Joshua Bongard, lead scientist: This is an ideal system in which to study self-replicating systems. We have a moral imperative to understand the conditions under which we can control it, direct it, douse it, exaggerate it.

Moral imperative - just hearing a scientist crapping on about enacting moral imperatives gives me the creeps. If Covid has taught us anything, it's that scientist cannot be allowed anywhere near the steering wheel when it comes to morality.

Bongard: If we can develop technologies, learning from Xenobots, where we can quickly tell the AI: ‘We need a biological tool that does X and Y and suppresses Z,’ —that could be very beneficial.

Yes, very beneficial if you're an unaccountable One-Everything regime - which is the kind the world's leading scientists have been supporting in recent times. Especially the suppressing Z part.

Bongard:We need to create technological solutions that grow at the same rate as the challenges we face.

No we don't. That's the fallacy at the heart of this type of scientist-driven thinking. Our two biggest challenges are Covid and Climate Change - both man-made. We need to stop doing the behaviours that caused them. It's that simple.

I don't blame the scientists for doing this work - but continuing to allow scientists to dictate the moral compass of society is a recipe for the same catastrophic results we've seen from their past efforts. Scientist are good at focusing on trees - in microscopic detail - in an amoral way. But when it comes to seeing the forest, they're hopeless.

They must stand down.

Let the adult thinkers weigh all the consequences, all the ethical/societal implications - then make sensible decisions on the total input.

It will also allow the govt to fine, tax, punish, tag, trace, follow, snoop... it will be the end of any privacy at all with regards to day-to-day life. That's not an overstatement. They'll even know which stall of a pay toilet you used and which brand of condom you bought from the vending machine. And size.

Now there's a robot (in Singapore) to help enforce all that ...

It is a brilliant ruse, if this is what's actually happening. And let's consider -- when has government or industry given two shits about the health of young people? We have them on a drip feeding of junk food and sugary drinks. The US has a very high percentage of kids who can't access good health care, Internet services, education...

I think you may be on to something.

So what was she whistleblowing about? The scandalous censorship by FB of anyone even mentioning that Covid may have come from a lab?

The crackdown on the vaccine hesitant?

No, none of that. She is calling for even greater content regulation by FB! This has to be some sort of con job.

https://news.bitcoin.com/edward-snowden-calls-cbdcs-cryptofascist-currency-closer-to-be...

WASHINGTON, DC - Sept 14 (Reuters) - Three former U.S. intelligence operatives, who went to work as mercenary hackers for the United Arab Emirates, face federal charges of conspiring to violate hacking laws.

The court documents describe how the three helped the UAE design, procure and deploy hacking capabilities over multiple years. Their victims allegedly included U.S. citizens, which Reuters previously reported based on information provided by Stroud.

Court Documents: Defendants used illicit, fraudulent, and criminal means, including the use of advanced covert hacking systems that utilized computer exploits obtained from the United States and elsewhere, to gain unauthorized access to protected computers in the United States and elsewhere and to illicitly obtain information.

Wow, that's serious, considering UAE is a totalitarian, human right oppressing regime. You could get life imprisonment for that, right?

Prosecutors wrote in a separate filing that they have promised to drop the charges if the three men cooperate with U.S. authorities, pay a financial penalty, agree to unspecified employment restrictions and acknowledge responsibility for their actions.

Not surprisingly he says AI will have as profound an impact on humanity as fire, electricity, and the internet - and he sees it happening in the next 25 years.

Also talks about quantum computing.

Touches on the reality that the internet, as wonderful as it is, also functions as a powerful control tool for totalitarianism - but doesn't go too deep there. Avoids mentioning China.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57763382

Luckily, i'm able to filter through the crap. One thing i've noticed recently is a concerted attack on crypto-currency - they never miss an opportunity to talk it down. No surprise there i guess - just another example of how out-of-control the media is. It's like they go into their morning meetings and the only topic of discussion is: 'How can we pervert the truth to benefit our financial advantage?'

We're going to see a lot more attacks on crypto in the coming months and years, not only from the media but from governments as well. They're going to do everything they can to scare people away from crypto and also to make it difficult to exchange to fiat. But in the end, this negative pressure from the big boys is going to help the little guys. Right now, that's El Salvador, but it looks like Paraguay might get in on the action soon. Once these small countries who have been bullied by the USD, IMF, and World Bank start realizing they have an edge with crypto, things will get really interesting. The economy of El Salvador will initially profit, possibly a lot, by the acceptance of BTC as legal currency. That should result in other central and south American countries embracing it and telling the financial elites to fuck off.

I wonder if the world can ever find a way through this? I'm not optimistic coz it would involve a 'whole-of-culture' rebuild. My hope is that big media will become less relevant as people look for information elsewhere - but will your average Joe ever be bothered to look past the headlines of mainstream media?

I'm not optimistic either.

The only papers that provided decent coverage when it was all on the line were the Taiwanese ones.

But somehow, out of desperation, i started reading some Murdoch press in the daily mix.

Luckily, i'm able to filter through the crap. One thing i've noticed recently is a concerted attack on crypto-currency - they never miss an opportunity to talk it down. No surprise there i guess - just another example of how out-of-control the media is. It's like they go into their morning meetings and the only topic of discussion is: 'How can we pervert the truth to benefit our financial advantage?'

I wonder if the world can ever find a way through this? I'm not optimistic coz it would involve a 'whole-of-culture' rebuild. My hope is that big media will become less relevant as people look for information elsewhere - but will your average Joe ever be bothered to look past the headlines of mainstream media?

I'm curious though as to why governments haven't just outright banned cryptocurrencies?

Because they can't. How do they ban them? What would that look like?

An interesting side note here. El Salvador just made Bitcoin a national currency. They also said it won't be taxed, meaning capital gains won't be taxed, meaning that someone could get residency in El Salvador, and pay no tax on their millions in gains on the currency. This is huge. El Salvador could end up taking in billions of dollars just in economic activity as the result of this.

If countries try to ban it, they quickly find out they've shot themselves in the foot because Bitcoin is not bound by any country.

I'm curious though as to why governments haven't just outright banned cryptocurrencies?

Also noticed the hackers went straight onto the next target - the world's biggest meat processing company, JBS, who paid US$11 mil - also in Bitcoin - so seems the hackers haven't lost faith in it.

Funny how there's no talk of 'not negotiating with terrorists' - seems they just cough up straight away.

The IMF, the World Bank, and all the other world banking bodies are terrified of Bitcoin and the technology it represents. These bodies, countries in general, depend on their currencies as expressions of their wealth. Bitcoin upends that. It completely fucks things up.

It's not just Bitcoin, but the blockchain tech behind it, so there's nothing sacred about BTC, but the fact is that blockchain technology means that people can exchange value without banks. That's the bottom line. We no longer need banks to exchange value internationally. This freaks out the big boys.

So we're going to see a lot of media attacks on Bitcoin and everything else that isn't mainstream BANK. Because the Man doesn't make money off of Bitcoin, and that pisses him off.

What has happened in El Salvador is truly revolutionary. It's a big deal. It's very historical.

My fear is that there's going to be a reaction. El Salvador is messing with the big boys, the Man. By making BTC a national currency, they are reclaiming their independence. It's a bold move. How will the Man react? Will he declare El Salvador a state sponsor of terrorism? Will he just fuck with the country in any number of ways?

One thing is for sure. Whatever the Man decides to do, it won't, it can't, stop Bitcoin.

It was interesting that the FBI managed to get most of the Bitcoin ransom money back from the Colonial Pipeline hack. How did they do that?

It's very simple. They had the 'keys' to the wallet holding the coin. They got the keys through a KYC exchange (or through the hackers directly, see below). These exchanges must follow laws similar to those of banks. The news reports on this story are INCREDIBLY vague. They don't indicate from which exchange these funds were taken, or, if, by chance, the attackers simply gave back some of the coin as an agreement.

Is that the end of Bitcoin as a thing?

Not at all. It doesn't change a thing.

This article says it was just a case of "sloppy password storage" - but that doesn't make sense for an organization that hacked a key energy supplying company.

I don't even need to read the article because it's very clear what happened. The hackers stored their coin, or put their coin purposely to be found, on an exchange. The US govt can audit and confiscate Bitcoin KYC exchange accounts just like banks. That's what happened here. This is why people recommend that you never leave coin on an exchange.

"Not your keys, not your coin". If your coin is on an exchange, the Man can take it, and that's what happened here. If you store your own coin, the banks, the govt, God, they can all fuck off.

So the question is, why did this happen? Well, didn't the govt only get a little more than 1/2 of the BTC back? Right? It was a deal. The thieves cut a deal. They put up 1/2 the coin and made it look like the Man made a big bust. It's all fucking theater.

Why did the thieves do that? Because they felt the full heat of what they'd done. They shut down the fucking fuel for the entire east coast of the US. They fucked up. They knew they'd overstepped their bounds. Also, by (apparently) selling out BTC, they served the Man's purpose by degrading BTC. The Man doesn't like BTC. So they cut a deal, and they both won. The thieves kept 2 MILLION in BTC, and the Man got headlines causing a 20% drop in BTC. Everyone wins. Again, it's all fucking theater.

If it doesn't have anonymity then there's not much value left.

Hmmm... that must be why BTC is worth 37K USD right now, nearly twice what it was at the height of 2017, and why El Salvador has been the first country to make it a national currency. It's value is just beginning to be understood.

Is that the end of Bitcoin as a thing?

This article says it was just a case of "sloppy password storage" - but that doesn't make sense for an organization that hacked a key energy supplying company.

If it doesn't have anonymity then there's not much value left.

TT: The company said that a Taipower employee caused the blackouts by mistakenly turning a switch at an ultra-high-voltage substation in Kaohsiung’s Lujhu District.

It does open up another possibility for sabotage apart from cyber-warfare - just have a plant in the power station with access to the switchboard.

They've now got water and energy restrictions in Taiwan - that's getting precarious.

It was 40C in Kaohsiung yesterday! Not a good day to have the air-con out.

If there is war over Taiwan, you can imagine all hell will break lose on the cyber-warfare front with energy supplies being a main target. Better get those solar panels and battery set up!

It crossed my mind that this recent massive power outage in Taiwan might be China testing the waters of cyber attacks.

However, i did notice that the cyber-criminals behind the Colonial Gas hack are demanding payment in Bitcoin.

It doesn't appear to be a state-sponsored operation, though it's the kind of target you'd love to be able hit if you were a state.

Also highlights the problem of cyber-attackers being able to operate with impunity. Apparently they advertise/operate on the dark web (whatever that is) as if they were a legit business.

I'm curious how the US is going to handle it - seems they haven't paid yet coz their pipeline is still down - i wonder what their alternatives are?

Edit: Turns out Colonial paid - "just hours after the ransomware attack took place".

If there is war over Taiwan, you can imagine all hell will break lose on the cyber-warfare front with energy supplies being a main target. Better get those solar panels and battery set up!