Imagine American scientists conducting clandestine collaborations with Soviet scientists at Soviet biodefense labs to work on potential bioweapons - then not publishing their work outside the Russian lab and refusing to answer questions about it. They'd be locked up as traitorous spies. But that's exactly the situation we've got today with scientist collaborating with WIV - but this time the media treats them like they're untouchable gods.

(this thread continues here)

"Children as young as six are to learn about crimes under Hong Kong's national security law.

Schools will be asked to monitor children's behaviour and report any support for the pro-democracy movement, as part of new education rules."

That makes drive-through testing a bit tricky!

Good point. That's why i reckon we should patent ‘anal recognition technology’.

We could become the next tech-whiz entrepreneur gazillionaires.

Here's how it could work (stop me if this is too much information):

I have a Japanese style toilet - seems more hygienic - just wanted it for the water - but modern ones sense you sitting down - make whirring noises - lights are activated. Freaks guests out a little bit but i'm used to it - find it comforting even.

How hard can it be to equip that existing setup with an anal recognition function?

We know Covid can be detected in sewerage - now you will be able to trace that all the way back to the actual arse-hole it came out of.

"Health authorities in China are using anal swabs to mass test residents for coronavirus amidst a severe outbreak spreading from the north-east of the country.

Doctors claim the procedure can be more effective in detecting the virus than nasal swabs."

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/coronavirus-australia-live-news-australia-ranke... (paywall)

The Internet allows us to live in idea mirrors, echo chambers, or whatever the term is. Decentralization actually will make that problem worse by making it easier for people to hide in their own idea caves.

In effect, decentralization will allow us all to retreat to our own thought neighborhoods that we existed in before the Internet! So this is a real conundrum.

On the one hand, decentralization allows more freedom. On the other, we use that freedom to avoid new ideas and surround ourselves with the comfort of familiarity.

Good analysis, 'conundrum' is the right word - just to echo your remarks haha.

One thing about the Covid origin arguments, however, it has thrown up some strange bedfellows - which breaks through the echo chamber to some extent. For example, most people on the left trust the experts and believe it was the result of natural selection, whereas the right is more likely to believe the lab scenario.

Then there are those that have an opinion on the origin that is formed without regard to left or right thinking. It would be nice if this engenders a rise in independent analysis - outside the web of both party machines.

Alan Deshowitz describes himself as a 'liberal Democrat' but has an interesting perspective (paywall) that relates to the above:

"There is a crisis in free speech led by the United States but literally around the world. And the tragedy is it’s being led by the left. I grew up with McCarthyism. There were great threats to free speech from the right, and we, liberals, stood up for free speech because naturally they were suppressing our free speech.

Today, the conservatives are speaking up for free speech, because the left is repressing their free speech. There are very, very few people out there who say “free speech for me and for thee, rather than free speech for me but not for thee”.

The left have become so certain of their truth that they don’t think there’s a need for dissent. They don’t think there’s a need for due process. Many support cancel culture which is a direct denial of both freedom of speech and due process. With certainty comes intolerance."

And that major problem is that the Internet allows us to live in idea mirrors, echo chambers, or whatever the term is. Decentralization actually will make that problem worse by making it easier for people to hide in their own idea caves.

In effect, decentralization will allow us all to retreat to our own thought neighborhoods that we existed in before the Internet! So this is a real conundrum.

On the one hand, decentralization allows more freedom. On the other, we use that freedom to avoid new ideas and surround ourselves with the comfort of familiarity.

But there's a helluva lot of stuff that doesn't really hurt anyone that still gets the full cancel-culture treatment. This is where big-tech appears to be heading - 'We believe in free speech - so long as you don't say anything that we disagree with.'

Noted, but this is where technology may step in. Censorship is now possible because all major platforms are centralized, i.e., there is a gatekeeper. Decentralized technologies will remove the gatekeeper, to an extent. The highest level gatekeeper is the ISP, not the platform like Twitter. People connect to the Internet via an ISP, so they are the highest level gatekeeper, right now.

China enacts gatekeeping via the ISP level. Western countries haven't gone there yet, at least not explicitly.

But the IPFS and blockchain models are major gamechangers. IPFS, as it exists now, will likely die out, but something will replace it. Blockchain tech is absolutely going nowhere. It is the future. The old (current) model of databases on servers is so clearly inferior to what decentralized data structures provide NOW that it's just not a guessing game. This is why all the big banks and old school companies like IBM are getting into it, albeit quietly.

These technologies are going to leapfrog Twitter, Facebook, etc. Check out SOLID and Ethereum

So there is a lot on the horizon happening. This is an incredibly exciting time in technology. We are on the brink of something as big as the beginning of the Internet. I believe that. The entire Internet is based on centralized servers and data. That is being disrupted right now. I keep telling my high school students that they'd better start learning about this stuff.

For example, we have top experts telling us China is "open and transparent". That is Covid misinformation - pure and simple, but there has been no move to ban these experts from Twitter or anything else - not even a 'Disputed Claim' notification. That doesn't bother me at all - so long as i'm free to publish details as to why China is not "open and transparent". But when that right is under threat, that's when i have concerns. Sure i can publish on Formosahut, which i'm grateful for, but I would never be granted access to mainstream media platforms to challenge those claims. (I know this coz i've tried haha! The reply is either no reply or 'Now is not the time to talk about that.')

I remember a long time ago you made a point about calculating a response to something by asking the question: 'How is this hurting me (or others)?' If it's not, or if it just offends my sensibilities, then that's not grounds for banning it.

That stuck with me and i often use it as a rule of thumb. In the category of things that do hurt, we have racism, homophobia, sexism, violence, human rights abuses etc

But there's a helluva lot of stuff that doesn't really hurt anyone that still gets the full cancel-culture treatment. This is where big-tech appears to be heading - 'We believe in free speech - so long as you don't say anything that we disagree with.'

Peepeth is a blockchain powered social network that also uses IPFS. It is moderated, so crazies calling for overthrow of governments or inquiring about kiddie porn aren't going to be welcomed there, but there's nothing stopping Parler wannabes from creating exactly the same thing without moderation.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-10/apple-bans-social-media-site-parler-from-app-sto...

"Prof Alan Woodward, a cyber-security researcher at the University of Surrey, says: "Post Cold War, this is one of the potentially largest penetrations of Western governments that I'm aware of."

The funny thing is that it was so simple the way they did it. Forget about going after all these heavily fortified entities individually with their mega-security budgets - just hack the company that supplies them with software - then wait for them to upload it!

As the articles point out - it's not an 'in and out' disruption thing - the consequences are unknown and will reverberate years into the future.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-30/sunburst-cyber-hack-solarwinds-software-cybersec...

PS. I had to 'hack' my way past the spam filter to get this post up - seems it picked up something it didn't like.

"Surveillance spending in Xinjiang has ballooned in the past few years, with facial recognition, iris scanners, DNA collection and artificial intelligence deployed across the region in the name of preventing terrorism."

https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2020/12/10/2003748449

This is another example of 'the future now'. Before people didn't care too much about China's human rights violations - many still don't - so long as they keep it to within their own country.

But the internet takes it beyond the Chinese border. Data is being collected from all around the world and is ready to be weaponized when the time comes.

The program has experienced a Covid-enhanced bump. For example, whenever they conduct vaccine trial tests in foreign countries, DNA is collected.

Chinese entities also own large parts of ancestry companies - indeed they subsidize the cost of analysing DNA on these sites - just to get the data.

They hack insurance company and medical databases.

Chang makes the point that whether you think Covid was a biological weapon or not, it proves that biological weapons do work - exhibit A - the mess America was reduced to - within months.

He argues that controlling the DNA data means you now know how to tailor a virus to attack a particular ethnic group.

"Chinese scientists have revealed they will use satellites and rockets as part of an ambitious project to artificially create rainfall."

On the surface, it could be a useful technology - bringing rain to drought areas - though i'm wary of fighting climate change through artificial weather manipulation.

Anyway, it's supposed to happen fast. Due to "breakthroughs in research and new technologies" the plan is to have a "developed weather modification system" by 2025. Includes an area the size of India.

So if this is a another technology taking off - literally to the stratosphere - where is that gonna go?

Manipulating typhoons - causing floods - droughts - heatwaves - blizzards? You'd imagine all those possibilities would be logical extensions.

Their crimes: voicing opinions.

At least it shows the inter-generational solidarity in HK.

Lai is awaiting trial, while Wong was sentenced to 13 and half months.

https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2020/12/04/2003748078

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/02/hong-kong-activist-joshua-wong-jailed-ove...

This is an interesting article on American Big Data company called Palantir. Came across them browsing the stock market. So far as the Covid K curve goes, Palantir is on the up-ramp, having increased 175% this year.

What do they do? Supply big data scraping algorithms to governments, the military, and mega-corporations.

https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/land-and-expand-secretive-palantir-makes-its-ma...

One of the main functions of the Uyghur re-education camps was a playground for this sort of stuff.

DAN WROTE:

China Wants Your DNA—and It's up To No Good

https://www.newsweek.com/china-wants-your-dna-its-no-good-opinion-1550998

The story starts:

"We need to further harmonize policies and standards and establish 'fast tracks' to facilitate the orderly flow of personnel," said Chinese ruler Xi Jinping to the virtual G20 Leaders' Summit on November 21. "China has proposed a global mechanism on the mutual recognition of health certificates based on nucleic acid test results in the form of internationally accepted QR codes. We hope more countries will join this mechanism."

China wants a worldwide database of DNA records on qrode. Yep, they want us all to have a qrcode. No doubt they'd prefer it be tattooed on our foreheads.

And they're using COVID as justification for pushing through and making it a reality.