5G could be Nineteen Eighty-Four on steroids

The New Neo Posted on by

Richard Fernandez has a scary article about the threats posed by 5G: “Whoever Controls 5G Will Be Able to Surveil and Control the Planet. Will It Be the U.S. or China?”

That’s a title that grabs attention. It’s based in part on this article appearing in the NY Times:

At the click of a mouse … the police [in a part of China] can pull up live video from any surveillance camera … passing through one of the thousands of checkpoints in the city.

To demonstrate, she showed how the system could retrieve the photo, home address and official identification number of a woman who had been stopped at a checkpoint on a major highway. The system sifted through billions of records, then displayed details of her education, family ties, links to an earlier case and recent visits to a hotel and an internet cafe.

Fernandez writes:

The combination of ubiquitous sensors and database fusion has allowed the Communist Party to create “virtual cages” for millions of people. It’s easy with Internet of Things technology to turn off an individual’s credit card, phone, car, refrigerator, etc., should he stray into a proscribed zone.

The Times notes the nightmare, saying that “it is also a vision that some of President Trump’s aides have begun citing in a push for tougher action against Chinese companies in the intensifying trade war. Beyond concerns about market barriers, theft and national security, they argue that China is using technology to strengthen authoritarianism at home and abroad — and that the United States must stop it.”

It’s interesting that the Times seems to be reporting on this without being critical of Trump. It’s also interesting that the article seems to emphasize the fact that it’s being used right now to clamp down on a particular ethnic minority in China (members of which happen to be Muslim), rather than the terrifying capacity of the system itself:

A New York Times investigation drawing on government and company records as well as interviews with industry insiders found that China is in effect hard-wiring Xinjiang for segregated surveillance, using an army of security personnel to compel ethnic minorities to submit to monitoring and data collection while generally ignoring the majority Han Chinese, who make up 36 percent of Xinjiang’s population.

It is a virtual cage that complements the indoctrination camps in Xinjiang where the authorities have detained a million or more Uighurs and other Muslims in a push to transform them into secular citizens who will never challenge the ruling Communist Party. The program helps identify people to be sent to the camps or investigated, and keeps tabs on them when they are released.

More advanced technology plus totalitarian control equals nightmare. The concept of the telescreen was comparatively primitive in the technological sense, but Orwell understood the impulse and the possibilities all too well.

More from the Times:

Human Rights Watch, which obtained and analyzed the app [used as part of the surveillance], said it helped the authorities spot behavior that they consider suspicious, including extended travel abroad or the use of an “unusual” amount of electricity.

The app, which the Times examined, also allows police officers to flag people they believe have stopped using a smartphone, have begun avoiding the use of the front door in coming and going from home, or have refueled someone else’s car.

The police use the app at checkpoints that serve as virtual “fences” across Xinjiang. If someone is tagged as a potential threat, the system can be set to trigger an alarm every time he or she tries to leave the neighborhood or enters a public place…

On a recent visit to one checkpoint in Kashgar, a line of passengers and drivers, nearly all Uighur, got out of their vehicles, trudged through automated gates made by C.E.T.C. and swiped their identity cards.

“Head up,” the machines chimed as they photographed the motorists and armed guards looked on.

There are smaller checkpoints at banks, parks, schools, gas stations and mosques, all recording information from identity cards in the mass surveillance database.

Identification cards are also needed to buy knives, gasoline, phones, computers and even sugar. The purchases are entered into a police database used to flag suspicious behavior or individuals…

Much more at the link.

Fernandez adds:

Whoever controls 5G will be able to surveil and control the planet. Those in charge of the network could be omniscient and potentially omnipotent over unprotected man-made systems. To guard against China ruling this kingdom, the Trump administration has banned U.S. companies, most notably Google, from selling technology to Chinese giant Huawei.

The urgency of the challenge was underscored by The Hill’s comparison of the situation to Apollo. “We are in another innovation race right now. The race to 5G [is] a contest that could have more far-reaching effects than the race to the moon. The Trump administration deserves credit for articulating a policy that aims to see America win the race to 5G.” Steve Bannon had an even more extreme formulation: “It is a massive national security issue to the West. The executive order is 10 times more important than walking away from the trade deal. It [Huawei] is a major national security threat, not just to the US but to the rest of the world. We are going to shut it down.”

The technical aspect of this is not something I understand. But I think I get the principle.

[NOTE: I believe this story may be related:

How do you kill a company? The answer, in the context of Chinese electronics giant Huawei, appears to be deprivation, removing ready access to the elements that distinguish smartphones from very expensive chunks of anodized aluminum and glass. The latest blow: Chip designer ARM has reportedly severed ties with the company. Huawei could arguably survive without Google. Without ARM? Not so much.

It’s important to clarify that nothing at this point is certain, or permanent. The BBC first reported ARM’s move Wednesday morning, citing an internal memo that noted ARM’s use of “US origin technology,” which makes it subject to a sweeping ban put in place by the Trump administration. ARM finally confirmed the ban Wednesday afternoon.]

Two more deaths on Mount Everest

The New Neo Posted on by

There have actually been seven deaths on Mount Everest this week, but this article discusses the two most recent ones. Both were of climbers who were 55 years old, although I have no idea (and the article does not explain) whether their age was a factor. Most of the people who try to climb Everest are very very fit, but “fit” is a relative term when:

At the summit itself, conditions quickly become intolerable for climbers. At 8,848 meters (29,029 feet), the air itself contains only one-third of the oxygen found at sea level. Additionally, the human body begins to rapidly deteriorate at such an altitude — especially without proper supplemental oxygen supplies.

I freely admit that I don’t understand the high-altitude climbing mentality, although I’ve read tons about it and am familiar with a great many of the explanations. I just don’t share any element of it. I’m sure the thrill (and the view) is a spectacular and nearly-indescribable and unmatchable thing, but the risks are so great and the physical anguish so terrible that the desire to actually do it (rather than just imagine it) is somewhat opaque to me.

Plus, it’s gotten very very crowded, and the article contends that was a factor in the deaths on Wednesday. For example, this purports to be an actual photo of the summit line that day, which shows 320 people waiting on a ridge leading to the summit:

RIP.

How marijuana legalization affected the outlaw growers of Humboldt County

The New Neo Posted on by

The New Yorker has an interesting article about the changes in the economy and society (I almost wrote “culture” there, but realized that the word has a double meaning in this context) of Humboldt County, California as a result of the state’s legalization of pot-growing. Illegal marijuana-growing used to be a big big deal there, with much of the population involved, so this isn’t some fringe thing.

It’s not just the legalization that has caused changes; as the article indicates, they’re been changing for quite some time as legalization and the regulation that goes with it happened by stages over several decades, and as the older hippie Boomer population of growers died out or retired, to be replaced by a younger group with different motives and a different profit mentality.

Here’s a quote:

For multiple generations, the people of Humboldt thought that they had found a back door out of the mainstream economy. While small towns and family farms across America saw economic decline, Garberville held on to its main street, its independent businesses, and its reputation as a haven for people who did not fit in. Cannabis allowed the community to sustain the illusion that it was a place apart, but the conceit is now ending. You could blame the correction that has been playing out on the first generation, for naïveté; or on the second generation, for pursuit of profit; or on the county, for demanding changes; or on the state government, for not protecting small farmers. But Humboldt can no longer claim its independence, and it will now have to see if it can hold on to its values.

Interesting that the author doesn’t seem to think that one of those values would be this: “It’s perfectly fine for me to break the law and grow an illegal drug because I’ve decided that I’m above the law and my motives are good and pot is good.” Several of the assumptions in that statement of values can be challenged, but there doesn’t seem to be much in the article (or in the illegal growers’ minds) challenging it. The piece focuses on the difficulties faced now that legalization has lowered the price that can be charged for the product, as well as fostering the growth of bigger companies compared to the more home-grown traditional farms. The message is to adapt or perish as a business.

The only part of the article I noticed that seemed to me to deal with some of the fallout of the earlier system is this one:

The community also faced the kinds of problems that are bound to occur in an isolated county where people kept their savings in cash, drugs were easily accessible, and nobody called the cops when things went wrong. Gellman lost friends to drunk driving on Humboldt County’s winding mountain roads. Two friends were murdered during pot deals gone bad. He lost friends to suicide, and later, as the heroin and meth problems that have affected rural areas around the country reached Humboldt, to drug overdoses. At the age of thirty-nine, he has a dozen laminated portraits in his home, memorials to friends who died. “There were a lot of deaths,” he said. “But I think it’s just because we know so many people. We have so many friends.”

An exercise in rationalization. No; it’s not just that you have so many friends. It’s that something was very very wrong.

However, I will add this: I’m almost certain that it wasn’t just illegal pot-growing that was responsible. I’m basing this on a community I knew when I was a teenager. I had a boyfriend for a while who was one of those “Rebel Without a Cause” types and who lived in a small town in a state in the northeast. On one of my visits to that town, he took me to the cemetery where he viewed the graves of a number of his friends who’d already died in various self-destructive ways, among which drinking and driving featured prominently. At the age of nineteen he already knew a lot of dead people, and this was a long long long time ago.

Something was very very wrong, and I didn’t know what it was, but I could feel it all around me. It wasn’t simply the economy; the town was located in proximity to a factory that was still bustling at the time and employed a lot of local people. No, it was something more difficult to define: a general aimlessness, a cultural anomie that even I, as a visitor, could sense.

Swans, little and big

The New Neo Posted on by

The dance of the little swans (“cygnets”) from the ballet “Swan Lake” is famous for its precision. It’s not one of those great moments in ballet artistry, but it’s a triumph of technique and synchrony among the four swans who perform the variation.

Usually dancers who are small in stature are chosen, and that’s because they’re supposed to be young swans, and also because the choreography features quick, sharp movements and small allegro jumps which tend to be easier for more compact dancers.

There’s also a variation for “big” swans—the taller dancers. This dance employs sweeping movements and allows the dancers to separate rather than remain in a tight Rockettes-line formation as in the dance of the little swans. The larger movements suit the larger dancers just as the smaller movement suit the smaller ones.

The choreography is standard for the small swan variation, although people sometimes like to mess with the large variation. But the small swans’ dance has remained essentially the same for the nearly 125 years since it was choreographed by Lev Ivanov in 1895. Ivanov did the “white” acts of “Swan Lake,” and he was an absolute master.

On the danse des petits cygnes (dance of the little swans):

It is very challenging because all dancers must look the same.

Lev Ivanov’s choreography…was meant to imitate the way cygnets huddle and move together for protection. Four dancers enter the stage in a line and move across with their arms crossed in front of one another, grasping the next dancers’ hands…At the very end, they break their chain and try to “fly”, only to drop to the ground.

I never performed the role, but I had to learn it. The fun aspects were somewhat overshadowed by the fact that, about halfway through, one’s legs seem to turn to lead, and yet one must plow on. At first, it’s nearly impossible, even if the dancer is in very good shape. It is one of the most exhausting variations in the world of ballet—and that’s saying something—even though it must look as though it’s just tossed off lightly.

He’s a good rendition. This one is by the Paris Opera Ballet (pay particular attention to the step known as pas de chat, occurring from 1:01 to 1:11) [NOTE: If you see an annoying banner ad pop up, just click on the “x” and it will disappear]:

And here’s one by the Mariinsky Ballet, which is similarly on the fast side (some productions cheat a bit and slow it down) and emphasizes movement across the stage on the diagonal:

Here’s the dance of the big swans by the Mariinsky as well:

And here are some very young dancers in rehearsal on the first day of learning the dance of the little swans. You can see how difficult it is. They don’t really have the technique yet, nor the stamina, but they’re game and their teacher is energetic and kind:

MS-13 gang members murder 14-year-old girl

The New Neo Posted on by

The alleged killers had been in detention in Maryland, but that state doesn’t have a policy of cooperation with ICE’s requests to turn illegal immigrant offenders over for possible deportation.

Thus we have this:

Last week, police arrested two teenagers, Josue Fuentes-Ponce and Joel Escobar, and charged them with the murder of 14 year-old Ariana Funes-Diaz. She was killed in a tunnel, beaten with a baseball bat and slashed with a machete. She was found naked. Reportedly, the killers, members of MS-13, ordered her to strip before they murdered her.

According to authorities, Fuentes-Ponce and Escobar killed the girl because they were worried she would report them to police. She had lured a man to Northwest Washington, D.C., where he was beaten, robbed, and interrogated about his gang affiliations.

The girl had apparently been an accomplice to a previous crime of the pair, although whether she did this of her own free will or whether she was coerced and/or threatened if she didn’t cooperate is unknown (at least, unknown by me). No matter, because that is no excuse whatsoever for her murder.

Maryland officials admit that holding these two criminal illegal immigrants would have violated state guidelines. In other words, it is Maryland state policy not to cooperate with ICE in keeping the public safe from vicious illegal immigrants like Fuentes-Ponce and Escobar.

And Maryland is hardly alone in its resistance to immigration enforcement.

The two had been arrested and imprisoned for a previous robbery.

This is an excellent example of the principle of the slippery slope. Unless I’m mistaken, even those advocating leniency for illegal immigrants weren’t always advocating that we refrain from deporting criminal illegal aliens. As best I can recall, there was consensus on the idea that at least that particular crowd of offenders who had also come to this country illegally should be deported. I’m not sure when that idea became passe among Democrats, but my sense is that the protection from ICE’s clutches even of criminal illegal aliens became more mainstream during the Obama administration, although Obama himself wasn’t pushing it,

Theresa May resigns

The New Neo Posted on by

They won’t have Theresa May to kick around anymore:

“I will shortly leave the job that it has been the honor of my life to hold,” she said outside Downing Street, her voice quivering in the morning sunshine. And with that, she’s off — or at least she will be later in the summer, once a new Conservative leader is elected.

That’s quite a touch for CNN—“her voice quivering in the morning sunshine.” I’m sure the last year or so has been rough for May, and her successor will have his work cut out for him. I say “his,” because it probably will be Boris Johnson, who says he will pursue a No Deal Brexit.

More:

Mrs May will stay in office for the next two weeks, allowing her to welcome Donald Trump to the UK on his state visit, and step down as party leader on June 7.

She will then continue as interim PM until a new Tory leader is chosen, and finally leave office in July.

Two-thirds of Brits in a snap poll agree that May was right to step down.

If you don’t know what “No Deal Brexit” signifies, it means leaving the EU without the terms of that leavetaking having been negotiated in advance with the EU, and no agreement about their future relationship. The left predicts dire economic consequences, of course, and at the very least some of this sort of thing may occur

A no deal Brexit could lead to a number of things happening. For example:

Border checks could be re-introduced
Transport and trade between the UK and the EU could be severely affected
Adults may not be able to drive in EU countries without a special driving permit
It could cost more money to use your phone abroad in EU countries
It would mean no transition period

That first one on the list seems to be a perk, not a drawback. The rest seem relatively minor and/or not likely to happen.

Indian election: Modi wins

The New Neo Posted on by

The current leadership in India, described as “nationalist” (hmmm, there’s a lot of that going around), has been re-elected in a convincing victory:

Early election results indicate a landslide victory for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu Nationalist party.

It looks like the Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and allies will receive around 350 out of 542 seats, well over the 272 majority mark.

India’s grand-old socialist Congress party, which ruled the country for 54 of its 67 years since independence, may pick up around 80 seats, slightly better than its worst ever showing in the 2014 elections. The electoral landscape has mostly wiped out India’s other left-wing and Communist parties, traditionally strong in the eastern and southern states.

Following his election victory five years ago, Modi has pursued social conservative policies at home, investing in rural development, sanitation, and poverty elevation. Apprehensive of China’s growing influences in the region, he sought closer ties with Western allies, building strong personal relationships with President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

So this seems to be part of a worldwide trend.

The following reportage also seems to be a trend:

Modi’s reelection came as a shock to the mainstream media, which have long shown criticism of his supposed “anti-Muslim” agenda.

“India’s minorities fear return of Modi,” CNN claimed. The BBC parroted the sentiment, reporting: “India’s Muslims fear for their future under Narendra Modi.” The UK broadcaster added that with “an increase in hate crimes against Muslims in India in recent years, some fear the world’s largest democracy is becoming dangerously intolerant under the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).”

India has a history of some terribly dark episodes of religious violence—and the Muslim/Hindu portion involved an extraordinary amount of Muslim violence early on, although it’s not been limited to that side. It’s way beyond the scope of this post to describe the history of bloody interactions as well as peaceful co-existence between the two groups in India, but let’s just say that it’s occurred many times and sometimes on a very large scale.

Here’s a sampler:

During the Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent…Muslim rulers massacred Hindus, Jains and Buddhists while attacking temples and monasteries, while also forcing them to convert including on the battlefield. Most of the great temples in Northern Indian subcontinent were destroyed during the Muslim rule. Will Durant calls the Muslim conquest of India “probably the bloodiest story in history”, consequently between the years 1000 CE and 1500 CE, the population of the Indian subcontinent decreased from 200 to 125 million.

Skipping ahead to the Indian drive for independence from British rule during the early-to-mid-20th Century, many activists on both the Hindu and the Muslim side were for a unified India. But the divisive forces won, creating the bloodbath resulting from the partition of colonial India into a predominantly Hindu “India” portion and the predominantly Muslim nation of Pakistan:

The partition displaced between 10 and 12 million people along religious lines, creating overwhelming refugee crises in the newly constituted dominions; there was large-scale violence, with estimates of loss of life accompanying or preceding the partition disputed and varying between several hundred thousand and two million.

That’s an enormous simplification of the long and complex history of the interaction between Hindus and Muslims in the area. But suffice to say it often was far worse in the past than it is today, and that conflict between the groups certainly wasn’t invented by Modi and his party.

So, is it true that India’s Muslims (who are still very numerous, although a definite minority) have anything special to fear from the election of Modi? Doing a quick Googling now, I can see just from the headlines that the leftist media is covering the fear angle heavily (“How Narendra Modi Seduced India With Envy and Hate” in the NY Times, for example).

Is the increasing enmity in India for real? It does seem as though something’s going on that appears to be worsening and polarizing relations between the two communities, but its cause (is it Modi or something else?) and its extent are very unclear.

France belongs to everyone

The New Neo Posted on by

This seems to be the new world-entitlement mentality:

Video showed hundreds of illegal immigrants storming a French airport and occupying an entire terminal Sunday, demanding to meet with the country’s prime minister.

Hey, why not? [emphasis mine]:

Footage posted on Twitter shows roughly 500 migrants chanting in Terminal 2 of the Charles de Gaulle airport as about a dozen police officers in tactical gear look on.

“France does not belong to the French! Everyone has a right to be here!” one person can be heard yelling into a loudspeaker.

The protest was organized by the migrant support group La Chapelle Debout,

It was the sentence “everyone has a right to be here” that particularly caught my eye.

Note also that, although the linked article appeared in the somewhat right-leaning NY Post, the group that sponsored the rally is described as a “migrant support group.” That word “migrant” has replaced the former “illegal immigrant” or “alien” (don’t know what it would be in French) in many countries of the Western world.

As Orwell knew, words matter, and “migrant” is a neutral word that leaves out the issue of legality, implying that legality is irrelevant. It is not, but a great many people seem to have lost that distinction, and the leaders of this group are playing on that to the hilt. The left has made it clear that countries have no right to decide who comes inside their borders (border? what’s that?), either temporarily or permanently.

But why the airport? This particular group is targeting Air France for cooperating with deportations:

In an official statement, the group asked to meet with Prime Minister Edouard Philippe over the country’s asylum policy as well as the leaders of Air France. They demanded that the airline “stop any financial, material, logistical or political participation in deportations.”

Later Sunday, an Air France delegation met with the group, a member told local newspaper Le Parisien.

A migrant who took part in the protest warned it wouldn’t be the last.

“We have targeted Air France, and other actions will follow,” he told the paper.

I wonder whether Air France made some concessions to this group during that meeting, and whether there is any plan for the police to make arrests if the group disrupts the functioning of the terminal.

I also wonder whether this tactic will spread to the US. My guess is “yes.”

But I thought the science was settled…

The New Neo Posted on by

Apparently not [emphasis mine]:

Recent studies show [scientists] may have overestimated the age of the universe by more than a billion years — a surprising realization that is forcing them to rethink key parts of the scientific story of how we got from the Big Bang to today.

The lost time is especially vexing because, in a universe full of mysteries, its age has been viewed as one of the few near-certainties…

A few teams, including one led by Nobel laureate Adam Riess of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, set out to make those observations. Instead of confirming Planck’s measurements, they started getting a distinctly different result.

Let’s call them “universe-age deniers.”

Or let’s just call them scientists, struggling to find the truth:

At first, the common assumption was that Riess and the other galaxy-watchers had made a mistake. But as their observations continued to come in, the results didn’t budge. Reanalysis of the Planck data didn’t show any problems, either.

If all the numbers are correct, then the problem must run deeper. It must lie in our interpretation of those numbers — that is, in our fundamental models of how the universe works. “The discrepancy suggests that there’s something in the cosmological model that we’re not understanding right,” Riess says. What that something could be, nobody knows.

Back to the drawing board?

I have no way of evaluating any of this; the math is beyond me. I do know that from the time I first heard about the Big Bang and the age of the universe, as well as its expanding nature, I’ve been willing to trust the scientists on this—but only up to a point. I’ve always been aware that it’s just a working theory, for now, and subject to revision. That’s science, isn’t it?