Technofascism blog

In Orwell’s 1984, Winston was ultimately “convinced” that Big Bother was good too.    Now CNN plays the part of Winston’s conditioner, O’Brien, and tries to convince us–minus the rat cage, of course.

via CNN.com.

The opening passage from George Orwell’s “1984″ depicts a guy hustling up a stairwell that’s plastered with giant posters of a man’s face staring at him.

“It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move,” Orwell writes in the classic dystopian novel. “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran.”

These days, Big Brother doesn’t need to do much snooping. We just tell him what we’re up to. We tweet, check in on Foursquare, use digital payment systems and generally live so publicly that spying loses at least some degree of utility.

Meanwhile, we’re quickly expanding the systems we’ve built to monitor ourselves and our environments. We connect our power consumption to the internet via “smart meters,” we let Google’s cameras map our streets and we use wireless gadgets to transmit vital signs to doctors.

All of that may sound horrifying. But as old notions of privacy evaporate, some benefits of a shared and monitored life become clearer. All this data has the potential to make our cities more efficient, encourage social connectedness and even aid in response to major disasters, such as earthquakes.

Here’s a look at 10 ways constant monitoring and all-the-time online sharing can improve modern life. If you find this contrarian view to be downright Orwellian, let us know in the comments section.

1. Monitored city systems

In 2009, researchers from MIT’s SENSEable City Lab tacked wireless GPS monitors onto paper coffee cups, aluminum cans and bottles of dish soap. Then they tossed that stuff in the garbage and sat back to watch what happened.

Some of the trash traveled more than 1,000 miles before landing in a final resting place. They hope that kind of info can help cities and trash management companies do their work more efficiently.

2. Health monitors

Chronic heart diseases, Alzheimer’s and diabetes require constant monitoring, but doctor’s visits only come about so often. Cue a new generation of wireless heath monitors that let people transmit data about their blood-sugar levels, weight and heart rate to doctors without leaving home.

Some older people have taken this idea a step further still, installing networks of sensors in their homes so someone will know if they break from the routine. If an older woman hasn’t opened her refrigerator in several hours, for example, an automatic alarm might send text messages to her kids so they can check to make sure she’s eating regularly.

3. Disaster response

In the aftermath of January’s earthquake in Haiti, volunteers all over the world scoured the internet for information about the damage.

Public tweets — some tagged with data about where they were sent — as well as text messages and photos from Haiti were put on a living, updating map. This info was used by emergency responders who were trying to get aid to the places where it was needed most.

4. Bored on Tuesday

Location-based social networks aren’t the most widely used services in the tech world. By the measure of one survey, only about 4 percent of internet users connect with friends on Foursquare, Gowalla, SCVNGR and the like.

But for people who blab their real-world locations on these networks, social connections can emerge. Foursquare users, for example, can look at their smartphones to see where all of their friends have “checked in” most recently. If a friend is at your neighborhood bar on a random weeknight, you might just drop in to say hello.

5. Traffic maps

Once upon a time, people got traffic reports from radio DJs who spewed off the latest car crashes, usually only taking into account the major interstates. Now, a real-time traffic layer on Google Maps shows users a block-by-block view of where the backups are.

Magic? Not quite. Google relies on drivers to share anonymous information about where they are. It then takes that data, in aggregate, and figures out how quickly cars are moving on various roads and then creates a map of the flow.

6. Smart grid

Right now, most of us don’t know much about our home electricity consumption. Bills go up in the summer for air conditioning and down in the winter. That’s about it. But the U.S. government is in the process of deploying a smart electricity grid, which will take information about home energy use and translate it into money-saving energy tips.

One software company, called OPOWER, takes data from the smart grid and spits out home energy use reports that compare one person’s energy use to that of their neighbors, on average. This data helps OPOWER’s users save, on average, 2% to 3% on their energy bills.

7. Free stuff

There’s often a trade-off between privacy and free services. Products such as Gmail are free because they target users with ads. Similarly, people who are willing to “check in” on smartphone apps to their favorite stores can get deals. Foursquare “mayors” — the people who visit one location more times than anyone else — often are eligible for free stuff. And SCVNGR app users complete check-in-based challenges that can earn them free merchandise or food.

8. Monitoring earthquakes

We can’t accurately predict them, but some researchers say we could respond to earthquakes more quickly if we turned huge networks of laptop and desktop computers into seismic monitors.

In a pilot project from Stanford University and the University of California, Riverside, researchers linked up at least 1,400 computers to do just that. Sensors — either inside computer hard drives or attached to office desks — send readings to a central database that processes them in aggregate.

9. Looking for content you’ll “like”

The Web is so big that it can seem infinite and daunting. But by sharing the content you “like” on the internet with Facebook friends, you help them find websites, stories and videos they otherwise would have missed. Increasingly, these public preferences are visible to your Facebook friends both on and off Facebook.com. If you’re logged into Facebook, now, for instance, you can see if any of your Facebook friends have “recommended” this article.

10. Environmental sensors

We’re not the only ones who can be watched. Plenty of environmental scientists are interested in using tiny sensors, sometimes called “smart dust,” to monitor nature and get a better understanding of how it works.

Sensors in California’s redwood forests, for example, have taught scientists at the University of California at Berkeley about how these giant trees take in water through fog. And researchers at Intel Labs have developed a prototype smartphone that, when uploading information to the internet, including a person’s location, could be used to track air quality readings in major metro areas.

via Wall Street Journal.

David Norris wants to collect the digital equivalent of fingerprints from every computer, cellphone and TV set-top box in the world.

He’s off to a good start. So far, Mr. Norris’s start-up company, BlueCava Inc., has identified 200 million devices. By the end of next year, BlueCava says it expects to have cataloged one billion of the world’s estimated 10 billion devices.

Advertisers no longer want to just buy ads. They want to buy access to specific people. So, Mr. Norris is building a “credit bureau for devices” in which every computer or cellphone will have a “reputation” based on its user’s online behavior, shopping habits and demographics. He plans to sell this information to advertisers willing to pay top dollar for granular data about people’s interests and activities.

More

via TheHill.com.

The next step in tightened security could be on U.S. public transportation, trains and boats.Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says terrorists will continue to look for U.S. vulnerabilities, making tighter security standards necessary.“[Terrorists] are going to continue to probe the system and try to find a way through,” Napolitano said in an interview that aired Monday night on “Charlie Rose.”“I think the tighter we get on aviation, we have to also be thinking now about going on to mass transit or to trains or maritime. So, what do we need to be doing to strengthen our protections there?”

via Yahoo! News.

Taking a trip during the holidays isn’t the only time that people might get a full-body scan to pass through security. People heading to court to testify at trial, get a restraining order, pay a ticket — or answer criminal charges — could also face a full-body scan at courthouses.

The U.S. Marshals Service, which is in charge of protecting federal judges nationwide, recently wrapped up a pilot program at a federal courthouse in Orlando, Fla.

Two state courthouses in Colorado have already deployed full-body scanners that use radiowaves that can detect all objects on a person, including paper.

A guard in a separate room monitors the gray images that have pixelated faces and genital areas, and the images aren’t stored on a computer.

Be sure to take an extra shot of doubleplusgood victory gin when you read this one.

Apparently, CNN is now pushing the benefits of 24/7 monitoring for everyone since it seems to work so well with the one elderly person mentioned in the article, who, they claim, does not consider this constant surveillance to be a complete invasion of privacy.  In fact, he likes being watched.  It gives him a sense of security.

The sensors know when Charlton Hall Jr. wakes up to go to the bathroom. They know how much time he spends in bed. They watch him do jigsaw puzzles in the den. They tattle when he opens the refrigerator.

Sound like a Big Brother nightmare?

Not for Hall. The 74-year-old finds comfort in monitored living.

“It’s a wonderful system for helping older people to stay independent as long as possible,” he said, sitting in the living room of his 7,500-square-foot house, a sensor watching him from an elaborate bookshelf. “They know where I am — all the time.”

Of course, since the technocracy simply cannot use common sense but must promote the most absurd, technical overkill solutions to even the most basic problems, the story offers this gem:

This type of set-up may only be the beginning.

University researchers are testing robots that help take care of older people, keep them company — and even give them sponge baths. Meanwhile, some younger people have taken to collecting information on their own, often going to extremes to document exercise routines, caffeine intake and the like and posting the data online.

So, instead of encouraging young people to care for the elderly personally, the technocracy encourages them to build robots and collect data instead.  I guess it would be completely outrageous to suggest that human live-in helpers could provide these elderly people with not only the safety they need, but human companionship, something they will never get from their robotic hygene systems and automated surveillance equipment.

But, of course, to the technocracy, this human helper approach would be absurd.  Not just because young people today are too busy managing their Facebook accounts but because in the technofascist system we live under, the common sense solutions are seen as antiquated and inefficient.  They must be improved upon and all traces of a human element must be removed.  The inefficient and undependable human must slowly be replaced by the more efficient and reliable machine.  Ultimately, humans are simply a security risk to the technocracy.  That is why it is not just the elderly that must be monitored continuously, it must eventually be all of us as the article so plainly states:

Jeff Kaye, director of the Oregon Center for Aging & Technology, said this monitored-all-the-time life will become the norm for older people in the United States within five years, and will be common for people of all ages soon after.

via CNN.com.

via CNN.

The next generation of Android is coming in a few weeks, and that update to the mobile operating system “could replace credit cards,” according to Google chief executive Eric Schmidt.At the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Schmidt said Android 2.3 code-named Gingerbread will combine location services with “tap-and-pay” functionality.

“Imagine that instead of typing my search, my phone is sending me information all the time,” Schmidt said. “Maybe I tell [my phone] I need a pair of pants, and I get relevant information as I walk down the street.”

Android, an open-source operating system widely used in smartphones, will soon use so-called “near-field communications” sensors to read RFID tags and link up with other phones and payment systems. That move will put Google squarely in the center of the growing field of developers working on mobile payments.

Schmidt showed off an “unannounced device” running on Android. The phone, which was black with rounded edges, looked like the rumored Nexus S.

Schmidt also unleashed a new statistic: a whopping 35 hours of video are uploaded to Google’s YouTube every minute.

The rest of Schmidt’s talk was a grab bag, with the CEO commenting on recent controversies around Google data’s, its competition with Facebook, and Google TV.

Addressing “creepy comments”: Schmidt laughed off questions about recent comments he made about Google “knowing where you live and what you do.” His take: “In the new world, you have to label jokes.”

But conference moderator John Battelle pushed Schmidt on Google’s in-hot-water status over data breaches. Last week, the Federal Communications Commission said it is investigating whether Google broke the law by inadvertently collecting personal information from Internet users while gathering data for its Street View mapping technology. The Federal Trade Commission opened its own inquiry, but ended it without any action three weeks ago.

“There’s a creepy line we don’t want to cross,” Schmidt said. “For example, we could track people in real time, or use face recognition — but we won’t.”

via Reuters.

For you sir, a canned coffee. And for madam, perhaps a nice cold tea.A new Japanese canned drink vending machine uses facial recognition technology to “recommend” drinks based on the customer’s age and gender — and sales have tripled over those from regular vending machines as a result.

Since the technocracy needs to reduce everyone to a controllable, predictable material entity, it obviously favors a worldview that considers human beings to be nothing but trousered apes.  To be properly denigrated, humans must be reduced to nothing more intrinsically important than a temporary, biological cog in the giant mega-machine’s creeking march toward greater progress and control over nature.

Unfortunately, to the dismay of the apostles of technocratic nihilism, this summer two findings, largely ignored by the mainstram media, were published that dealt devastating blows to the materialist philosophies that justify the technocracy’s agenda:  1) the conclusive evidence that Carbon-14 and other radiometric dating methods are invalid; and 2) strong evidence that the once universal and finely-tuned physical constants now actually vary throughout the universe.

The implications of one of these findings alone is enough to rewrite history and our place in the universe.  But taken together, they seem to be almost a beacon from a lighthouse outside of time and space cautioning us not to venture further into the rocky crags of materialist philosophy.

Some readers who think that evidence for varying isotope decay and physical non-constants might not be a big deal would do well to remember that ALL scientific knowledge we have about the origin of the universe and life on earth is based on the assumption that radioactive decay is constant and that the physical laws are not different in different places in the universe.  When these assumptions are shattered, we should be very skeptical about the versions of history that are currently being taught in schools as though they were the final truths of reality.

————

via Stanford News:

It’s a mystery that presented itself unexpectedly: The radioactive decay of some elements sitting quietly in laboratories on Earth seemed to be influenced by activities inside the sun, 93 million miles away.

Is this possible?

Researchers from Stanford and Purdue University believe it is. But their explanation of how it happens opens the door to yet another mystery.

There is even an outside chance that this unexpected effect is brought about by a previously unknown particle emitted by the sun. “That would be truly remarkable,” said Peter Sturrock, Stanford professor emeritus of applied physics and an expert on the inner workings of the sun.

The story begins, in a sense, in classrooms around the world, where students are taught that the rate of decay of a specific radioactive material is a constant. This concept is relied upon, for example, when anthropologists use carbon-14 to date ancient artifacts and when doctors determine the proper dose of radioactivity to treat a cancer patient.

Random numbers

But that assumption was challenged in an unexpected way by a group of researchers from Purdue University who at the time were more interested in random numbers than nuclear decay. (Scientists use long strings of random numbers for a variety of calculations, but they are difficult to produce, since the process used to produce the numbers has an influence on the outcome.)

Ephraim Fischbach, a physics professor at Purdue, was looking into the rate of radioactive decay of several isotopes as a possible source of random numbers generated without any human input. (A lump of radioactive cesium-137, for example, may decay at a steady rate overall, but individual atoms within the lump will decay in an unpredictable, random pattern. Thus the timing of the random ticks of a Geiger counter placed near the cesium might be used to generate random numbers.)

As the researchers pored through published data on specific isotopes, they found disagreement in the measured decay rates – odd for supposed physical constants.

Checking data collected at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island and the Federal Physical and Technical Institute in Germany, they came across something even more surprising: long-term observation of the decay rate of silicon-32 and radium-226 seemed to show a small seasonal variation. The decay rate was ever so slightly faster in winter than in summer.

Was this fluctuation real, or was it merely a glitch in the equipment used to measure the decay, induced by the change of seasons, with the accompanying changes in temperature and humidity?

“Everyone thought it must be due to experimental mistakes, because we’re all brought up to believe that decay rates are constant,” Sturrock said.

The sun speaks

On Dec 13, 2006, the sun itself provided a crucial clue, when a solar flare sent a stream of particles and radiation toward Earth. Purdue nuclear engineer Jere Jenkins, while measuring the decay rate of manganese-54, a short-lived isotope used in medical diagnostics, noticed that the rate dropped slightly during the flare, a decrease that started about a day and a half before the flare.

If this apparent relationship between flares and decay rates proves true, it could lead to a method of predicting solar flares prior to their occurrence, which could help prevent damage to satellites and electric grids, as well as save the lives of astronauts in space.

The decay-rate aberrations that Jenkins noticed occurred during the middle of the night in Indiana – meaning that something produced by the sun had traveled all the way through the Earth to reach Jenkins’ detectors. What could the flare send forth that could have such an effect?

Jenkins and Fischbach guessed that the culprits in this bit of decay-rate mischief were probably solar neutrinos, the almost weightless particles famous for flying at almost the speed of light through the physical world – humans, rocks, oceans or planets – with virtually no interaction with anything.

Then, in a series of papers published in Astroparticle Physics, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research and Space Science Reviews, Jenkins, Fischbach and their colleagues showed that the observed variations in decay rates were highly unlikely to have come from environmental influences on the detection systems.

Reason for suspicion

Their findings strengthened the argument that the strange swings in decay rates were caused by neutrinos from the sun. The swings seemed to be in synch with the Earth’s elliptical orbit, with the decay rates oscillating as the Earth came closer to the sun (where it would be exposed to more neutrinos) and then moving away.

So there was good reason to suspect the sun, but could it be proved?

Enter Peter Sturrock, Stanford professor emeritus of applied physics and an expert on the inner workings of the sun. While on a visit to the National Solar Observatory in Arizona, Sturrock was handed copies of the scientific journal articles written by the Purdue researchers.

Sturrock knew from long experience that the intensity of the barrage of neutrinos the sun continuously sends racing toward Earth varies on a regular basis as the sun itself revolves and shows a different face, like a slower version of the revolving light on a police car. His advice to Purdue: Look for evidence that the changes in radioactive decay on Earth vary with the rotation of the sun. “That’s what I suggested. And that’s what we have done.”

A surprise

Going back to take another look at the decay data from the Brookhaven lab, the researchers found a recurring pattern of 33 days. It was a bit of a surprise, given that most solar observations show a pattern of about 28 days – the rotation rate of the surface of the sun.

The explanation? The core of the sun – where nuclear reactions produce neutrinos – apparently spins more slowly than the surface we see. “It may seem counter-intuitive, but it looks as if the core rotates more slowly than the rest of the sun,” Sturrock said.

All of the evidence points toward a conclusion that the sun is “communicating” with radioactive isotopes on Earth, said Fischbach.

But there’s one rather large question left unanswered. No one knows how neutrinos could interact with radioactive materials to change their rate of decay.

“It doesn’t make sense according to conventional ideas,” Fischbach said. Jenkins whimsically added, “What we’re suggesting is that something that doesn’t really interact with anything is changing something that can’t be changed.”

“It’s an effect that no one yet understands,” agreed Sturrock. “Theorists are starting to say, ‘What’s going on?’ But that’s what the evidence points to. It’s a challenge for the physicists and a challenge for the solar people too.”

If the mystery particle is not a neutrino, “It would have to be something we don’t know about, an unknown particle that is also emitted by the sun and has this effect, and that would be even more remarkable,” Sturrock said.

———-

Laws of Physics vary through universe

via Science Daily:

A team of astrophysicists based in Australia and England has uncovered evidence that the laws of physics are different in different parts of the universe.

The team — from the University of New South Wales, Swinburne University of Technology and the University of Cambridge — has submitted a report of the discovery for publication in the journal Physical Review Letters. A preliminary version of the paper is currently under peer review.

The report describes how one of the supposed fundamental constants of Nature appears not to be constant after all. Instead, this ‘magic number’ known as the fine-structure constant — ‘alpha’ for short — appears to vary throughout the universe.

“After measuring alpha in around 300 distant galaxies, a consistency emerged: this magic number, which tells us the strength of electromagnetism, is not the same everywhere as it is here on Earth, and seems to vary continuously along a preferred axis through the universe,” Professor John Webb from the University of New South Wales said.

“The implications for our current understanding of science are profound. If the laws of physics turn out to be merely ‘local by-laws’, it might be that whilst our observable part of the universe favours the existence of life and human beings, other far more distant regions may exist where different laws preclude the formation of life, at least as we know it.”

“If our results are correct, clearly we shall need new physical theories to satisfactorily describe them.”

The researchers’ conclusions are based on new measurements taken with the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, along with their previous measurements from the world’s largest optical telescopes at the Keck Observatory in Hawaii.

Mr Julian King from the University of New South Wales explained how, after combining the two sets of measurements, the new result ’struck’ them. “The Keck telescopes and the VLT are in different hemispheres — they look in different directions through the universe. Looking to the north with Keck we see, on average, a smaller alpha in distant galaxies, but when looking south with the VLT we see a larger alpha.”

“It varies by only a tiny amount — about one part in 100,000 — over most of the observable universe, but it’s possible that much larger variations could occur beyond our observable horizon,” Mr King said.

The discovery will force scientists to rethink their understanding of Nature’s laws. “The fine structure constant, and other fundamental constants, are absolutely central to our current theory of physics. If they really do vary, we’ll need a better, deeper theory,” Dr Michael Murphy from Swinburne University said.

“While a ‘varying constant’ would shake our understanding of the world around us extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. What we’re finding is extraordinary, no doubt about that.”

“It’s one of the biggest questions of modern science — are the laws of physics the same everywhere in the universe and throughout its entire history? We’re determined to answer this burning question one way or the other.”

Other researchers involved in the research are Professor Victor Flambaum and PhD student Matthew Bainbridge from the University of New South Wales, and Professor Bob Carswell at the University of Cambridge (UK).

via Arikia Millikan – Technology – The Atlantic.

Now, I am always connected to the Web. The rare exceptions to the rule cause excruciating anxiety. I work online. I play online. I have sex online. I sleep with my smartphone at the foot of my bed and wake up every few hours to check my email in my sleep (something I like to call dreamailing).

But it’s not enough connectivity. I crave an existence where batteries never die, wireless connections never fail, and the time between asking a question and having the answer is approximately zero. If I could be jacked in at every waking hour of the day, I would, and I think a lot of my peers would do the same. So Hal, please hurry up with that Google implant. We’re getting antsy.

In yet another attempt to gain public acceptance for the coming technological tyranny, the EU has recently funded the University of Bergen in Norway to create a website that collects people’s opinions on three emerging techno-fascist technologies: biometric id, human augmentation, and global tracking systems.

The TechnoLife project’s website claims that they

“will place a number of media objects in different (public) domains and use these as focal points of discussion. The idea here is simply that images and more emotionally laden content may better serve as triggers of debate than standard ethical principles or analysis. We develop a number of tools for that purpose, the most important being a number of short movies. Other possible “triggering objects” may include news stories, images and gadgets such as mobile phone applications.”

To trigger a negative reaction as the stimulus for a debate, the Technolife project has created movies that deliberately portray the three above-mentioned technologies in a negative light.  These shock films are intended to invoke a negative reaction in the viewer who would then presumably log into the TechnoLife website and post their concerns.

And what will the TechnoLife project do with these concerns: “The outcomes of the deliberative phase, involving a number of different concerned groups will be presented to EU policy makers” with the objective to “Develop methods to represent ethical issues of the three technological fields to end-users (policy makers, scientists and NGOs) at early stages of S&T and policy development” and to “Develop ethical frameworks that can be used to take better account of the ethical concerns understood in relation to social and technical imaginaries in the three technological fields.”

Or, after translating into plain non-academic English, the TechnoLife project will present the objections of concerned citizens to EU policy makers so they can then spin the technology in a direction that is more acceptable to the general population.

Of course, nowhere on their website is there even the hint that these technologies could be prevented from being deployed.  TechnoLife’s research is narrowly focused on how to gain public acceptance for the coming surveillance and control systems.

So, if you would like to be “triggered” into providing your concerns to the TechnoLife project, here are their three movies which are guaranteed to make you wish you could jump into a time-machine set for the 18th century.