI cannot be "banned" and breakthroughs cannot be "un-invented." With the tools already widely (and in some cases, freely) available to advance AI, attempts to put this civilization-changing technology "back in the box" will only waste time and resources. The only way to counter the harmful application of AI is by possessing an equal or greater capacity to utilize the technology and increase the number of people both educated in how it works, and capable of applying it in reaction to harmful exploitation of it. <br />
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Just like information technology, nuclear weapons, or even firearms tilted the global balance of power in favor of those who initially wielded them before more acquired and exploited these technologies, AI too poses a threat unless and until it is more widely adopted and democratized.<br />
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With the power to focus on and master any task at superhuman levels, we ignore the challenge to balance this emerging power at our own peril.<br />
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<i style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms", trebuchet, verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><b style="font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><a href="http://localorg.blogspot.com/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration: none;">LocalOrg</a></span></b><span style="font-size: 15.4px;"> seeks to explore local solutions to global problems by empowering people locally with education and technology to not only survive, but to thrive.</span></i><br />
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Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079343630025538378.post-79077445329913320802016-11-27T08:57:00.003-08:002016-11-27T08:57:45.940-08:00Aquaponics Expert JD Sawyer Talks About Healthy Food Self Sufficiency<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>November 27, 2016</b> (<a href="http://www.activistpost.com/2016/11/can-achieve-healthy-food-self-sufficiency-aquaponics.html">Activist Post</a>) - In this segment of The Vin Armani Show, our interview guest is JD Sawyer of Colorado Aquaponics and The Aquaponic Source. Aquaponics is one of the most powerful technologies for individual liberty, security, and health. We find out why.Visit The Aquaponic Source at <a href="http://www.theaquaponicsource.com/">http://www.theaquaponicsource.com</a>.<br />
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<i>Vin Armani is the host of The Vin Armani Show on <a href="http://www.activistpost.com/">Activist Post</a>, TV Star of Gigolos on Showtime, Author, DJ, and Agorist Entrepreneur. Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/vinarmani">Vin on Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/VinArmani">subscribe on YouTube</a>. Get the weekly podcast on <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-vin-armani-show/id1176246726?mt=2">iTunes</a> or <a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/activist-post/vin-armani-show?refid=stpr">Stitcher</a>.</i></div>
Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079343630025538378.post-35537588215314117072016-11-25T15:31:00.000-08:002016-11-25T15:31:04.179-08:00AI & Biotech: Striking a Technological Balance of Power <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>November 26, 2016</b> (Tony Cartalucci - LocalOrg) - During World War 2, nations desperately raced to harness the atom. The United State ultimately won that race, and during their victory lap - being the sole nation to possess nuclear weapons - used them against their enemy Japan - twice.<br />
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Tens of thousands of lives were extinguished in the blink of an eye and Japan, already a defeated nation, submitted absolutely to US hegemony which would prevail both over Japan and most of Asia for nearly a century onward.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBLr5MdhetEC956BzujxpLiU_AxQLuDXGSY1Eh0GzAktSiyVukeCY6AvnIhpq97fx4PRr8FG9WCk_PIoQBAXOIiy3w-FmBVHV3CJYXK40wFL-L8B57kPoDJ-A0XNxHgBt_nBLxh6WMth0/s1600/Atomic_bombing_of_Japans.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBLr5MdhetEC956BzujxpLiU_AxQLuDXGSY1Eh0GzAktSiyVukeCY6AvnIhpq97fx4PRr8FG9WCk_PIoQBAXOIiy3w-FmBVHV3CJYXK40wFL-L8B57kPoDJ-A0XNxHgBt_nBLxh6WMth0/s640/Atomic_bombing_of_Japans.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><i><b>Images</b>: The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is what uncontested military superiority - or an imbalance of technological and military power - looks like. What will similar disparity in artificial intelligence or biotechnology lead to? </i></td></tr>
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Since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US has used its immense economic disparity over the last seven decades to build a conventional army and employ various methods of overtly and covertly attacking, undermining, and even overthrowing the political and socioeconomic orders of targeted nations worldwide in its bid to take, hold, and expand global hegemony.<br />
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It has used its domination of the media to sell wars, manipulate public perception, and project its socioeconomic, cultural, and military will to the far reaches of the planet.<br />
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With the advent of the Internet and social media, its domination over both allowed it to plunge the entire Middle East and North Africa (MENA) into chaos and eventually war in 2011 during the so-called "Arab Spring," a fact the New York Times in an article titled, "<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html">U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings</a>," would later admit.<br />
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<b>Balancing Power </b><br />
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With each form of tactical and technological disparity manifesting itself in military aggression, subjugation, exploitation, and immeasurable injustice, attempts to diminish that disparity have helped strike a balance of power.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Image: </b>Russian mobile nuclear missiles and the reason why the United States never used nuclear weapons again.</i></td></tr>
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<br />The development of nuclear weapons by the Soviets, then later China, India, and Pakistan as well as several European powers, helped strike a balance of power within which no nation dared strike another with such weapons again.<br />
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Asymmetrical warfare and increasingly sophisticated and prolific anti-tank and anti-air weaponry have allowed nations to raise the cost of US military adventures abroad to the point where direct military intervention has become all but impossible for the US (and other nations as well).<br />
<br />The alternative media has brought to an end what was almost total domination by the Western media over global public perception - and it has done so not only with the emergence of effective state-run media beyond the West, but also through the efforts of thousands of individuals and independent networks worldwide.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>In other words, novelty provides those who pioneer and monopolize any given tactic or technology with an initial and significant advantage, but the democratization (widespread distribution) of these tactics and technologies minimizes this disparity and creates a balance of power that makes it difficult for any one party to take advantage of or dominate another.<br />
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<b>Preventing Future Imbalances: Biotechnology </b><br />
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Perhaps the most frightening impending disparities humanity now faces are those in the fields of biotechnology and artificial intelligence.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><i><b>Image:</b> South Africa's Rodeplaat Research Laboratories, where genocidal scientists under Project Coast sought to weaponize vaccines to sterilize, even eradicate the nation's black population. </i></td></tr>
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<br />The sequencing of the human genome has given rise to the practice of "gene therapy" - the ability to overwrite parts of an individual's genetic code. In other words, genetic code can now be introduced into living patients that show cells in the body <a href="http://www.cancerresearch.org/news-publications/video-gallery/emily-whitehead-beats-cancer-with-immunotherapy">how to find and eradicate cancer</a>, how to <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11025689/Groundbreaking-gene-therapy-trial-offers-hope-to-heart-patients.html">rebuild heart muscles</a>, or <a href="http://www.med.wisc.edu/news-events/gene-therapy-for-type-1-diabetes-aims-to-eliminate-daily-insulin-injections/41450">how to properly produce insulin</a> in the case of patients suffering from diabetes.<br />
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But if code can be introduced so precisely to do great good, it can also be introduced to do great harm. Vaccines laced with vectors delivering the genetic equivalent of malware could potentially, and very subtly, reduce fertility, diminish intelligence, and even manipulate gene expression associated with human behavior.<br />
<br />The prospect of using the concepts behind gene therapy for biological weapons was mentioned in the Neo-Conservative Project for a New American Century's (PNAC) 2000 report titled, "<a href="http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf">Rebuilding America's Defenses" (.pdf)</a>. The chilling report stated (emphasis added): <blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>The proliferation of ballistic and cruise missiles and long-range unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) will make it much easier to project military power around the globe. Munitions themselves will become increasingly accurate, while new methods of attack – electronic, “non-lethal,” biological – will be more widely available. (<a href="http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf">p.71 of .pdf</a>) </i></blockquote>
It also stated:<br />
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<i>Although it may take several decade for the process of transformation to unfold, in time, the art of warfare on air, land, and sea will be vastly different than it is today, <b>and “combat” likely will take place in new dimensions: in space, “cyber-space,” and perhaps the world of microbes.</b> (<a href="http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf">p.72 of .pdf</a>)</i><i><br /></i></blockquote>
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<i></i><i><b>And advanced forms of biological warfare that can “target” specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.</b> (<a href="http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf">p.72 of .pdf</a>)</i></blockquote>
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By democratizing this technology, we ensure that the tools used to create and defend against <i>"biological warfare that can "target" specific geneotypes"</i> are in the hands of not only people who seek to do so already, but also in vastly more hands that seek to detect, prevent, or counter such abuses. Democratizing this technology also ensures that the people who need it most get it, rather than remain subjected to the whims and interests of a handful of corporations who seek profits over people and purpose. </div>
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Work toward democratizing biotechnology is being undertaken by both institutions and individuals alike, around the world through opensource biotech tools, and community "DIYbio" labs. Nations are also working to build up their biotech infrastructure, both as a component to their healthcare systems and economy, <a href="http://journal-neo.org/2016/02/07/zika-why-biotech-is-imperative-to-national-security/">and as a component of national security</a>. </div>
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<br /><b>Artificial Intelligence</b></div>
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Artificial intelligence, long before we must worry about sentient machines and what they may or may not decide to do with a vastly inferior humanity, is already being used in highly specialized applications ranging from automatically extracting intelligence from the millions of photos uploaded to Facebook daily, to gaming the stock market, to <a href="https://deepmind.com/blog/working-nhs-build-lifesaving-technology/">managing the UK's National Health Service (NHS)</a>, to <a href="https://deepmind.com/blog/deepmind-ai-reduces-google-data-centre-cooling-bill-40/">automatically managing utility grids</a>. </div>
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While many uses of AI are benign, the fact that so few institutions are engaged in high-level AI research and applications invites immense disparity and abuse. While AI applications today do not constitute a sentient being superior to humans in every conceivable way, they do constitute very focused algorithms that are vastly superior to any human performing the same specific task. </div>
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Google's DeepMind subsidiary, <a href="https://deepmind.com/research/alphago/">and their AI AlphaGo</a> was able to learn and then outplay the world's best Go player. Other developers are creating AI platforms that can learn through trial and error how to play various video games before eventually mastering them with super-human reflexes and strategies. </div>
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Applied to games, they are quaint. Applied to warfare and they are terrifying. The high-speed, ultra-deadly nature of the first Gulf War in which the technological disparity between the US and Iraqi forces left the fourth largest military on Earth in ruination and retreat will be tame in comparison if and when machine learning is applied to real-world military operations. </div>
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The increasing use of drones and automation, and the eventual combination of the two, will create a network an AI simply needs to plug into and direct, either entirely or temporarily, to grant its operators a super-human advantage over their unprepared opponents. </div>
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And such contests need not be waged on conventional battlefields. Cyber and information warfare may also present a tempting battlefield upon which to deploy AI. Targeting the IT infrastructure of an opposing nation, or mass manipulating public perception with increasingly convincing AI 'bots" working ceaselessly to create the illusion of persuasive consensus, could overwhelm unprepared opponents. </div>
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Just like DeepMind's AlphaGo left its human opponent utterly, hopelessly defeated, so too would any military wielding a militarized AI algorithm. However, the ability to multiply force through the use of artificial intelligence is only an advantage if those it is being used against lack similar capabilities. </div>
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Artificial intelligence is not just a component of Facebook or Google's business strategy - US policymakers admit that AI, as well as companies like Facebook and Google themselves, constitute an integral part of creating, maintaining, and projecting American power globally. Nations must not look upon AI as a novelty or an economic asset, but also as a central component to national security. Nations depending on Facebook and Google to prop up their IT infrastructure rather than brewing their own national alternatives are akin to nations during the age of empires inviting British gunboats into their harbors.</div>
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Artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and other forms of emerging technology must be viewed by each nation, state, community, and individual not as a mere novelty or potential industry, but also as a potential means to grant those who develop and monopolize it economic, political, and even military superiority history has taught us they most certainly will abuse. </div>
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Just like the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki could never have fathomed the destructive power of the atomic weapons used against them, let alone anticipate they personally would fall victims to such weapons, we too allow ourselves to tempt fate by waiting for the first biological or AI strike before establishing a deterrence through a balance of power. </div>
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We are increasingly connected and empowered by the Internet and other forms of technology already being democratized. We know about emerging technology and we can easily find ways to either raise awareness regarding these issues or directly involve ourselves in the actual process of democratizing this technology. We can and we must, lest we languish under the mushroom clouds and in all-consuming fire ignorance, unpreparedness, and technological disparity invites. </div>
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<i style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms", trebuchet, verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><b style="font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><a href="http://localorg.blogspot.com/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration: none;">LocalOrg</a></span></b><span style="font-size: 15.4px;"> seeks to explore local solutions to global problems by empowering people locally with education and technology to not only survive, but to thrive.</span></i></div>
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Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079343630025538378.post-90408533393122435082016-11-16T11:28:00.001-08:002016-11-16T11:28:44.739-08:00There's a Real Revolution Taking Place, and It's Already Making a Difference <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>November 17, 2016</b> (via <a href="https://www.corbettreport.com/notmypresident-draintheswamp-the-real-revolution-is-already-here/">The Corbett Report</a>) - James Corbett of <a href="https://www.corbettreport.com/notmypresident-draintheswamp-the-real-revolution-is-already-here/">The Corbett Report</a> lays out the dimensions of a very real revolution already taking place. It is built upon pragmatic, technical solutions that liberate us from centralized monopolize of power, industry, finance, and society.<br />
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These include solutions regarding the decentralization of manufacturing, energy, finance, and much more:<br />
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<li><a href="https://www.corbettreport.com/episode-303-solutions-the-peer-to-peer-economy/" style="color: blue; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Solutions: The Peer-to-Peer Economy</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.corbettreport.com/episode-251-solutions-3d-printing/" style="color: blue; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Solutions: 3D Printing</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.corbettreport.com/anarchy-in-action-spontaneous-order/" style="color: blue; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Anarchy in Action: Spontaneous Order</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.corbettreport.com/dear-government-deliver-us-from-freedom/" style="color: blue; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Dear Government, Deliver Us From Freedom</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.corbettreport.com/p2p-solutions-an-open-source-investigation/" style="color: blue; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">P2P Solutions: An Open Source Investigation</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.corbettreport.com/solutions-freedom-cells/" style="color: blue; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Solutions: Freedom Cells</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.corbettreport.com/episode-309-solutions-agorism/" style="color: blue; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Solutions: Agorism</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.corbettreport.com/episode-283-solutions-make-your-own-media/" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Solutions: Make Your Own Media</a><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit;"> </span></li>
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Other articles, like this one <a href="http://localorg.blogspot.com/2016/11/fighting-real-deplorables.html">from LocalOrg</a>, relay a similar message, and together this quiet, "untelevised" revolution is already making a difference around the world - whether it is the organic food movement shifting the tides against big-ag, or the alternative media shifting the balance of power away from state-sponsored propaganda.<br />
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You do not need to wait for the next election to oppose a system you see as corrupt. There are things you can do in your everyday life to deny this system your time, money, attention, and money, and direct it all towards building the sort of world you truly want to live in. </div>
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Read more at <a href="https://www.corbettreport.com/notmypresident-draintheswamp-the-real-revolution-is-already-here/">The Corbett Report here</a>. </div>
Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079343630025538378.post-55710045323137080522016-11-13T10:12:00.001-08:002016-11-13T10:12:37.080-08:00Fighting the (Real) Deplorables <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>November 13, 2016</b> (LocalOrg) - Across America, protests have broken out. They are small, poorly organized, and poorly led. They lack any realistic goal, so clearly, lack any actual plan to achieve any sort of goal. And unfortunately, they have become violent, embodying the very sort of hate, intimidation, and victimization the protesters claim they are fighting against.<br />
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The truth is, as the protests currently exist, no matter how long they persist or how big they get, they will accomplish nothing positive, and instead, invite a wide variety of very serious negatives. <br />
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All Americans, and those overseas looking in, must logically admit that neither Hillary Clinton nor now President-elect, Donald Trump, truly represented the American people. Neither were drawn from the people, neither have a record of service to the people, and both have been deeply entrenched in a corrupt system dominated absolutely by corporate-financier special interests. In many ways, both Clinton and Trump in fact constitute those special interests.<br />
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This reality means that it is not "Clinton" or "Trump" that either side was voting for or against, but different aspects of the same corrupt system they find abhorrent and in desperate need of changing. It was not "Clinton" or "Trump" that people were voting for, but their opponents they were voting against. It was not the arguments each candidate made that convinced them, it was the arguments of candidates and commentary by the corporate-media that repelled them.<br />
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It is a singularly corrupt system, using smoke and mirrors to convince at least a part of society to support at least a part of its continued existence, under either "right" or "left" cover.<br />
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Hillary Clinton once infamously declared:<br />
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<i>...you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables...</i></blockquote>
But the truth is, it is not Trump supporters, and not Clinton supporters - none of the American people who are "deplorables."<br />
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It is the system that is deplorable. It is the corporate-financier special interests who are deplorable for monopolizing and dominating every aspect of the American people's lives for profit and power. It is the politicians who are deplorable for selling themselves to these interests while posing as public servants and representatives. It is the corporate media who helps both special interests and their pet politicians pander to the public, mislead them, confuse them, and most deplorable of all, divide them against one another.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><b>Fighting the Deplorables </b><br />
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Here is where most commentary trails off into a rhetorical rant, peddling political ideals that are just as meaningless as a solution as the rhetoric that has created the problem at hand. Instead, it is far more constructive to explain to you that while a small handful of elite have taken a majority stake in both America and the world for their own benefit and at the cost of everyone else, there are very specific actions you can take right now to take your own stake, and use that to introduce an element of balance to both national and international power.<br />
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At the heart of Washington there lies an engine of corporate-financier special interests. They are not simply men and women with immense amounts of money and power. They are men and women who control essential things required for civilization's continued existence, including agriculture, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, energy, transportation, defense, technology, education, commerce, and monetary systems.<br />
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To take your own stake in the game, you must do so by creating alternatives to these vast monopolies.<br />
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<b>Toe-to-Toe With the Deplorables </b><br />
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Big-agriculture, big-retail, big-oil, big-retail, big-pharmaceutical corporations, and big-banks (and many more). Any corporation or institution that enjoys a commanding monopoly over the essential functions of modern human civilization falls into the category of "deplorables." They hold the levers of modern civilization within their hands, and they are the ones that have directed us along the course we currently find ourselves on. They, not one half of the population they have convinced to think differently than the other before pitting both halves against one another, are the problem.<br />
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Replacing them is the solution.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>1. Big-Agriculture:</b> Food is an obvious essential every living being on Earth requires to sustain themselves. The control over a people's food supply has been instrumental for defining the "haves" and the "have nots" throughout human history. It is the most essential element to safeguard in order to achieve supremacy over another, and it is the most essential element to undermine when dismantling the source of another's power.<br />
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Big-agriculture, including corporations like Bayer, Dow, BASF, DuPont, Monsanto, Syngenta, Cargill, John Deere, Tyson, and many others, not to mention the big-retailers they are partnered with to move their products and services, not only monopolize the American food supply, but threaten food security globally. They have not only deeply infiltrated governments, but have exerted unwarranted and insidious influence across the media directly, and indirectly through "independent third parties" that perform lobbying services without disclosing their status as lobbyists.<br />
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<b>Solutions:</b> Fighting big-agriculture is easy, and it's already a fight that is well on its way toward victory. Networks of organic farmers, farmers' markets, urban agriculture networks, together with the alternative media and organic advocates, have already begun changing the tide, raising public awareness about:<br />
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<li>The benefits of healthy, clean, organic food;</li>
<li>The empowerment that comes with community agriculture;</li>
<li>The economic benefits of more equally distributed agricultural entrepreneurship and; </li>
<li>The sociopolitical impact of taking a stake in our collective food security. </li>
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And getting started is easy. There are entire networks that not only produce locally grown food for their communities, but have created infrastructure to teach absolute beginners how to get involved in agriculture, both rural and urban. Permaculture Voices hosts a variety of speakers sharing the work of their networks and is a good place to find one that suits you most. </div>
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One particularly impressive urban farmer is Curtis Stone of Canada. He is living proof that local agriculture is not only a theoretical solution to shifting the balance of power in the people's favor, it is a practical solution tangibly making a change.<br />
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Something as simple as tearing up your lawn and planting a garden can be the pathway toward creating a sustainable and profitable business. At the same time, you are redirecting money locally your community would otherwise be channeling into big-ag by providing them with a superior alternative. It can be done, regardless of rules, regulations, and social pressures placed in your way, you simply need to be creative and determined enough to find the solutions - and likely, someone in the existing and ever-growing organic food movement has already faced and overcome such challenges. Seek them out and learn from them. There is no excuse.<br />
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If you have energy to walk around in the streets all night destroying your neighborhood, you have energy to get together the next day and plant a community garden or start your own independent, socially responsible and prosperous farming operation. Be the change you want to see in the world.<br />
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If you don't aspire to be a farmer, there are other things you can do:<br />
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<li>Support local farmers and farmers' markets; </li>
<li>Grow a fraction of your own food in a home garden, even 1% is better than 0%, </li>
<li>Be more conscious when you buy, not only to shift the sociopolitical and economic paradigm, but for your health and;</li>
<li>Start a blog to advocate local, national, and international networks you see making a difference - the more voices out there, the harder it is for corporate-funded propaganda to drown them out.</li>
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Creating a larger and more powerful organic movement, distributed among communities, but collectively representing the same basic principles of healthy, affordable, local food, creates another point of leverage against existing monopolies - the weight of policy demands backed by a physical network of producers, farmers, alternative media networks, and loyal customers who don't just buy their food to eat, but buy it because they know it is better, and comes from their very own community.<br />
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It is a powerful point of leverage that is already putting demonstrable strain upon big-ag, forcing them to expose themselves, their methods, and true ambitions on public display, resort to ever increasingly desperate tactics, and expend vast amounts of resources to maintain what is becoming an unsustainable monopoly.<br />
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Big-ag is happy to ignore protesters waving signs. They cannot ignore growing segments of the population eating food produced outside their monopoly. They can either reform, or live in a world increasingly moving on into the future without them.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHinJachpe2bwV69kyXuPwmPGJjg2sDRPNya7xMH6CJOcf9xfWduvpSEI_FsMdAbDW453QQBCQcDZOLQ3RARUXePXlSwir_8-HHQxI2eWzg2C83QJcLKMnYGCfa5Pc3kbUmkjCrGBtE5I/s1600/Major-Oil-Companies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHinJachpe2bwV69kyXuPwmPGJjg2sDRPNya7xMH6CJOcf9xfWduvpSEI_FsMdAbDW453QQBCQcDZOLQ3RARUXePXlSwir_8-HHQxI2eWzg2C83QJcLKMnYGCfa5Pc3kbUmkjCrGBtE5I/s320/Major-Oil-Companies.jpg" width="320" /></a><b>2. Big-Oil: </b>Chevron, Exxon, BP, Shell, ConocoPhillips, coal companies, and the corrupt despots of the Persian Gulf who have built evil empires upon their fields of crude, blacken our skies and our lungs with their toxic fuels. Our power plants and cars have burned these toxic fuels for decades. While alternatives exist, and indeed, some nations - like Iceland - have moved beyond petrochemicals and coal, big-oil and energy monopolies have used their power and influence to perpetuate their monopolies and the centralization of energy production at the detriment of human civilization.<br />
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Whether or not you believe such fuels are contributing to climate change is irrelevant. You need only stand on a city street corner for 5 minutes during rush hour to feel your health being destroyed, or look at the wars and compromising political partnerships and rivalries our governments have become entangled in to realize an alternative is necessary.<br />
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<b>Solutions: </b>Localizing energy production is not as easy as growing your own food - which is in itself probably not as easy as some might think. But it is also not impossible. Energy cooperatives exist all over the world already, ranging from wind and solar power to biogas production.<br />
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In Farmers Weekly's article, "<a href="http://www.fwi.co.uk/business/community-energy-is-the-future.html">Farm Power: Community energy is the future</a>," explains:<br />
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<i>Involving local communities in renewable energy schemes can help farmers get projects off the ground and deliver benefits well beyond the farm gate. </i><i><br /></i><i><br /></i><i>Community energy schemes are still in their infancy in the UK compared with elsewhere in Europe, but momentum is clearly building. </i><i><br /></i><i><br /></i><i>More than 5,000 community groups have undertaken energy initiatives in the last five years and the publication of the UK’s first Community Energy Strategy (CES) last year promised a “step change” for the sector and a significant expansion over the next three years.</i></blockquote>
The article goes on to detail just how such cooperatives work.<br />
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Additionally, there are companies like US-based <a href="http://www.solarcity.com/">Solar City</a> that produces and installs solar panels on household rooftops, <a href="https://www.tesla.com/">Tesla</a> that produces electric cars and battery banks called <a href="https://www.tesla.com/powerwall">Powerwalls</a> for storing energy at home. These high profile companies have inspired many others across the country and around the world to begin moving solar power deeper into mainstream power production.<br />
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While in some cases, solar power is still a huge investment compared to living on the grid, prices are dropping toward a future where that isn't the case. Many already find solar power to be a better solution than drawing from centralized power grids, and in places where grids don't reach, solar already dominates power production.<br />
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Solar power and other community or individually owned and operated power grids decentralizes another of human civilization's essential building blocks. The people themselves possessing complete control over this particular block, further lends them leverage against monopolies that for decades have used their control over energy to impose their will upon the fate of entire nations.<br />
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There is a learning curve to overcome when getting into alternative energy but there are many people already out there doing it both for profit and to make a difference. Just as there are people among the organic movement willing to share their knowledge with those willing to seek them out and learn, so too are there people in the alternative energy community. Seek them out, and learn.<br />
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<b>3. Big-Retail:</b> Our food, our manufactured goods, our technology, and much more often comes from big retailers. In the US it is WalMart and Target. In Europe and Asia it includes BigC, Tesco, Carrefour, and other retailing monopolies. When these mega-stores open up, people trade in local socioeconomic independence for cheap junk consolidated for convenience in a single location.<br />
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But what seems like a blessing at first, becomes a curse over time. Pretty soon, towns dominated by these big-retailers find themselves completely at the mercy of them and a handful of "chain" restaurants and specialty stores. Local development is nonexistent, because the summation of wealth is often created by working for these stores, and paid to them - much like exploitative and abusive "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_store">company stores</a>" during the Industrial Revolution.<br />
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<b>Solutions:</b> However, manufacturing can be brought back to our communities through advances in manufacturing technology and innovative institutions often called "makerspaces" or "hackerspaces."<br />
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Computer controlled manufacturing such as 3D printing, laser cutters and computer-controlled routers have become small and cheap enough for individuals to use in their homes, but more often than not, they are found in makerspaces where even absolute beginners can get help in designing and manufacturing their ideas. The technology is not well suited for mass production, but it doesn't need to. It can deliver short-runs of items, or create other manufacturing systems that can be used for larger scales of production (molds, vacuum forming, etc).<br />
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China, famous for being the "factory of the world," already has seen the advancement of manufacturing technology chip away at its domination over mass production. Companies that once used Chinese factories to produce items can now afford their own machines which not only cuts out shipping costs, but gives them greater control over quality and customization.<br />
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Makerspaces are popping up <a href="https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/List_of_Hacker_Spaces">all over the world</a>. In North America and Europe they are virtually everywhere. Search online for the one nearest you. The people there are friendly and eager to expand their already growing community and are hungry for challenges related to the practical application of the tools, talent, and machinery they have in their spaces.<br />
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For both ordinary people and aspiring entrepreneurs, makerspaces often serve as the starting line for entire companies and new innovations. Waiting for mega-corporations like Apple, IBM, Google, and others to lead us along is no longer necessary. When you want something, instead of paying into the local "company store," why not learn a new skill, make it, and perhaps even start a small business making more for your friends, family, neighbors - and with crowd sourcing like Kickstarter, to the rest of the world?<br />
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We have gone <a href="http://localorg.blogspot.com/2012/12/decenralize-big-retail.html">into great detail specifically on decentralizing big-retail</a>, including profiling some of the progress that was already made as early as 2012. Since then, so much more progress has been made, and the community is simply waiting for the rest of society to end their dependence on consumerism, and try their hand at being producers, designers, makers, and doers.<br />
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And while there is an upper limit to what you can get at a big-retail store today, there is no upper limit to what can be made locally leveraging modern computer controlled manufacturing. Opensource car designs are being built in America in "microfactories" by a company called <a href="https://localmotors.com/">Local Motors</a> and represents a proof-of-concept in <a href="http://localorg.blogspot.com/2012/11/decentralizing-vehicle-design.html">decentralizing something as formidable and centralized as the auto industry</a>.<br />
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<b>4. Big-Pharmaceuticals: </b>Like big-ag, big-pharma is undoubtedly a deplorable. Corporations like GlaxoKlineSmith (GSK), Bayer, Lilly, Merck, Pfizer, Roche, and many, many more, have been not only accused, but convicted in courts of law around the globe for <a href="http://journal-neo.org/2014/06/04/glaxo-s-china-scandal-exposes-big-pharma-s-ugly-underworld/">some of the largest cases of healthcare fraud and abuse in human history</a>. Yet they are still charged by governments around the world with the research, development, production, and distribution of medications human beings rely on to live.<br />
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What's worse is that much of the "research and development" big-pharma is engaged in, is late-stage preparations to bring drugs to market - drugs that have been developed through public funding for years, sometimes even decades. These special interests have infiltrated regulatory and government bodies so deeply, they are able to acquire, then criminally exploit the results of publicly funded research for immense profits.<br />
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Worse still, many of the products produced and distributed by big-pharma are either ineffective, or outright dangerous, many times being subscribed for symptoms and uses they were not even approved for.<br />
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<b>Solutions; </b>While harder than both food production and energy independence, decentralizing human healthcare is still not impossible.<br />
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Community labs (<a href="https://diybio.org/local/">a list of labs around the world</a>) built around the concept of do-it-yourself biology (DIYbio) are also spreading around the world. Makerspaces - with their special mixture of talent and technology - are able to quickly produce prototypes and opensource versions of expensive proprietary hospital and lab equipment otherwise inaccessible to community healthcare infrastructure. If enough people interested in healthcare and biology assemble at a particular makerspace, a lab is usually established. <br />
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In the US, there already is a program where <a href="http://makernurse.com/">makerspaces are actually being established within hospitals</a>, allowing nurses, technicians, and doctors to prototype and manufacture solutions to problems they encounter during their work. This concept is beginning to spread around the world to other hospitals where makerspace mainstays like 3D printing are being used for everything from creating physical models of patients' organs to assist in the planning stages for difficult surgeries, to creating customized hooks, fasteners, and attachments for existing equipment that are expensive or impossible to replace otherwise.<br />
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Makerspaces are also increasingly collaborating with university labs, hospitals, and other healthcare providers and institutions. This tangible progress in human healthcare helps open up the technology used to administer and advance it, lowering the overall costs in providing it to patients - a much more sustainable solution than subsidies alone.<br />
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The collective knowledge communities acquire during these collaborations helps decentralize healthcare.<br />
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In terms of pharmaceuticals, there are <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py5TkirrO-U">even groups working on opensource bioreactors</a> (basically just glass containers with computer controlled temperature, stirring, and mixing functions) and computer software to make brewing pharmaceuticals as cheap and as easy as a cooking recipe. While this exists more on the cutting edge of healthcare decentralization, it proves that it is possible, and the more people that get involved, the quicker it will go from cutting edge to commonplace. <br /><br />If you have an interest in medicine, biology, or human health, simply use your Internet search engine of choice and find a group active near you.<br />
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<b>5. Big-Banks: </b>Currency is the lifeblood of commerce. Regardless of your economic system of choice, money is necessary to make it function. Control over currency and funding grants institutions and special interests immense power over commerce, and thus virtually every aspect of human civilization. Decentralizing this power introduces balance and reduces the scale of abuse one can exercise through any given monetary system.<br />
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Alternatives are difficult to establish, but not impossible. And while current alternatives are not perfect, if one's interest is in monetary policy and monetary systems, then there is a growing community they can join to improve these alternatives.<br />
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<b>Solutions: </b>Cryptocurrencies and crowd funding are two such innovations that are giving people alternatives to current monetary systems as well as the raising of funds for projects. <a href="https://bitcoin.org/en/">Bitcoin</a> is just one of several cryptocurrencies and there are a growing number of crowdfunding platforms including <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/">Kickstarter</a> and <a href="https://www.patreon.com/about">Patreon</a>. <br />
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Cryptocurrencies and crowdfunding help oil this system of alternatives growing from increasingly high-tech, decentralized solutions to the corrupt monopolies at the source of our sociopolitical and economic troubles.<br /><br />It should be noted that many alternative media sites, not only political, but covering all subjects, from science and technology, to entertainment and education - increasingly rely on sites like Patreon to channel funding from their viewers and expand their work in a sustainable and responsive way to what their audiences want. This stands in stark contrast to the sponsored media currently dominating Western audiences' attention, presenting them messages and perspectives that suit the corporate-financier interests funding them, not the people consuming their content.<br />
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<b>Displace the Deplorables </b><br />
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These are just 5 areas and but a handful of solutions among many where people are already working hard, all over the world, to build the sort of world they want to live in - a world in contrast to the injustice of centralized power and profits we currently live in. The immense problems we face today were not created by one person overnight, nor will they be solved by one person overnight. It will take many people, focusing in many different areas, patiently over time to collectively move the vector sum of human efforts toward something more equitable, just, and beneficial to us all.<br />
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<br />Of these 5 areas, you need not cover them all. If you committed yourself to just one of them, and worked incrementally over the next year to achieve even the scarcest of results, you will be further ahead than if you did nothing at all. Efforts, no matter how small, add up over time. When many people are working in parallel, these small incremental steps add up even more.<br />
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The only sure way to fail and effect no change at all is to resign yourself to the system currently at hand. Doing nothing, or worse yet, going out into the streets to create chaos, adds up over time as either nothing, or the destruction of what little you already have. <br /><br />Just as when we were children seeking greater independence, we were unable to obtain it by simply shouting, stomping our feet, and throwing a tantrum. We were required to grow up, acquire skills, apply them effectively, and create a life of our own, in our own way, to suit us rather than have a life imposed upon us by those we depended on. Likewise, as a society, we need to grow up, take an actual stake in this world of ours for ourselves. <br /><br />By controlling our food, water, energy, local manufacturing, monetary policy, and even our own healthcare, we invest in and derive from these efforts to our own, direct benefit. <br /><br />We must become the change we want to see in the world, not stomp our feet until someone delivers it to us. It is not "a way" to solve our problems. It is the only way problems can ever be solved. Do not join the protests, do not react to them. There is far too much work to be done to be distracted by them. Offer those who ask you about the protests to join you in a real revolution, one in which we set off to build the world we seek to live in with our own two hands rather than "demand" with our mouths.<br />
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<i style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms", trebuchet, verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><b style="font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><a href="http://localorg.blogspot.com/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration: none;">LocalOrg</a></span></b><span style="font-size: 15.4px;"> seeks to explore local solutions to global problems by empowering people locally with education and technology to not only survive, but to thrive.</span></i></div>
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Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079343630025538378.post-72933575315956988632016-10-12T11:00:00.002-07:002016-10-12T11:04:37.263-07:0010 Things We Should Be Doing Instead of Obsessing Over the 2016 Election <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>October 13, 2016</b> (LocalOrg) - Here is a list of 10 things Americans should have been doing to strengthen their communities and empower themselves sociopolitically, economically, and technologically over the past 2 years instead of having obsessed over the ultimately irrelevant process known as Election 2016.<br />
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It is ultimately irrelevant because regardless of who wins, just like in 2008 when Barack Obama took office, all of the abuses and wars raging now will continue, and all the wars meant to begin under the previous president will be justified and executed under whoever the new president happens to be.<br />
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Imagine if you accomplished even one of these 10 things in the list below over the past 2 years, and if many more did so as well. What a world we would live in instead of clinging to the false hope of some establishment representative finally "changing things" for us instead of just stringing us along for another 4 years...<br />
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<a name='more'></a><b>1.</b> Start a local organic farm: <a href="http://theurbanfarmer.co/">http://theurbanfarmer.co/</a> (takes about 1-2 years if you seek guidance from others already doing it).<br />
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<b>2.</b> Visit your local makerspace/hackerspace to learn a new skill <a href="https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/List_of_Hacker_Spaces">https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/List_of_Hacker_Spaces</a> (can take as little as 1-2 weeks to learn a new skill)<br />
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<b>3.</b> Use that new skill to start a local business, replacing/disrupting an established monopoly. (1-2 years)<br />
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<b>4.</b> Replace a percentage of your power consumption with solar. <a href="http://www.solarcity.com/">http://www.solarcity.com/</a><br />
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<b>5.</b> Replace a percentage of your big-retail food with food grown locally and sold at your local farmers' market.<br />
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<b>6.</b> Visit your local community lab to learn more about disrupting big-pharma monopolies. <a href="https://diybio.org/local/">https://diybio.org/local/</a><br />
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<b>7.</b> Grow a fraction of your own food in your own part-time hobby garden;<br />
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<b>8.</b> Go online and teach yourself a new skill for free instead of wasting money (and ending up in debt) on a formal education <a href="https://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm">https://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm</a> (or learn IT skills on YouTube regarding almost any topic from 3D design to programming)<br />
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<b>9.</b> Buy a <a href="http://localorg.blogspot.com/2014/11/3d-printing-and-age-of-disruption.html">3D printer</a> and start your own 3D design and printing service (would take about 2 years to learn everything and get good enough at it to provide a basic service for friends, family, community, and colleagues).<br />
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<b>10.</b> Start your own blog about politics, technology, farming, gardening or anything else constructive and empowering to create networks, share information, and inspire others to break free of the current Wall Street-Washington controlled paradigm.</blockquote>
None of these will transform the world overnight. However, none of the problems we face were created overnight nor will they be fixed overnight. Our problems weren't created by a single person nor will they be solved by a single person or single solution.<br />
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It will take lots of effort along many fronts by many people to create the world we want to live in - but only if we are committed to building that world ourselves, with our own two hands, instead of constantly deferring this responsibility to others how have demonstrated they have no intention of doing so.<br /><br /><i style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms", trebuchet, verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><b style="font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><a href="http://localorg.blogspot.com/" style="color: #1155cc;">LocalOrg</a></span></b><span style="font-size: 15.4px;"> seeks to explore local solutions to global problems by empowering people locally with education and technology to not only survive, but to thrive.</span></i></div>
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Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079343630025538378.post-63724159759872002962016-10-02T10:42:00.000-07:002016-10-02T10:42:12.491-07:00Google’s Jigsaw: Undermining Alternative Media<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>October 3, 2016</b> (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4RkiiW-gtc&spfreload=5">NewsBud</a>) - In this premier episode of The Geopolitical Report with Kurt Nimmo, we examine Google’s Jigsaw, an emerging technology that will be used on the internet to counter speech and ideas considered “extremist” by the global elite. Initially beta tested on radical Islamists, we demonstrate how Google and its partners plan to leverage the technology to marginalize and ultimately eliminate opposition to the establishment.<br />
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See more via NewsBud's <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdHZela1qTNM9iIw2YxenIw">YouTube channel here</a></b>. </div>
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Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7079343630025538378.post-19039591119934044372016-10-02T10:39:00.000-07:002016-10-02T10:39:14.956-07:00Facebook, Twitter, Western Media Attempt to Reassert Monopoly Over "Truth" <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-size: large;">A network whose members have literally ended the lives of millions with their lies, propose to police the web and verify the truth. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><b>October 3, 2016</b> (<a href="http://journal-neo.org/2016/10/02/facebook-twitter-western-media-attempt-to-reassert-monopoly-over-truth/">Ulson Gunnar - NEO</a>) - In a surreal and stunning example of 21st century propaganda and censorship, Google has cobbled together a coalition it is calling "First Draft" to tackle what it calls <i>"misinformation online." </i><br />
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<i><br /></i>First Draft's "founding partners" include News Corporation's (parent company of Fox News) Storyful and NATO think tank Atlantic Council's "Bellingcat" blog, headed by <a href="http://journal-neo.org/2015/08/17/who-is-the-wests-lead-mh17-investigator/">formally unemployed social worker Eliot Higgins</a> who now fashions himself as a weapons expert and geopolitical analyst despite no formal training, practical real-world experience or track record of honest, unbiased reporting. In fact, between News Corporation and Bellingcat alone, Google's First Draft appears to be itself a paragon of, and nexus for <i>"misinformation online." </i><br />
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<a name='more'></a><b>Google's Glaring Conflicts of Interest </b><br />
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Google too, having for years now worked closely <a href="http://journal-neo.org/2016/04/30/the-lingering-danger-of-google-facebook/">with the US State Department</a>, faces its own conflicts of interest in <i>"social newsgathering and verification." </i>In fact, Google has admittedly been involved in engineering intentional deceptions aimed specifically to skew public perception, including <a href="http://journal-neo.org/2016/08/05/clinton-campaigners-use-pokemon-go-to-literally-lure-voters/">doctoring its maps and Google Earth in real-time</a> amid conflicts in favor of US-backed militant groups and through the development of applications designed to psychologically target the Syrian government into capitulating before US-backed militant groups.<br />
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The UK Independent in its article, "<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/google-syria-rebels-defection-hillary-clinton-emails-wikileaks-a6946121.html">Google planned to help Syrian rebels bring down Assad regime, leaked Hillary Clinton emails claim</a>," would report that:<br />
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<i>An interactive tool created by Google was designed to encourage Syrian rebels and help bring down the Assad regime, Hillary Clinton's leaked emails have reportedly revealed.</i><i><br /></i><i><br /></i><i>By tracking and mapping defections within the Syrian leadership, it was reportedly designed to encourage more people to defect and 'give confidence' to the rebel opposition.</i></blockquote>
The article would continue:<br />
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<i>The email detailing Google's defection tracker purportedly came from Jared Cohen, a Clinton advisor until 2010 and now-President of Jigsaw, formerly known as Google Ideas, the company's New York-based policy think tank.</i><i><br /></i><i><br /></i><i>In a July 2012 email to members of Clinton's team, which the WikiLeaks release alleges was later forwarded to the Secretary of State herself, Cohen reportedly said: “My team is planning to launch a tool on Sunday that will publicly track and map the defections in Syria and which parts of the government they are coming from.”</i></blockquote>
Cohen would conclude:<br />
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<i>“Our logic behind this is that while many people are tracking the atrocities, nobody is visually representing and mapping the defections, which we believe are important in encouraging more to defect and giving confidence to the opposition.”</i></blockquote>
Can Google then be relied upon to sort out <i>"misinformation online"</i> if it itself is directly involved in manipulating public perception to achieve US foreign policy objectives? To impartial observers, the answer is clearly <i>"no."</i><br />
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First Draft would publish on its website a post titled, "<a href="https://firstdraftnews.com/social-networks-unite-global-newsrooms-take-action-misinformation-online/">Social networks unite with global newsrooms to take action against misinformation online</a>," adding further details behind the alleged rationale of the coalition. It would state:<br />
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<i>Today, news breaks online. Today, the first images to emerge from a breaking news event have been captured by an eyewitness. Today, injustices that may never have been reported become global news stories because a bystander reached for their smartphone. Today, malicious hoaxes and fake news reports are published in increasingly convincing and sophisticated ways. </i><i><br /></i><i><br /></i><i>We live in a time when trust and truth are issues that all newsrooms, and increasingly the social platforms themselves, are facing. In July, the Guardian’s Editor-in-Chief Katharine Viner wrote about the ways technology is disrupting the truth, explaining “in the news feed on your phone, all stories look the same – whether they come from a credible source or not.” Filtering out false information can be hard. Even if news organisations only share fact-checked and verified stories, everyone is a publisher and a potential source.</i></blockquote>
The members that constitute the First Draft coalition, however, have enjoyed an uncontested monopoly for decades in determining just what the "truth" actually is, as well as a monopoly over propagating things the global public now know for a fact were "untruths." Again, we see another case of the proverbial fox guarding the hen house.<br />
<b><br />The Liars Who Lied About WMDs in Iraq Will Protect Us from Liars Online? </b><br />
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Indeed, many of the organizations that constitute First Draft's coalition played a pivotal role in perhaps the most destructive and costly lie of the 21st century (to date), that involving alleged "weapons of mass destruction" or "WMDs" in Iraq, serving as the pretext for the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.<br />
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According to some estimates, up to a million perished in the initial invasion and subsequent occupation. More conservative estimates are still in the hundreds of thousands.<br />
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Undoubtedly, the invasion, justified by lies propagated across the entirety of US and European media, helped trigger a predictable chain of catastrophes that have left the Middle East to this day in conflict and ruination. These same US and European media organizations, the same ones now signing their names to First Draft, also helped justify the continued presence of US troops in Iraq for years after the invasion, up to and including today.<br />
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And the same names signed on to First Draft are also the same names who helped sell the disastrous intervention in Libya and who are now attempting to sell yet another direct Western military intervention in Syria.<br />
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And it is perhaps the lack of success these same names are having in selling this most recent potential intervention in Syria that has precipitated First Draft's creation in the first place.<br />
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There is a burgeoning alternative media composed of individual independent journalists, analysts and commentators both biased and impartial, both professional and amateur, competing directly with and overcoming the West's longstanding monopoly over international public perception. There is also the emergence of professional and competitive national media organizations across the developing world who are taking increasingly large shares of both the West's media monopoly and its monopoly over the public's trust.<br />
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It is clear that First Draft has no intention of protecting the truth as none among its membership have done so until now individually, but rather in collectively protecting what the special interests behind these organizations want the global public to believe is the truth. First Draft is a desperate measure taken by Western special interests to reassert the West's dominance over global public perception by leveraging the widely used social media platforms it controls, including Facebook and Twitter, as well as IT giant Google and its large range of services and applications.<br />
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In the end, all that First Draft is likely to accomplish is convincing the developing world of the necessity of creating domestic alternatives to Facebook, Google and Twitter, as well as to continue expanding their own domestic media organizations to better represent their respective national interests upon the global stage and to dilute the dangerous and destructive media monopoly the West has enjoyed and abused for decades.<br />
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Until the members of First Draft can cite a lie told by their competitors that is as destructive and as costly as their own lies preceding and underpinning the invasion and occupation of Iraq or the more recent destruction of Libya, their efforts appear more as a means of further deflecting away from the truth, not defending it.<br />
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<i style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px; line-height: 18.48px;">Ulson Gunnar, a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “<a href="http://journal-neo.org/" style="color: #6fa8dc; text-decoration: none;">New Eastern Outlook</a>”.</i></div>
Land Destroyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07975347030080073643noreply@blogger.com