Oh, the Conspiracies!

Travel anywhere in the world, visit a bar, pub, barbecue or someone’s home or hut for dinner, and you’ll find one topic easy to spark: conspiracies. No matter what the nation, tribe or ethnicity, people will quickly and gladly rail about some group grudge and how “people like me” are being put upon by conniving adversaries who are simultaneously evil and almost-supernaturally clever.

And always: “The world may be filled with fools who believe the cover story. But not me and my brave, insightful and savvy folk. We can see right through to the truth!”  And naturally, those foes flatter themselves in exactly the same way, viewing everyone else - including you - as either patsies or diabolical plotters. 

Ah, humans. Should we be known as Homo credens (one of you suggested), the credulous ape? 

Read texts from olden times and see the same pattern across time. No wonder the age of science seems threatening to many, whose favorite fantasies might shrivel under the light of evidence. I wrote The Transparent Society in hope that more open and reciprocal accountability might show us what is true, rather than what feels so-satisfying to believe.

Alas, there truly are conspirators in this world! Moreover, they have developed a great technique to distract from their nefarious plots — by helping spread a stinging miasma of paranoid ravings – made up or inflated stories that genuine schemes can hide behind. 

(See it illustrated in this stand-alone scene from Existence.)

Indeed, while you’ll admit that this seems true, the last thing you will contemplate is that your favorite conspiracy might be part of that disinformation-distraction fog.

== Methods to triage which plots seem plausible ==

When it comes to conspiracy theories, I know that if I dip my toe into even one, the tar baby will try to suck me into a maelstrom of evidence and "evidence” and persuasive rants and incantations… and in most cases I just don't have the time.  Not even — or especially — the ones that appeal to my ego, my prejudices, or my “side” in contemporary tiffs.

Hence, I have come up with a coping mechanism that you might also try.  A set of questions to ask, when some folks — especially those who are ‘like you’ in some way — try to foist on you their favorite story of an Evil Plot Only We Can See. And we’ll start with one that will reflexively infuriate any and all of you.

Question number one: Have trustworthy experts already worked on the case? Are they accountable, transparent, and aware that they are themselves scrutinized by a variety of interests? Are they answerable to multiple, separate structures?  This is, after all, the reason why we set up a civil service with a diversity of agencies and chains of command -- then augmented that setup with a free and diverse press -- then augmented that with a wide range of member-supported NGOs, from Greenpeace to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

(And if you aren't a dues paying member of a dozen NGOs, each fighting for a future you believe in, then take another look at the hypocrite in the mirror. The method is a lazy person's cheap route to bragging rights: "I'm at least doing something." Here's how.)

Of course, this networks of accountability systems is exactly what conspiracy believers (at all ends of the spectrum) claim has failed. Indeed, they hold that such a thing -- accountability through competitive openness -- is impossible. Certainly Hollywood portrays accountable professionalism to be nonexistent in government. Writers and directors do this for reasons of lazy plotting that I describe here. And in so doing, they spread a poison.

To be clear, betrayal by governmental powers belongs way up there on our list of things to watch for! Take the way the one man — J. Edgar Hoover — for decades dominated the top layers of U.S. federal criminal investigation, often deciding to pursue or quash cases, at whim. Still, we have inarguably the least corrupt institutions in the history of humanity. (If you doubt that, just try slipping a fifty to that cop giving you a ticket, next time. Please. Then write to us from jail.) So, while I am Mr. Transparency, extolling “sousveillance” and looking-back at power, I also am skeptical toward raving paranoia.

Which is not entirely a symptom of just the mad right! Take the lefty "Loose Change" conspiracy theory, about the 9/11 calamity. This scenario claims that the WTC towers were deliberately demolished by explosives planted over the course of months, in order to distract from the intended destruction of WTC Building Number Seven, the real target. Oh, but among the dozens of ways that theory is jibbering loony, there is the fact that explosives leave chemical residues, and the wreckage was sampled not by one agency, or a dozen, but scores of them, local, state, many federal bureaus, news organizations, NGOs, private citizens.  If even one of them had proclaimed discovery of such chemicals, every other one would have re-tested — and there was no lack of available debris to analyze.

(Don't get me started on the "melting temperature of steel" drivel that's fountained by fools.)

Do you grasp what I mean by a diversity of skilled professionals? Question number one allows you to deal with some, not all, of the most ridiculous purported plots — those that presume there are no competent people in the world.

Which brings us to question number two:

How many conspirators would be needed by this scheme? How perfect a plan and execution is required?

Loose Change is an extremum that serves as a terrific test case for these questions. In this alternative-9/11 scenario, it would have taken dozens, even scores of the most skilled experts in building demolition to plant the required explosives, which by the way could not use the usual detonation technique, since traveling wave explosive lines would not work, over such distances. So you'd need electronic systems similar to those used in nuclear bombs.

Then you'd need dozens of workers skilled at hiding the charges behind walls and in stand pipes, plus dozens more providing security. Essentially, the entire World Trade Center (WTC) security staff would have to be suborned or replaced. And funny thing... there’s no record of any such staff replacements. Indeed, most died in the disaster.

In other words, you'd need at least a hundred henchmen, performing a task no one has ever done before, amid utterly vacuum-tight secrecy, and executed with perfection never seen in any government project. Oh, don’t forget another several hundred or so conspirators needed in order to perform the bizarre other half of this theory, the faking of the aircraft hijackings!

Now, you might answer: "I don't believe in the "Loose Change" conspiracy! On the other hand, MY favorite one is clearly true!"

Hm, well, show me even one popular conspiracy theory cult that has analyzed points number one and two? 

The most recent right wing dizziness -- over the murder of ex-DNC staffer Seth Rich -- is just like every other tirade about Clinton-spawned "murders.” It’s composed of a chain of "coincidences" and arm-waved assertions that never once rises from vague correlation to causation, let alone falsifiable/checkable tests. And never is there a calculation of how many conspirators it would take or how many skilled professionals would have to be suborned.

Oh, but it gets... richer on the right, with babbling jibber-jabber about a "Deep State" conspiracy among civil servants, FBI agents, the entire intelligence community and most of the senior military officer corps... in choots with nearly all the scientists, journalists, teachers. .. Yeah that totals what? Five million or so conspirators? But the, I've spoken elsewhere about why there's a propaganda war on smart people.

Which brings us to question number 3: Why would the conspirators who purportedly executed these actions do it? 

What would convince them to betray their oaths, their professions, their conscience and their country? 

I’m not saying it doesn't happen. The Watergate break-ins and coverups involved a fair number of moderately -- (not very) -- skilled people who did it all for combinations of money, hatred, loyalty-to-a-faction and potential advancement to power. Let me repeat that I know there are conspiracies! Indeed, it is laughable to ignore the biggest and most blatant one, called Fox News, which openly works for a melange of foreign billionaires, from the Saudis to Russian Mafiosi, from Macao casino lords to an Australian deceit mogul. We’ll get to their motives in a bit.

On the other hand, most right wing conspiracy theories are not meant to prove anything, but rather to leave an impression. Ponder the Seth Rich tizzy. Supposedly, he was murdered because he – and not Moscow agents -- had spilled those Democratic Party files to Wikileaks. Tasty, since it lets Sean Hannity proclaim “It wasn’t Russians, after all!”

Sure, whatever you say, Ivan. Only let’s apply question number 3. Were those files worth killing anybody over? In fact, almost nothing revealed about Clinton or the DNC was intrinsically all that harmful, just briefly embarrassing. Only the timing, at a perfect moment in the campaign, did Clinton any real harm. (There was no fire, but the well-timed smoke did help kill her.) So, seriously, you’ll commit a capital felony – murder – over files that contain nothing toxic? Below, we’ll see how this “conspiracy” fails every other simple test.

At the opposite political extreme, none of the "Loose Change" zealots have ever offered a plausible reason why even one skilled person would be remotely tempted to devote immense energy and dedication to performing such a heinous act on behalf of some currency speculators, let along several hundred of our most capable public servants or officers.  

Money? Please. That you would assume so speaks more about your inherent corruptibility, than theirs.

Which brings us to question number 4: Why take the risk?

Seriously, let’s continue with Loose Change, because it provides such a great example of every maniacally stupid conspiracy theory trait. Ponder how each of the skilled conspirators would know:

“These fellows working on this evil plot next to me… any one of them could have recorded our activities and conversations. An hour from now, that fellow over there may spill it all to the FBI and the New York Times. He'll be a hero, get rewards and speaking gigs and be on talk shows forever, while all the rest of us get arrested, tried and then parceled out to prisons where both the inmates and guards will make life hell for traitors and attempted mass murderers."

At which point he'd think: "Maybe I better be that guy who blabs first."

Seriously, how do you stop defections? The communists were dedicated, yet we pulled in defectors all the time. ISIS and Al Qaeda are zealous, yet they leak like sieves. Yes, you can both inspire and terrify your henchmen into mass-uniformity if you run a powerful state like China, Russia, or Saudi Arabia or a narco-kleptocracy, where their families can be crushed, at will. But show me how that would work in a Loose Change scenario.

Seth Rich? Seriously? Show me a democrat who can keep his or her damn mouth shut! Now show me the dozens who would have to be complicit, from local law enforcement to the nearby FBI bureau office, to the victim’s family.

I’m not saying for 100% certain it didn't happen. But consider this simple fact. When you are going to be a whistle blower, the first thing you do is establish murder insurance, by setting up delay-drops containing everything you know, to be released in the event anything happens to you. Don’t these people ever watch movies?

Jesus, starting long ago with Vince Foster… and certainly after the Foster story made the rounds … wouldn’t anyone intending to squeal on the deadly, mass-murdering Clintons know to take basic precautions? Or is it now the notion that every single one of them were stupid asses? Perhaps even as stupid as the millions of fools who believe in Clinton-Murders?

How long has it been? 25 years and half a billion dollars spent investigating the Clintons, in desperate search for something, anything. When G. W. Bush took over the White House and owned the federal government, he re-assigned scores of FBI agents etc. to pore through e-files and cabinets, digging for "smoking guns,” in order to send to jail "the most corrupt" Clintonite politicians. What did the most extensive witch hunt in US history accomplish?

(1) Agents distracted from counter terror before 9/11... in other words outright treason. (Ponder that, plus Bush-Cheney family ties to the Saudis.)

(2) Zero Clintonian officials even indicted for malfeasance of office, a first ever for a two term administration. Later a second U.S. administration accomplished the same perfect-clean record: Obama’s.

This one – Question Number Four – is the biggie and as a society we should be making it our top transparency priority to reinforce it, by encouraging, not punishing whistle blowers. Elsewhere I describe ways to do this that could be entirely consistent with running a healthy and effective civil service. We should do this both in law and via private foundations that offer what I’ve called “Henchman’s Prizes.” 

The easier we make it for henchmen to defect, the fewer of them Blofeld and Doctor Evil and their ilk will be able to hire and trust.  

Sure, some conspiracies are safer from defectors than others. Many ex-employees of Rupert Murdoch have openly and publicly denounced the lie machine, explaining details of the process. These revelations accomplished nothing to staunch the flood of entertaining, voluptuously crowd-pleasing rants and incantations. Not till some of the tattlers found they could nail Fox for things that violated the law.  Then… lo... truth started to matter.

And so, we come to conspiracy question number five.  Who benefits?

Oliver Stone slandered LBJ as the obvious beneficiary of JFK's murder.  Sounds plausible, till you realize how desperately Johnson slaved and strived (and aged) aiming to do one thing, to make Kennedy's hopes come true. Alas, that included JFK's horrific-macho ambitions in Vietnam, but also, on the brighter side civil rights, the vastly successful War on Poverty, achievements in space and so on. Is that utter loyalty to every goal consistent with spite and conspiracy to murder? (See Bryan Cranston's film: "All the Way.")

In fact, I have never been able to find anyone who actually benefited from the Kennedy assassination. Though we should watch out for other motives. Take revenge. JFK had haters, ranging from Cuban Communists and (some) Cuban exiles to the KGB to the KKK to the Mafia to Marilyn Monroe fans… and yes, all the way to the armed, dangerously loony, and perfectly situated expert marksman Lee Harvey Oswald.

“Who benefits” can be extended to plotters who thought they would benefit, but failed. Far more plausible than Oliver Stone’s insipid scenario – that (based on zero real evidence) JFK was about to pull out of Vietnam – the the very opposite, that some U.S. officers saw we were heading into a quagmire and sought to eliminate the super-macho leader who was plunging us into a devastating mess. Do I believe this? Of course not. But I can concoct paranoid scenarios far better than the ones currently going stale on our DVD shelves.

The Loose Change ditsos collapse with their easily disproved "who benefits" railings, unable to concoct any reason why powerful men would hire hundreds of professionals for such risky treason. 

On the other hand, Fox News has been a money machine for Rupert Murdoch and his Saudi partners, and it helped sustain the Supply Side “Voodoo” Economics (SSVE) cult long after that madness was scientifically refuted, allowing Murdoch's pals to raid the US taxpayer time and again. Above all, by fomenting culture war – AKA phase 8 ofthe US civil war --Murdoch's shills accomplished his top goal: the destruction of U.S. politics as a means for adults to deliberate policy, to negotiate solutions across party lines.

Gridlock is the goal, along with demolition of any trust between the people and the government that they own.  So that conspiracy passes the “who benefits” test.

Note that all five of the questions I have asked, so far, are simple, straightforward, and make demands upon the conspiracy ranters, not upon you.

Which brings us to number 6: Who is strenuously keeping things dark?

We do no know for sure (yet) that there was direct collusion between Donald Trump himself and the Kremlin. But his absolute refusal to allow any look into his finances, or his behaviors in Moscow and half a dozen secret debriefings with foreign despots without US witnesses, show someone who is desperate not to allow light onto those topics. 

Now add his obstruction of professional investigations and you have behavior that is certainly far more consistent with a conspiracy than almost any of the other fantasies boiling around.

Question number 7: Is there a simple but devastating rebuttal/answer to the Conspiracy Theory?

Let's illustrate this one with an example. In one of his most famous rants, Glen Beck sought to portray George Soros as a media-propagandist kingpin to match Rupert Murdoch, shouting "George Soros is so powerful he toppled Eight Foreign Governments!" 
   Its an accusation repeated by Hannity, Carlson, and so many others.  Ooh. Scary government-toppler George Soros.

Now, I’ll surprise you by agreeing with Beck! George Soros did in fact help to topple eight foreign governments! Alas, while nodding along with Beck about that horribly scary, Democrat mogul must be, none of his dittoheads ever asked:

“Say Glen, how about naming those foreign regimes that George Soros toppled?”

Is it a sign of the quality of his audience that no one even considered it pertinent? Oh, it's not just Fox-dittoheads, and their dullard democrat opponents, who would not recognize an opportunity if it fell in their laps. Can you name the foreign regimes that George Soros  'toppled'?  

There's a reason Beck never said their names!  Because doing so would devastate his entire, narrative, beyond all hope of recovery.  (And no, I won’t do it here. When you look it up, you will slap your forehead over being a member of the same species as Fox-viewers.)

Question number eight: Am I doing due diligence by weighing critics of this thing and seeking smart/balanced arbiters?

The Question speaks for itself. And I can almost guarantee that you are not. 

Heck, I'm pretty lazy too.

Still, I have offered a number of ways that our modern fact-arbiting systems can be improved, not by ensconcing some elites to rule of Truth, but by taking advantage of the competitive/adversarial process we're already so good at. 

I pitched some of these ideas in 2017 when Facebook was panicking over its role in 2016 election travesties. But soon they were smugly back to assuring "We can handle this top-down, trust us." How's that going for you?

See also my FACT Act.

Question number nine: Why should we trust your elites?

Elsewhere I talk about how the central message of most Hollywood films is Suspicion of Authority, or SoA, conveyed in nearly every book or film or song. The basic difference between a decent, rational liberal and a decent, rational conservative is which group in society they worry is conspiring to become Big Brother. 

Conservatives fret about conniving power grabs by snooty academics and faceless government bureaucrats.
Liberals see plots by cabals of secret-conniving oligarchs and faceless corporations.

When you put it that way, the only answer is Duh? All of those power centers are inherently dangerous. Ideally, we are warily guarding each others' backs, with liberals grudgingly admitting "all right, I am more worried about plutocrats and you fear bureaucratic excess. I'll listen to you a bit if you'll listen top me."

Ideally. 
   Given human history, we should long ago have concluded that all elites are inherently dangerous and will be tempted to abuse power, while rationalizing that it is for the greater good.  
   Our systems were set up by very clever people so that elites will compete with each other! In their rivalry – sometimes called separation of powers – we have found a way to prevent any one of them from becoming an Orwellian monolith.

So yes! We should examine conspiracy theories! 
   I have concocted and promulgated my own, in both fiction and nonfiction. 
   And if you’ll have a look at mine, I will have a gander at yours. That is how we’ve managed to stay free.

But that synergy breaks down when - amid bilious re-ignited civil war -- one side has convinced all of its partisans that the only way freedom can be harmed is from one direction.

It is political fused spine disease. An inability to turn your head.

I regularly make efforts to prove I do not have a fused political spine.  While I declare -- based on mountains and tsunamis of proof - that today's American right is completely insane and the tool of a rising oligarchy trying to re-start feudalism…

…I regularly eviscerate shibboleths of a much smaller loony far-left, and urge sane liberals to be wary of their leftist allies.  See this: The miracle and compromise of 1947.

== These tests are only the beginning ==

I could go on. These questions are a good start, though, when trying to wade through the modern tsunami of innuendo, distractions and lies. Are there conspiracies? Of course there are! Our civilization is threatened by several, as we speak.  In fact, it is to distract from the real ones that so many false imbecilities are spewed.

These questions won’t eliminate or parse them all.  They are only a start.

Over the long run, we need to keep employing experts whose job it is to inspect possible crimes. Indeed, we need to keep a wide stance… both investing some trust in the skilled professionalism of our diverse civil servants and striving to increase their diverse accountability, their sense that they live and work under scrutiny and light. Only with this combination of high professionalism and fierce citizen oversight do we stand a chance of navigating this ever-foggy era.

The War on Science... a War on Earth... and by Christmas?

The U.S. military leadership is in unified agreement that climate change is real, that it is human caused, and also that it poses a clear and present danger to the US and especially its armed forces. "The Pentagon's thinking is revealed plainly and publicly in its own 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review, which features no fewer than eight direct, specific, and unambiguous evaluations of climate change as it relates to geopolitics and military strategy."

See also: The Pentagon's Guide to Overcoming Climate Change Denial.  And note this: the U.S. military officer corps is the third best-educated clade in American life, after university professors and medical doctors. The senior ranks are filled with brilliant men and women... (plus about 20% blithering... but no comment about that.)

 Ah, but the U.S. Officer Corps is no longer respected in the heartland.  As of November 2013, 23 percent of Americans said they "didn't believe in" climate change.  Which will be about as effective as not believing in a bullet that's been fired at your nose.  No wonder a cult-like tenor has set in, waging war not just on science but every other clade or profession of knowledge and skill in American life. (Name one exception.)

(Multiple datasets have confirmed it was the warmest October on record for the globe, keeping the planet on a course toward its toastiest year.)

To be clear, the unequivocal position by the U.S. military has had some effects upon the Fox party line.  Facts like Russian bases erupting along the Arctic Ocean and the opening of the Northwest Passage to summer shipping are pretty undeniable… so Hannity and company have veered to changing the message: "All right, the climate is changing… but… but… climate has ALWAYS been changing and that don't mean we gotta do anything!"

In fact, that's a lie, top to bottom. The last 6000 years has been among the most stable, climate-wise, in the last 20 million… and even so, small perturbations like the 1500s Little Ice Age wrought horrible havoc on nations and peoples. Any astrophysicist will show you how closely Earth skates along the inner edge of our sun's "goldilocks" or habitable zone… and hence why we can afford only traces of greenhouse gas.

But the greatest sign of stunning low-IQ is how Fox-viewers never notice the change in catechism!  From "there's no warming!" over to "all right it's hotter: but prove that it's human generated!"  It's like the millions of Glenn Beck followers who never once asked "WHICH eight foreign governments did you say George Soros toppled?"

These and dozens of other, never asked questions show that this is the greatest know-nothing campaign against a sapient, scientific civilization in 150 years. Possibly since the Inquisition.  And you have to ask: what do Rupert and his partners hope to gain?

While the vast majority of scientists in climate, atmospheres and weather agree on the essentials of human induced climate change, there are some areas wherein intense argument and discussion rage.  Such as whether the steady and dramatic arctic warming trends (leading the U.S. Navy to plan how to counter 12 new navigable ports bring built by the Russian Navy) might reach a "tipping point," releasing megatonnes of methane from both permafrost and undersea hydrate ices.  If that happened, the burst of greenhouse gas would make Al Gore look like a pollyanna.  But can it happen?

Well, it will have to be investigated by Europeans and Asians, because Legislatures in the U.S., Canada and Australia have been deliberately sabotaging the research we need, in order to settle these matters.  There is no greater treason to humanity, of course, than banning objective research into a potential civilization failure mode.  And if the worst does happen, there won't be a human being on Earth who will admit to ever having been a republican.

== Skeptics vs Deniers ==

Let's drill down into one of the top denialist rationalizations... that they are doing science the service of Skeptical questioning.  That it is about "skeptical-free minds posing questions that science should answer." 

In fact, this is a lie based on a powerful truth -- that science does need to be incessantly poked by vigorous critics, in order to function well and evade many types of observer bias. In fact, that process continues, completely outside the denialist cult. And here is where I describe how to tell the difference.

Skepticism and questions? Sure. Berkeley's Richard Muller showed how to do that. Muller revealed how aggressively competitive science is, normally. Indeed, he shrugged off some intemperate reactions  and stuck to his guns, demanding answers... till finally the climate science was good enough to satisfy his pre-set criteria. At which point he said: "okay I'm convinced."  What he did NOT do was move the goal posts, in service of a dogma. 

(This story is typical among scientists, the most competitive and smartest and (generally) sanest members of our civilization, and the folks against whom Fox is most openly at-war.)

No, this is about dogmatic cultists refusing even to negotiate. How can they refuse even to discuss RandD efforts that would be economic win-wins? Arm-waving that any measures to improve energy efficiency  will mean "impoverishment" and "shivering in the dark," they ridicule even the possibility of "compromise" investments -- Things We Ought to be Doing Anyway (TWODA).  Masures that could increase efficiency and save consumers billions? (As the 2009 CAFE standards have done?) 

Measures we should take, out of simple, rational precaution... just in case the scientists who actually know stuff turn out to be right, after all.

Read that several times. Can anyone defend such a reflexive stance? Pushed by the exact same forces who proclaimed "cars don't cause smog" and "tobacco is good for you."

Ask this: Who on Earth benefits from continued energy inefficiency? That small group happens to perfectly overlap with the funders of the cult.

See a way to tell the two apart, here: Distinguishing Climate Deniers and Skeptics.

 == Historical Context ==

In Pope Francis and the GOP's Bad Science, Michael Specter (author of Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives) writes:

“The Church has, for decades, taken the position that faith and science need not be opposed to one another. As the Catechism states, “methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God.”

“Political leaders never used to care who scientists voted for or whether they believed in God. Scientists were not seen as Democrats or Republicans. (This change did not begin with Ted Cruz and his Luddite colleagues.) In 2006, I wrote a piece for The New Yorker on the Bush Administration’s war on science. It noted that “Vannevar Bush was a conservative who opposed the New Deal, and not quietly. Yet President Roosevelt didn’t hesitate to appoint him, or to take his advice. 

"In 1959, after Dwight Eisenhower created the position of science adviser, in the wake of Sputnik, the Harvard chemist George B. Kistiakowsky assumed the post. Jerome Wiesner, a Democrat who subsequently became president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, sat on the Science Advisory Committee—which met each month with Kistiakowsky and often with the President. When John F. Kennedy took office, Kistiakowsky and Wiesner simply switched roles.” None of that would be conceivable today.”

== And pertinent... ==

Lessons from history: Apparently extensive drought destroyed the indestructible Assyrian Empire. A lesson for those os us downstream who are facing similar problems. (Or in frantic-psychotic denial.)  

Wow, unpleasant to contemplate: “The global debris layer created by the end-Cretaceous impact at Chicxulub contained enough soot to indicate that the entire terrestrial biosphere had burned. Preliminary modeling showed that the reentry of ejecta would have caused a global infrared (IR) pulse sufficient to ignite global fires within a few hours of the Chicxulub impact. This heat pulse and subsequent fires explain the terrestrial survival patterns in the earliest Paleocene, because all the surviving species were plausibly able to take shelter from heat and fire underground or in water.” 

== And Science News From the Kurzweil Files ==

In radio terms, “full-duplex” refers to the ability to transmit and receive signals simultaneously, as in cell-phone conversations. Till now it required a magnetic-based “recirculator” the size of your palm. Now an advance may let itbe miniaturized, freeing bandwidth.

Either we grab this power for the people, or we meet Big Brother. University of Washington electrical engineers have developed a way to automatically track people across moving and still cameras by using an algorithm that trains the networked cameras to learn one another’s differences. The cameras first identify a person in a video frame, then follow that same person across multiple camera views.  – Seriously, read the first two pages of TheTransparent Society.

Nick Bostrom thinks three looming technologies might pose “existential risks” nanotech, synthetic biology and super artificial intelligence.  Notably in this talk at UC Berkeley, promoting his new book SUPERINTELLIGENCE: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, he downgrades “last week’s” obsessions — nuclear war and ecological degradation.  One interesting assertion is that   a key may be to get these things “in the right order.” Certainly if we get super intelligence first — and assuming we get a soft landing into a pleasant and accommodating kind of AI, then it might help us resolve all the other threats.

“It’s an open question” whether we’ll get super-intelligence via artificial (AI) systems or else by enhancing biological powers of thought.

== The War by Christmas ==

It would be one thing if the fanatics bent on expanding Christmas beyond all reason were all about proselytizing the messages of that bearded-beaded hippie, Jesus. At least that would be un-hypocritical. But why the all-out assault on the best and most-pure holiday in the American calendar... Thanksgiving?  The only one not ruined by commercialization or polarization.  That is, till this year ended every last pretense.

Like Halloween, Thanksgiving is spreading around the world purely on its merits, without any of the aggressive hype that is being used by the forces of Christmas... who are now blasting past Thanksgiving and Halloween with jingles and "black" door-buster days, determined to spread the "cheer" of fanatical greed and crass-manipulation past Columbus Day (now "Indigenous Peoples' Day" -- a topic for another time) and the equinox, with their gaze set upon the real objective...

...Independence Day.

That movie didn't lie.  We are under attack.  Ho-ho-ho.