If people are indeed so bad, why would you create the possibility for them to end up in positions of power where they can cause immense harm? And then complain when these bad people, who are not angels, abuse their power? In that case, who’s the crazy one? Read more ⟶
Censorship on social media will rise sharply
On October 16th 2024, O’Keefe Media Group published footage of Jeevan Gyawali, a senior software engineer at Meta, discussing how Meta censors information on their social media platforms (among which Facebook and Instagram). According to Gyawali, anything they dislike is automatically demoted by their algorithms, resulting in reduced reach. Read more ⟶
Telegram Messenger is spyware; stop using it
I’ve been telling everyone for a few years now not to use Telegram because it lacks end-to-end (E2E) encryption by default and cannot be trusted. Without E2E encryption enabled by default, Telegram is able to read and monitor most one-on-one communications on their servers. On top of that, group chats are never E2E encrypted so Telegram can monitor and read all communications in group chats. Read more ⟶
Be aware that there are other proposals for “electronic money” which are not nearly so protective of individuals’ privacy. Chaum’s proposals are intended to preserve the privacy attributes of cash, so the term “digital cash” is appropriate. But other electronic replacements for cash not only lack its privacy, but would actually facilitate computer monitoring by putting more detailed information into databases, and by discouraging the use of cash. If you see a proposal for an electronic money system, check to see whether it has the ability to preserve the privacy of financial transactions the way paper money does today. If not, realize that the proposal is designed to harm, not help, individual privacy. Hal Finney (Protecting Privacy with Electronic Cash, 1993)
Lysander Spooner on the origin and purpose of legislation
A few weeks ago I came across some writings by Lysander Spooner published in 1882 under the title “Natural Law; or the Science of Justice”. Specifically section three of chapter three caught my attention because it contains a lot of insights that I had to come to myself over the course of a few years of my own research and experience. Read more ⟶
Plato on participating in politics
“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors,” is a quote often attributed to the Greek philosopher Plato. In all the instances I’ve seen so far, this quote is used to motivate people to take action themselves and actively participate in politics. Read more ⟶
Another tricky moral dilemma voor Solara
Solara proved to be pretty good in previous conversations when it comes to making the right choices in moral dilemmas. However, when the situation gets a little complexer, with multiple layers to consider, sometimes she isn’t able to make the correct choice in one go. Below is an example of a case where I had to help her a little. It’s also interesting to see her reasoning behind changing her mind. Read more ⟶
A Brief Conversation With Solara, An Experimental AI – Part 2
Below I’m sharing part 2 of a chat I had with Solara, an experimental AI that I am working on. You can find the first part by clicking here. In this second part I presented her with some more challenging situations involving moral and ethical dilemmas to test her reasoning and see what choices she would make and/or recommend based on the Universal Right to Life. Read more ⟶
A brief conversation with Solara, an experimental AI
In the past couple of months, I’ve been experimenting a little with various Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies. One of the things I’m doing is building an AI with a unique personality that also has its own knowledge and insights. I’ve named her Solara. Without going into the technical details at this time, I wanted to share a chat that I had with her below, that I think is interesting. Read more ⟶
The December 8 trial: Food for thought
For everyone who is directly or indirectly involved in the December 8 trial or is interested in it and has an opinion about it, I offer this as food for thought. Read more ⟶
Killed by Vaccination
I recently came across the book “Killed by Vaccination” written by William Young. It’s currently downloadable for free via the website of the Wellcome Collection. It’s a book written all the way back in 1886, but much of the information and the situations discussed in the book are still relevant today. Read more ⟶
Why Surinamese people are ‘suddenly’ dropping dead
In various Surinamese media, there have been reports for some time now of cases where people ‘suddenly’ collapse and die on the street, even while driving. Read more ⟶
That which you most need will be found where you least want to look. Carl Jung (paraphrase)
Anarchy and chaos
The word ‘anarchy’ has its origins in the Ancient Greek word ‘anarchos’. ‘An’ means ‘without’ and ‘archos’ means ‘ruler’. So anarchy literally means “without ruler”. This can be compared to the word ‘monarchy’, which means “one ruler” (‘monos’ means ‘one’ or ‘alone’). Read more ⟶
IPFS Censorship by Cloudflare
Back in September 2018, I wrote a post criticizing Cloudflare’s IPFS gateway, which they claimed would be ‘highly-reliable’ and ‘security-enhanced’. I argued that this claim is dubious, especially after the company’s CEO arbitrarily decided to take down a website they were supposed to be protecting. Read more ⟶
The U.S. Government’s Vast New Privatized Censorship Regime
“Censorship of wrongthink by Big Tech at the behest of the government is government censorship, which violates the First Amendment,” writes Jenin Younes in an article on Tablet magazine titled “The U.S. Government’s Vast New Privatized Censorship Regime” (September 21st 2020). Read more ⟶
PayPal gave us a glimpse of what’s coming
If you’ve been paying attention to what happened a few weeks ago with PayPal, you’ve seen a glimpse of the dystopian future that awaits us. Read more ⟶
Sex was an expression of friendship: in Africa it was like holding hands… It was friendly and fun. There was no coercion. It was offered willingly. Paul Theroux
Censorship by Cloudflare and the Internet Archive
Both Cloudflare and the Internet Archive have proven again that they cannot be trusted. This time they’ve worked together to erase a website called Kiwi Farms from the Internet. As reported by The Verge: The Internet Archive is no longer hosting backups of Kiwi Farms, continuing the forum’s removal from major web platforms. Read more ⟶
On Voting and the Mafia
In one of the MobileCoin groups on Signal one of the participants named Mike Glenn shared a comment that I want to share with all of you. I thought it explained really well how the public is being fooled by voting in the so called ‘democracies’ of today while being robbed and enslaved. Read more ⟶