STATESIDE: The third-party candidates who the big boys don’t like at the party – Bahamas Tribune

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With CHARLIE HARPER

Did you know there were 21 third-party candidates whoreceived votes in the American presidential election of 2016? They were supported by such diverse collections of voters as the Prohibition (no alcohol drinking) Party, the Green Party, the Libertarian Party and three different versions of the Socialist Workers Party. Together, they collected over six million votes in an election that saw Hillary Clinton lose in the American electoral college despite garnering over three million more votes than Donald Trump.

In states with close elections like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida and Arizona, if just half of the third-party voters had backed Clinton, we could be castigating her instead of Trump for her handling of COVID-19.

Already for 2020, the Libertarians have nominated Jo Jorgenson; the Greens have selected Howie Hawkins and the Constitution Party has picked disgraced West Virginia ex-coal mine boss Don Blankenship. Well see how they do this year, but Gary Johnson won four million votes for the Libertarians four years ago.

And on July 4, the ranks of third-party candidates for this year added a real headline-grabber: billionaire music mogul and Yeezy sneaker impresario Kanye West who has flirted with Donald Trump and is scaring Democrats who are petrified with fear that they will somehow again underestimate Trump in their residual disbelief that the American people could possibly re-elect him.

But is Wests candidacy real? There are questions, some of which were underscored the other day when his wife, the TV celebrity Kim Kardashian, acknowledged to CNN that West has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and said its incredibly complicated and painful for many to understand.

Maybe so, but West has qualified to be on the ballot in Oklahoma. He is already too late to file in a lot of other states, many of which are going to deliver their votes for Biden anyway. But third-party candidates always scare the big established political Republican and Democratic duopoly in the US, and sometimes with good reason. In 1992, H Ross Perots maverick candidacy hurt both Bill Clinton and George H W Bush as Perot won 19 percent of the vote. Here is some of what West had to say recently: It is a form of racism and white supremacy and white control to say that all black people need to be Democrat and to assume that me running is me splitting the vote. All of that information is being charged up on social media platforms by Democrats. I was told that if I voted on Trump my music career would be over.

I was threatened as a celebrity into being in one party. I was threatened as a black man into the Democratic Party. And thats what the Democrats are doing, emotionally, to my people. Threatening them to the point where this white man (Biden) can tell a black man if you dont vote for me, youre not black.

At the very least, Kanye West is a wild card heading toward November. Both Trump and Biden are sure to keep an eye on him as long as he remains in the race.

Looking for an American tocarry the blame forthe COVID-19 devastation of the Bahamian tourist industry? A good candidate might be Ron DeSantis. Floridas governor has mismanaged his states response to this public health crisis. The Bahamas is suffering as a result.

At 41, Floridas Ron DeSantis is the youngest incumbent governor in the United States. His resume is impressive. Born and raised in Florida, he got degrees from Yale and Harvard, did a stint in the US Army which included service in Iraq and a detail to the US Attorneys Office in Central Florida. He was elected to Congress in 2012 from a district stretching northeast along I-4 from Orlando to the outskirts of Daytona Beach.

In 2016, DeSantis was hopeful of snagging the GOP Senate nomination until Marco Rubio, having been trounced by Donald Trump in the primaries, decided to run again for his own Senate seat after all. Then in 2018, DeSantis parlayed his loud support for Trump in the Robert Mueller investigation into the Presidents support for a gubernatorial run. Buoyed by Trumps endorsement, DeSantis narrowly won and presides over the Sunshine State today.

DeSantis consistent adherence to Trumps seriously flawed coronavirus playbook is blamed for at least some of Floridas current woes. According to press reports, DeSantis has met once this month with his top health experts. Instead, the governor appears to rely principally on wife Casey and the former hospital executive who serves as his chief of staff.

The fact that nearly 6,000 Floridians have died from COVID-19 and two percent of the entire state population is now infected shows the governor could have done a better job at protecting his constituents, many of whom in better times would be heading to The Bahamasto spend some dollars. Instead, DeSantis approval ratings have dropped by 25 percent and his states own massive tourist industry is slumping.

Trump doesnt see it. Ron DeSantis is doing a great job and will go down in history as a great governor of Florida, the President said.

Not on current evidence. The governor has led his state down the same dreary path Trump would take the rest of the country if other governors were as slavishly devoted to following the Presidents often fallacious advice.

The director of the University of Floridas Emerging Pathogens Institute told the Washington Post that in Florida we failed to convince people that as things began to open up there remained a critical need to maintain the basic practices recommended by the CDC, including masks and social distancing.

A West Palm Beach nurse summed up Floridas COVID-19 response this way: The fairy tales about everything being under control are nonsense. Our government has failed us.

As American professional sports try to resume some sort of normal activity, the major European soccer leagues have largely completed their business for the year.

In the best and by far most competitive league, Liverpool nevertheless ran away with the English Premier League title. Setting several records and nearly matching a couple of others, the Reds fulfilled the promise of their magnificent early season to win their first EPL title and first top-flight championship in 30 years.

Runners-up and defending champions Manchester City may be the second-best team in Europe. These two power houses were joined at the top by Manchester United and Chelsea. Further down the table, venerable Aston Villa managed to stay in the top division for another year and will be joined by tradition-rich West Bromwich Albion and Leeds moving up from the second tier.

Wolverhampton Wanderers, once proudly owned by Freeports Sir Jack Hayward, completed another successful first division campaign and are still contenders for the Europa League title this year.

But the rich do keep getting richer in Europe. It is hardly surprising to find such teams as Liverpool and Man City at the top in England. They are wealthy and powerful. In the top leagues in Italy (Juventus of Turin), Spain (Real Madrid), France (Paris St. Germain) and Germany (Bayern Munich), the champions were all predictable. Except for Spain, where Barcelona often crashes the championship party, these titlists have been winning for years.

Back in the US, baseball has resumed playing games that count in its 60-game season, after which more than half of all its teams are scheduled to compete in the televised, lucrative playoffs. The most significant opening series was in Washington, where the New York Yankees looked strong in beating the current champion Nationals.

Injuries and COVID absences are continuing to influence this already-weird season, with Houston, the Nationals and Dodgers among teams already suffering significant losses. And the Marlins have become a highly problematic proposition.

So far, sort of OK for the other big American leagues. The NBA is following its plan at Disney World in Orlando. The NHL is staging a playoff play-in. And the NFL, having cancelled all its exhibition games, has reopened its training camps around the country. Everyone in pro sports, big-time college sports and at the TV networks who underwrite them all with huge broadcast contracts is holding their breath.

What else can they do? The virus will have the last word.

Continued here:

STATESIDE: The third-party candidates who the big boys don't like at the party - Bahamas Tribune

The Author of Blacks in Medicine on Race, Racism, and Health Outcomes – KCET

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The following is an excerpt froma June 2020 article republished with the permission of GOOP.

Black Americans aredisproportionately infected with and dying from COVID-19. In a report from the largest health care system in Louisiana,70 percent of the people who were killed by COVID-19 were Black, even though Black people make up only 31 percent of the systems population. In his recent book "Blacks in Medicine," Richard Allen Williams, MD, the founder of the Association of Black Cardiologists, discusses the health of Black Americans from the point of view of doctors and patients and digs deep into the history thats led to todays disparities. (Williams is also currently a clinical professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.)

His history of Black medical practitioners in the U.S. is fascinating and disturbing, starting with the remarkable contributions that Black people made to medicine even while enslaved. Here, Williams explains how a long tradition of discrimination and racial segregation has resulted in inequality in health outcomes for Black people in the U.S. And he tells us why hes hopeful for the future.

GOOP: A powerful letter of yours was published in theLos Angeles Timeson June 2, 2020. Can you tell us about the events of the 70s and 80s that you wrote about?

Dr. Williams: I was the assistant medical director at the brand-new Dr. Martin Luther King Medical Center in Los Angeles, having just come across the country from Harvard Medical School, where I had completed my cardiology fellowship. I came into a hospital that was built on the ashes of the Watts uprising. I saw a great deal of police brutality going on, especially toward the Black population. A number of Black men were dying from what is called the chokehold, a carotid restraint method administered by police, which was highlighted most recently in the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. This restricts blood flow to the brain and also can cause a drop in blood pressure and heart rate such that the individual dies.

I noted that sixteen men had died from the chokehold in a few months. Twelve of those sixteen gentlemen were Black. So I was amazed when I got a call from police chief Daryl Gates asking me if I agreed that the susceptibility, as he put it, of Black people to this chokehold was due to a weakness in their anatomical structure. He was basing this request on a book that I had written, "The Textbook of Black-Related Diseases," which described differences in health care delivery and responses to medications being different for Black people than for White people.

I refuted this vehemently and called a press conference. This issue came to the attention of the Los Angeles police commission and it led to a banning of the chokehold in the city of Los Angeles. What George Floyd experienced was not something new, and this problem could very easily be eliminated. All that is needed is for mayors and police commissions to say that no longer will the chokehold be accepted. I was at a meeting with assemblyman Mike Gipson, who has sponsored a bill for the purpose of banning the chokehold throughout the state of California. Governor Newsom has promised to sign it.

GOOP: You went through your medical training in the 60s. How did the civil rights movement impact your career in medicine?

Dr. Williams: I was involved in petitions to open up Harvard Medical School to a greater degree of diversity. I was the first Black postgraduate trainee at Harvard Medical School in its entire history. I was surprised when I learned that and started a push for change that was very successful. I teamed up with the dean of the medical school, Robert Ebert, for a rather unusual get-together, so to speak, with members of the Black Panther party and Black Muslims. We had a historic meeting in Roxbury at a Muslim temple. The dean of the medical school came, and I presented the case that Harvard wasnt admitting any Black people into its medical training programs and was not turning out any Black doctors into the community. We got Harvard to contribute a large amount of money for me to start a recruitment drive, which I went on throughout the country, recruiting Black medical students and interns and residents to apply to Harvard. We started admitting our first residents and interns during the time I was in my training program there. In 2004, I was given a lifetime achievement award by Harvard for the efforts that I had made in opening the institution up to diversity.

GOOP: How well represented are Black medical doctors in the US now?

Dr. Williams: The number of Black doctors in this country is about 6 percent of the total, which is ridiculous because approximately 13 percent of the population is Black. Thats something that Im working very diligently on now, with efforts to get Black students into medical school, as well as providing scholarship funds. Ive established seven scholarships to fund Black students going into medicine.

GOOP: You wrote "The Textbook of Black-Related Diseases" in 1975 what was the impetus at the time?

Dr. Williams: I wanted to do something significant in regard to what I had found were severe medical problems with my people, with Black people. And thats when I discovered that there was really no literature on the medical problems of Black people. It was assumed either that Black people should be treated the same as White people or that Black people did not have a need for treatment for certain conditions. At that time, heart attacks and hypertension were not thought to be problems that Black people suffered from. I decided that none of that was true and that we had to start to bring the truth to light. Dr. George W. Thorn, my boss at Brigham and Womens Hospital, encouraged me to write a pamphlet about it, which grew into an 850-page book, "The Textbook of Black-Related Diseases," published in 1975. I dont know whether I wouldve had much of a chance to get published without his help because there wasnt much interest in a book like that at the time.

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The Author of Blacks in Medicine on Race, Racism, and Health Outcomes - KCET

Five Questions With: Dr. Ben Abo on Snakes and Television – EMSWorld

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If you watch Kings of Pain on the History Channel, you know the hosts, Adam Thorn and Rob Alleva, handle some pretty amazing animals and insects. They get bitten, scratched, and exposed in almost every show. Their medical care on the show is provided by Ben Abo, DO. Abo is an EMS physician in Florida, a paramedic, and an expert in wilderness medicine with a keen interest in snakes. He is also director of the elite Miami-Dade Fire Rescue and Lake County Fire Rescue Venom 1 and Venom 2 teams. We caught up with Abo.

EMS World: You are nationally known as an authority on snakes and snakebites. How did you get started in this very niche segment of EMS and emergency medicine? What is important for providers to know about snakes?

Abo: Back when I was a resident, I actually had a phobia of snakes, but I had tremendous respect for nature and venom. I started learning from and working with Miami-Dade Fire Rescues Venom 1 team as I realized how many people were treating this incorrectlyand what a tremendous time to be able to put a halt to permanent pain, permanent disability, and permanent disfigurement! I completely owe my diving in to those that were on Venom 1, like Chuck Seifert, Scott Mullin, Lisa Wood, and Jeff Fobb. I find it especially important with my austere-medicine work and honestly my international public health work as well. I would say its especially important to remember that what you used to be taught may not be right, and by golly, dont kill or capture the snake!

You currently serve as medical director for Floridas Venom 1 and Venom 2 unitsvery unique assets. Can you tell us a little more about these units, what they do, and how they operate?

Abo: Venom 1 has been around for about 21 years now. It is the largest public access antivenom bank, with antivenom for everything from scorpions to cobras to box jellyfish to black widow spiders. Venom 1 not only provides a 24/7 dedicated person to deliver the appropriate antivenom, but they also serve as an expert set of eyes for poison control and me, as well as bedside teaching for those uncomfortable with treating envenomation. Venom 2, housed 24/7 by Lake County Fire Rescue, started a couple years ago, modeled after Venom 1, but we only house domestic antivenoms for now. That being said, our first call literally was for a cobra bite from Tallahassee, and they helped me get antivenom from Miami-Dade delivered during bad storms.

Youve been a big part of a TV show this past season, working on the History Channels Kings of Pain. What was it like being part of such a high-profile and high-risk TV show and medical environment?

Abo: Working on that television show was quite a blast. Id served on Shark Week as a safety expert already, but for this not only did I have to prepare as a wilderness EMS expert for international travel and safety for any sicknesses or accidents but also approve and fact-check for other injuries in the middle of jungles and beaches worldwide! Not to mention, Im used to treating pain and being empathetic, but here I would much rather be sympathetic! We are talking about standby for known injuries hours from clinics, but also clearing wild areas for spitting cobras and watching out for king cobras in the wild. Not your typical EMS call for sure!

Between medical school and your residency, you started a nonprofit in Africa to decrease maternal and neonatal mortality and trauma. What drew you to that? Are you still involved? Is there a way folks can support it?

Abo: Life has been quite the journey. Ive always been one to try to do the most good, because, honestly, why not? During medical school I saw an opportunity to efficiently make a difference to provide education for public and healthcare workers in Africa, so I did it with some others. I took a year off and delayed residency training. What an experience! And we did a lot of good, but more always needs to be done.

I have since folded the nonprofit, technically, so I could regroup and reframe. However, there is more work to be done, and Im still in close touch with my contacts there and plan on returning soon. To help? The biggest would be financial support or basic medical supplies, as I plan on introducing more dirt bike sidecar ambulances again, especially in the outskirts of Jimma, Ethiopia.

In your publications and social media posts, you often note the power humor has to disarm as well as help heal. What are your favorite ways to bring humor into emergency medicine? And can you tell us about the banana phone?

Abo: Humor is so important! A smile and laughter are genuine and international without a need for translation. It really depends on the situation, but definitely some go-tos for me include the banana phone, puns, and good old goofiness while still showing Im there to help. I actually get deep into this with my TEDx talk and a podcast with Medic Mindset, as well as a keynote speech Ive given.

Oh, the good old banana phone. At every age I have always had a great reaction to that randomness, whether from patients, family, or staff. It started as a light joke to consult with another EMS physician, mentor, and friend, Ben Lawner. After a month of it I thought Id decided to do my last post with a banana when I had my last ICU shift as a resident, but there was literally such a universal response to it. I still love getting random banana phone calls from former patients and my friends children.

In emergency medicine and disaster work, we see a lot of good and a lot of evil. To survive the negative stressors, we need to see the light and the reminder that light comes in many forms.

Barry A. Bachenheimer, EdD, FF/EMT, is a frequent contributor to EMS World. He is a career educator and university professor, as well as a firefighter and member of the technical-rescue team with the Roseland (N.J.) Fire Department and an EMT with the South Orange (N.J.) Rescue Squad. He is also an instructor for the National Center for Homeland Security and Preparedness in New York.

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Five Questions With: Dr. Ben Abo on Snakes and Television - EMSWorld

We asked 20 medical experts whether they’re sending their own kids back to school. Here’s what they had to say – CNBC

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Social distancing dividers for students are seen in a classroom, July 14, 2020.

Lucy Nicholson | Reuters

Parents everywhere are grappling with the question whether it's safe tosend their children back to school.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently released guidelines emphasizing that students get back to the classroomfor the sake of their own emotional well-being. But not every student, parent, or teacher is comfortable with that. Some school districts will likely continue with remote learning or some hybrid blend of in-person and remote.

The situation is highly confusing and the guidelines seem to be shifting. So we asked twenty doctors, public health experts and epidemiologists with school-age children if they're sending them to school this fall.

We got a wide range of responses, which were highly dependent on their location, personal risk tolerance, degree of support at home, the measures taken at the individual school, and the age of their children.

Six of the medical experts felt confident about sending their kids back. Eight were in "wait and see" mode. And a final six were leaning strongly towards remote learning and were not comfortable with the prospect of having kids in school -- at least for the beginning of the year.

Things could certainly change as the start of school approaches. As Boston-based emergency medicine physician Dr. Jeremy Faust put it, "the answers will entirely depend on how well Covid-19 is being controlled" as we move into the fall.

Here's a summary of what each group had to say.

Principal Pam Rasmussen (L) takes the temperature of arriving students as per coronavirus guidelines during summer school sessions at Happy Day School in Monterey Park, California on July 9, 2020.

Frederic J. Brown | AFP | Getty Images

Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, is feeling confident that his three kids will return to their schools in Massachusetts this fall. But it's likely that their school will embrace more of a hybrid model, meaning some combination of remote and in-person learning.

Jha isn't wholly convinced the hybrid approach is necessary. "Our infection numbers are relatively low," he said. "And there's enough capacity to create safe spaces."

Jha says there's some evidence that kids are less likely to catch the virus and less likely to spread it. But he acknowledges that the data is still limited, particularly given that countries like Sweden that kept schools open for young kids throughout the pandemic didn't do a thorough job collecting the data. So while he thinks it's possible for many schools to safely open up, but believes that much more should have been done on a federal level to help them prepare.

"If you open up without a good plan in a place that isn't safe, you'll get outbreaks and you'll shut down," he explained.

While Jha is leaning to sending his own kids back, he wouldn't recommend that every parent return children to school. He would look at the community spread in the region first before making a decision. "If I were in Dallas, for instance, which is experiencing an active outbreak, I'd strongly recommend against it."

Likewise, John Brownstein, an infectious disease epidemiologist and the chief innovation officer of Boston Children's Hospital, is helping his kids' school come up with a plan for how to re-open. A lot of the parents are doctors and infectious disease experts, he notes, given the sheer number of universities and academic medical centers in the area. So many are recommending social distancing, masks and other protocols. His kids, who are aged 9 and 10, will go back to school unless community transmissions spike in the area.

Children in an elementary school class wear masks and sit as desks spaced apart as per coronavirus guidelines during summer school sessions at Happy Day School in Monterey Park, California on July 9.

Frederic J. Brown | AFP | Getty Images

Physicians in states that are seeing lower rates of infectionstended to be more in favor of sending their kids to school. Dr. Mary Beth Miotto, a pediatrician and public health advocate based in Massachusetts, has thought a great deal about whether she's comfortable sending her youngest child to Williams College as a freshman. She ultimately decided in favor of in-person learning because the college, which is in a relatively remote area, had systems and processes in place to keep the kids safe. But she didn't take the decision lightly.

"Aftercarefully examining the systems to control and respond rapidly to change, yes, I'm sending him because it's a developmentally appropriate step and important socially-emotionally," said Dr. Miotto.

Others were deferring their decision to the school. Dr. Dan Buckland, an emergency medicine doctor at Duke, feels relatively confident about sending his kids back to school if the right steps are taken to keep them safe.

"For a lot of people, especially with kids under the age of 10, It's not sustainable to continue to work and take care of them at home," he shared. That said, Dr. Buckland would keep his kids home if there were a significant danger to the staff, teachers and support personnel. "I don't think we should obligate them to put themselves at risk," he said.

For single parents, the equation might be different.

"I am a single mom of a child adopted from foster care. I would accept the risks of infection to send her back to school," said Carolyn Cardamone, a Physician Assistant with One Medical. Cardomone noted that her child needs help with social and development skills, which she can gain by learning alongside her peers. "She is entering fifth grade this year and the idea she will miss this year of in-person instruction, then go straight to middle school, is terrifying."

School children working from home during the Coronavirus lockdown on April 06, 2020 in New York, NY.

Peter Titmuss | Education Images | Getty Images

Many of parents were still on the fence.

Dr. Esther Choo, an emergency medicine physician at Oregon Health & Science University, has four school-age kids. She's leaning towards distance learning because her school is asking parents to decide within a few weeks if they plan to return their kids by September. For Choo, that's a big challenge as there's no way to know yet whether Covid-19 cases will spike by then.

"What I struggle with is schools needing us to commit now," she said.

Likewise, Aaron Miri, a chief information officer for UT Health Austin in Texas, said it would all depend on the plan in place. He's hoping there will be adequate personal protective equipment available and whether there's testing and/or contact tracing to track potential exposures to the virus. Right now, he's not feeling confident. And his wife is a fifth-grade teacher, which makes the issue more complex for him. "If they can't give assurances soon, I think lots of folks will say 'no thanks' to in-person," said Aaron Miri.

Texas, where Miri lives, is still struggling to get Covid-19 under control. The situation starting to level off in Austin, he notes, although it's unclear how things will be in the fall.

For many of the doctors, it's a challenge to look at the public health data objectively because they're also parents. And as parents, they feel their kids would be best served by being back in school.

Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency medicine physician at Rhode Island Hospital, recognizes the challenges for so many of her peers trying to juggle work with kids at home. She feels fortunate to have some child care support, but recognizes that it isn't easy to recreate the stimulation that her two kids -- ages 8 and 11 -- are getting at school.

"I believe so strongly in getting kids back, but it has to be done in a way that is safe for the kids and the teachers," she said by phone, while her son reminded her that it's time to play Roblox.

Ranney said she plans to send her kids back if there are protocols in place, like proper ventilation, masks and smaller class-sizes. But she has warned her kids that she anticipates a scenario where the situation doesn't last because of an outbreak. She personally doesn't expect life to return to normalcy until next spring. "I want them back but with the state of public school funding and the state of Covid-19, I don't know how it's going to be possible," she said. "But in Rhode Island, I think we at least have a chance."

Montgomery county school officials demonstrate how they plan to keep students apart on county busses during a reporters tour of College Gardens elementary to show room arrangements, sanitizing stations, and other measures that the system hopes will prevent the spread of the coronavirus when school reopens in August in Rockville, MD on July 09.

Bill O'Leary | The Washington Post | Getty Images

For Katie McMillan, a public health expert with a digital health consultancy firm, it doesn't feel like the right time to send her three-year-old back to pre-school. Cases in North Carolina, where she lives, are continuing to rise. McMillan said she initially pulled her daughter out in March and then fully un-enrolled her in June. McMillan's husband works at a hospital in the area, so they were also concerned about putting others at risk if he got sick -- although he's taking steps to mitigate that possibility by using proper protective gear and leaving his scrubs in the garage.

For the fall, she may enroll her daughter in a school that offers smaller classes fully outdoors "from a sanity standpoint," but says it's unlikely. McMillan, with the help of her childrens' grandparents, keeps up with her own work as best she can. It's a struggle because her youngest is only eight months old.

Many parents face a similarly tough road because their shifts are long and it's a challenge to find childcare.

"I need them back in school yesterday," said Dr. Jon Steuernagle, who's currently separated from his partner and is looking after the kids most of the time on his own. But he probably won't return them to school anytime soon. He fears for the teaching staff who might be highly vulnerable to getting sick from Covid-19. And he recognizes the challenges with maintaining social distancing when it comes to young kids.

Some of the doctors say they don't have much of a choice.

Dr. Jane Van Dis, an obstetrician-gynecologist, was planning to send her kids back but in California it's unlikely to happen because most schools have been ordered to start with remote-learning only.

"Even though I feel like in my area and school district, people are following the guidelines," she said. "But I live in Los Angeles County, which is so big, and I wonder if there's a chance that we can bring the numbers down to allow for in-person school."

Many agreed that they are privileged as doctors and academics to be able to afford help when it's needed. Dr. Jonathan Slotkin, vice chair of neurosurgery at Geisinger based in Pennsylvania, is keeping his five-year-old at home. But he recognizes that he's in a fairly unique position to be able to do so. Still, with Covid-19 still spreading in the United States, it's a firm "no" for him.

The entrance to Public School 159 is seen in the Queens borough of New York City, New York, U.S., July 8, 2020.

Shannon Stapleton | Reuters

Even the parents who are planning to send their kids back to school in the fall are expecting that there could be a bump in transmissions. So families should be aware of the risks, they say, while weighing them against the benefits of socialization.

Moreover, school districts might react differently if there is an outbreak. Some might shut down, while others attempt to continue if they have the resources to do so.

"I'm concerned our numbers in the community will dramatically change -- and that could change my comfort levels with my own kids," said Dr. Wendy Sue Swanson, a pediatrician based in Madison, Wisconsin. She feels confident about the plans underway at her own school, but it's hard to know what the future will hold.

"No place can guarantee zero transmission," she said. "And there's no guarantee that going back to school is as safe as not going back, but there's always that difficult balance of risks and benefits."

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We asked 20 medical experts whether they're sending their own kids back to school. Here's what they had to say - CNBC

Hard Drive Cloning Software Market Analysis by Size, Share, Growth, Application, Segmentation and Forecast to 2027 – Owned

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New Jersey, United States,- The research report on Hard Drive Cloning Software market comprises of insights in terms of pivotal parameters such as production as well as the consumption patterns alongside revenue estimations for the projected timeframe. Speaking of production aspects, the study offers an in-depth analysis regarding the manufacturing processes along with the gross revenue amassed by the leading producers operating in this business arena. The unit cost deployed by these producers in various regions during the estimated timeframe is also mentioned in the report.

Significant information pertaining to the product volume and consumption value is enlisted in the document. Additionally, the report contains details regarding the consumption graphs, Individual sale prices, and import & export activities. Additional information concerning the production and consumption patterns are presented in the report.

In market segmentation by manufacturers, the report covers the following companies-

Regions Covered in the Global Hard Drive Cloning Software Market:

The Middle East and Africa (GCC Countries and Egypt)

North America (the United States, Mexico, and Canada)

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Asia-Pacific (Vietnam, China, Malaysia, Japan, Philippines, Korea, Thailand, India, Indonesia, and Australia)

Highlights of the Report:

Accurate market size and CAGR forecasts for the period 2020-2026

Identification and in-depth assessment of growth opportunities in key segments and regions

Detailed company profiling of top players of the global Hard Drive Cloning Software market

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Reliable industry value chain and supply chain analysis

Comprehensive analysis of important growth drivers, restraints, challenges, and growth prospects

The scope of the Report:

The report offers a complete company profiling of leading players competing in the global Hard Drive Cloning Software marketwith a high focus on the share, gross margin, net profit, sales, product portfolio, new applications, recent developments, and several other factors. It also throws light on the vendor landscape to help players become aware of future competitive changes in the global Hard Drive Cloning Software market.

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Market Research Intellect provides syndicated and customized research reports to clients from various industries and organizations with the aim of delivering functional expertise. We provide reports for all industries including Energy, Technology, Manufacturing and Construction, Chemicals and Materials, Food and Beverage, and more. These reports deliver an in-depth study of the market with industry analysis, the market value for regions and countries, and trends that are pertinent to the industry.

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Hard Drive Cloning Software Market Analysis by Size, Share, Growth, Application, Segmentation and Forecast to 2027 - Owned

Football Stadium-Sized Balloon To Carry NASA’s Cutting-Edge Astrophysics Observations Telescope To Stratosphere – Swarajya

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NASA engineers are working on an ambitious new mission that will carry a cutting-edge, 2.5-metre telescope high into the stratosphere on a football stadium-sized balloon.

The launch of the mission called ASTHROS, short for Astrophysics Stratospheric Telescope for High Spectral Resolution Observations at Submillimeter-wavelengths, is tentatively planned for December 2023 from Antarctica, NASA said on Thursday (24 July).

ASTHROS will spend about three weeks drifting on air currents above the icy southern continent and achieve several firsts along the way.

To achieve its mission objectives, ASTHROS will need to reach an altitude of about 130,000 feet (40 kilometers) roughly four times higher than commercial airliners fly.

Though still well below the boundary of space about 62 miles, or 100 kilometers, above Earths surface it will be high enough to observe light wavelengths blocked by Earths atmosphere.

Balloon missions like ASTHROS are higher-risk than space missions but yield high-rewards at modest cost, said Jose Siles, Project Manager for ASTHROS at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

With ASTHROS, were aiming to do astrophysics observations that have never been attempted before. The mission will pave the way for future space missions by testing new technologies and providing training for the next generation of engineers and scientists.

ASTHROS will carry an instrument to measure the motion and speed of gas around newly-formed stars.

During flight, the mission will study four main targets, including two star-forming regions in the Milky Way galaxy.

It will also for the first time detect and map the presence of two specific types of nitrogen ions (atoms that have lost some electrons).

These nitrogen ions can reveal places where winds from massive stars and supernova explosions have reshaped the gas clouds within these star-forming regions.

In a process known as stellar feedback, such violent outbursts can, over millions of years, disperse the surrounding material and impede star formation or halt it altogether.

But stellar feedback can also cause material to clump together, accelerating star formation. Without this process, all the available gas and dust in galaxies like our own would have coalesced into stars long ago.

ASTHROS will make the first detailed 3D maps of the density, speed, and motion of gas in these regions to see how the newborn giants influence their placental material.

By doing so, the team hopes to gain insight into how stellar feedback works and to provide new information to refine computer simulations of galaxy evolution.

A third target for ASTHROS will be the galaxy Messier 83. Observing signs of stellar feedback there will enable the ASTHROS team to gain deeper insight into its effect on different types of galaxies.

Finally, as its fourth target, ASTHROS will observe TW Hydrae, a young star surrounded by a wide disk of dust and gas where planets may be forming.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)

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Football Stadium-Sized Balloon To Carry NASA's Cutting-Edge Astrophysics Observations Telescope To Stratosphere - Swarajya

Oldest surviving light reveals the universe’s true age – Space.com

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Ancient light from the Big Bang has revealed a precise new estimate for the universe's age: 13.77 billion years, give or take 40 million years.

The new estimate, based on data from an array of telescopes in the Chilean Atacama Desert, also weighs in on one of the most important disagreements in astrophysics: How fast is the universe expanding? Described in two scientific papers, the new result gives a significant boost to one side of the disagreement, though the physicists couldn't prove the other side of the dispute wrong.

Here's the problem: Physicists need to understand the universe's expansion rate to make any sense of cosmology the science of our whole universe's past, present and future. They know that a mysterious substance called dark energy is causing the universe to expand (at an ever-increasing rate) in all directions.. But when astronomers point their telescopes into space to measure the Hubble constant (H0) the number that describes how fast the universe is expanding at different distances from us or another point they come up with numbers that disagree with each other, depending on the method they use.

One method, based on measurements of how fast nearby galaxies are moving away from the Milky Way, produces one H0. Another method, based on studying the oldest light in space, or cosmic microwave background (CMB), produces another H0. This disagreement has left scientists wondering whether there's some important blind spot in their measurements or theories, as Live Science previously reported. These new results seem to show that there weren't any measurement errors on the CMB side.

Related: 9 facts about black holes that will blow your mind

"We find an expansion rate that is right on the estimate by the Planck satellite team," which is another study of the CMB, Cornell University astrophysicist Steve Choi, lead author of one of two new papers, said in a statement. "This gives us more confidence in measurements of the universe's oldest light."

The data from the Planck satellite, released in 2018, were the most important measurements of the CMB before now. With an unprecedented level of precision, they showed how sharply CMB measurements of H0 disagree with measurements based on the movement of nearby galaxies.

These new results recalculated the CMB measurement from scratch using an entirely different set of telescope data and calculations, and came up with very similar results. That doesn't prove that the CMB measurement of H0 is correct there could still be some problem with the physics theories used to make the calculation but it does suggest that there aren't any measurement errors on that side of the disagreement.

Related: The 18 biggest unsolved mysteries in physics

Relying on data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) in Chile's Atacama Desert, the researchers tracked faint differences between different parts of the CMB -- which appears to have different energy levels in different parts of the sky. The CMB, which formed as the universe cooled after the Big Bang, is detectable in every direction in space as a microwave glow. It's more than 13 billion light-years in the distance, a relic of a time before stars and galaxies formed.

By combining theories on how the CMB formed with precise measurements of its fluctuations, physicists can determine how fast the universe was expanding at that moment in time. That data can then be used to calculate H0.

The ACT methodically scanned half the sky between 2013 and 2016, looking particularly at microwave light. Then researchers spent years cleaning up and analyzing the data with the aid of supercomputers, removing other microwave sources that are not part of the CMB, to stitch together a full map of the CMB. The whole time, they "blinded" themselves to the implications of their work, they wrote in their papers, meaning they didn't look at how their choices affected estimates of H0 until the very end. Only when the full CMB map was complete did the researchers use it to calculate H0.

The new CMB map also offered a new measure for the distance between Earth and the CMB. That distance, combined with a new measurement of how fast the universe has expanded over time, allowed a precise calculation of the age of the universe.

"I didn't have a particular preference for any specific value it was going to be interesting one way or another," Choi said.

It's still possible, as Live Science has previously reported, that some error in those theories is messing up the calculation. But it's not clear what the error would be.

The other approach to calculating H0 relies on pulsing stars known as cepheids, which reside in distant galaxies and pulse regularly. That timed pulsing allows researchers to perform precise calculations of their motion and distances from Earth.

With those direct speed measurements, it's fairly straightforward to come up with a measurement of H0. There are no complicated cosmological theories involved. But it's possible, some scientists have proposed, that our region of the universe is just weirdly empty, and not representative of the whole universe. It's even possible that there are measurement issues with the cepheids, and that these cosmic measuring sticks don't work quite the way physicists expect.

For now, the true H0 remains a mystery. But CMB researchers have more ammunition for their side of the disagreement.

Both new papers describing the new analysis have been published July 14 to the preprint database arXiv and submitted for formal peer review.

Originally published on Live Science.

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Oldest surviving light reveals the universe's true age - Space.com

Top 5 Stargazing Sites in the DMV Region (Your Backyard Is the 6th!) – Our Community Now at Colorado

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A lot of things have changed since March. Some have given up old habits like smoking or bathing, and some have adopted new habits like talking to their neighbors or learning something new. Known to be lazy, I decided to takea course in Astronomy, thinking it would be easy and fun watching stars all night.

So last night, when I was stargazing with my daughter in our backyard ,she asked me why governments spend so much on space exploration when there are so many critical issues here on Earth that need the money. She is 13, but this was a valid question. Being a fan of astronomy, I couldnt let this slide away.

There are an astronomical number of reasons (I couldnt resist the pun), but I will start with the few most obvious ones. The wireless headphones you connect to your camera phone just before you put on your sneakers ... I paused and pretended to drop the mic. All three are there because someone invested in space exploration.

In fact, many common things we take for granted are there because money was spent on space exploration. Also, even if you dont believe in climate change, you cant deny the fact that our resources are depleting. We owe it to our future generations to solve these problems. Putting money into space exploration is one of the best investments we can make for our future. I think she was convinced.

Human beings are narcissistic by nature. For centuries, mankind believed that we were the center of the universeand many still believe the world revolves around them. According to Dr. Anna Wyczalkowski, an Associate Professor at the Department of Physics and Astronomy of George Mason University and Ph.D. from University of Maryland,

"As of Jan. 1st 2019, we have identified 3,946 planets around 2,945 stars including 650 multiple planetary systems confirmed. A few thousand candidates await confirmation.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg, she adds, while teaching astronomy,

"There are billions of stars in our galaxy and there are billions of galaxies in the universe. And there is more."

If that doesnt blow your mind, imagine this. There is speculation among several branches of mathematics, quantum mechanics, and astrophysics that our universe is just one of many and we actually exist in a "multiverse." The curiosity that drives human nature is driven by the philosophy that "seeing is believing," and that keeps moving astronomy forward. And to fill that void in your curiosity, here are the top 5 five stargazing spots in the DMV region.

Photo Courtesy Unsplash

According to Greg Redfern, a NASA-affiliated astronomy professor, Shenandoah National Parkis one of the best destinations for stargazing in Virginia. Two other parks in Virginia are two of the only 64 parks in the world designated as International Dark Sky Park by the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA). Staunton River State Park andJames River State Parkhave a strict outdoor lighting policy that ensure an exceptionally dark sky, making conditions ideal for stargazing.

Photo Courtesy Unsplash

Calm, high, dark, dry: the four conditions ideal for astronomy are pristinely fulfilled at thePrimland Resort. Located near the Blue Ridge Parkway, the 12,000-acre resort is nestled among the southwest Virginia mountain splendor and is a paradise for stargazers. If that isnt enough to convince you for a socially distanced adventure, a resident astronomer leading a nightlyTour of the Universewill.

Photo Courtesy Unsplash

Bear Branch Recreation Park inWestminster, Maryland, is one of the very few facilities open to the public. It houses a 40-seat planetarium with three telescopes that will make your day and night. Just remember the sky is at its clearest during winter nights when there is less (or no) humidity, compared withsummer evenings which produce haze and may blur your view. Try Clear and Dark Sky, the site that tells you which day you should plan for stargazing. Generally, the best time for stargazing is when the moon is in acrescent or gibbous phaseor when its not present in the sky at all. Full moons are only good for werewolves.

Photo Courtesy Unsplash

The astronomy department at the community college is perfect for beginners, as it not only welcomes the general public but also helps guide and educate on the topic of stargazing. It is open throughout the winter starting from August. You can bring your own equipment, and if you havent invested anyyet, you can always borrow what is available.

Photo Courtesy Unsplash

Who would have thought that with all the light pollution in D.C. there would also be a great stargazing spot in Washington? Well, there is, and it is ideally located near Rock Creek Park.Experience the mesmerizing sky under the Rock Creek Planetarium, a facility that usesSpitz software to illustrate the nights sky. But if you want the real thing, evening stargazing sessions occur through November at the Military Field, which is located off of Military Road in Rock Creek Park. And when you step out, look for the International Space Station.NASA has a websitededicated to tracking the ISS. It tells you when the next sighting is in your area, where in the sky it will be, and for how long.

Please check before going to any of the parks for their updated schedule and policies related to social distancing procedures.

Stargazing is one hobby that can bring the entire family together for a fun night out in the backyard. If you dont have a backyard, you can also stargaze from a balcony or front step, or through a skylight. In fact, you can do it every evening and come up with games like Spot the Star. You can download various apps that help you identify stars, their distances, sizes, and so on. My favorite is Skyview Lite which is free and easy to use. It is available on the app stores. Find a permanent spot so you can compare the movements. Get a reclining chair, which allows you to look upwards without straining your neck.Turn off all the lights, and let your eyes adjust to the darkness. Astronomers call this process "dark adaptation," and it takes about half an hour. Look for patterns, like the saucepan-shaped Plough, which is visible year-round.Find a planet, which may be a bright "star" that isnt twinkling.

Have you ever wondered about the stars, UFOs, life beyond earth, and the edge of the universe? Which mystery intrigues you the most? Tell us in the comments section.

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Top 5 Stargazing Sites in the DMV Region (Your Backyard Is the 6th!) - Our Community Now at Colorado

Young Men, Alienation and Violence in the Digital Age – Fair Observer

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As the world was forced into lockdown at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Alex Lee Moyers documentary TFW No GF was released online. The film focuses on an internet subculture of predominately young, white men who already experienced much of life from the comfort of their own homes, pandemic notwithstanding.

Its title, a reference to the 4chan-originated phrase that feel when no girlfriend, reveals the essence of its subjects grievances described in the South by Southwest (SXSW) film festival program as first a lack of romantic companionship, then evolving to a greater state of existence defined by isolation, rejection and alienation. As one of the films subjects remarks early on: Everyone my age kinda just grows up on the internet 4chan was the only place that seemed real I realized there were other people going through the same shit.

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What does this level of alienation tell us about society today? And how seriously should we take the content found on this online patchwork of messaging boards and forums, each with its own language and visual culture that may at first seem humorous or ironic, but often disguises misogyny, racism and violence? These are difficult and urgent questions, particularly given the emergent incel phenomenon incel being a portmanteau of involuntary celibate which appears to be gaining in strength online.

The idea of virtual expressions of alienation and rage translating to actual violence remains a real and present danger, as we were reminded of this May when a teenager became the first Canadian to be charged with incel-inspired terrorism. The documentary, however, avoids confronting the violence that this subculture often glorifies, and the director has since stated that the film was never supposed to be about incels but that it had become impossible to discuss it without the term coming up.

As it turns out, the men we meet in TFW No GF appear to be largely harmless except perhaps to themselves and despite the documentarys lack of narrative voice, it takes a patently empathetic stance. Set against the backdrop of industrial landscapes and empty deserts, this is a United States in decline. Here, role models and opportunities lie thin on the ground, and the closest thing to community exists in virtual realms. Each self-described NEET slang for not in education, employment or training has his own tale of alienation: of alcoholic parents, dead friends or a disenfranchisement with the school system.

For those who study internet subcultures, the memes of Pepe the Frog and Wojak explored in the film will be familiar. Pepe is used as a reaction image, typically in the guises of feels good man, and smug/angry/sad Pepe and, although not created to have racist connotations, is frequently used in bigoted contexts by the alt-right. Wojak, AKA feels guy, is typically depicted as a bald man with a depressed expression.

One of the documentarys subjects, Kantbot, explains that you cant have one without the other thats the duality of man. For these men, Pepe represents the troll self, a public persona that embodies their smug and cocky traits. Wojak denotes a more private and vulnerable self, typified by inadequacy, unfulfillment and sadness. At its core, it is this dichotomy that the documentary seeks to explore, whilst at the same time demanding our sympathies.

On the surface, the men in TFW No GF are united by their failure in finding female partners, a theme which permeates the manosphere that includes Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW) and incels. This latter identity has garnered particular attention in recent years due to the spate of incel violence witnessed in North America, most infamously Eliot Rodgers Isla Vista attacks in California in 2014 that left six people dead. According to Moonshot CVE, incels believe that genetic factors influence their physical appearance and/or social abilities to the extent that they are unattractive to women, with some subscribing to the philosophy of the blackpill namely, that women are shallow and naturally select partners based upon looks, stifling the chances of unattractive men to find a partner and procreate.

Incels are a diverse and nebulous community, their worldview characterized by a virulent brand of nihilism seen through the prism of a three-tiered social hierarchy dictated by looks. Here, incels find themselves at the bottom of the pile, after normies, Chads and Stacys. Whilst instances of real-world violence perpetrated by incels remain in relatively low in numbers, its potential to mutate into an offline phenomenon is rightly a cause for concern, with Bruce Hoffman et al., making a convincing argument for increased law enforcement scrutiny, noting that the most violent manifestations of this ideology pose a new terrorism threat.

A counterterrorism approach alone, however, is unlikely to address the reasons why so many young men (and women: see femcels) are drawn to these virtual worlds. If self-reported narratives on forums such as Incels.net and Incels.co are anything to go by, low self-esteem, bullying and mental health issues are rife. An acknowledgment of the pain, rejection and illness that someone may be suffering from is surely required, however unpalatable that is when faced with the abhorrent imagery and rhetoric that may espouse. Underlying all of this is the need for response based in public health.

However, the documentarys empathic approach has been criticized, with The Guardian accusing it of misinformation, particularly in its portrayal of 4chan and the like as harmless, and Rolling Stone criticizing the films acceptance of events without challenging the communities support of violence, misogyny and racism. In this sense, the film is reminiscent of the 2016 documentary The Red Pill, which followed Cassie Jays journey into the world of mens rights activists, similarly focusing on one side of an ever-complicated debate. Thus, showing compassion should ultimately not be a way of avoiding the difficult conversations and, in the case of inceldom, a failure to do so could be seen as irresponsible.

As a researcher of internet subcultures, documentaries like TFW no GF are valuable in so much as we are granted a rare perspective of these men in their own words. Despite the films selectivity and subjectivity representing a small sample of the infinite experiences and beliefs held by those in this expansive community it provides us with a vignette of the online spaces that allow for certain hateful ideas to flourish and be sustained.

For some, the strange and often hostile world of online messaging boards provides a much-needed connection when other doors are closed. For others, they contribute to a more misogynistic, racist and at times violent way of perceiving the world. As COVID-19 continues to rage on, forcing more of us to shift our lives online, the ability to understand and combat deeply entrenched loneliness as well as its potential to intersect with extreme and even violent corners of the internet will be essential.

*[The Centre for Analysis of the Radical Rightis a partner institution ofFair Observer.]

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observers editorial policy.

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Young Men, Alienation and Violence in the Digital Age - Fair Observer

Artificial Intelligence – A Way To Superintelligence …

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Industrialization and Digitization has changed the wayhumans look at life. The world is moving at a technological pacewherein with every passing minute an invention is done, and a lotof these inventions are beyond human imagination. One suchtechnology is Artificial Intelligence or AI as it is popularlyknown. AI has brought extensive changes around the world. AI is aterm for simulated intelligence in machines.1

According to the father of Artificial Intelligence, JohnMcCarthy, it is 'The science and engineering of makingintelligent machines, especially intelligent computerprograms'.2 In simple words, it is anythingthat can learn and perform functions on its own without anyintervention by humans. AI is the ability of simulated machines tomimic human thoughts like problem solving and learning. Thesemachines also understand human languages, speech and are skilled instrategic thinking.

Artificial Intelligence is a part of our daily lives. Siri,Alexa, Google Maps, Uber, Turnitin and other machine learningapplications are all products of AI. AI is touted as the future ofmankind. AI has already started making its mark in plethora offields and industries like healthcare, education, transportation,agriculture and many more.

To embrace this new wave called AI, India has made a modestbeginning this year by devoting a huge amount of money. In hisBudget Presentation on February 1, finance minister Arun Jaitleyannounced a national programme on AI to be spearheaded by NitiAayog.3 Approximately USD 480 million dollars have beendedicated to artificial intelligence, machine learning and IoT thisyear.4 Many industries and institutions are taking aleap in the field of AI. One of the most robust inventions arecoming in the field of health care, which is utilizing AI incollecting, storing, normalizing, and tracing data. From smartphoneand health tracker revolutions, it has become possible for a userto analyze all relevant data or simply to be up-to-date abouthis/her health.

Currently, a low cost portable home-based rehabilitationsolution device is produced which helps patient exercise forflexion and extension of wrist and fingers. The device has beentested on 20 stroke patients in All India Institute of MedicalSciences (AIIMS), Delhi and can also be combined with the brainstimulation device.

Moreover, institutions like Indian Institute of Technology(IIT), Delhi have developed many innovations based on AI rangingfrom an "intelligent" prosthetic limb and anon-hazardous, longlasting "flow battery" to a new typeof loom and technology to convert agriculture waste into pulp thatsaves 40% water and energy than usual. Further, Centre forBiomedical Engineering has developed a new Intelligent ArtificialLeg for people who have lost their legs above the knee. Theseartificial devices are cheap and durable and uses smart sensingtechnology in the shoes to adapt to the movement of theindividual.

As they say every coin has two sides. With AI benefits comescertain challenges that can be a major threat to the mankind. Forexample, the security of the large amounts of data that AI wouldstore. Another major issue that stands is the privacy of thepersonal data that AI would gather.

No doubt that artificial intelligence has unimaginablepotential. The next few decades would definitely mark a shift frommachine intelligence to artificial superintelligence and set fortha new era in which a computer's cognitive ability will besuperior to human's. Nevertheless, along with the new AIinventions, we as a country also need to invest in strong step tofight the challenges that this necessary devil would bring alongit.

Footnotes

1https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/artificial-intelligence-ai.asp

2https://www.tutorialspoint.com/artificial_intelligence/artificial_intelligence_overview.htm

3 Economic Times report available here

4https://analyticsindiamag.com/where-artificial-intelligence-research-in-india-is-heading/

For further information please contact at S.S Rana &Co. email: info@ssrana.in orcall at (+91- 11 4012 3000). Our website can be accessed at http://www.ssrana.in

The content of this article is intended to provide a generalguide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be soughtabout your specific circumstances.

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Artificial Intelligence - A Way To Superintelligence ...

AI governance and the future of humanity with the Rockefeller Foundations senior VP of innovation – The Sociable

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As the progenitors of artificial intelligence, how we care for and nurture this paradigm-shifting technology will determine how it grows up alongside humanity.

There are many paths ahead for AI and society, and depending on which ones we follow, we may find ourselves on a road to peace and prosperity or one towards a dark dystopia, with several gray areas in-between.

We need to now create a new institution that can continue being the gardener for AI because AI is going to leave home soon, and we hope it becomes a productive member of society Zia Khan

Zia Khan, Senior VP of Innovation at the Rockefeller Foundation, tells The Sociablethat AI will be deeply integrated in the entire human experience and how we choose to govern it is how we will determine our future alongside it.

Whilethe Bretton Woods agreements gave birth to the rule-making institutions of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, the Rockefeller Foundation is looking to develop a practical rule-making Bretton Woods-inspired framework to govern AI.

In October, the Foundation brought together some of the brightest technologists, economists, philosophers, and thinkers who would come away inspired to create a collection of ideas and calls to action in single report: AI+1: Shaping Our Integrated Future, based on their discussions.

The conversation wasnt always easy, said Khan, but at the core, it was a fantastic conversation, and the area we landed on was the need for governance for AI.

If left unchecked, AI could be governed by a select few elitists with their own agendas, or the AI itself could assume more autonomy towards artificial superintelligence, so who governs AI, how they govern, and on whose authority they do so are all serious issues facing humanitys future with this game-changing technology.

AI is a teenager who is about to leave home [] The teenager is starting to express its personality now Zia Khan

I put the question to Khan that if he could personify AI as a child and humans as its parents, what stage of life would AI be in right now? He indulged.

If I were to guess, I would say AI is a teenager who is about to leave home, he said.

When it was in the lab, the scientists were more or less providing for AI, feeding it and caring for it.

The teenager is starting to express its personality now its a little rebellious. We saw some applications that werent great. Some issues are coming like facial recognition that we know we need to deal with but its about to leave home, in my view.

I think its about to have this explosive proliferation into society, the Rockefeller senior VP added.

AI may be likened to a teenager right now, but unlike humans, its growth will be exponential and at lightning speed.

Whats really interesting about technology is that we learn more about humans as we understand technology Zia Khan

Continuing with the parenting metaphor, do we want to care for our artificial offspring like carpenters defining all the rules early on and following the plan or do we want to be like gardeners, allowing the algorithms to flourish within a set framework while trying to nurture them and maintain boundaries?

My view of it is that we need to now create a new institution that can continue being the gardener for AI because AI is going to leave home soon, and we hope it becomes a productive member of society, but theres a lot of ways people can go when they leave home, said Khan.

For the Rockefeller Foundation senior VP, a new institution should be created to govern AI, but what would that look like?

Should the future of AI governance be held to a democratic vote of the people, or should it be placed under the stewardship of philanthropists, technologists, or other organizations with deep pockets and agendas?

We need some political mechanism to decide what are the goals that we want as a society when AI is incorporated Zia Khan

While Khan admits that he doesnt have all the answers on who should be behind the institutions to govern AI, he is certain that they do need to exist.

Going back to the teenager metaphor, he says, When someone leaves home, theres lots of things they can do. They can go to university. They can nod-off. They can be an entrepreneur [] but we still expect them to follow some basic laws around goals that we see as a society.

We need some political mechanism to decide what are the goals that we want as a society when AI is incorporated in that, and then, how do we ensure that the technology meets those goals?

And that is one of the biggest debates going around artificial intelligence circles right now and highlighted in the AI+1 report: rules-based governance or outcome-based?

Focus too much on the rules, then you can have unexpected outcomes. A few years back, Microsoft had to kill its AI chatbot Tay after itturned into a foul-mouthed racist in less than 24 hours, and more recently OpenAI created a virtual game of hide and seek, but the AI unexpectedly broke the programs simulated laws of physics to win.

By focusing on outcomes, the rules can bend and flex within a specific framework governed and guided by what the Rockefeller Foundation senior VP sees as a need for a new institution.

I think that AI is overestimated in some cases and underestimated in other cases Zia Khan

At present, there are a lot of misconceptions about what AI can and cannot do, but as Khan points out, the more we study AI, the more we find out about ourselves.

Whats really interesting about technology is that we learn more about humans as we understand technology, he said.

For example, you still dont have a robot that can really open a door. Someone said once that when the killer robots come, all you have to do is close the door. You see all these crazy videos of robots doing flips and gymnastics its a pretty simple problem relatively speaking but friction?! they cant handle it.

He added that its in studying robots that we learned our sense of touch is about a thousand times more sensitive than we thought before similarly with our hearing and similarly with our smell.

But when it comes do decision making, right now AI is really good at the intuitive tasks that we dont think much about like recognizing languages, images, and counting things.

Human consciousness, on the other hand, keeps our minds occupied on many thoughts while juggling a plethora of emotions simultaneously in any given moment.

As we understand AI better, were actually understanding human consciousness Zia Khan

Thats something, according to Khan, that AI cant do right now, and being able to manage multiple thought processes is like an executive function that only people possess at present.

As we understand AI better, were actually understanding human consciousness, and were understanding the role of emotion in helping with our cognition, he said.

These are the interesting frontiers were learning about the human mind and human body as AI progresses.

The more we understand machines, the more we understand ourselves, and many companies working with AI are applying what theyve learned and developed to directly benefit society in truly unique ways.

And there are some groups that have figured out that their AI solutions for one industry could prove beneficial in another.

For example, the Rockefeller Foundation works with a group called DataKind a fantastic organization that has an army of volunteer data scientists who want to apply their skills to social problems, says Khan.

They identify some social problems, and they get volunteer teams to help develop tools and applications.

The Rockefeller senior VP cited DataKinds work in Haiti as an example where the team was able to optimize routes for waste disposal while maximizing pickups using AI, which in turncould be applied to community health workers in Africa who can better optimize their routes between communities.

Anytime we can find something where one solution can be applied to another problem, it just really increases the efficiency of how we can solve all the challenges that were trying to solve, said Khan.

All of these AI systems have a problem around bias, and thats something were really starting to worry about Zia Khan

While algorithms can be redistributed to serve multiple purposes, problems arise when they pass along inherent biases in the code.

All of these AI systems have a problem around bias, says Khan, adding, thats something were really starting to worry about. In many ways, these tools can just reproduce and amplify the human biases that we have.

The Rockefeller Foundation recently launched the $4 million Lacuna Fund aimed specifically at correcting the gaps and biases in data for AI solutions in order to mobilize labeled datasets that solve urgent problems in low-and-middle-income contexts globally.

The Lacuna Fund is meant to identify where are there opportunities where we can fund labeled datasets that round-out the training data available to algorithms, so that those algorithms can train themselves and remove the bias, said Khan.

COVID has laid bare a lot of the really deep and important problems Zia Khan

As AI permeates every industry and facet of society, bias will be a main issue to tackle, but moving beyond biases, this technology has the power to help make sure every human on earth is fed, clothed, and sheltered, depending on how its used and governed.

The arrival of the coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the discussion on how AI can best serve humanity and society at large.

For Khan, Something like the COVID crisis gives us the opportunity to rethink big paradigm shifts.

In some way, COVID has laid bare a lot of the really deep and important problems, and I think it has heightened the urgency to think about new solutions, he said.

The current urgency of this crisis is demanding new thinking, and I think there are opportunities to deploy and apply AI to help in those cases.

Thats going to help us learn about what AI can do, and hopefully well keep an eye on the risks and manage those risks, he added.

The disruption thats been created by COVID on so many different fronts gives us the opportunity rethink really major paradigms Zia Khan

AI will be a technology that cuts across society, and the Rockefeller senior VP believes that AI governance will be directly linked to economics.

I think theres a linkage between how we think about regulating AI and a lot of the thinking thats going on with people in economics, he said.

I think people are realizing that we need a new form of economics. The neo-liberal economic paradigm of maximizing shareholder value, not accounting for the cost and nature, etc., just isnt working.

I think we have to do some hard thinking around what is the value of data, how are we accounting for the value of data, and I think that will lead to how we think about regulating and managing AI, but also the broader economic rules, and market rules, and the role of government. I think these will be more tightly coupled going forward, he added.

How we think about managing AI will be coupled with how we think about economic models Zia Khan

For Khan, The disruption thats been created by COVID on so many different fronts gives us the opportunity rethink really major paradigms, and how we think about managing AI will be coupled with how we think about economic models.

The AI teenager is about to leave home. Will it go off and learn to do what is best for society, or will its own experiences shape it into a rebellious force of destruction?

The way forward, according to the Rockefeller Foundations senior VP of innovation, is to create a framework for governance that guides AI towards a prosperous future for humanity.

Tech arms race will give corporations, governments the ability to hack human beings: Yuval Harari at WEF

Digital Immortality and the Book of the Dead

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AI governance and the future of humanity with the Rockefeller Foundations senior VP of innovation - The Sociable

Uttam Kumar and intimations of immortality – The Hindu

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In 1971, Satyajit Ray took his turn in defining what he means by a star. A star is a person on the screen who continues to be expressive and interesting even after he or she has stopped doing anything. This was as fair and ingenious a definition as any. But how long is that even after, one might want to ask. This is because the star in question is none other than Uttam Kumar, for whom that even after is a full forty years; for, not only has he stopped working, he has in fact been gone for exactly four decades to the day. And forty years in this precipitous planet and in the perfidious world of cinema is enough even for a star as titanic as Uttam to have atrophied into a historical artefact, or an academic curiosity, or a mummified cultural trophy.

But Uttams afterlife has been extraordinary. Part of it is because of learned commemoration: there are countless memoirs, nostalgic ruminations, visual revisits and cinematic histories. There are reams of felicitous homage from colleagues and co-actors, directors, technicians, distributors, theatre-owners and other luminaries from all walks of life, which has created a riveting tableau of lives Uttam had directly been able to touch, if not also transform. Part of it is because of the readiness of a gregarious culture ever ready to collapse into the past. Bring a few talkative Bengalis together and in no time at all they will be in an immersive adda about Uttam and his films; humming a song or two, replaying a scene here and there, momentarily lost in the redolence of those monochrome hours, in the imagined greatness of a golden period.

For every bit of this purportedly bhadrolok acts of retention, there are also spontaneous, streetwise displays of exuberant adoration. Land in Calcutta and you would see broadsheets, hoardings, shops, posters, books dangling with his face. In quickly disappearing atriums of single-screen theatres across the city, he is ubiquitous. Uttams smiling portrait also peeps out from sudden nooks and corners neighbourly salons, dusty tailor-shops, bare-boned photo-studios, rusty sweetshops and grimy eateries that are either in thrall of his everlasting charm or touting the honour of his visit into their midst many moons ago. The scale of Uttams easy visibility across Calcutta and towns of Bengal four decades since his death makes one singular claim: that Uttam has not only refused mortality but has made a permanent home in the collective memory of Bengal.

Uttams appeal was built not only on an edifice of feel-good, gratifying romances but on the ability of his screen persona to conform and contradict; to understand the melancholic heft of the period while also being able to navigate it gently, with dulcet humility; and without rebellion and rancour.

This is about the stardom bit. What about the performances? There are many indices. First, the institutions inaugural national award for best acting in 1967; six BFJA Awards, numerous felicitations and other displays of collective reverence from public organisations. Second, metaphorical a film by Satyajit Ray at the peak of his powers (Nayak, 1966) that was based on Uttams life and had Uttam as the protagonist. Ray has never eschewed his admiration for Uttam, calling him an unparalleled cinematic icon. Consider the following brief passage from Pico Iyers New York Review of Books essay on The Hero, which accompanied the Criterion Collection release of the film in 2018. Iyer writes, The film is anchored at every moment in Kumars performance, and to me its an astonishment[...] The beauty of Kumars Arindam Mukherjee is that he has the capacity to surprise us, again and again. He can be witty and charming and kind. As Ray and Kumar push beneath the leading mans smooth surfaces, we expect, perhaps, demons and sleepless nights; but we may not be prepared for such grace.

There is also a possible third index. Note that some of Hindi cinemas milestones: Saheb Bibi Gulam (Saheb Bibi Golam), Hum Hindustani (Bosu Poribar), Hum Dono (Uttarayan), Kala Pani (Sobar Opore), Lal Pathhar (Lal Pathor), Angoor (Bhrantibilash), Jibanmrityu (Jibon Mrityu), Chupke Chupke (Chhadmabeshi), Amar Prem (Nishipodmo), Kati Patang (Surjotopa), Anurodh (Deya Neya), Abhiman (Bilombito Loy), Bemisal (Ami She o Sokha) and Ijaazat (Jotugriha) were all remakes of Uttams films. This is to say that nine of Hindi cinemas big names Guru Dutt, Sunil Dutt, Dev Anand, Rajkumar, Sanjeev Kumar, Rajesh Khanna, Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan and even Naseeruddin Shah have together brought to the screen multitudinous leading characters which in their original belonged to just one actor. This might give a hint of the range and depth of Uttams original talent.

And this is not counting his stellar performances in never-remade films: Bicharak (The Judge, 1959), Shiulibari (The Townmaker, 1961), Kanna (The Cry, 1962), Sesh Onko (The Last Act, 1963) Kal Tumi Aleya (The Negotiator, 1966), Chiriakhana (The Zoo, 1967), Antony Firingee (Poet from a Foreign Land, 1967) Chowringhee (Chowronghee, 1968), Ekhane Pinjor (The Prisonhouse, 1971), Agniswar (Lord of Fire, 1975) and Baghbandi Khela (The Hunting Game, 1975) among others. This example might also give a hint as to why one kind of performative stardom travels poorly across terrains but forms a larger-than-life incarnation in their home soil: Toshiro Mifune, Alain Delon, Innokenty Smoktunovsky, Tony Leung Chiu-wai and yes, the hearth-throb Marcello Mastroianni are some other robust examples.

It is somewhat epiphanic that the quadragennial month of Uttams death falls bang in the middle of a globe-rummaging pandemic. And that gives me a final reason to reflect on why Uttams screen persona is worth revisiting. As he rose in public reckoning in the mid-1950s, Uttams stardom emerged as the key figure around which the architectonics of Bengali popular cinema announced its re-organisation. The changed circumstances of Bengals chequered years could, in the young mans ordinariness, trace the hapless new citizen, the displaced refugee, the troubling aspirations of an artiste or the youth hopelessly in love. This was the initial capital of Uttam Kumars fledgling stardom and he built unfailingly upon its wide appeal. Much of the magnetism of his 1950s melodramas hence lay in this incorporation of a self-assured, footloose, companionable figure. In fact, it was this everyman figuration which in besieged, beleaguered Bengal explored resolutions to a series of crises that could interchange what was desirable and what could be realisable. In other words, Uttams appeal was built not only on an edifice of feel-good, gratifying romances but on the ability of his screen persona to conform and contradict; to understand the melancholic heft of the period while also being able to navigate it gently, with dulcet humility; and without rebellion and rancour.

Surely, there is a lesson or two to learn from that persona as it saunters into another era forty years after his mortal frame had turned into dust.

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Uttam Kumar and intimations of immortality - The Hindu

Mystery Cults of Secret SocietiesThe Inside Story – The Great Courses Daily News

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By Richard B.Spence, Ph.D., University of Idaho

There was much secrecy in the ancient world and almost all the written documents concerning the mystery cults were lost. All that is left are pieces of information around which the ancient civilizations have been reconstructed. Much of the popular perception of ancient Greek and Roman civilizations has come from Hollywood and not from any scholarly findings or writings. But it has become quite clear that the mysteries were entirely different from the actual civic life of Greece.

In ancient Greece, people were officially expected to worship the emperor. But that was not the case with mystery cults. They offered fellowship and mystical experience that was personal to everyone. They even went to the extent of making people have direct contact with the divine. Redemption, salvation, and immortality were what mystery cults sought.

The Greeks found that mystery cults had roots in Egypt and had originated there. However, this has not been established although there may be some truth in it. Modern researchers have associated mystery cults with the likes of the sinister brotherhood which was introduced and expanded by Babylonian King Nimrod or even an Indo-European proto religion. But no one has been able to prove their origins with any kind of evidence. As per William Cooper, the late American conspiracy theorist, mystery cults originated in a primitive secret society named the Dragon society or Brotherhood of the snake. But again, there is nothing to prove that.

This is a transcript from the video series The Real History of Secret Societies. Watch it now, on The Great Courses Plus.

However, these mystery cults did have some common features. Each one of them had a connection with seasonal movements like those of stars and planets and progressions like equinoxes and solstices. All of them practiced initiation ceremonies, which were tough and long most of the time. Initiation here means taking in, and the ceremonies meant taking someone into a select community. Furthermore, all communities took vows of secrecy which bound them together and protected them. These bonds between the communities were strengthened by individual group rituals, meals, dancing together, andsometimesby an orgy. There was a central myth or story to these mystery cults which invariably involved subjects of death and resurrection. It was part of the mystery as to whether this myth or story was to be taken precisely or symbolically. Some of these elements can be found, for example, in medieval passion plays. Much depended on the individual experience, but the ultimate goal was an individuals spiritual awakening and unification with god.

Although mystery cults observed a lot of secrecy, some things are known. There used to be an internal hierarchy in these mysteries. The top-most person was hierophant or apostle, who was the revealer of holy things. Ordinary people who were initiated were called mystes. One of the rituals for initiation was taking sacred objects from a chest and putting them into a basket. Although this action seems foolish, its significance lay in what it symbolized. The uninitiated do not understand. The last revelation was simple but perplexing. It involved reaping an ear of grain in silence. This was ridiculed by Christian writers and called a proof of the foolishness of the cult. They wondered why one should go through all this just for an ear of grain. But it meant a lot in the context of initiation.

As initiating a person in multiple mysteries was a common practice, cults had an inevitable influencing effect on each other, in the same way as a person belonging to the Elks, the Masons, and the Odd Fellows. For example, Eleusinian mysteries had a lot of similarities with the more mystical Samothracian cult. This cult, based on the small island of Aegean in Samothrace, revered what they called the great gods, with their names known only to the initiated. The center was held by a Demeter-like great mother, who was attended by two junior male deities. Rituals were held both outdoors and indoors with sacred objects in place. One of the premises is that Samothracian mysteries disguised a cult which was devoted to the strange goddess Hecate. Apart from other things, she practiced witchcraft and European witches would revere her as their deity. In the Shakespeare play Macbeth, Hecate who was invoked by the three sisters at the beginning of the play.

Learn more about the secret societies behind the Boston Tea Party and Bastille Day.

In the study of geometry or trigonometry, the Pythagoras theorem is well known. However, Pythagoras also founded a secret society that was based on reincarnation, vegetarianism, the immortality of the soul, and, of course, mathematics. Around 500 B.C., the Pythagorean Brotherhood came up in southern Italy. Although called a brotherhood, sometimes it initiated women too. The first three centuries of the A.D. era was the period when mystery cults bloomed most. And this was also the period when the Roman empire had its heydays. But this was no coincidence. As Rome brought most of the Mediterranean and Near East under its control, it acted as a melting pot for different religions, people, and ideas. And one of the mystery cults which was most popular in Rome was devoted to the Egyptian goddess Isis.

Like other secret societies, mystery cults were not equal. Some were preferred by the poor and downtrodden while others by the rich and affluent. But it can be concluded that mystery cults were not crazy societies who just indulged in wild sex and lust for blood. They also handled the mysteries of life and death in some way, and they provided fellowship and exclusivity. And, to top it all, how the brotherhood and sisterhood kept their vows of secrecy is truly amazing.

Learn more about the Knights Templar.

The Greeks found that mystery cults had roots in Egypt and had originated there. However, this has not been established, although there may be some truth in it. Modern researchers have associated mystery cults with the likes of the sinister brotherhood which was introduced and expanded by Babylonian King Nimrod or even an Indo-European proto religion.

Each one of them had a connection with seasonal movements like those of stars and planets and progressions like equinoxes and solstices. All of them practiced initiation ceremonies. And, above all, all communities took vows of secrecy which bound them together and protected them.

Pythagoras founded a secret society that was based on reincarnation, vegetarianism, the immortality of the soul, and, of course, mathematics. Around 500 B.C., the Pythagorean Brotherhood came up in southern Italy.

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Mystery Cults of Secret SocietiesThe Inside Story - The Great Courses Daily News

Analyst: Three Crypto Assets Are Sleeping Giants As Bitcoin Gears Up for Next Bull Run – The Daily Hodl

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Crypto analyst Nicholas Merten is bullish on several large-cap cryptocurrencies that he believes will ride the waves of Bitcoins recent price action.

In a new episode of DataDash, the popular technical trader predicts small-cap cryptos of which many saw huge gains when DeFi erupted in June and July are likely to move sideways in the short term.

Bitcoin, on the other hand, is displaying all of the bullish metrics analysts have been hoping for, according to Merten.

Weve broken through resistance for the first time since 2017. This is highly significant. Everythings looking great. We had months of consolidation starting back in April against the line of resistance.

Merten thinks Ethereum is doing exactly what Ethereum should be doing after a small price drop at the beginning of the week. After turning resistance against BTC into support, he says ETH could accelerate very quickly.

Taking a look at the Bittrex chart here, the thing that Im noticing is were doing exactly what happened to gold in regards to its ratio against equities. You break out of an ascending triangle, you have a correction down to that line of previous resistance, and you make it support.

The analyst also believes XRP, which has seen little price action compared to other large-cap cryptos, appears to be due for modest gains in the short term and a larger move to the upside in the mid to long term.

We might need some more time for a full-scale consolidation until we get one of these accelerator moves, but I have no doubt that were looking for a bounce-up. If you were to take a look at the general lines of support here, were actually towards the lower band here. So I think we could get a slight accelerator move here in XRP even if we dont get a major move until later on.

Merten is particularly bullish on Litecoin, the eighth-ranked crypto by market capitalization.

To be quite frank with you guys, I think that this is a wonderful chart here. To see that were down on this lower range here, considering that even though you might have to take another few weeks of losses if this does turn back around, eventually this is going to probably start picking up. And weve seen historically that Litecoin moves big time.

A good comparison to this is the gold-to-silver ratio, silver to gold as Litecoin is to Bitcoin. And there is a very, very historical trend over the last two cycles in commodities the one were currently in now and the one previously where silver accelerates against gold, and were seeing that actually right now, ironically enough.

However, not everyone shares Mertens opinion that certain altcoins will get to bask in Bitcoins glory.

Ari Paul, the chief investment officer of BlockTower Capital, says if BTC keeps moving, it will likely dominate investors attention.

A big part of altcoins rallying for the last few months has been BTC in a tight range. In my opinion, most alts likely to underperform BTC if it breaks out in either direction.

The less liquid a coin is, the more its price is typically driven by leverage in the system. When BTC is boring, peoples greed is channeled elsewhere. More exposure, more leverage. Then when BTC is moving, it is an attractive avenue for that speculation, or when moving down, people are just generally more fearful so you get de-leveraging and less exposure to alts as well.

Featured Image: Shutterstock/Mikedrago.cz

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Analyst: Three Crypto Assets Are Sleeping Giants As Bitcoin Gears Up for Next Bull Run - The Daily Hodl

Capitalism Rears Its Ugly Truth, Again – LA Progressive

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On the Battle of Ideas: Responding to the New World of COVID-19, Economic Crisis, and Anti-Racist Uprisings

That process goes hand-in-hand with working out a new type of organization, one the world is crying out for but no one has developed, not even ourselves. However, we have at least posed the question.

The abject failure of almost all governments around the world to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic is above all a crisis of capitalism, with the chaotic response of Trumps America its most repellent phenomenal form. But too narrow a focus on Trump obscures how this abject failure illustrates the essential nature of capitalism, its normal macabre workings, which are now revealed more openly. Capitalisms quest for limitless value creation and profit has itself been compared to a virus afflicting humanity. This is because capitalism puts everything else aside, exists for the moment, and destroys even the possibility of the reproduction of its own means of production including its labor force in the long run. This is the underlying explanation for the lack of medical supplies, of tests, of masks, let alone a real public health infrastructure ready to save humanity from the pandemics that are becoming more and more frequent.

From its earliest days, the capitalist system has been beset by chaotic production relations. In one sense, this leads to a total instability in workers lives, as they are thrown from overwork during boom times into mass unemployment during those crises that are endemic to the system. Even physical survival is always in question, as the unemployed can actually face starvation. As Karl Marx and Frederick Engels intone in the Communist Manifesto (1848) in an attack on the industrial bourgeoisie, the main wing of the ruling class under capitalism: It is unfit to rule because it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery (Marx and Engels, Collected Works [MECW] 6: 495). This is a unique feature of capitalism, even compared to earlier forms of class society. In these precapitalist class societies, tiny minorities already dominated the working people and extracted from them a surplus product, which kept the ruling class wealthy and underpinned a state to protect them. But at the same time, some precapitalist societies tried to allow the working people a minimum material existence, despite the low development of the productive forces at the time.

As Rosa Luxemburg noted more than a century ago with regard to British rule in India, imperialism under capitalism is unique in that it actually drains society dry, failing even to put enough of its profits into preserving its very means of exploitation:

Finally, the specifically capitalist method of colonization finds expression in the following striking circumstance. The British were the first conquerors of India to show a gross indifference toward the works of civilization that formed its public utilities and economic infrastructure. Arabs, Afghans and Mongols alike had initiated and maintained magnificent works of canalization, they provided the country a network of roads, built bridges across rivers and sunk wells. The Company that ruled India until 1858 (the East India Company R.L.) did not make one spring accessible, did not sink a single well, nor build a bridge for the benefit of the Indians. (Accumulation of Capital, Verso edition: 270)

While wages and living conditions then and now might be better in Western Europe or North America than in India, the basic framework is the same, that of capitalist exploitation, even to the point of draining life itself from the working people. And under capitalist slavery, Black people were literally worked to death, which led Marx to write that, even compared to Roman times, slavery reached its most hateful form in a situation of capitalist production (MECW30: 197).

If slavery was the most brutal form of exploitation under capitalism, in Capital Marx also writes of the slow death of the working class in industrialized Britain. He compares the rule of capital to the domination of a Juggernaut, a vehicle that crushes spectators beneath it in a religious festival, in what amounts to a human sacrifice:

Within the capitalist system all methods for raising the social productiveness of labour are brought into effect at the cost of the individual laborer; that all means for the development of production undergo a dialectical inversion so that they become means of domination and exploitation of the producers; they distort the worker into a fragment of a human being [Teilmenschen], they degrade him to the level of an appendage of a machine, subject him during the labour process to a despotism the more hateful for its meanness; they transform his life-time into working-time, and drag his wife and child beneath the wheels of the Juggernaut of capital. (Capital, Fowkes trans.: 799)

How true that rings at a time when US workers mainly superexploited Latinx immigrants are being forced back to work in meatpacking plants that are rife with COVID-19. Not only that. White rightwing mobs also applaud, guns in hand, the idea of going back to work, literally calling for human sacrifices on the altar of capital, all in order to get the economy moving again.

At best, most radical analysis stops here, at exposing the underlying essence of capitalism, but it is important to go beyond essence to subject, to the possibility of revolutionary change. It is so hard to imagine an alternative to capitalism that it is sometimes helpful, as Marx also does in Capital, to refer to other forms of production (169). But here I would like to go beyond the text of Capital to one of Marxs very last writings, the Ethnological Notebooks. In these 1880-82 notes on a variety of non-European societies, he records a description of an Indigenous communist society in the Americas that operates exactly the opposite of capitalism, producing a surplus product that is not surplus value and that is geared not to the reproduction of capital or the riches of a ruling class, but rather to the security and reproduction of life:

Rev. Sam. Gorman, missionary with the Laguna Pueblo Indians, in address to the Historical Society of New Mexico says: The right of property belongs to the female part of the family, and descends in that line from mother to daughter. Their land is held in common, but after a person cultivates a lot he has personal claim to it, which he can sell to one of the community Their women, generally, have control of the granary, are more provident than their Spanish neighbors about the future. Ordinarily they try to have a years provision on hand. It is only when two years of scarcity succeed each other, that Pueblos, as a community, suffer hunger. (118)

Note that in this communistic Indigenous society women retain significant social power, not only over the land, but also over the social reproduction of food. As a result, this technologically underdeveloped society was more provident than its Spanish neighbors, let alone 21st century capitalism, which cant even prepare for the epidemics its own scientists predict.

Similarly, in the Critique of the Gotha Program, Marx theorizes a first phase of communism, where workers would not receive the full proceeds of their labor because of the need for common funds to sustain the community:

He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the societal supply of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost.

This is from our new translation (by Karel Ludenhoff and me), which I am proud to report will appear as a book with PM Press next year, with Peter Hudiss introduction. That modern kind of communism Marx was theorizing would also, as in his description of the achievements of the Paris Commune of 1871, get rid of the standing army and the police, the physical force elements of the old Government (Civil War in France, MECW 22: 331).

Marx also suggests that more traditional and more modern kinds of communist organization of social life here mentioning the longstanding communism of the Russian village community and the kind of modern communism he theorized in Critique of the Gotha Program and that the Western European proletariat yearned for could link up as part of a revolutionary process. This is seen in his last published writing, the preface to the 1882 Russian edition of the Communist Manifesto: If the Russian Revolution becomes the signal for a proletarian revolution in the West, so that both complement each other, the present Russian common ownership of land may serve as the starting point for a communist development (Shanin, ed., Late Marx and the Russian Road: 139). That, ultimately, is the solution to the kind of social crisis brought on by COVID-19.

As discussed above, the COVID-19 pandemic is a capitalist crisis because capitalism is a form of society that does very little to secure the lives and health of the working people in its ruthless, limitless, and utterly impersonal drive for value creation.

But the pandemic is a capitalist crisis in a second sense. The actual destruction of human existence as a possibility is a product of the third and hopefully final stage of global capitalism, state-capitalism, which followed the competitive and then the monopoly stage, with the latter self-destructing during the Great Depression of the 1930s. First, we have seen how the Great Depression and the transformation into opposite of the Russian revolution created the basis for two forms of totalitarian state-capitalism, Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, each of which killed tens of millions of people in their concentration camps, mainly workers and peasants. Hitlers death camps gave the world a new, horrific word to describe his eliminationist anti-Semitism, genocide. That genocide has repeated itself, most tragically in Rwanda, Central Africa in the 1990s. Second, we have seen how state-capitalism here in the form of the somewhat progressive Roosevelt administration during World War 2 created the nuclear weapons that still threaten the existence of most forms of life on the planet. Third, we have seen how, as levels of ecological destruction escalate, state-capitalism threatens utterly to destroy human and many other forms of life on the planet.

To these we can now add a fourth form of state-capitalisms death grip on humanity, global pandemics that threaten human existence. As shown by science journalist Sonia Shah in her in her 2016 book, Pandemic, more frequent, more virulent, and more deadly epidemics have been predicted by scientists for decades. Modern state-capitalism destroys the habitat of many animals, bringing them and the diseases they carry into closer contact with humans. Modern state-capitalism also engages in the capture, trade, and global transport of a wide variety of exotic animals, bringing all kinds of species into close contact with each other and with human beings for the first time, allowing diseases to spring from species to species, acquiring greater virulence. At a more general level, modern state-capitalism is the most globalized form of capitalism ever, thus facilitating its wide and rapid spread. While each of these forms of destruction threaten to wipe out much of humanity, they also have a class and racist basis, in that the poorest and most oppressed are the most vulnerable.

The pandemic is a crisis of capitalism in a third major sense, in that it has touched off the greatest economic downturn since the 1930s. Capitalist ideologues of all stripes are working feverishly to perpetuate the fiction that the current economic crisis is only temporary (rightwingers), or that it will be more permanent (liberals and progressives), but that in either case the it is caused by COVID-19. This is a remarkably narrow notion of causality. For example, while the Minneapolis uprising was sparked by the racist police murder of George Floyd, even the liberal mayor referred in his speech both to longstanding issues of brutality and racism in the police department and to 400 years of slavery and oppression of Black people in the USA.

Another statistic that counts better those discouraged workers is the civilian labor force participation rate, i.e., the percentage of adults employed or actively seeking work. It has steadily declined over the past two decades in the USA. In April 2000 it stood at 67.3% of the working age population, but plunged to 64.6% by September 2013, in the wake of the Great Recession. Had the U.S. recovered from that recession in the way it was touted by Trump and the media, the labor force participation rate would have gone back up toward 2000 levels by 2020. It did not. Instead, on the eve of the pandemic in February 2020 it had actually declined slightly from 2013, to 63.4%, another clear indication of economic stagnation in the midst of supposed nearly full employment. Now, of course, it is in free fall. (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate, June 4, 2020). Thus, the economic crisis touched off by the pandemic and based in part on longterm economic stagnation is just that, a real economic crisis from which no quick recovery can be expected. As our Call also states, In a word, stagnation rules the day. This did not result from the coronavirus; that was instead its proximate cause. Capitalism has been producing a lot of rotten fruit that was just waiting to fall.

Thus, the current situation of pandemic and economic collapse is the product of capitalist social relations in three major ways: (1) It reveals capitalisms pursuit of surplus value at any cost, with a reckless disregard for the safety of the working people it exploits, rather than just the failings of neoliberalism. (2) Global pandemics like COVID-19 will occur more frequently under the most advanced form of capitalism, state-capitalism, which has also produced genocide, nuclear weapons, and unprecedented ecological destruction. (3) The pandemic was only the immediate cause of the economic depression, in a world economy already ripe for a crisis even deeper than the Great Recession of 2008.

(An earlier version of this section was published in my June 12 article, Notes on the Black Lives Matter Uprising in Historical and Global Context, International Marxist-Humanist(June 12) )

Where does all this leave those striving for a world free of impoverishment and exploitation, of alienation and dehumanization, and of war, racism, sexism, heterosexism and environmental destruction? In one sense, we have been reeling over the past few months, locked down at home or forced to work in dangerous situations. During the lockdown, the world economy plummeted, throwing billions out of work. In India, low-wage workers have faced starvation. Some three billion people around the world lack access to water for the kind of handwashing public health officials deem necessary to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Even in one of the richest cities in the world, Geneva, Switzerland, people lined up for a mile to receive a food donation toward the end of May.

Nonetheless, working people and youth have fought back in major ways during COVID-19 and the economic crisis. From the beginning, workers resisted attempts by capital and the state to keep production going, endangering their very lives. Here, the Italian workers, with their long militant tradition, led the way, with mass strike actions. In March, according to a report from CGIL, the main union federation,

From the Dalmine steel mills of Bergamo to those of Brescia, from the Fiat-Chrysler plants of Pomigliano in Naples to the Ilva steel plant in Genoa, from the Electrolux factory of Susegana in Treviso to many small and medium-sized companies in Veneto and Emilia Romagna, from the Amazon warehouses in the provinces of Piacenza and Rieti, to the poultry and meat processing companies in the Po Valley, there were thousands of striking workers who came out into the squares and streets, strictly at a safe distance of one meter apart from each other, as prescribed by the government decree. (Leopoldo Tartaglia, Dispatch from Italy: Class Struggle in the Time of Coronavirus,Labor Notes, March 20, 2020)

This forced the state and capital to concede, leading to better safety measures and for workers to be paid during safety-related work stoppages.

These measures, aimed at unionized workers, did not affect the most precarious and marginalized workers, many of them immigrants. It was from this kind of milieu in the USA, the oppressed Black communities of Houston and Minneapolis, that George Floyd, murdered by four Minneapolis police, emerged. Like so many Black working class women and men, Floyd was semi-unemployed due to COVID-19 at the time that police choked him to death in slow motion, in broad daylight as witnesses from the Black community looked on and pleaded for mercy. Floyds unconcscionable death has been seen as a form of lynching, but it also recalls the torture and executions carried out for centuries inside US slave plantations, where the audience was other enslaved people, and the purpose was to create dread by making an example of someone.

As many have also pointed out, the strangulation of George Floyd needs to be seen in the context of 400 years of slavery and the obdurate objective structures of racial oppression in the USA, from outright slavery, to Jim Crow, to todays mass incarceration. The poison of racism oozes through the sectors of employment, housing, education, healthcare, and policing, among others. Racialized capitalism in the US actually began under British colonialism as part of their widely-used policy of divide and rule, from Ireland, to the Indian subcontinent, to Virginia. That strategy favored one sector of the populace against another, in order to prevent class unity against the rulers. In seventeenth-century Virginia, this meant arming poor but formally free whites and giving them police power over all Black people, the vast majority of them enslaved, in order to prevent another outbreak uniting white and Black labor, as had occurred in Bacons rebellion in 1676. Todays police forces originate in part in the white militias that received rewards for capturing fugitive slaves.

But the racial history of the USA needs to be understood subjectively as much as objectively, in short, dialectically, if we are fully to grasp the current juncture. For todays rebellion on the streets can also trace itself to that uprising in early Virginia. In this sense, US history needs to be grasped as one of constant revolt and resistance in the face of racial and capitalist oppression. Here, one could mention (1) the slave revolts led by Denmark Vesey (1822) and Nat Turner (1831), (2) the whole period of Abolitionism, Civil War, and Reconstruction from the 1830s to the 1870s, (3) the southern rural Black Populists and their white allies in the 1890s, (4) the massive and socially progressive Black nationalist Garvey Movement after World War 1, (5) the mass interracial labor and Civil Rights movements of the 1930s, (6) the Civil Rights and Black liberation movements of the 1950s throughout the 1970s, and (7) the current period exemplified by the Sanders campaign against economic inequality and the development of Black Lives Matter, which preceded even the 2016 Sanders campaign, into a mass movement this spring that has drawn hundreds of thousands into the streets.

Today, as with the greatest of those previous movements, the Black masses have taken a vanguard role, but a wider movement has emerged involving youth of all races. As so many times before, the rulers and their representatives have tried to distinguish between good protestors and illegal, violent, and outside ones. Thus, after the mass rebellion against police brutality in 1965 in the Black ghetto of Watts, Los Angeles, some tried to blame Cuban agents, but even the official McCone Commission led by a former head of the CIA could find none. Similarly, todays far-right Trump administration blames leftwing agitators from the Antifa movement, although they can show no concrete examples. What is true is that hundreds of thousands came onto the streets all across the country under the slogan Black Lives Matter, that a police station was burned to the ground in Minneapolis, and that luxury shops in the Los Angeles area were attacked by protestors who scrawled slogans like eat the rich on walls. After over a week of rebellious actions across the land, all four Minneapolis police murderers were finally arrested, but this came after no less than 13,000 protestors had been detained.

The protests deepened and persisted in a way not seen since the 1960s. The Black Lives Matter Uprising has already developed into a nodal point, with facts on the ground demanding that any serious revolutionary analysis take these events as its starting point, as the beginning of a new revolutionary era with global dimensions.

Demonstrators were cruelly gassed and clubbed near the White House by direct presidential command, in order for Trump to show toughness at a photo op after it had been reported he was cowering in the basement. Even Trumps threat to use the regular army on the streets did not deter the demonstrators, but it did cause dissension within the military leadership, especially after it was reported that officials had used the term dominating the battle space. As even retired General Martin Dempsey noted in protest, the law and military tradition restrict the use of such tactics to foreign enemies. But it is equally true that two decades of endless war abroad, of occupation and torture of civilians in Iraq and elsewhere, is blowing back into the USA itself, with police forces that are militarized as never before. Another form of blowback can be seen in how Minneapolis police have received training from the US-funded occupation police force of one of the most reactionary powers in the world, Netanyahus Israel, where chokeholds and other physical pressure, i.e., torture, of Palestinian detainees is totally legal. These facts show that moves in the USA toward an authoritarian state are not limited to the Trump administration, but can also be found in liberal Minneapolis. It also underlines the need to amend our Statement of Principles in the Constitution, to include this stronger language in support of Palestine: We have always opposed Israels oppressive policies against the Palestinians and strongly support their right to an independent and territorially viable state. At the same time, we oppose all forms of anti-Semitism and support the Jewish peoples right to self-determination.

Less noticed but also extremely significant has been the resurgence of the youth movement in Hong Kong against Chinese government attempts to extinguish all democratic rights in that semi-autonomous city. As the threat of COVID-19 lifted a bit, the youth of Hong Kong were the first anywhere in the world to reassert their pre-COVID movement on a truly mass scale. Inside China, quieter dissent exists amid deepening repression, especially in Wuhan, where the regime covered up the full extent of COVID-19 for weeks, thus extending the suffering in China and the world. On June 4, the 31st anniversary of the crushing of the China-wide student and worker uprising of 1989, tens of thousands of Hong Kong youth gathered for the annual commemoration, despite the event having been banned due to COVID-19. Thwarted by popular protest in their attempts to get a series of repressive measures through the Hong Kong legislature, Chinas top leader, Xi Jinping, has decided to act directly, an extremely ominous turn. It should also be noted that the Hong Kong protests have never been only about political issues, as residents also face a precipitous increase in economic inequality, as investment capital from the rest of China has led to skyrocketing rents and other forms of heightened capitalist oppression. For its part, while some governments have issued verbal protests, unelected global capital is solidly backing Xis repressive measures, with all due cynicism: There will be some unhappy people for some time, said John L. Thornton, a former president of Goldman Sachs who has close ties with the Chinese regime, But the drum rolls, the dogs bark and the caravan moves on. Thats the political judgment (quoted in Alexandra Stevenson and Vivian Wang, Why China May Call the Worlds Bluff on Hong Kong, New York Times, June 4, 2020). Thorntons racist comparison of the Chinese people to dogs should also be noted.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of V.I. Lenin, one of historys most important Marxists. Despite some serious flaws the elitist vanguard party to lead and the single-party state he and Trotsky established after the revolution Lenin propagated to the world the notion that without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement. This was of course in the spirit of Marx himself, who completed Capital at the height of one of his most active periods of engagement with the workers movement, that of the First International. But what does it mean to develop revolutionary theory today in the wake of the myriad crises and opportunities facing us in the year 2020?

Writing in the wake of the 1960s, our founder Raya Dunayevskaya wrote of the need for revolutionaries to become philosophers of revolution. Posed at such a general level, many diverse socialists and radicals would agree. But once one looks deeper, key differences with Marxist-Humanism become clearer. In Philosophy and Revolution (1973), Dunayevskaya writes of two pitfalls to avoid, here debating about the African Revolutions of the 1960s, not with reformists, but genuine revolutionaries:

We must, however, beware of falling into traps set by mechanical materialists as well as voluntarists, by ideologues rooted in other civilizations as well as free-lancers. Although they call themselves Marxists, the vulgar materialists attribute an iron mold to economic laws: they must be sucked into the world market. The seeming opposite of vulgar materialists, the voluntarists Maoists or individualists, Existentialists or anarchists have one thing in common with those who are overwhelmed by economic laws: they believe they can order the workers to make one day equal twenty years. (pp. 218-19)

What Dunayevskaya is critiquing here are the two dominant forms of Marxist socialism of the twentieth century.

What does this mean for today, especially for those like us who talk of race, class, and revolution? The vulgar materialists, found among both Russian Stalinists and Western European social democrats, tended toward class and economic reductionism, which under Stalinism became tied to the interests of the Soviet Union as the supposed representative of the revolutionary class at a global level. This was the ultimate form of class reductionism, where the interests of the class were themselves reduced to those of the USSR. This led to the infamous example of the Popular Front during the Second World War, when the global Communist Parties basically dropped their anti-racist demands for what they called anti-fascist unity. Thus, when African Americans sought to march on Washington in 1943 to end segregation in the U.S. military, the Stalinist US Communist Party denounced it as a divisive weakening of the anti-fascist effort. (See our co-founder Charles Denbys Indignant Heart: A Black Workers Journal; Ralph Ellisons classic novel, Invisible Man, captures this period in fictionalized form.) Even in South Africa, nothing was supposed to be done against the white rulers. Since the Stalinists had long advocated Black liberation alongside the liberation of labor and had gained significant Black support, this betrayal struck deep, playing no small part in the disillusionment with all forms of Marxism after World War 2.

If the vulgar and rationalist materialism of the Stalinists and social democrats usually meant asking Blacks to wait for economic or political conditions to mature, the Maoist split from Stalinism was more voluntaristic and sometimes even irrationalist, stressing the revolutionary will, that U.S. imperialism was a paper tiger, etc. This stress on daring to struggle attracted many youths from the 1960s, including those around the Black Panther Party and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers in Detroit. Mao attacked the USSR as in league with U.S. imperialism, and noted how the French Communist Party had helped save the states effort to blunt the near-revolution of 1968 by channeling it into reformist electoral politics. This also gained him intellectual followers like Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Michel Foucault. But Maoist opposition to this kind of reformism, and to Russias often opportunistic aid to Third World liberation movements, led to a politics that placed opposition to Russia over everything, including Black liberation. In so doing, Maos China cruelly betrayed African revolutionaries, especially in Southern Africa in the 1970s. For example, since Russia was giving some support to the main African liberation movement in Angola, China actually aligned itself with rightwing Angolan forces opposing that movement. These forces were in fact allied with apartheid South Africa, which sent in troops to aid them. In a surprise move that exposed and thwarted this betrayal, Russia flew tens of thousands of Cuban troops to Angola at the invitation of the new liberationist government. They drove the South African racists back home. This led to another great disillusionment with Marxism on the part of Black people, especially the many who had leaned toward Maoism in that period and had been sympathetic to groups like the Panthers or the League. This was felt in intellectual circles as well, as many Black intellectuals moved away from Marxism.

Today, little of this heritage appears before us directly, although there are exceptions like Angela Daviss wrong-headed signature on a petition supporting the Iranian regime during the protests last fall. There is also a small resurgence of Maoism among todays youthful revolutionaries. More generally, the philosophical legacies of Stalinism and Maoism whether in class reductionism or in the voluntaristic politics of the revolutionary will can be found in many political movements and tendencies of today, as seen in some forms of democratic socialism, of anarchism, or of Antifa.

If we can recognize these problems and if we can instead espouse and continue to develop Marxist-Humanism, where does that leave us as an organization? Surely, we dont want to be simply critics and gadflies and we want to the best of our abilities to participate in, learn from, and help give positive direction to movements for human liberation. To be sure, we can offer these movements a deeper and more humanist theoretical perspective than most of them can develop spontaneously.

But what about ourselves as IMHO, our structure and our practice of our Marxist-Humanist principles? Does membership mean merely intellectual adherence to Marxist-Humanist principles and then working inside other movements as individuals? If so, then our organization could take the form of study groups or study circles that might have some vague or indirect influence on the wider movement. That could preserve and develop Marxist-Humanist ideas somewhat, but would it be a real organization?

Here, Lenin can assist us, via Dunayevskaya, who appreciated Lenins concept of organizational membership as not just adhering to principles or paying your dues, but active participation in a group involving more than intellectuals in a study group. As Dunayevskaya writes in Marxism and Freedom (1958), much of Lenins 1902 book What Is to Be Done? was derived from Karl Kautskys notion that Marxist intellectuals were the real leaders of the working class, which could not arrive at socialist consciousness without them. Dunayevskaya meant this as a critique of Lenin. This is the elitist core of vanguardism and it needs to be critiqued strongly by us, as it has been.

But Dunayevskaya adds, crucially,

There was an element in Lenins theory on organization which was not borrowed from the German Social Democracy, which was specifically Leninist the conception of what constitutes membership in a Russian Marxist group. Indeed, the definition did not merely rest on a phrase that only he is a member who puts himself under the discipline of the local organization. The disciplining by the local was so crucial to Lenins conception that it held primacy over verbal adherence to Marxist theory, propagandizing Marxist views, and holding a membership card. (Marxism and Freedom: 180).

And that local, at least in Dunayevskayas eyes, would if possible be comprised of working people, not just intellectuals and students, would be citywide, etc.

This point bears on our efforts to become a real organization that is not based solely on theoretical discussions, as important as they are. Im not suggesting that we go back to Lenins model, or even that of News and Letters Committees and its locals during Dunayevskayas lifetime, as we have a wider, international organization now. But the valid point Lenin makes should not be lost because of this. It is also elucidated in his 1904 critique of the circle spirit. In addition, it bears on our ongoing critique of CLR James and others who advocated decentralized forms of organization in place of the vanguard party, but thought that the Marxist group should simply support and record the creativity of the mass movements, or theorize from the sidelines. What was lacking here was an organization that would truly link theory to practice, something the world needs more than ever today.

As Dunayevskaya put it at the end of her life, in an addition to Rosa Luxemburg, Womens Liberation, and Marxs Philosophy of Revolution:

This is the further challenge to the form of organization which we have worked out as the committee-form rather than the party-to-lead. But, though committee-form and party-to-lead are opposites, they are not absolute opposites. At the point when the theoretic-form reaches philosophy, the challenge demands that we synthesize not only the new relations of theory to practice, and all the forces of revolution, but philosophys suffering, patience and labor of the negative, i.e., experiencing absolute negativity. (xxxvii)

Thus, we seek to transcend/sublate (Aufheben) this duality between vanguardism and more decentralized forms of organization. This, comrades, is one of many issues we need to grasp if we are to really develop as an organization rooted in the philosophy and principles of Marxist-Humanism. Doing so is not separate from developing ourselves theoretically, both individually and collectively, or from participating in, learning from, and grasping what is truly new in movements like the BLM Uprising. Rather, that process goes hand-in-hand with working out a new type of organization, one the world is crying out for but no one has developed, not even ourselves. However, we have at least posed the question.

Kevin AndersonThe International Marxist-Humanist

Kevin B. Andersons authored books include Marx at the Margins: On Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Non-Western Societies and Lenin, Hegel, and Western Marxism. Among his edited books are The Power of Negativity by Raya Dunayevskaya (with Peter Hudis), Karl Marx (with Bertell Ollman), The Rosa Luxemburg Reader (with P. Hudis), and The Dunayevskaya-Marcuse-Fromm Correspondence (with Russell Rockwell).

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Capitalism Rears Its Ugly Truth, Again - LA Progressive

Issuance of dematerialised securities using blockchain technology – New draft legislation published! – Lexology

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Last year, the Luxembourg legislator had already amended the law of 1st August 2001 on the circulation of securities and other financial instrument (the 2001 Law) by a law of 1st March 2019 in order to clarify that account keeping institutions such as banks could offer securities accounts operated using distributed ledger technology and a number of related items, including confirmation that successive registrations of securities using distributed ledger technology have the same effects as transfers between securities accounts (e.g. regarding transfer of ownership).

The purpose of the new draft bill is essentially to introduce two changes:

1. Clarification that issuance accounts for dematerialised securities may also be kept using distributed ledger technology

When issuing dematerialised securities, it is necessary to keep a record of the number and type of securities issued in a so-called issuance account in order to enable the central account keeper or liquidation organism to verify that in securities accounts there are not more securities in circulation than securities issued. The issuance account is not a securities account, but simply a record kept for the purposes of making the aforementioned reconciliation verifications. The central account keeper or liquidation organism whose duty it is to make these verifications will be able to keep these records using distributed ledger technology. As a result all elements linked to an issuance of dematerialised securities can be kept using distributed ledger technology in the future, i.e. not only securities accounts (already possible since 2019 by virtue of the 2001 Law) but also issuance accounts.

2. Broadening of type of entities able to act as central account keeper for debt securities

Currently, only certain regulated Luxembourg service providers can act as central account keepers under the 2013 Law. Moreover, they require a specific additional license in order to be able to perform this function. This situation will remain unchanged in relation to equity securities. However, for (non-listed) debt securities, the scope of regulated service providers able to act as central account keepers will be broadened. In the future this function can be performed by any credit institution or investment firm authorised in a Member State of the European Economic Area, provided that they have appropriate control mechanisms and IT security arrangements for the purpose of keeping issuance accounts and performing the relevant tasks linked thereto such as the aforementioned reconciliation verifications. As a result issuers of non-listed debt securities governed by Luxembourg law will have a larger choice of service providers for this aspect of an issuance.

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Issuance of dematerialised securities using blockchain technology - New draft legislation published! - Lexology

Sonoco ThermoSafe Creating Industrywide PharmaPortal Platform Using IBM Blockchain Technology To Help Deliver Improved Transparency and Traceability…

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ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill., July 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sonoco ThermoSafe, a unit of Sonoco (NYSE: SON), the largest global provider of temperature assurance packaging for pharmaceutical distribution, is building PharmaPortal, a vendor-neutral blockchain platform for use by pharmaceutical manufacturers and carriers. Built on IBM Blockchain Transparent Supply, PharmaPortal intends to address the industrys needs to trace assets across many different supply chain participants, record a single version of the truth on all events generated on a packages journey, integrate this data with that of other businesses across an industry-scale network, and provide access controls to help ensure each data owner maintains control over who can access it on the network.

The openly governed blockchain network built on open source technology will initially focus on end-to-end traceability of temperature-controlled drugs, such as vaccines, and provide an audit trail of environmental condition monitoring to help protect the efficacy of these lifesaving, life-extending and life-enhancing medicines. To help drive its development, Sonoco will invite industry leaders to collaborate on the initiative to optimize the safety and efficiency of global temperature controlled pharmaceutical distribution.

Only through the collaborative efforts of all members of the temperature controlled pharmaceutical distribution process can we achieve the safety and efficiency that the world needs from us in this critical time, said Howard Coker, president and CEO of Sonoco. An effort of this magnitude requires a high level of industry engagement to make a meaningful difference in the lives of people around the world. IBM has had success working across a number of sectors where implementing blockchain networks transformed the efficiency and effectiveness of the supply chain, and we see the same opportunities in the pharmaceutical space.

Despite improvements, the $230B cold chain pharmaceutical distribution market still suffers from inefficiencies, which cause value losses estimated at nearly $35B. These encompass lost product inventory, root cause investigation costs, clinical trial opportunity losses, product replacement costs and redundant logistics. Multiple handoffs across contracted and sub-contracted handling agents across continents create a crucial need for trusted, end-to-end visibility of pharmaceutical shipments, conditions and documents.

IBM offers deep expertise in blockchain to the pharmaceutical industry to help establish this transformational network led by Sonoco ThermoSafe," said Raj Rao, general manager, Blockchain Platforms. With Blockchain's inherent ability to track drug provenance and create an immutable record of the lifecycle of a drug and how it was handled, this open industry initiative addresses the challenges the pharmaceutical industry faces, both in sourcing and distributing drugs.

This neutral ecosystem will be especially helpful in fostering trust in the pharmaceutical air cargo market by enabling all parties in the supply chain to give and get relevant data in a highly secured, permissioned way.

As the convener of the network, Sonoco ThermoSafe intends to create a permissioned platform for the industry that will ultimately create more visibility and transparency across the pharmaceutical supply chain. With network growth in the coming months, a PharmaPortal Advisory Council will be appointed and comprised of a range of pharmaceutical industry representatives willing to participate in its development and adoption and help openly govern the network so that the solution benefits all.

About Sonoco ThermoSafe Sonoco ThermoSafe, a unit of Sonoco (NYSE: SON), is a leading global provider of temperature assurance packaging for the safe and efficient transport of pharmaceuticals, biologics, vaccines and other temperature-sensitive products. Sonoco ThermoSafe shipping solutions mitigate risk for customers and ensure product efficacy throughout the extremes of a supply chain.With operations in the Americas, Europe and Asia, Sonoco ThermoSafe has a vast product offering featuring industry-leading technology that encompasses refrigerated, frozen or controlled room temperature applications.In addition, Sonoco ThermoSafe's ISC Labs deliver individualized design and testing services and innovative packaging solutions along with qualification and validation services to meet all regulatory requirements. More information can be found at http://www.thermosafe.com.

About Sonoco Founded in 1899, Sonoco (NYSE: SON) is a global provider of a variety of consumer packaging, industrial products, protective packaging and displays and packaging supply chain services. With annualized net sales of approximately $5.4 billion, the Company has 23,000 employees working in approximately 300 operations in 36 countries, serving some of the worlds best known brands in some 85 nations. Sonoco is committed to creating sustainable products, services and programs for our customers, employees and communities that support our corporate purpose of Better Packaging. Better Life. The Company ranked first in the Packaging sector on Fortunes Worlds Most Admired Companies for 2020 as well as Barrons 100 Most Sustainable Companies. For more information, visit http://www.sonoco.com.

Photos accompanying this announcement are available at:

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/05c8976e-af08-4061-9d56-3fa0211f6559

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Sonoco ThermoSafe Creating Industrywide PharmaPortal Platform Using IBM Blockchain Technology To Help Deliver Improved Transparency and Traceability...

Multiple zero-days in Tor have been disclosed online – TechRadar

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After unsuccessfully trying to report bugs to the Tor Project for years, a security researcher has publicly disclosed two zero-day vulnerabilities which impact both the Tor network and the Tor browser.

In two recent blog posts, Dr. Neal Krawetz announced that he has decided to go public with details on multiple zero-days in Tor after the Tor Project failed to address the security issues he reported. Krawetz also plans to reveal at least three more Tor zero-days including one that can be exploited to show the real-world IP addresses of Tor servers.

Krawetz provided further insight on his difficulties dealing with the Tor Project as a security researcher over the years in a blog post, saying:

After my public shaming of the Tor Project (in 2017), they changed their web site design to make it easier to report vulnerabilities. They also opened up their bug bounty program at HackerOne. Unfortunately, while it is easier now to report vulnerabilities to the Tor Project, they are still unlikely to fix anything. I've had some reports closed out by the Tor Project as 'known issue' and 'won't fix'. For an organization that prides itself on their secure solution, it is unclear why they won't fix known serious issues.

The first of the two zero-days disclosed by Krawetz could be used by organizations and ISPs to block users from connecting to the Tor Network. To do this, they would need to scan network connections for a distinct packet signature that is unique to Tor traffic. The packet could even be used to block Tor connections from initiating which would prevent users from connecting to the service at all.

While the first zero-day could be leveraged to detect direct connections to Tor guard nodes that allow users to connect to the Tor Network, the second zero-day can be used to detect indirect connections. These connections are used to create Tor bridges which are a special type of entry point into the network that can be used when direct access to the Tor network is blocked by companies or ISPs.

According to Krawetz, connections to Tor bridges can also be easily detected using a technique similar to tracking specific TCP packets.

Now that two-zero days affecting Tor have been disclosed with the possibility of three more being disclosed in the future, Tor users in countries with oppressive regimes such as North Korea and Syria soon may be unable to use the service. Hopefully though, the Tor Project will realize the seriousness of the zero-days disclosed by Krawetz and make an effort to fix them before this can happen.

Via ZDNet

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Multiple zero-days in Tor have been disclosed online - TechRadar

Nuts and Bolts: Understanding cyber risks and commonly used tools – The New Times

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Recently, one of the most popularised and confounding hacks on Twitter took place. Twitter accounts of major companies and individuals were hacked by a scam promoting bitcoin.

Twitter handles of renowned personalities such as Barack Obama, Apple, Joe Biden, Bill Gates were among those hacked accounts.

Cyber threats have increased during Covid-19 pandemic as more users embraced online lifestyle. Google recently reported blocking more than 18 million predatory emails every day, as well as 240 million daily spam messages.

At any company or business, allowing employees access to work from work may offer advantages, but it could also open the company to a host of dangers.

Many different threats lurk online, ranging from con artists who use email and the web to trick users into giving up personal information, to malicious software that can steal important company data or corrupt files.

Maintaining a good online safety policy can help one avoid these threats and keep their business safe.

Online safety or cyber safety includes minimizing vulnerabilities and threats while on the internet and maximizing user awareness on security risks to private information.

Among the most common threats include phishing scams, identity theft, ransomware, malware, viruses and other online threats.

To be safe online, awareness about threats and risks that comes with the internet is the first step.

Below are some of the commonly used online tools that will help businesses and even individuals to improve online safety:

Tor Browser Project

Tor is free and open-source software for enabling anonymous communication which prevents anyone watching your Internet connection from knowing the sites you visit or your physical location. Its free tools include a desktop browser and a proxy app for an Android device.

HTTPS Everywhere

HTTPS Everywhere is a Firefox, Chrome, and Opera extension that encrypts your communications with many major websites, making your browsing more secure. HTTPS Everywhere is a collaboration between The Tor Project and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

DuckDuckGO

DuckDuckGo is an Internet search engine that doesnt store your search history or sell your information to advertisers that track you across the web. DuckDuckGo avoids personalized search results. Instead, it focuses on returning the best results, generated from hundreds of individual sources, including other search engines, such as Bing and Yahoo.

editor@newtimesrwanda.com

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Nuts and Bolts: Understanding cyber risks and commonly used tools - The New Times

Guest column: The next great cure might be hiding in your medicine cabinet – The Times Herald

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In the race against COVID-19, biopharmaceutical firms Regeneron and Sanofi have launched clinical trials to evaluate the efficacy of their drug, Kevzara, in treating the virus' life-threatening immune complications.

Interestingly, Kevzara isn't new; it was initially approved by the FDA in 2017 as an anti-inflammatory treatment for rheumatoid arthritis.

The launch of new trials for this drug provides hope that a treatment for COVID-19 -- and a host of other serious diseases -- might already be sitting behind your pharmacist's counter. But discovering fresh ways to utilize existing drugs requires policies that encourage researchers to look for them in the first place.

Scientists have been discovering new uses for old medicines for decades. These new uses are what researchers call a new "indication."

Recently, scientists have found that several colon-cancer drugs can slow the progress of macular degeneration -- an eye condition that gradually leads to blindness. Close to 11 million Americans suffer from macular degeneration. About half of all patients treated with the new indication can see well enough to drive after five years.

Moreover, Harvard Medical School researchers are exploring the use of a common vaccine for tuberculosis in treating type 1 diabetes, an affliction with which 1.25 million U.S. residents live.

These examples notwithstanding, the potential for discovering new indications for already-approved drugs remains mostly untapped. The FDA has approved more than 20,000 prescription drug products for marketing. Any could have powerful new therapeutic applications.

Thankfully, if these new indications are out there, there's a high likelihood that U.S. biopharmaceutical researchers will find them. That's because America's robust intellectual-property laws reward innovators who invest the time and resources needed to discover whether drugs can be put to new uses.

Right now, drug makers that find a new application for an existing drug can secure a "method-of-use" patent. This new patent recognizes that the indication is completely new and the company may have exclusive rights to sell the drug for that additional use once it secures FDA approval.

In this way, method-of-use patents create a financial incentive for drug companies to spend hundreds of millions of dollars exploring new indications. Without the ability to patent new methods of use, this follow-on drug development would be a money-losing endeavor.

Unfortunately, method-of-use patents are under scrutiny from some lawmakers in Washington. They claim that drug firms use these IP protections to "game" the system and force patients to pay more for new therapies.

Such assertions fail to take into account that method-of-use patents protect only the new use of the drug, not the drug itself.

Without these IP protections, some of the greatest examples of drug repurposing would have never been possible. That includes AZT -- the very first drug approved for AIDS. The medicine, created in the 1960s, was originally intended for cancer patients.

Years later, when researchers discovered AZT's potential for treating AIDS, the drug firm Burroughs-Wellcome secured a follow-on patent, enabling the company to invest the time and money required to turn AZT into an FDA-approved drug for AIDS.

The next breakthrough cure might be a drug that's already in medicine cabinets across the country. But we need robust IP protections to help these novel indications come to fruition.

Christopher Holman is a professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, where his primary research focus lies at the intersection of intellectual property and biotechnology. He also serves as a senior scholar at the Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University

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Guest column: The next great cure might be hiding in your medicine cabinet - The Times Herald