Category: Flotsam-and-Jetsam

In October 2017, a SWAT team descended on Jameson Lopp’s house in North Carolina. Someone — it still isn’t clear who — had called the police and falsely claimed that a shooter at the home had killed someone and taken a hostage. After the police left, Mr. Lopp received a call threatening more mayhem if he did not make a large ransom payment in Bitcoin.

To scare off future attackers, Mr. Lopp quickly posted a video on Twitter of himself firing off his AR-15 rifle. He also decided he was going to make it much harder for his enemies — and anyone else — to find him ever again.

Mr. Lopp, a self-described libertarian who works for a Bitcoin security company, had long been obsessed with the value of privacy, and he set out to learn how thoroughly a person can escape the all-seeing eyes of corporate America and the government. But he wanted to do it without giving up internet access and moving to a shack in the woods.

LINK: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/12/technology/how-to-disappear-surveillance-state.html

There are stirrings of discussion these days in philosophical circles about the prospect of human extinction. This should not be surprising, given the increasingly threatening predations of climate change. In reflecting on this question, I want to suggest an answer to a single question, one that hardly covers the whole philosophical territory but is an important aspect of it. Would human extinction be a tragedy?

LINK: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/17/opinion/human-extinction-climate-change.html

Probably not. But here are some techniques grifters use, courtesy of Maria Konnikova and her new book about con artists.

In November, I came across a story that made absolutely no sense to me. A 33-year-old consultant named Niall Rice gave $718,000, little by little, to two Manhattan psychics who promised to reunite him with an old flame. How could someone be so gullible? Rice himself didn’t even seem to know: “I just got sucked in,” he told The New York Times later.

As it turns out, it’s much easier to fall for these types of cons than many people think. As Maria Konnikova, a psychologist and New Yorker contributor, explains in her new book, The Confidence Game, grifters manipulate human emotions in genius (and evil) ways, striking right when we feel lovelorn or otherwise emotionally vulnerable. I recently spoke with Konnikova about cons, why they happen, and if there’s any way to avoid becoming a fraudster’s next target. A lightly edited version of our conversation follows.

LINK: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/01/can-you-spot-a-liar/423588/

In the last few days an alarming article making the rounds on social media has revived the idea that our species might be doing itself in by changing the global climate. The article, by vice.com’s Nathan Curry, minces no words in its title: “Humanity Is Getting Verrrrrrry Close to Extinction,” with the extra rs in the original.

LINK: https://www.kcet.org/redefine/will-climate-change-cause-human-extinction

“frustrated with this global inaction, the World Bank released a report on Sunday saying that without significant emissions reductions, the world’s average temperature could climb by 4°C (7.2°F) by as early as 2060. “

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/co2-hits-new-high-world-could-warm-7f-by-2060-15268

” The idea that we could adapt to a 4C rise is absurd and dangerous. Global warming on this scale would be a catastrophe that would mean, in the immortal words that Chief Seattle probably never spoke, “the end of living and the beginning of survival” for humankind. Or perhaps the beginning of our extinction.”

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2008/08/11/planet-4c-hotter-all-we-can-prepare-extinction

“Oil giants Shell and BP are planning for global temperatures to rise as much as 5°C by the middle of the century.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/bp-shell-oil-global-warming-5-degree-paris-climate-agreement-fossil-fuels-temperature-rise-a8022511.html

SOURCE: https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/

A story about Abrupt Climate Change.

While the process of human extinction is regrettable, the prospect of a world without humans is not

David Benatar | Professor of Philosophy at Cape Town University; author of Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence.
1,433 words
Read time: approx. 7 mins

LINK: https://iainews.iai.tv/articles/is-extinction-bad-auid-1189?