Baltimore Is the Latest to Look to Ban Hair Discrimination and its Very Necessary – hiplatina.com

Posted on by

For years, people of African descent have been discriminated against and barred from jobs, schools, beauty pageants, modeling even from working in the army simply for how they choose to style their hair. Just think about that for a second. If you havent experienced it yourself, imagine losing a job, not being offered a job, or getting kicked out of school for wearing the hair that naturally grows from your scalp? Natural hair and natural hairstyles like locks, twists, or braids in other worse, black hairstyles have been considered unprofessional for years. This is why states like California, New York, and New Jersey have passed hair bans protecting the black community from hair discrimination and it looks like Baltimore might be next.

The city of Baltimore is around 63% African American and yet hair discrimination is still a norm. For many that discrimination looks like being pressured to straighten their hair which often means chemically relaxing in order to conform to more European standards of beauty, which is not only problematic on a number of levels but requires money and maintenance.

We might have made a lot of progress when it comes to embracing natural hair but the discrimination is still very much an issue. Just this past October, an 8-year-old black girl from Jackson, Michigan was forbidden from taking part in her school picture for having extensions in her hair. Lets not forget about the teenage black wrestler from New Jersey who was forced right on the spot by a white referee to either have his dreadlocks cut right there and then or forfeit his match. Gabrielle Union was even reportedly fired from NBC for being too vocal about the work environment but also because her hairstyles were deemed too black.

But like California, New York, and New Jersey, it appears that Baltimore is the next to take action. Baltimores Office of Civil Rights and Wage Enforcement is currently collecting data on the hair-related discrimination complaints the city has been receiving in the past decade.

Once its codified into law, people will be better informed and start adjusting the cultural norms, Director of Baltimores Office of Civil Rights and Wage Enforcement, Darnell Ingram told NBC News. Will it end it full stop? Thatll take some time.

Just last month, lawmakers in Montgomery County passed legislation that prohibits discrimination against natural hairstyles, including braids, locks, Afros, curls, and twists. In fact, discrimination against these hairstyles can be fined up to $5,000 and upwards for violating the law. The bill would also add hair texture and style to the citys hair ban and would apply to everything from schools, workplaces, and even housing.

Black hair discrimination has been going on for centuries and dates back to slavery. Black people have been dealing with discrimination and various forms of microaggressions associated with the color of their skin, their hair and for just being black for as long as theyve been in the Americas and its toxic and harmful on so many levels. I cant wait for the day that the hair ban is passed in every single state in this country! Everyone deserves to be treated with kindness, respect, and basic human decency regardless of the color of their skin, the texture of their hair, or how they choose to wear their hair.

See the original post here:

Baltimore Is the Latest to Look to Ban Hair Discrimination and its Very Necessary - hiplatina.com

Rewriting the United States’ past (and future): The 1619 Project and its critics – People’s World

Posted on by

The New York Times' 1619 Project is forcing a rethinking of accepted U.S. history, placing the experience of slavery at the center of our story as a country. Here, a diagram of a slave ship shows the confined torture experienced by Africans on the Middle Passage, overlain by the flag of 1776. | Graphics public domain / Illustration PW

For generations, American schoolchildren have been taught tales of the heroic revolutionaries of 1776. The Founding Fathers, motivated by the ideals of freedom and independence, stood up to British colonialism and established a system premised on the principle that all men are created equal. The 1619 Project, initiated by the New York Times Magazine last August, is challenging this traditional origin story.

Instead of 1776, the projects contributors argue we must look to 1619 to really understand the history of the United States. Thats the year 20 African slaves were brought ashore in Virginia, initiating centuries of forced labor, oppression, and racism for Black people on this continent.

The project, which was launched and anchored by Times reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones, upends the longstanding narrative that has portrayed slavery and the socioeconomic oppression and exploitation of Black people as merely regrettable episodes in an otherwise positive story of progress.

It consists of a series of essays, articles, and podcasts on a range of topicsfrom the myths surrounding U.S. independence and the slave plantation roots of modern American capitalism to theories about pseudo-scientific racial differences that still infect medical practice today and how the legacy of segregation continues to clog the streets of our cities with traffic jams, and more.

The common thread running through the contributions, which by design are written mostly by African Americans, is that they each place the Black experienceparticularly of slaveryas the core around which the story of the United States really unfolded. As the projects introduction states, No aspect of the country that would be formed here has been untouched by the years of slavery that followed.

Since its launch in August, the project has set off a tidal wave of public discussion and debate, forcing millions to reconsider what they thought they knew about American history. With educational materials based on the essays of the 1619 Project being prepared and distributed to schools for use in their K-12 curricula, there is the potential that it could radically transform the way that the pastand presentis taught and understood in this country. Washington, D.C., Chicago, Newark, N.J., Brooklyn, and Buffalo, N.Y., are among the districts that have already signed on.

Many educators, journalists, and public figures have praised the project and its authors for prompting a mass re-thinking of not just the events of old, but the racial injustices of today, such as mass incarceration, unequal prosecution rates, poverty, health discrimination, and the still widening wealth and wage gap.

But the 1619 Project has not been without its detractors. From conservative quarters came charges that Hannah-Jones and others were out to delegitimize America, as argued by Benjamin Weingarten of the The Federalist magazine. The Wall Street Journal published an essay by conservative Black commentator Robert Woodson that claimed the Times series actually hurt Blacks because it wallows in victimhood and ignores success. A group of five white historians wrote a joint letter to the Times complaining about what they portrayed as an attempt to offer a new version of American history in which slavery and white supremacy become the dominant organizing themes.

The latter have been joined and supported by writers at an outfit that calls itself the World Socialist Web Site, an ultra-left page that has long peddled in sectarianism and proclaims itself the organ of the Trotskyist International Committee of the Fourth International. The WSWS, employing a crude, pseudo-Marxist lens, argues that the 1619 Project is a racialist morality tale that leaves out the history of the working class.

From this class reductionist viewpoint, to place the experience of slavery at the center of U.S. history amounts to toxic identity politics, an unwitting advocacy of race war, and a distraction from the struggle of wage labor against capital. Minimized to the point of non-existence are any notions of multiple layers and forms of exploitation beyond (and in conjunction with) the labor-capital relation. No attention is given to the concept of super-exploitation that has been pioneered by other, less dogmatic, Marxists.

Cynically, the whole project is denounced as one component of a deliberate effort by the Democratic Party to inject racial politics into the heart of the 2020 elections and foment divisions among the working class. In this shallow and absurd analysis, the viewpoints of 1619 Project contributors are even said to bear a disturbing resemblance to the race-based world view of the Nazis.

Conservative ideologues, establishment historians, and ultra-left sectariansit seems criticism of the 1619 Project has made for some strange bedfellows. Theyve coalesced to trash the project as a whole, but one statement by reporter Hannah-Jones seemed to galvanize all of them. In the introductory Times essay, she wrote:

Conveniently left out of our founding mythology is the fact that one of the primary reasons the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery.

For all the critics, challenging the accepted notion of why the American Revolution happenedand to argue that preserving slavery was a key factor for the establishment of the United Stateswas too much.

But one radical historian saw it coming. Dr. Gerald Horne says he was unsurprised that the Wall Street Journal, certain Ivy League scholars, and certain ultra-leftists seemingly burst a blood vessel in their brains when the 1619 Project was unveiled.Horne is the Moores Professor of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston.

He says the re-examination of the American Revolution is part of a trend of second looks being given to past social transformations, starting with the Russian Revolution of just over a century ago.

It was inevitable, Horne says, that the sharp reappraisals of revolutionary processes, most notably in the USA and focusing particularly on October 1917, would lead to a reappraisal of 1776.

With a marked increase in the oppression of a range of peoples of color in the Western Hemisphere in the aftermath of the U.S. break from Britain, Horne says its difficult not to question the motivations of the founders of the new country. The dispossession of indigenes and the enslavement of Africans increased after the formation of the USA, he points out. Indeed, as an example, Horne draws attention to the fact that as early as the 1790s the U.S. had replaced Spain as the major carrier of enslaved labor to Cuba. Within 50 years, it was ditto for the largest market [for slave labor] of all:Brazil.

In fact, Horne has for some time been advocating a re-appraisal of the American Revolution not too dissimilar from that now being pursued by the 1619 Project. In one of his books published a few years ago, The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America, Horne makes the argument that in the years before the Declaration of Independence, Americas founders feared the clock was already ticking for slavery. Talk of abolition was advancing rapidly among policymakers in London, the imperial capital, but the even greater threat to the slaveholding colonial ruling elite was the danger of slave rebellion. It had already happened elsewhere in North America and the Caribbean.

Horne says that the widely feared possibility of a revolt by African slaves, coupled with external invasion, was the primary motivation for the colonial desire to break from Britain. Thus, in his viewpoint, 1776 amounted to a counter-revolution to preserve the right to enslave others.

If we want to understand how that conservative impulse to save slavery affects U.S. society today, Horne convincingly argues that we only need look at the legacy of white supremacy and anti-black racism that still persistson the job, in the courts, in the jails, in the schools, at the cashiers desk, on the streets, and everywhere else.

The debate over the nature of 1776 is thus not simply a matter of historians squabbling over what motivated George Washington or Thomas Jefferson to start a new country. It is a struggle to comprehendand changethe present by understanding how our society today is a product of those events and struggles of the past.

The 1619 Project is not just a story of how slavery shaped America; it is also the story of how the resistance and fights for liberation by Black Americans helped push the whole of U.S. society down freedom road. Reconstruction; fighting for desegregation in the armed forces, schools, businesses, and trade unions of the nation; the victories of the Civil Rights Movement, the protection of voting rightsjust a few moments among many.

The truth is, Hannah-Jones wrote, that as much democracy as this nation has today, it has been borne on the backs of black resistance. The Founding Fathers may not have actually believed in the ideals they espoused, she says, but black people did.

This key takeaway from the 1619 Projectthat the Black freedom struggle has been a driving force for the expansion of U.S. democracyis the one that its critics cannot accept. The reaction of the conservative guardians of the status quo is predictable. Any suggestion that there is something illegitimate about the prevailing capitalist and racist power structures is beyond the pale for them.

The attacks of the ultra-left writers of the World Socialist Web Site, formulated on the grounds of a faulty and narrow version of Marxism, are perhaps more regrettableespecially because they distort an analytical approach that holds the potential for better understanding and changing the world in which we live. The legacy of Black advocates of socialism whose work was characterized by an understanding of how the dynamics of race oppression were central to the functioning of capitalismfigures like W.E.B. DuBois, Paul Robeson, Claudia Jones, William L. Patterson, Angela Davis, and many moreis lost or twisted in these sectarian screeds.

Its indeed true that the 1619 Project is not a fully formed socialist analysis of U.S. history or the political economy of chattel slavery. The projects value is found in the way it has forcefully reminded millions of Americans of (or, more likely, introduced many of us to) the reality that the past we share is not necessarily what we thought it was.

It is time to stop hiding from our sins and confront them, Nikole Hannah-Jones wrote. And then in confronting them, it is time to make them right. The new understanding of our story as a country being pushed along by the Times series will now become a shaper of future struggles and of the history that is yet to be written.

See the original post here:

Rewriting the United States' past (and future): The 1619 Project and its critics - People's World

Au Pairs: The Pros and Cons of Hiring One For Your Family – Fatherly

Posted on by

New Jersey mom of two Amanda was looking for a child care solution when she settled on hiring an au pair. An Italian-American who studied abroad in Italy, Amanda selected a woman from Milan as her first au pair in hopes of introducing Italian culture to her children.

Amanda says it was a great decision. Her au pair arrived with limited English skills but quickly picked up the language through daily interactions and immersion in an English-speaking culture. She watched Amandas kids, driving them to and from school, and performed light housekeeping tasks. After 12 months with her, Amanda says she feels like the Milanese woman will be part of their family forever.

Au pairs can seem like an elegant solution to the thorny problem of child care and often times they are. The cost of an au pair is relatively low: the minimum stipend is just under $200 a week, a bargain compared to the high cost of a full-time nanny or even most major metro area daycares. An au pair in America lives with the family, meaning theyre available in the off-hours when parents need the help most. Families hosting au pairs are encouraged to include them in activities. Its defined as a cultural exchange, not a job, so it seems less like childcare and more like having a cousin on an extended visit from overseas helping out with your kids.

But as with everything that seems too good to be true, issues can arise with au pairs. News reports and nonprofit investigations that quote au pairs comparing their treatment to slavery drain a lot of warmth and fuzziness out of the job description. In 2013, Bernie Sanders denounced the au pair program as a scam. Following a 2014 class action lawsuit from au pairs alleging wage theft, the Washington Post reported on an au pair whose host family forced her to work more than 60 hours a week. A 2017 Politico investigation found that host families refused to buy their au pairs staple foods like bread and that au pairs complaints routinely disappeared into a bureaucratic black hole. Shortchanged, a 2018 report authored by American Universitys International Human Rights Law Clinic and immigration and labor rights groups, found that structural deficiencies in the au pair program foster labor rights abuses.

How stressful do you find days when your kids can't go outside?

Not stressful at all. We make the best of it

Sometimes they are, sometimes they arent. Depends on the circumstance.

Extremely stressful. Its hard to entertain them

Thanks for the feedback!

Most recently, in December 2019, a federal court ruled that Massachusetts labor laws protect au pairs. With the states $11 hourly minimum wage, host families had to pay about $17,000 more a year than before. Many opted to withdraw from the program.

Au pair supporters call the criticism overblown, saying it unfairly tarnishes a beneficial program. But civil rights advocates say the system can make even well-meaning families unwitting exploiters of vulnerable workers.

I tried to be clear that theyre here to do a job but also going to be part of our family and enjoy life and I want you to find that balance, Amanda says. Were very humane with au pairs. Other moms asked me if I paid our au pair to do more hours than the 45. I said absolutely not. Thats not part of the program. Thats not how it works.

The United States au pair program was founded in 1986 as a cultural exchange program intended to promote diplomacy and friendly international relations. Because au pairs are classified as cultural exchanges, they fall under the State Departments J-1 Visa program. While the program issues hundreds of thousands of visas to temporary foreign workers each year, it only has 30 employees far too few, critics say, to oversee the 18,000 people who travel to America each year to work as au pairs. Despite the general familiarity of the concept, the au pair programs relatively small in scale: the number of au pairs in America never exceed 20,000 and is largely clustered in New York, California, New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts.

Author and consultant Celia Harquail ran the blog and online resource Au Pair Mom for more than 10 years until stepping away from in October, 2019. Through the site, she connected with au pair host families and potential host families from across the country.

I say as a person who had 11 over the course of my kids childhood, having an Au pair can be really fun and joyful, she says.

Harquail says its gratifying to see au pairs learn about America through cultural immersion. We had these young adult women coming into our family with great enthusiasm about being in the United States and great excitement about learning English, she says.

According to State Dept. regulations, au pairs have to be between 18 and 26 years old. au pair placement agencies like Cultural Care have recruiting centers across the globe trying to entice people who are interested in new countries and new cultures. Harquil said that while theyre away from their families and countries of origins, au pairs often find comfort in their connection to their host families.

Generally, theres a lot of enthusiasm around making a connection with your kids as a big sister or a cousin and feeling part of your family, she says, adding that the family connection can make exploring a new country seem less daunting.

Amanda likens choosing an au pair from her service to using a car search or dating website. You can choose whatever criteria you want, she says. You say, I want this country, I want this language or I want someone thats this age, then you do all sorts of searches and search criteria and then you narrow down the field and you say, these few sound good.

When her au pair started, Amandas kids were in school full-time. As Amanda and her husband were both working in jobs requiring regular travel, the flexibility offered by a live-in au pair was invaluable.

Just having an adult there in my house is very helpful, she says. But theres also the flexibility in terms of hours. For the first three years, we had a nanny who would come to the house each day, but then she had to leave and I had to rush home at a certain time.

Still, the program comes with its fair share of scrutiny. In early 2019, a federal court ordered 15 au pair agencies to pay $65 million to 100,000 former au pairs in a class action suit brought on by about a dozen former au pairs accusing agencies of colluding to suppress wages and prevent them from seeking better working conditions.

Harquail, however, questions the suits findings, saying the cases central narrative doesnt accurately represent the au pair system.

There are always going to be people who abuse the system and take advantage of people, she says. But the idea that there are 17,000 families in the United States that are withholding food or not giving au pairs private bedrooms or not giving them time off or making them work 50 or 60 hours a week is to me almost absurd. Are there some people who do that? Im sure there are. Are they the norm? Absolutely not.

Harquail says the case elides the bad behavior that au pairs can engage in.

And what you dont hear about the au pairs who take the family car without permission and drive across state lines to go visit some guy that they met on Tinder, she says. You dont hear about the au pair who leaves in the middle of the night and then you go clean out her room and her closets full of Jagermeister bottles. And what you dont hear about is the au pair who leaves the kid in daycare and simply disappears.

Harquail adds: So I personally felt that the lawsuit was very ginned up and very, very unrepresentative of the program and how it works for au pairs or for host parents.

David Seligman, director of Towards Justice, a nonprofit Colorado-based law firm that represented the au pairs in the settlement, believes his clients experience was more the rule than the exception. The lawsuit began in 2014 when an au pair approached Towards Justice with complaints about her employer.

We investigated the issue and ended up determining that this really wasnt just about sort of this sort of one off mistreatment, but about broader systemic problems with the industry, Seligman says.

Seligman says the problems were driven principally by the sponsor agencies that place prospective au pairs with host families. Fifteen for-profit companies are designated as sponsor agencies by the State Dept. The sponsor agencies typically charge families for connecting them with au pairs and also collect a recruitment fee ranging from $500 to $3,000 from the au pairs.

The lawsuit accused the sponsor companies of working together to fix wages for au pairs they recruited. Host families are required to pay au pairs a minimum weekly stipend of $195.75 but, Seligman says, the stipend was often mischaracterized as a maximum.

au pairs can ask to be placed with different families but Seligman says the agencies make it difficult to be reassigned. As a result, theyre deprived of one of the most important tools that workers have to protect themselves in the labor market: the threat to find work elsewhere. And once you take that away, like you really like workers become, become quite vulnerable, Seligman says.

In several news stories, au pairs say agencies misled them about the responsibilities theyd have in their American jobs. They arrive believing theyre cultural ambassadors whod be able to travel and explore America and are shocked at the childcare expectations.

Sharon, a mother of two from Connecticut, hosted two au pairs and was disappointed by what she saw as a disconnection between the job what the agencies told families and prospective au pairs about the job. Both of her au pairs were frustrated that her central Connecticut town was much further from New York City than they expected.

I imagine that the girls who are placed in cities do the recruiting and tell tales of wild weekends of fun, she says.

Seligman says that many families inadvertently skirt laws regarding au pairs after being misled by au pair agencies. Historically, they have been deceived into assuming that the stipend for au pair was actually the maximum allowable wage and that there wasnt a free market in which au pairs could shop for better wages or treatment, Seligman said.

Seligman says the collusion between the sponsor agencies led many host families to unwittingly short their au pairs wages.

There are many stories of families who are seriously mistreating au pairs, but there are also families who are acting in good faith and are doing what their sponsor agencies tell them to do and think that theyre complying with the law and that theyre treating their au pair well, Seligman says.

The nature of the system, per Seligman, often obscures the employer-employee relationship between families and au pairs. I think that some families are led to believe that this isnt really isnt a work program, that this is merely a cultural exchange and that this person becomes a member of your family, he says.

Its crucial for families to understand the agreement. For Seligman, the confusion over whether an au pair is an employee or temporary family member creates a dangerous situation for both families and the au pairs.

I think the one key point is to recognize that this is a work program and that youre bringing someone into your home to work for you to be your employee, as a childcare worker, he says. And just like any other employee, these workers are allowed to negotiate for higher wages or for better treatment.

Thank you for subscribing

Give us a little more information and we'll give you a lot more relevant content

Your child's birthday or due date

Add A Child

Remove A Child

I don't have kids

Thanks For Subscribing!

Read more:

Au Pairs: The Pros and Cons of Hiring One For Your Family - Fatherly

Human extinction now imminent and inevitable? A report on the state of planet earth – NationofChange

Posted on by

There is a significant body of evidence that human extinction is now imminent; that is, it will occur within the next few years and possibly this year: 2020. There is also a significant body of evidence that human extinction is now inevitable; that is, it cannot be prevented no matter what we do.

There are at least four distinct paths to imminent (that is, within five years) human extinction: nuclear war (possibly started regionally), biodiversity collapse (already well advanced and teetering on the brink), the deployment of 5G (commenced recently) and the climate catastrophe. Needless to say, each of these four paths might unfold in a variety of ways.

In addition, it should be noted, there are other possible paths to extinction in the near term, particularly when considered in conjunction with the four threats just mentioned. These include the cascading impacts triggered by destruction of the Amazon rainforest (which is now imminent) particularly given its critical role in the global hydrological cycle, the rapidly spreading radioactive contamination of Earth, and geoengineering for military purposes (which has been going on for decades and continues).

Far worse, however, is the path to extinction that looms before us when we consider the impact of all seven of these paths in combination with the vast range of other threats noted below.

These interrelated threats have generated a shocking series of points of no return (tipping points) that we have already crossed, the mutually reinforcing set of negative feedback loops that we have already triggered (and which we will continue to trigger) which cannot be reversed in the short-term, as well as the ongoing synergistic impact of the various extinction drivers (such as ongoing extinctions because dependent species have lost their resource species) we have set in motion and which cannot be halted irrespective of any remedial action we might take. Hence, taking into account all of the above factors, the prospects of averting human extinction are now remote, at best.

Why has this happened?

Because long-standing dysfunctional human behavior, which we have not even begun to recognize as the fundamental driver of this extinction crisis, let alone address, has now trapped us between a rock and a hard place.

On the one hand, we are trapped by our grotesquely dysfunctional parenting and education models that mass produce individuals who are terrified, self-hating and powerless (leaving them submissively obedient while unable to seek out and consider the evidence for themselves and take powerful action in response) and who, as a result of being terrorized during childhood, are now addicted to chronic over-consumption to suppress their awareness of their deep (and unconscious) emotional pain. See Love Denied: The Psychology of Materialism, Violence and War and Do We Want School or Education? with more detailed evidence in Why Violence? and Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice.

On the other hand, also as an outcome of our dysfunctional parenting and education models (as well as the political and economic systems these generate), we keep reproducing and remain trapped by the global elite, and its compliant international organizations (such as the United Nations), national governments and corporations, including its corporate media. This global elite is utterly insane (and, hence, devoid of such qualities as conscience, empathy, compassion and love) and intent on exploiting our desire to suppress awareness of our emotional pain by over-consuming in order to feed their insatiable desire for profit, power and privilege no matter the cost to humanity and Earths biosphere. See The Global Elite is Insane Revisited.

Hence, this article does two things.

First, in the hope of generating greater consideration of these two issues imminence and inevitability of human extinction I have presented in straightforward language and point form, a reasonable summary of the nature and extent of our predicament (which clearly indicates that we are on track for human extinction between now January 2020 and 2025), as well as citing the relevant scientific and/or other evidence that explains each problem in more detail.

And second, the article outlines a powerful series of actions and strategies that individuals, as well as community groups, neighborhoods and action groups, can take as part of a global effort to fight to avert human extinction even if, as mentioned above, it is now inevitable. See, for example, Extinction Foretold, Extinction Ignored in which the McPherson Paradox, which explains one key reason why we are doomed to extinction, is explained.

The obvious question, which you might well ask me, is this: If the overwhelming evidence that human extinction is now imminent and inevitable is incontrovertible, why are you suggesting that we fight to avert human extinction? And my answer is simply this: Because, as I have done for several decades, I am committed to trying to do this one key thing that feels worth doing. Moreover, I am also hopeful that a miracle or two might just occur if we humans commit ourselves fully to the effort. I am only too well aware that anything less than a full effort, as outlined below, will certainly fail. And we will virtually certainly fail anyway. But I would rather try, than give up. And you?

So, in noting the points below, each of which identifies one key way (or a set of related key ways) in which the Earth and its inhabitants were subjected to greater violence in 2019, it is painful to reflect that, as forecast this time last year and based on a clear understanding of the primary driver of human behavior fear that is generating this multifaceted crisis, 2019 was another year of vital opportunities lost when so much is at stake.

Because, in essence, whether psychologically, socially, politically, militarily, economically, financially, ecologically or in other ways, in 2019 humanity took more giant strides backwards while passing up endless opportunities to make a positive difference in our world.

Moreover, to highlight the dramatic nature of our failure, by the end of 2019, a substantial number of countries and regions of the world notably including the Amazon basin, Australia, several countries in Central Africa, many European countries, Indonesia, Siberia and North America had each experienced (and/or were still experiencing) a huge series of wildfires (or fires that were deliberately lit), many of them out of wildfire season and breaking records for their unprecedented destructive impact, demonstrating that the Earth is literally burning up. For just an overview, see NASAs Fire Information for Resource Management System.

But this very visible symptom of our crisis masks a vast quantity of evidence, in many domains, that is virtually unknown but far more damaging.

One acknowledgment of this crisis in Earths biosphere was the fact that the Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists remains poised at just two minutes to midnight, the closest it has ever been to doomsday (and equal to 1953 when the Soviet Union first exploded a thermonuclear weapon matching the U.S. capacity and raising the spectre of nuclear war). See It is now two minutes to midnight.

This status reflects the perilous state of our world, particularly given the renewed threat of nuclear war and the ongoing climate catastrophe. It didnt even mention the massive and unrelenting assault on the biosphere (apart from the climate) and the rapidly accelerating biodiversity crisis nor, of course, the ongoing monumental atrocities against fellow human beings.

So let me identify, very briefly, some of the more crucial backward steps humanity took during 2019 and, far too easily, unfortunately, forecast what will happen in 2020.

1. The global elite, using key elite fora such as the Group of 30, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg Group and the World Economic Forum, and despite much rhetoric to the contrary, continued to plan, generate and exacerbate the many ongoing wars, deepening exploitation within the global economy, climate and environmental destruction, and the killing and exploitation of fellow human beings in a multitude of contexts, in pursuit of greater elite profit, power and privilege. See, for example, Who Is Really in Control of US Foreign Policy?, Giants: The Global Power Elite and The Global Elite is Insane Revisited.

2. International organizations (such as the United Nations, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund) and national governments and corporations used military forces, legal systems, police forces and prison systems see The Rule of Law: Unjust and Violent around the world to serve the global elite by defending its interests against the bulk of the human population, including those individuals and organizations courageous enough to challenge elite profit, power and privilege who are being killed in record numbers. (See more in point 35 below.)

3. $US1.8 trillion was officially spent worldwide on military weapons to kill fellow human beings and other lifeforms, and to destroy the biosphere. This is the highest official (because the figures are taken from open sources) annual military expenditure ever recorded and the second consecutive year in which an increase occurred. Apart from military spending, weapons transfers worldwide remained high and both the USA and Russia were on a path of strategic nuclear renewal. See SIPRI Yearbook 2019: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security; Summary.

However, as noted last year, so out-of-control is this spending that the United States government has now spent $US21trillion on its military in the past 20 years for which it cannot even account! Thats right, $US1trillion each year above the official U.S. national budget for killing is lost. See Army General Fund Adjustments Not Adequately Documented or Supported, Has Our Government Spent $21 Trillion Of Our Money Without Telling Us? and The Pentagon Cant Account for $21 Trillion (Thats Not a Typo).

There has been no progress reported in accounting for this lost expenditure during the past year.

4. Under the direction of the global elite (as explained above), the United States government and its NATO allies continued their perpetual war across the planet wreaking devastation on many countries and regions, particularly in the Middle East and Africa. See, for example, Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War, Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield and Understanding NATO, Ending War.

As a result, whether in the US-sponsored and supplied Saudi Arabian war against Yemen which the UNHCR characterizes as the worst humanitarian disaster in the world see The Cost of Feeding Yemen as War Rages On the result of the U.S. use of depleted uranium on top of its other extraordinary military destruction of Iraq over the past 29 years see Depleted Uranium and Radioactive Contamination in Iraq: An Overview or the complete dismemberment of Libya as a result of NATOs bombing of that country and the subsequent assassination of its leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 see Endless War and Chaos in Libya the United States and its NATO allies have continued their efforts to destroy entire countries (also including Afghanistan, among others), at staggering cost to their populations and environments, not because these countries posed a threat to security anywhere but in order to maintain geopolitical control and to facilitate the theft of their resources (mainly oil) at great profit to the global elite. See, for example, Hillary Emails Reveal NATO Killed Gaddafi to Stop Libyan Creation of Gold-Backed Currency.

Moreover, of course, the perpetually-profitable perpetual war, by definition, has no end. But it still isnt quite acceptable to say, too publicly and loudly, that The global elite has again used the United States military and its NATO allies to destroy Iraq/Afghanistan/Syria/ (or, as is now the case, to attack Iran) to make a profit so what can be passed off as an excuse must be manufactured and promulgated by the compliant corporate media. And, with a gullibly terrified human population disinclined to question authority, this isnt a problem. The same unconvincing formula invariably works each time. For a fuller and insightful explanation of this point, see Edward Curtins article The war hoax redux.

Of course, Iran has long been in the crosshairs of the global elite because of its prodigious (and thus hugely profitable) oil reserves as well as the clear inclination of its leaders (both before and after the US-installed Shah) to make decisions in the interests of Iranians, including foreign policy decisions such as those related to defense and the role of nuclear weapons. Thus, the global elite ensured that the U.S. Congress, via removal by the Senate of a provision explicitly not authorizing the Pentagon to wage war against Iran or assassinate its officials see America Escalates its Democratic Oil War in the Near East in the recently passed National Defense Authorization Act, effectively encouraged President Trumps recent assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, Irans head of the foreign arm the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), Irans elite military force and the key figure in the fight against terrorism in the Middle East, in clear contempt of international law. See Trumps assassination of Soleimani: Five things to know, With Suleimani Assassination, Trump Is Doing the Bidding of Washingtons Most Vile Cabal, Why U.S. assassinated General Qassem Soleimani and U.S. killing of Irans Qassem Soleimani an act of war.

This assassination, of course, raises a heightened possibility of war essentially, from the elite perspective, to achieve regime change and capture control of Irans oil in one or more guises possibly involving, as explained by Professor Michel Chossudovsky, the use of tactical nuclear weapons, acts of political destabilization, confiscation of financial assets, extensive economic sanctions, electromagnetic and climatic warfare, environmental modification techniques, cyberwarfare as well as chemical and biological warfare. See A Major Conventional War Against Iran Is an Impossibility. Crisis within the U.S. Command Structure and America, An Empire on its Last Leg: To be Kicked Out from the Middle East?

Hence, much will depend on the Iranian response to the insanity of those attacking it, which will unfold as this article is being published. For further thoughtful analyses of this crisis, see War With Iran, Iran vs. U.S. The Murder of General Qassem Suleimani and On the Brink of War?

5. Not content with the devastating impact of the military violence it is inflicting already, during 2019 the global elite continued to plan how to cause more destruction in future. Key initiatives included ongoing work to employ advances in autonomous systems and artificial intelligence technologies that will undermine nuclear deterrence and increase the likelihood of nuclear escalation see A Stable Nuclear Future? The Impact of Autonomous Systems and Artificial Intelligence and the decision in the United States to create a Space Force, a sixth branch of the U.S. military forces, just two manifestations of this. See The Very Bad Space Force Deal and U.S. Making Outer Space the Next Battle Zone Karl Grossman.

In its turn, the Russian government has developed and just deployed a hypersonic weapon that travels at Mach 27 and which makes the U.S. missile defense installations in Europe obsolete. See Avangard changes everything: What Russias hypersonic warhead deployment means for the global arms race.

But other initiatives receiving renewed attention hypervelocity guns, particle beams and laser weapons onboard orbiting battle platforms with onboard nuclear reactors or super plutonium systems providing the power for the weapons also enhance the threat that Modern society would go dark in the words of Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell. Why? Because any war in space would be the one and only. By destroying satellites in space massive amounts of space debris would be created that would cause a cascading effect and even the billion-dollar International Space Station would likely be broken into tiny bits. So much space junk would be created that wed never be able to get a rocket off the planet again because of the minefield of debris orbiting the Earth at 15,000 mph. See Trump Signs Measure Enabling Establishment of a U.S. Space Force.

Of course, technological advances in weaponry reflect retrograde steps in policy with the U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) which includes 20 B-2 stealth bombers, 76 B-52 bombers and 450 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles together capable of delivering thousands of nuclear warheads along with the U.S. Navys submarine-launched Trident ballistic missiles, are now capable of extinguishing essentially all life on Earth within a matter of hours. See The Air Forces Global Strike Command Is Preparing For A Delivery Of New Nuclear Weapons.

6. Following the U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty in 2002 and after withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the Iran nuclear deal) and the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty (which limited the deployment of intermediate-range nuclear weapons) in 2018, the U.S. government further and unilaterally signaled its intention to dismantle the little that remained of attempts during the Cold War and since that time to contain the threat of nuclear war by further acting in violation of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 see Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies and U..S Weaponizing Space in Bid to Launch Arms Race as explained in the point above, and demonstrating its disinterest in extending New START: the sole remaining restraint on U.S.-Russian nuclear arsenals that caps deployed offensive strategic nuclear weapons to no more than 1,550 each. See Russia says its already too late to replace new START treaty and Global Zero Urges Trump to Accept Putins Offer on Nuclear Treaty.

If you are in any doubt regarding the devastating consequences of nuclear war, you will find Professor Steven Starrs thoughts see Nuclear Darkness, Global Climate Change and Nuclear Famine: The Deadly Consequences of Nuclear War illuminating. In addition, the description by Lynn Eden in City on Fire (based on her book Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, and Nuclear Weapons Devastation) is compelling.

7. Another substantial proportion of global private financial wealth conservatively estimated by the Tax Justice Network in 2010 to already total between $US21 and $US32 trillion has been invested virtually tax-free through the worlds still-expanding black hole of more than 80 offshore tax havens (such as the City of London Corporation, Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, Nauru, St. Kitts, Antigua, Tortola, Switzerland, the Channel Islands, Monaco, Cyprus, Gibraltar and Liechtenstein). This is just financial wealth. Additionally, a large share of the real estate, yachts, racehorses, gold bricks and many other assets that count as non-financial wealth are also owned via offshore structures that make it impossible to identify their owners. See Tax Justice Network.

Tax havens are locations around the world where wealthy individuals, criminals and terrorists, as well as governments and government agencies (such as the CIA), banks, corporations, hedge funds, international organizations (such as the Vatican) and crime syndicates (such as the Mafia), can stash their money so that they can avoid laws, regulation and oversight and, very often, evade tax. See Elite Banking at Your Expense: How Secretive Tax Havens are Used to Steal Your Money.

Controlled by the global elite, Wall Street and other major banks manage this monstrous diversion of wealth under Government protection. Their business is fraud and grand theft. Tax haven locations offer more than tax avoidance. Almost anything goes on. It includes bribery, illegal gambling, money laundering, human and sex trafficking, arms dealing, toxic waste dumping, conflict diamonds and endangered species trafficking, bootlegged software, and endless other lawless practices. See Trillions Stashed in Offshore Tax Havens.

8. The worlds major corporations continued to inflict enormous ongoing violence (in a myriad of ways) in their pursuit of endless profit at the expense of living beings (human and otherwise) and Earths biosphere by producing and marketing a wide range of life-destroying products ranging from nuclear weapons and nuclear power to fossil fuels, junk food, pharmaceutical drugs (including health-destroying and sometimes life-destroying vaccinations: see, for example, Vaxxed-Unvaxxed The Science), synthetic poisons and genetically mutilated organisms (GMOs).

These corporations include the following: weapons manufacturers, major banks and their industry groups like the International Monetary Conference, asset management firms, investment companies, financial services companies, fossil fuel (coal, oil and gas) corporations, technology corporations, media corporations, major marketing and public relations corporations, agrochemical (pesticides, seeds, fertilizers) giants, pharmaceutical corporations (with their handmaidens in the medical and psychiatric industries: see Defeating the Violence in Our Food and Medicine and Defeating the Violence of Psychiatry), biotechnology (genetic mutilation) corporations, mining corporations, nuclear power corporations, food multinationals and water corporations. You can see a list of the major corporations in this article: The Global Elite is Insane Revisited.

9. More than two billion people continued to live under occupation, dictatorship or threat of genocidal assault often with the global elite sponsoring an oppressive national government or simply a local elite that exercises power irrespective of the government in office. See, for example, 500 Years is Long Enough! Human Depravity in the Congo.

10. 36,500,000 human beings (mainly in Africa, Asia and Central/South America) were starved to death in 2019.

Are we serious about ending these totally unnecessary deaths? Not even remotely, as thoughtfully explained by Professor George Kent in his article Are We Serious About Ending Hunger?

As Professor Kent notes: currently, around the world, around 800 million people suffer from hunger and that global efforts to end hunger have not been serious: There has been no substantial commitment of resources, no management group to control the process, no realistic timeline, and no means for mid-course corrections on the way to the goal. There [have been] no contracts with agencies that would work toward achievement of the goal. hoping for the end of hunger wont work. Hope is not a strategy. Moreover, The UN system offers little more than vague aspirations.

11. 18,250,000 children were killed by adults in wars, by starving them to death, by denying them clean drinking water, and in a large variety of other ways.

12. 8,000,000 children were trafficked into sexual slavery; executed in sacrificial killings after being kidnapped; bred to be sold as a cash crop for sexual violation, to produce child pornography (kiddie porn) and snuff movies (in which children are killed during the filming); ritually tortured and murdered as well as raped by dogs trained for the purpose. See Humanitys Dirty Little Secret: Starving, Enslaving, Raping, Torturing and Killing our Children.

13. Hundreds of thousands of individuals were kidnapped or tricked into slavery, which now denies 46,000,000 human beings (more than at any time in human history) the right to live the life of their choice, condemning many individuals especially women and children to lives of sexual slavery, forced labor or as child soldiers. Needless to say, the global elite continues to expand this highly profitable business while its compliant governments do no more than mouth an occasional objection to the practice while doing nothing effective to actually end it, as was patently evident following disclosures about high-profile public figures during the year. See The Global Slavery Index. For one recent account of the life of a modern slave, see My Familys Slave. And for an account of the involvement of public figures in sex slavery, see Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein: what you need to know and the other articles listed at the end of this one.

14. Well over 100,000 people (particularly Falun Gong practitioners) in China, where an extensive state-controlled program is conducted, were subjected to forced organ removal for the trade-in human organs. See Bloody Harvest and The Slaughter.

15. 15,768,000 people were displaced by war, persecution or famine. There are now 70,800,000 people, more that half of whom are children and approximately 10,000,000 of whom are stateless, who have been forcibly displaced worldwide and remain precariously unsettled, usually in adverse circumstances. One person in the world is forcibly displaced every two seconds. See Figures at a Glance.

16. Millions of people were made homeless in their own country as a result of war, persecution, natural disasters (many of which, including hurricanes/cyclones and wildfires, were actually generated by dysfunctional human behavior rather than nature), internal conflict, poverty or as a result of elite-driven national economic policies. The last time a global survey was attempted by the United Nations back in 2005 an estimated 100 million people were homeless worldwide. In addition, as many as 1.6 billion people lack adequate housing (living in slums, for example). See Global Homelessness Statistics.

17. Highlighting the unheralded biodiversity crisis on Earth, as a result of habitat destruction and degradation as well as a multitude of other threats, 73,000 species of life (plants, birds, animals, fish, amphibians, insects, reptiles and microbes) on Earth were driven to extinction with the worldwide loss of many of these species and certainly including insects, birds, animals and fish now at catastrophic levels. Tragically, many additional species are now trapped in a feedback loop which will inevitably precipitate their extinction as well because of the way in which co-extinctions, localized extinctions and extinction cascades work once initiated and as has already occurred in almost all ecosystem contexts. See the (so far) five-part series Our Vanishing World. Have you seen a flock of birds of any size recently? A butterfly?

18. Separately from global species extinctions, Earth continued to experience a huge episode of population declines and extirpations, which will have negative cascading consequences on ecosystem functioning and services vital to sustaining civilization. We describe this as a biological annihilation to highlight the current magnitude of Earths ongoing sixth major extinction event. Moreover, local population extinctions are orders of magnitude more frequent than species extinctions. Population extinctions, however, are a prelude to species extinctions, so Earths sixth mass extinction episode has proceeded further than most assume. See Biological annihilation via the ongoing sixth mass extinction signaled by vertebrate population losses and declines and Our Vanishing World: Wildlife.

19. Wildlife trafficking, worth up to $20 billion in 2019, is pushing many endangered species to the brink of extinction. Illegal wildlife products include jewelry, traditional medicine, clothing, furniture, and souvenirs, as well as some exotic pets, most of which are sold to unaware/unconcerned consumers in the West although China is heavily implicated too. See, for example, Stop Wildlife Trafficking.

20. 16,000,000 acres of pristine rainforest were cut or burnt down for purposes such as the following: acquiring timbers used in construction, clearing land to establish cattle farms so that many people can eat cheap hamburgers, clearing land to establish palm oil plantations so that many people can eat processed (including junk) foods based on this oil, clearing land to establish palm oil and soybean plantations so that some people can delude themselves that they are using a green biofuel in their car (when, in fact, these fuels generate a far greater carbon footprint than fossil fuels), mining (much of it illegal) for a variety of minerals (such as gold, silver, copper, coltan, cassiterite and diamonds), and logging to produce woodchips so that some people can buy cheap paper, including cheap toilet paper. One outcome of this destruction is that 40,000 tropical tree species are now threatened with extinction. See Our Vanishing World: Rainforests, Measuring the Daily Destruction of the Worlds Rainforests, Estimating the global conservation status of more than 15,000 Amazonian tree species and Half of Amazon Tree Species Face Extinction.

Another outcome is that the precious Amazon is teetering on the edge of functional destruction and, with it, so are we. How long do we have? The tipping point is here, it is now. Professor Thomas E. Lovejoy and his fellow researcher Carlos Nobre elaborate this point: Bluntly put, the Amazon not only cannot withstand further deforestation but also now requires rebuilding as the underpinning base of the hydrological cycle if the Amazon is to continue to serve as a flywheel of continental climate for the planet and an essential part of the global carbon cycle. See Amazon Tipping Point: Last Chance for Action.

21. Vast quantities of soil were washed away as we destroyed the rainforests, and enormous quantities of both inorganic constituents (such as heavy metals like cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, nickel and zinc) and organic pollutants (particularly synthetic chemicals in the form of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides) were dumped into the soil as well, thus reducing its nutrients and killing the microbes and earthworms within it. We also contaminated enormous quantities of soil with radioactive waste. See Soil-net, Glyphosate effects on soil rhizosphere-associated bacterial communities and Disposing of Nuclear Waste is a Challenge for Humanity.

To briefly elaborate the evidence in relation to earthworms: Given recent reports of critical declines of microbes, plants, insects and other invertebrates, birds and other vertebrates, the situation pertaining to neglected earthworms was evaluated in an extensive investigation recently undertaken by Robert J. Blakemore. His research demonstrated an 83.3 percent decline in earthworms in agrichemical farms that is, those that use pesticides, herbicides and synthetic fertilizers compared with farms utilizing organic methods. Why? Because it is impossible to replace or artificially engineer the myriad beneficial processes and services freely provided by earthworms which includes extensive burrows in pastures enriched with soil organic matter that allow ingress of air & water and provide living space for other soil organisms. Moreover, given that ecological services overall have been given a median value of US$135 trillion per year, which is almost double the global economic GDP of around $75 trillion see Changes in the global value of ecosystem services and Valuing nature and the hidden costs of biodiversity loss Blakemore reaches an obvious conclusion: Persistence with failing chemical agriculture makes neither ecological nor economic sense. See Critical Decline of Earthworms from Organic Origins under Intensive, Humic SOM-Depleting Agriculture.

Given that this multifaceted destruction of the soil fundamentally threatens the global grain supply, when the ability to grow, store and distribute grains at scale is a defining element of civilization, as Professor Guy McPherson eloquently explains it: A significant decline in grain harvest will surely drive this version of civilization to the abyss and beyond. See Seven Distinct Paths to Loss of Habitat for Humans.

22. Despite an extensive and ongoing coverup by the Japanese government and nuclear corporations, as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), vast amounts of radioactive waste were dumped into the biosphere from the TEPCO nuclear power plant at Fukushima in Japan including by discharge into the Pacific Ocean killing an incalculable number of fish and other marine organisms and indefinitely contaminating expanding areas of that ocean. See Fukushima: A Nuclear War without a War: The Unspoken Crisis of Worldwide Nuclear Radiation, 2019 Annual Report Fukushima 8th Anniversary, Eight years after triple nuclear meltdown, Fukushima No. 1s water woes show no signs of ebbing and Fukushimas Three Nuclear Meltdowns Are Under Control Thats a Lie.

But the challenges to be overcome in safely handling and, ultimately, safely storing the radiation hazards (such as the three melted nuclear reactors and the spent fuel rods) and the radioactive waste from the Fukushima disaster are monumental, as touched on in this article outlining the 40-year plan that the Japanese government hopes will delude us into believing will deal with the many components of this perpetual radioactive nightmare. See Japan revises Fukushima cleanup plan, delays key steps.

In addition, one critical legacy of the U.S. militarys 67 secretive and lethal nuclear weapons tests on the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958 is the eternally radioactive garbage left behind and now leaking into the Pacific Ocean. See The Pentagons Disastrous Radioactive Waste Dump in the Drowning Marshall Islands is Leaking into the Pacific Ocean.

Is other nuclear waste safely stored? Of course not! See, for example, NRC admits San Onofre Holtec nuclear waste canisters are all damaged, USAs Hanford nuclear site could suffer the same fate as Russias Mayak or worse and, for a more comprehensive report, The World Nuclear Waste Report 2019: Focus Europe.

Of course, the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe in 1986 continues to inflict extensive damage on the biosphere which you can learn more about from the research by Professor Kate Brown, author of Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future Chernobyl Radiation Cover-Ups & Deadly Truth, UN and Western countries covered up the facts on the huge health toll of Chernobyl radiation and Unreported Deaths, Child Cancer & Radioactive Meat: The Untold Story of Chernobyl as well as the investigatory work of Alison Katz of Independent WHO: Chernobyl Health Cover-Up, Lies by UN/WHO Exposed.

23. Human use of fossil fuels to power aircraft, shipping and vehicles as well as for industrial production and to generate electricity (among other purposes) released 10 billion metric tons (10 gigatons) of carbon dioxide into Earths biosphere, a 0.6% increase over 2018, with Chinas monstrous CO2 emissions for 2019 totaling 2.6% greater than the previous year. See Global Carbon Budget 2019.

As one measure of their contempt for the utterly inadequate goals of the Paris climate agreement, and with government approval, over 400 of the 746 companies on the Global Coal Exit List are still planning to expand their coal operations. If built, these projects in 60 countries would add over 579 GW to the global coal plant fleet, an increase of almost 29%. See Companies Driving the Worlds Coal Expansion Revealed: NGOs Release New Global Coal Exit List for Finance Industry and Proposed Coal Plants by Country.

24. 72 billion land animals (mainly chickens, ducks, pigs, rabbits, geese, turkeys, sheep, goats and beef cattle) were killed for food. In addition, between 37 and 120 billion fish were killed on commercial farms with another 2.7 trillion fish caught and killed in the wild. See How Many Animals Are Killed for Food Every Day?

Apart from that, more than 100 million animals were killed for laboratory purposes in the United States alone and there were other animal deaths in shelters, zoos and in blood sports. See How Many Animals Are Killed Each Year?

In addition, according to Humane Society International, about 100 million animals (particularly mink, foxes, raccoon dogs and rabbits) were bred and slaughtered in fur farms geared to supplying the fashion industry. In addition to farming, millions of wild animals were trapped and killed for fur, as were hundreds of thousands of seals. See How Many Animals are Killed Each Year?

25. Farming of animals for human consumption released 7.1 gigatons of CO2-equivalent into Earths atmosphere; this represented 14.5 percent of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. About 44% of livestock emissions were in the form of methane (which was 44% of anthropogenic CH4 emissions), 29% as Nitrous Oxide (which was 53% of anthropogenic N2O emissions) and 27% as Carbon Dioxide (which was 5% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions). See GHG Emissions by Livestock.

26. Human use of fossil fuels and farming of animals released more than 3.2 million metric tons of (CO2 equivalent) nitrous oxide (N2O) into Earths atmosphere. See Nitrous oxide emissions.

27. Despite largely successful efforts by the elite-controlled IPCC to delude people into believing that the global mean temperature has increased by only 1.0 degree celsius, in fact, since the pre-industrial era (prior to 1750) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have already caused the global temperature to rise by about 1.73 degrees celsius. See How much warmer is it now?

Among a lengthy list of adverse outcomes, this has caused the melting of Arctic permafrost and undersea methane ice clathrates resulting in an incalculable quantity of methane being uncontrollably released into the atmosphere, including during 2019, with the quantity being released getting ever closer to exploding. See Anomalies of methane in the atmosphere over the East Siberian shelf: Is there any sign of methane leakage from shallow shelf hydrates?, 7,000 underground gas bubbles poised to explode in Arctic, Release of Arctic Methane May Be Apocalyptic, Study Warns and Understanding the Permafrost-Hydrate System and Associated Methane Releases in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf.

In fact, the methane threat is already so extreme that the forecast El Nio event for 2020 could be the catalyst to trigger huge methane releases from the Arctic Ocean precipitating human extinction this year. See Very early warning signal for El Nio in 2020 with a 4 in 5 likelihood and Extinction in 2020?

28. Glaciers and mountain ice fields whether located in Greenland or other regions of the far north, the Himalaya, at the Equator, in southern latitudes or Antarctica are all melting at unprecedented and accelerating rates, losing billions of tonnes of ice in 2019. For a discussion of the details and the implications of this, see Our Vanishing World: Glaciers.

29. The ongoing destruction of Earths oceans continued unabated and accelerated in key areas.

An incalculable amount of agricultural poisons, fossil fuels and other wastes was discharged into the ocean, adversely impacting life at all ocean depths see Staggering level of toxic chemicals found in creatures at the bottom of the sea, scientists say and generating ocean dead zones: regions that have too little oxygen to support marine organisms. See Our Planet Is Exploding With Marine Dead Zones.

In addition, however, another problem that has been getting insufficient attention is the result of the expanding impacts of the rapidly increasing levels of ocean acidification, ocean warming, ocean carbon flows and ocean plastics. Taken in isolation each of these changes clearly has negative consequences for the ocean. All these shifts taken together, however, result in a rapid and serious decline in ocean health and this, in turn, adversely impacts all species dependent on the ocean including fish, mammals and seabirds. Moreover, on top of these problems is the issue of oxygen availability given that oxygen in the air or water is of paramount importance to most living organisms. As the recently released report Ocean deoxygenation: Everyones problem. Causes, impacts, consequences and solutions describes in some detail, oxygen levels are currently declining across the ocean, not just in dead zones.

And to elaborate the plastics problem briefly: at least 8 million metric tons of plastic, of which 236,000 tons were microplastics, was discharged into the ocean. So severe is the problem that there are now five massive patches of plastic in the oceans around the world covering large swaths of the ocean; the plastic patch between California and Hawaii is the size of the state of Texas. See Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean and Plastics in the Ocean.

30. Earths fresh water and ground water was further depleted and contaminated.

The depletion is a primary outcome of the ongoing deforestation of the planet and is manifesting in several ways including as localized droughts, which are becoming increasingly common as a number of cities and regions around the world can attest. According to the World Resources Institute, half of the surface water in some countries mainly in Central Asia and the Middle East was depleted between 1984 and 2015, with agriculture using an average of 70% of the water. 36 countries are extremely water-stressed and water is now a major factor in conflict in at least 45 countries. See 7 Graphics Explain the State of the Worlds Water.

Separately from depletion, freshwater was contaminated by bacteria, viruses and household chemicals from faulty septic systems; hazardous wastes from abandoned and uncontrolled hazardous waste sites (of which there are over 20,000 in the USA alone); leaks from landfill items such as car battery acid, paint and household cleaners; the pesticides, herbicides and other poisons used on farms and home gardens; radioactive waste from nuclear tests (some of it stored in glaciers that are now melting); and the chemical contamination caused by hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in search of shale gas, for which about 750 chemicals and components, some extremely toxic and carcinogenic like lead and benzene, have been used. See Groundwater contamination, Groundwater drunk by BILLIONS of people may be contaminated by radioactive material spread across the world by nuclear testing in the 1950s and Fracking chemicals.

31. The longstanding covert military use of geoengineering spraying tens of millions of tons of highly toxic metals (including aluminium, barium and strontium) and toxic coal fly ash nanoparticulates (containing arsenic, chromium, thallium, chlorine, bromine, fluorine, iodine, mercury and radioactive elements) into the atmosphere from jet aircraft to weaponize the atmosphere and weather in order to enhance elite control of human populations, continued unchecked. Geoengineering is systematically destroying Earths ozone layer which blocks the deadly portion of solar radiation, UV-C and most UV-B, from reaching Earths surface as well as adversely altering Earths weather patterns and polluting its air, water and soil at incredible cost to the health and well-being of living organisms and the biosphere. See Geoengineering Watch, including Engineered Climate Cataclysm: Hurricane Harvey.

For a discussion of the military implications of geoengineering, see The Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction: Owning the Weather for Military Use.

And for discussions of the research, and implications of it, by Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt and Dr. Stephenie Seneff (Senior Research Scientist at MIT), which considers damage to the biosphere and human health caused by the geoengineering release of a synthesized compound of nanonized aluminium and the poison glyphosate that creates a supertoxin that is generating a crisis of neurological diseases, see World-Renowned Doctor Addresses Climate Engineering Dangers, Dr Stephenie Seneff, Autism Explained: Synergistic Poisoning from Aluminum and Glyphosate and Extinction is Stalking Humanity: The Threats to Human Survival Accumulate.

32. The incredibly destructive 5G technology, which a vast number of scientists (currently totaling more than 188,000 individuals and organizations from 203 nations and territories: see International Appeal to Stop 5G on Earth and in Space) are warning will have catastrophic consequences for life on Earth, is now being rapidly introduced without informed public consultation and despite ongoing protests around the world.

The following articles and videos will give you a solid understanding of key issues from the viewpoint of human and planetary well-being. See 5G Satellites: A Threat to all Life, 5G Danger: 13 Reasons 5G Wireless Technology Will Be a Catastrophe for Humanity, 5G Technology is Coming Linked to Cancer, Heart Disease, Diabetes, Alzheimers, and Death, 20,000 Satellites for 5G to be Launched Sending Focused Beams of Intense Microwave Radiation Over Entire Earth, Will 5G Cell Phone Technology Lead To Dramatic Population Reduction As Large Numbers Of Men Become Sterile?, The 5G Revolution: Millions of Human Guinea Pigs in Big Telecoms Global Experiment and 5G Apocalypse The Extinction Event.

33. As one outcome of our dysfunctional parenting model and political systems, fascism continued to rise around the world. See The Psychology of Fascism.

34. Despite the belief that we have the right to privacy, privacy (in any sense of the word) was ongoingly eroded in 2019 and is now effectively non-existent, particularly thanks to Alphabet (owner of Google). Taken together, Uber, Amazon, Facebook, eBay, Tinder, Apple, Lyft, Foursquare, Airbnb, Spotify, Instagram, Twitter, Angry Birds have turned our computers and phones into bugs that are plugged in to a vast corporate-owned surveillance network. Where we go, what we do, what we talk about, who we talk to, and who we see everything is recorded and, at some point, leveraged for value. Moreover, given Googles integrated relationship with the U.S. government, the U.S. military, the CIA, and major U.S. weapons manufacturers, there isnt really anything you can do that isnt known by those who want to know it. In essence, Google is a powerful global corporation with its own political agenda and a mission to maximise profits for shareholders and it partly achieves this by expanding the surveillance programs of the national security state at the direction of the global elite. But Google isnt alone and it isnt just happening in the USA. See Everybodys Watching You: The Intercepts 2019 Technology Coverage, Googles Earth: How the Tech Giant Is Helping the State Spy on Us, the articles by John W. Whitehead on Surveillance and the documentary The Modern Surveillance State.

35. The right to free speech, accurate information and conscience-based nonviolent activism was ongoingly eroded in 2019 as efforts, by governments and corporations particularly, to control speech, information and political action accelerated. Whether this took the form of censorship, restrictions on access or violent acts directed against those whose views or actions were seen as dangerous or wrong, Global Witness, Human Rights Watch and other organizations documented an endless series of setbacks for free speech and political activity in a wide variety of countries around the world with individuals and journalists imprisoned for telling the truth, nonviolent activists assaulted and killed, critics silenced by defamation laws or disappearance, and the closure of newspapers, television stations and the internet to prevent rapid promulgation of information, among other infringements. See, for example, Free Speech, The supply chain of violence, Environmental activist murders double in 15 years and Enemies of the State? How governments and businesses silence land and environmental defenders.

36. Believing that we know better than evolution, and following the birth in 2018 of the first gene-edited babies in China see Why we are not ready for genetically designed babies and Chinas Golem Babies: There is Another Agenda in 2019, further human gene-editing was done as well as gene-editing experiments intended to explore possibilities for more complex gene-editing of humans. Why? According to the authors of one report: To extend the frontier of genome editing and enable the radical redesign of mammalian genomes (emphasis added). This experiment allowed for the simultaneous editing of >10,000 loci in human cells. See Enabling large-scale genome editing by reducing DNA nicking.

Needless to say, at least some responsible scientists are well aware of the possibly horrific consequences of this technology in the hands of those without ethics and are calling for a moratorium of at least five years on heritable human gene editing to allow time to engage in proactive, rather than reactive, discussions about the future of such technology. Of course, despite the calls for caution, some researchers are forging ahead. See NIH Director on Human Gene Editing: We Must Never Allow Our Technology to Eclipse Our Humanity.

37. Incalculable amounts of waste of every conceivable kind including antibiotic waste, military waste, nuclear waste, nanowaste and genetically engineered organisms, including gene drives (or mutagenic chain reactions) were released into Earths biosphere, with an endless series of adverse consequences for life. See Junk Planet: Is Earth the Largest Garbage Dump in the Universe?

Not content to dump our junk on Earth, an incalculable amount of junk was also dumped in Space which already contains 100 trillion items of orbiting junk. See Junk Planet: Is Earth the Largest Garbage Dump in the Universe? and Space Junk: Tracking & Removing Orbital Debris.

38. Ongoing visible, invisible and utterly invisible violence against children see Why Violence? and Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice ensured that more people will grow up accepting (and quite powerless to challenge) our dysfunctional and violent world, as described above.

39. The global elites corporate media, schooling and film/television industries continued to distract vast numbers of people from reality with an endless barrage of propaganda respectively labeled, depending on the context, news, education and entertainment ensuring that most people remain oblivious to our predicament, devoid of the capacities to investigate, comprehend and analyze this predicament as well as their own role in it, and to respond to this predicament powerfully. See, for example, Medias Deafening Silence on Latest from WikiLeaks about the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Fake Douma Report Blaming Syria, Do We Want School or Education? and The Most Important Free Press Stories of 2019.

40. Finally, as a direct outcome of these last two points but most tragically of all, virtually all of the individuals who self-identify as activists continued to waste their time begging the global elite (or their agents) to fix one or other of our crises starkly illustrated by those thousands of climate activists who traveled to Madrid, mostly using fossil fuels, and then complained when the outcome was, predictably, pitiful: see the powerless civil society Statement on COP25 despite the overwhelming evidence that the global elite will not take action to fix any of these crises. See Why Activists Fail. And, for more detail in two key contexts, see The Global Climate Movement is Failing: Why? and The War to End War 100 Years On: An Evaluation and Reorientation of our Resistance to War.

Moreover, even if it was inclined, the elite is now powerless to avert extinction given that, if we are to have any chance given the advanced nature of the crisis and the incredibly short timeframe, we must plan intelligently to mobilize a substantial proportion of the human population in a strategically-focused effort. Nothing else can work.

Highlights of 2019

Read more:

Human extinction now imminent and inevitable? A report on the state of planet earth - NationofChange

5 Ways To Help Fix The Food System Every Time You Grocery Shop – mindbodygreen.com

Posted on by

I'll cut right to the chase: Our food system in this country is brokenfor many, many reasons.

For starters, it is built on government subsidies on five crops: corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, and rice. These monocrops provide an abundance of the wrong type of calories (sugar, starch, and refined oils) and form the building blocks of ultraprocessed foods that contribute to chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes, obesity, heart disease, dementia, cancer, depression, sexual dysfunction, and more. Foods like these are responsible for an estimated 11 million deaths a year around the world.

The present food system doesn't just pollute our bodies. It pollutes our land, water, and air with pesticides and synthetic fertilizers and contributes massive amounts of greenhouse gas emissions every step of the way. Glyphosate, anyone? Or how about a burger raised on antibiotics, hormones, and chicken poop? No thanks.

Food is also a social injustice issue. Many of the over 20 million food and farmworkers in the U.S. are peopleof color who struggle to make a living wage while performing dangerous work. They're subject to harsh working and living conditions and exposed to toxic agricultural chemicals but lack adequate health care. In extreme cases, they can face modern forms of slavery, sexual harassment, and abuse.

While these are complex issues that won't be solved overnight, I believe that a healthier, cleaner, smarter food system starts at the end of your fork. All you have to do is make a few simple conscious decisions about what you put on it.

More here:

5 Ways To Help Fix The Food System Every Time You Grocery Shop - mindbodygreen.com

Ayala: San Antonio overcompensates for the sins of others with its MLK events – San Antonio Express-News

Posted on by

Throughout the United States, resisters pushed back on a national holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr.

Some states made their point by holding out until the 2000s to establish a holiday signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1983.

Other local governments found creative ways to minimize King by generalizing the holiday, so as not to name him, or creating a dual holiday, so the honor wouldnt be his exclusively.

Texas eventually got around to it, but it also has a Confederate Heroes Day that this year falls one day before MLKs.

San Antonio leaders wisely chose a different path, and San Antonio activists, ever resourceful, have overcompensated for the sins of others.

So, on Monday the city will put on one of the largest MLK marches in the country. Its the highlight of more than 1,000 events from Jan. 10-26 that are part of DreamWeek. Each day offers experiences that nudge us out of our comfort zones.

An event tonight will showcase a talk on wage equity thats listed as a demand, Pay Her What Shes Worth. The discussion is from 7 to 9 p.m. at the YWCA Olga Madrid Center on the West Side. Another event features a discussion of Kings legacy of resistance and what we can do when laws and law enforcement practices stifle protest. Its from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at Travis Park Church downtown. Both events are free.

National holidays, when theyre relevant, give us a multitude of teaching moments and opportunities to cross self-imposed borders and meet people unlike us. Thats Kings legacy, too.

But the Student Leadership Center at the University of Texas at San Antonio gets the prize for its Civil Rights and Social Justice Experience, a bus tour of civil rights landmarks in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

At its most powerful, the tour drew a line from slavery to mass incarceration. Now in its ninth year, the tour ended by challenging a group of 45 students to connect what they learned on the trip to their leadership aspirations.

It was no coincidence the tour paid homage to the journeys of young Freedom Riders who in the 1960s boarded buses to Southern states, sat at whites-only lunch counters and faced violence from police and white mobs.

The bus got back Saturday. On Sunday, two of the students 21-year-old juniors Sydney Brown and Christopher Garcia met me at a coffee shop near the UTSA campus to digest their experiences.

It was Browns second trip and her first as a facilitator and part of the faculty. The return visit brought new experiences, especially at the Equal Justice Institute in Montgomery, Ala.

The institute has been much in the news thanks to a new movie, Just Mercy, that tells the story of its founder, Bryan Stevenson, and his work on mass incarceration. The group saw the movie there on opening day in an auditorium that was all their own.

Its also where the group visited one of the nations most compelling new monuments, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, dedicated to the victims of white supremacy. The memorial features 800 massive steel blocks that are suspended from the ceiling, each etched with the name of a county in which African Americans were lynched, and if known, the names of the victims.

Brown was moved by an exhibit at the Equal Justice Initiatives Legacy Museum, where people can pick up phones and hear the original testimony of the initiatives clients. She met Kuntrell Jackson there. At 14, he received a life sentence for a murder he didnt commit. The initiative won his release.

Garcia, a history major who wants to teach high school social studies, sought out the trip because he wanted to learn more about civil rights than what can be found in books.

He was struck by an exhibit of segregated classrooms and a sign that that read, No Blacks, No Dogs, No Mexicans from 1939 El Paso. He stood on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., where marchers were beat up in whats known as Bloody Sunday.

Garcia took dozens of photos to document his experience. But at the 18th-century Whitney Plantation in Louisiana, he stopped clicking. The silence startled him.

A guide showed them various sites, including rusty cells used first for slave auctions and later to hold convicts and a memorial to slaves who participated in an 1811 revolt. Many of the slaves who were caught were executed and beheaded. The memorial depicts rows of decapitated ceramic heads mounted on steel rods burrowed into the ground.

There, Garcia stopped taking pictures, partly out of respect. It was also awe because what was meant as a warning to slaves didnt end the rebellions. For the future teacher, its a lesson that will stay with him for future lectures and future MLK Days.

Elaine Ayala is a columnist covering San Antonio and Bexar County. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | eayala@express-news.net | Twitter: @ElaineAyala

Visit link:

Ayala: San Antonio overcompensates for the sins of others with its MLK events - San Antonio Express-News

Satoshi Nakamoto’s Net Worth: How Rich Is Satoshi Now? [LIVE]

Posted on by

How rich is Satoshi Now? (Updated Live)

All time high: 19,387,398,800.07USD

Bitcoin Price = USD

Due to Bitcoin forks, Satoshi Nakamoto also has the following coins:

BCH Price = USD

BSV Price = USD

BTG Price = USD

Even 10 years after Bitcoins launch, the identity of Bitcoins mysterious founder is still unknown.

That being said, there are a few potential candidates of who might be Satoshi Nakamoto. Lets take a look at each one.

Hal Finney was a vocal cypherpunk and was heavily involved in cryptography even before hearing about Bitcoin.

Hal was on the mailing list that received Bitcoins whitepaper and has then built an online relationship with Satoshi where they discussed how to improve Bitcoin.

He also had the honor of being the receiver of the first Bitcoin transaction ever, which was sent by Satoshi himself.

Sadly, Hal passed away in August 2014 after battling Lou Gehrigs disease for 5 years, a degenerative disease.

Nick Szabo is a well-known cryptographer and cypherpunk. Years before Bitcoin went live, Nick Szabo already published a concept for a platform called Bit Gold.

Although this e-currency never got any traction due to its technical limitations, it does undoubtedly draw many parallels to Bitcoin.

Many think that Nick Szabo improved his concept and re-launched it as Bitcoin some years later under the pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto.

Adam Back started his career studying the intersection between cryptography and computers. In 1997, Adam developed the concept for Hashcash, which was an early application of Proof of Work (PoW).

This is the reason why many connect him to the creation of Bitcoin.

Adam is now the CEO of Blockstream, a technology company focused on building blockchain solutions. Blockstream is also one of the few institutions that provide funding to Bitcoin core developers.

Throughout the years there have also been several false alarms, like when an individual actually called Satoshi Nakamoto was thought to be Bitcoins mysterious creator, or when Craig Wright publicly announced that he was Satoshi Nakamoto.

Both occurrences where debunked shortly after due to a lack of proof, which leads us back to the question: Who is the anonymous billionaire named Satoshi Nakamoto?

The reason why nobody knows the exact number of Bitcoins that Satoshi holds is because they are not held in the same wallet, but rather scattered around thousands of different wallets.

This is the only address which is confirmed to belong to Satoshi, since it mined the Bitcoin genesis block:

Interestingly, this wallet keeps receiving Bitcoin transactions. Whether these are just tips sent as a tribute, or if there is something more to it is unknown.

One notable example was when the now defunct exchange Mt Gox sent 1.23 Bitcoin to one of Satoshis wallets.

Although Satoshi never bought any Bitcoin, he was the first Bitcoin miner and was also the only miner for what is estimated to be around 1 year.

This can be deduced by the fact that the Bitcoin hashrate from January 3 (2009) until January 25 (2010) was 7 Mhash/s.

Hence, if we assume that Satoshi was the only miner in the first 14 days of Bitcoins existence, he also was the dominant miner for the rest of the year as the hashrate remained relatively unchanged in that period.

At that time, the Bitcoin block reward was 50 BTC, which means that Satoshi amassed approximately 980,000 Bitcoins in total.

Since his disappearance in 2011, Satoshi hasnt moved a single one of his Bitcoins.

This could be the case because Satoshi might have passed away, because he believes in his creation so much that he doesnt want to spend them too early, or because he wants to avoid unchaining a panic reaction.

Fact is, nobody knows what Satoshi will do with his Bitcoins, or if he ever will do anything with them at all.

At Bitcoins all time high of $20,000 in December 2017, Satoshi was worth $19.6 Billion. This made him the 56th richest person alive.

If Bitcoin reaches $110,000 and the current worlds billionaire remains relatively unchanged, then Satoshi will become the richest person in the world.

If Bitcoin becomes global money, or at least a form of digital gold, then its arguably not unlikely that Satoshi may claim the #1 spot on the Forbes billionaires list.

Since Satoshi Nakamoto holds approximately 980,000 Bitcoins, the Bitcoin price would have to reach $1,000,000 per coin for him to become a Trillionaire.

And since there will never be more than 21 Million Bitcoins, that would put the total Bitcoin market capitalization at 21 Trillion.

While the price is currently very far from that goal, proponents of Bitcoin as the new global reserve currency see that as a possibility.

Some people criticize Satoshis anonymity, while others consider it Bitcoins greatest asset that its creator is unknown.

Only time will tell if Satoshis identity will ever come to light.

And until that happens (if ever), we will continue observing how a faceless Billionaire keeps amassing wealth as Bitcoin progresses on its exponential adoption curve.

CoinDiligent Staff Writer

See more here:

Satoshi Nakamoto's Net Worth: How Rich Is Satoshi Now? [LIVE]

The Creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, Is Most Likely This Guy

Posted on by

The greatest mystery in the tech world today is not how bitcoin works, but who is the creator of bitcoin. On October 31, 2008, someone under the name of Satoshi Nakamoto published a whitepaper on a cryptography mailing list. That event changed the history of money and left us all wondering about the mastermind behind it.

Over the years, many journalists and bloggers have tried to unveil the shadow cast on the creator of bitcoin without much luck. There have been a lot of candidates, some of them even self-nominated. However, none have given definitive proof of their claims, so we are still searching for the person behind the mystery.

There is, though, one stand-out candidate. I had to guess, I would say with great certainty that he is the creator of bitcoin. Before I tell you who Ive chosen, lets assess what we know about Satoshi Nakamoto. Or, better yet, what he wants us to know.

In Satoshis P2P Foundation profile, he claims to be a man from Japan, born on April 5, 1975. The problem is that he doesnt behave or sound like someone from Japan. First of all, he wrote the whitepaper and his subsequent posts in perfect English. Secondly, his sleep pattern is very strange for someone living in Japan.

Bitcoin Forum member Stefan Thomas graphed the time stamps from more than 500 of Satoshis posts. He found that Satoshi Nakamoto never posted anything between 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Japanese time. So, its possible probable, even that Satoshis entire identity is fictional.

But why would he pretend to be someone else?

Just like there was Pretty Good Privacy, a project that enabled people to send encrypted messages to each other. Phil Zimmermann, an activist who wanted to give dissidents a government-free communication channel, founded PGP. However, the USA government realized the potential of this technology and confiscated it. PGP and Zimmermann then become the subjects of a criminal investigation.

The only thing this technology did was enable two individuals to communicate without being eavesdropped on. So, imagine how the government would treat the creator of bitcoin, a technology that enables free money transfers without banks or intermediaries. The technology that takes money out of the hands of the government.

Now that Ive covered my misgivings about his identity and reasons for hiding it, heres what we know about Satoshi Nakamoto.

As Ive already mentioned, Satoshi Nakamoto emerged with a whitepaper on cryptography mailing list metzdowd.com. His nine-page document proposed a new electronic cash system thats fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party on Halloween 2008.

He then created the bitcointalk forum and posted the first message under the pseudonym satoshi. He also made a website with the domain name bitcoin.org and continued to work on bitcoin software. On January 3, 2009, Satoshi mined the first Bitcoin block, known as the genesis block.

Throughout 2010, Satoshi Nakamoto collaborated with other developers to modify the bitcoin protocol. He was involved in the bitcoin community and corresponded with them frequently. Then, all of a sudden, he gave the keys and codes to Gavin Andresen and transferred domains to members of the community. By the end of 2010, he had stopped working on the project.

Then, on Saturday April 23, 2011, the creator of bitcoin emerged once again to post his last message. When developer Mike Hearn asked him if he planned to rejoin the community, Satoshi replied:

Ive moved on to other things. Its in good hands with Gavin and everyone.

The man who had disrupted the financial system for good simply disappeared. But why then?

We should also take into account that Satoshis bitcoin addresses had and still contain about 1,000,000 BTC. In December 2017, when the price peaked, he had more than US$19 billion. For that short moment, Nakamoto was 44th richest person in the world! And to this day he hasnt cashed a single bitcoin.

All this evidence suggests that something may have happened to creator of bitcoin. That is why I believe Hal Finney is Satoshi Nakamoto.

Unfortunately, Hal Finney was diagnosed with ALS in 2009 and fought the disease until his death in 2014. I imagine he created the future of money, but then had to retreat when the disease progressed. And then he died and left us with only rumors about the true identity of the creator of bitcoin.

He could not claim his throne.

Hal Finney was a computer scientist who graduated from Caltech in 1979. As a student, he received the most brains award from his peers. During his freshman year, he took a course on gravitational field theory designed for graduate students. It seems Finney was extremely intelligent, which fits the first criterion for being Satoshi Nakamoto.

Students also remember seeing Finney with a copy of Ayn Rands Atlas Shrugged. If he was reading this kind of literature, he could have easily formed libertarian views on life.

And he did. His views pushed him towards a little-known group of free thinkers and coders. In the early 1990s, he became a member of Cypherpunks. This movement was dedicated to the widespread use of strong cryptography and privacy-enhancing technologies as a route to social and political change. They were self-proclaimed defenders of privacy and Finney put his knowledge at their disposal to achieve the cryptoanarchist vision.

When someone wrote on Cypherpunks mailing list about the above-mentioned Phil Zimmermann and his idea for PGP, Hal responded. He contacted Phil and became the first employee of PGP Corporation, working there until his retirement in 2011. That same year, Satoshi Nakamoto stopped his involvement with bitcoin.

Finney made a significant contribution to the new version of the PGP protocol, but he had to hide his involvement from the government. So he was very well aware of the problems Phil had regarding PGP. Because of that, I can understand his desire to hide his identity when creating bitcoin.

Continue reading here:

The Creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, Is Most Likely This Guy

The Bitcoin News – Who is Satoshi Nakamoto – always up to date

Posted on by

Even if we do not know who she or who he is, we know what he has created:Satoshi Nakamoto is the inventor of the Bitcoin protocol, which he published in a whitepaper in November 2008 via an encrypted e-mail address.

In 2009, he published the first Bitcoin client and communicated with the Bitcoin community by the end of 2010. Then he disappeared without a trace.

He initially worked with an open source team on the project and always put great value on not disclosing any personal data. In the spring of 2011 he heard about him when he said, I will devote myself to other things.

You should not judge a book by its title, or do you?

Satoshi means clear-minded; Naka could mean inside or relationship; Moto means origin or foundation.

All these things fit the person who created a movement and created an ingenious algorithm. The problem is that each single word can have several meanings.

So we can not say for sure whether Satoshi Nakamoto is a Japanese. It only suggests that Satoshi is a he.

For the sake of simplicity, we will call Satoshi Nakamoto as him, even though he may have been one, one or more persons.

No, but the criminal techniques people use these days often raise more questions than answers. The New Yorker Joshua Davis believes Satoshi Nakamoto is a cryptography student of Dublin Trinity College, named Michael Clear.

To his conclusion he came by an analysis of all Nakamoto letters containing more than 80,000 words. Here he searched for linguistic references. He also suspected the Finnish economic sociologist and former game developer Vili Lehdonvirta.

Both said they were not the inventors of Bitcoin. In a Web Summit in 2013, Michael Clear even reported publicly that he was not Satoshi Nakamoto.

Adam Penenberg of FastCompany denied the assumption and said that Satoshi Nakamoto is a group of three people: Neal King, Vladimir Oksman, and Charles Bry. He found out about this by stating different phrases from the published Whitepaper at Google to see if these word phrases had been found somewhere before.

It turned out later that one of the three was mentioned in a patent application for the update and distribution of cryptic keys. The Bitcoin.org domain that Satoshi Nakamoto used to publish the Whitepapers was registered and secured only 3 days after the patent application.

The domain was registered in Finland and one of the patent applicants traveled to the country 6 months earlier. All three suspects deny Satoshi Nakamoto.

In any case, the Bitcoin.org domain was registered on August 18, 2008 by an anonymous Japanese service provider and a Japanese ISP. After that, the domain has only been transferred to Finland. This weakened the theory of Finland a little.

Again, other tongues claim that the inventor of Bitcoin could also be Martii Malmi. Martii lives in Finland and has been involved in the development since the birth of Bitcoin.

Jed McCaleb also belongs to the circle of the elect. He is a lover of Japanese culture and lives in Japan. He is the founder of the controversial Bitcoin stock exchange, Mt. Gox, and co-founder of the decentralized payment systems Ripple and Stellar.

There are a variety of other potential Satoshi Nakamotos, including Donal OMahony, Michael Peirce, Professor Shinichi Mochizuki and Dorian S Nakamoto. All of them dispute the inventors of an ingenious invention. In the Bitcoin community there is still great uncertainty about the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto. In the Bitcoin trading community there is still great uncertainty about the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto.

One thing we know: Based on interviews with fellow travelers of Satoshi Nakamoto in the early hours of birth of Bitcoin, he is supposed to have meticulously thought through the system.

According to Jeff Garzik, his encodings did not carry the handwriting of a conventional software engineer.How rich is he?

According to an analysis by the bitcoiner Sergio Lerner, Satoshi Nakamoto is said to have scavenged many of the first blocks in the Bitcoin network: about 1 million bitscoins. At the then rate in November 2013, more than USD 1 billion.

Nobody knows. But from his last email of April 23, 2011, it is clear:

I will now devote myself to other things. Its all in good hands at Gavin & Co.

Find more about Satoshi Nakamoto and Bitcoin News here

See original here:

The Bitcoin News - Who is Satoshi Nakamoto - always up to date

Satoshi Nakamoto Calls Bitcoin The Embodiment Of Value Creation – The Coin Republic

Posted on by

Parth Vig Thursday, 16 January 2020, 12:57 EST Modified date: Thursday, 16 January 2020, 12:58 EST

An American writer, economist and inventor, George Gilder described the readers about the crisis of trust and security facing Google, making predictions about the technological and social development of Google afterwards.

Chapter 12, Finding Satoshi Nakamoto, is a virtual interview between the author and Satoshi Nakamoto, who is the inventor of Bitcoin.

An excerpt from the original text of the book has described here briefly:

He started by talking of moving forward in what people referred to as the Bitcoin Space. Tattoos and ponytails, suits and ties, medical e-cigarettes, the world-renowned Blockchain Community certificate, and a column by Coringiri came to mind.

Most of this done point-to-point. But from venture capitalists to mutual programmers, from bitcoin players to legendary giants, no one seemed to be able to conduct a detailed analysis of the heros Bitcoin chain Genesis Block.

In the end, he said that he gave up looking for an accessible circle and decided to directly find a way to interview the person who created the new era.

Satoshi Nakamoto, the designer of Bitcoin, the inventor of the blockchain, and the leading promoter of this conspiracy. He repeatedly emphasised that he did not mention blockchain technology in his thesis.

He said that his first discovery was that Satoshi Nakamoto was a writer. He has published at least 150 insightful maxims on the Cypherpunks list, the P2P Foundation website, the Bitcoin Forum, and other decryption bulletin boards.

Until 11th of December, 2010, it was most likely that his incarnation suddenly disappeared. Further on the 7th of March.

2014, he suddenly appeared again and posted a post which contained several words on the P2P Foundation website. The least to say would be calling Satoshis fans as ecstatic online.

On the 30th of May, 2014, three months post-Satoshi Nakamoto published the last article, he left his wife and children, who were still in western Massachusetts, and came to Europe alone.

He also added that Satoshi Nakamoto, was secretive, to come here for his interview. Satoshi Nakamoto further also explained that the networks such as Napster were under central control and its easy to cut off their heads.

The Tor system which originated from the US National Security Agency and was developed by entrepreneur Bram Cohen accounts for almost half of the Internets traffic.

Further, if the savage giant Satoshi Nakamoto is willing to retreat, Bitcoin could achieve such success. As a substantial global replication machine, the Internet cannot create money or other pure digital assets.

In Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto made digital assets possible. Without a lot of work, it cant copy. He refers to it as proof of work. Miners have worked hard to search all transactions and compile them into blocks.

Due to this, Satoshi Nakamoto was able to create money online and use the money to pay miners to verify the transactions made by him.

An immutable transaction record is a form of currency. However, the government does not like private money creation. Therefore, Satoshi Nakamoto has managed to maintain his anonymity.

Soon after Satoshi Nakamoto launched Bitcoin, James Donald on the poster of the decryption master stated that to avoid stress, the network must avoid any central point of exerting pressure.

He also added that it was more like a precious metal. It had predetermined supply, its value fluctuates, and quantity cannot be changed to keep the amount unchanged. As the number of users increases, the cost of each bitcoin also increases.

A sly, mischievous look appeared in his eyes as he said that this might produce a positive feedback loop. As the number of users increases, the value will increase, which will attract more users to take advantage of the added cost.

The emphasis on proof of work suggests Satoshis efforts to resist changing the cornerstone of Bitcoins structure.

Ever since the release of Bitcoins and blockchain technology, it has only been achieving great heights and popularity as it is being adopted in countries worldwide. If the trend continues, it wont be long when bitcoin and blockchain get worldwide acceptance.

Read this article:

Satoshi Nakamoto Calls Bitcoin The Embodiment Of Value Creation - The Coin Republic

First Bitcoin (BTC) Transaction Was Made 11 Years Ago by Satoshi. What Was Its Purpose? – U.Today

Posted on by

The first Bitcoin transaction between Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous Bitcoin creator, and computer programmer Hal Finney happened on Jan. 12, 2009,which was exactly 11 years ago. Finney received 10 BTC (around $81,000 at the time of writing) as a test.

"When Satoshi announced the first release of the software, I grabbed it right away. I think I was the first person besides Satoshi to run bitcoin. I mined block 70-something, and I was the recipient of the first bitcoin transaction, when Satoshi sent ten coins to me as a test. I carried on an email conversation with Satoshi over the next few days, mostly me reporting bugs and him fixing them," Finney described hisexperience in a forum post.

Must Read

The first BTC transaction in history came just one day after Finney posted his already historic "Running Bitcoin" tweeton Jan. 11, 2009.

As reported by U.Today, the first Bitcoin mention on Twitter could be soon deleted due to a new policy implemented by the social media juggernaut. All tweets posted by accounts that show no signs of activity for more than six months will be removed.

Finney passed away in 2014 at the age of 58 after losing his battle withamyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). His last tweet was published back in 2010. He wrote that he was comfortable with his legacyin 2014.

"My bitcoins are stored in our safe deposit box, and my son and daughter are tech savvy. I think theyre safe enough. Im comfortable with my legacy.

Must Read

More than a decade after the creation of Bitcoin, the debate about the real identity of Satoshi lives on. There are numerous facts that point to Finney being the real BTC creator. Apart from being a prominent cyberpunk who expressed the same views as Satoshi and received the first BTC transaction, he also lived on down the street withDorian Satoshi Nakamoto, the man who waserroneously identified as the real Satoshi by a Newsweek article.

However, when Forbes reporter Andy Greenberg directly asked Finney whether he was the real Satoshi, the latter vehemently denied his claim. At this point, he was already paralyzed, so there is a good chance that he simply didn't want to be disturbed by excessive media attention.

Must Read

Finney estimated that BTC could be worth about$10 mln per coin if it were to become the dominant payment system. Blockstream CEO Adam Back, who was cited in the Bitcoin white paper, claims that such a huge price target could be closer than it sounds due to the growth of the USD inflation. The price of the top cryptocurrency could be 10 mln "in a decade or two" due to "monetary craziness."

Is this a realistic target? Share your take in the comments!

Continued here:

First Bitcoin (BTC) Transaction Was Made 11 Years Ago by Satoshi. What Was Its Purpose? - U.Today

Visionary Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto to Reveal Identity

Posted on by

NEW YORK, Aug. 16, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- After a decade of anonymity, Satoshi Nakamoto will break his silence in Part I of his My Reveal Sunday, Aug. 18, at 4 p.m. EDT on the Satoshi Nakamoto Renaissance Holdings website, http://www.SatoshiNRH.com, and the Ivy McLemore & Associates website, http://www.ivymclemore.com.

In addition to his real-life identity, Nakamoto will use My Reveal to divulge such facts as his country of origin, education, professional background, and why he has yet to move any of his 980,000 bitcoins.

Indicative of the compelling evidence he presents in each part of the series, Nakamoto will illustrate the role that cyphers and encryption related to his devotion to Chaldean numerology played in many decisions in his creation of Bitcoin.

Nakamoto also will disclose why he chose the date August 18 not only to register bitcoin.org in 2008, but also to release Part I of My Reveal this coming Sunday on the 11th anniversary of his registration of bitcoin.org through AnonymousSpeech.com.

Nakamotos revelations will culminate Tuesday in Part III with his introduction of Tabula Rasa, his clean-slate vision for Bitcoins transformational rebirth, and the declaration of his identity.

The final two parts of Nakamotos My Reveal will post to http://www.SatoshiNRH.com and http://www.ivymclemore.com on Monday and Tuesday at 4 p.m. EDT.

About Satoshi Nakamoto Renaissance (SNR) Holdings

Satoshi Nakamoto Renaissance (SNR) Holdings is in the business of providing superior Blockchain technologies to help transform peoples lives. For more information, please visit http://www.SatoshiNRH.com or follow @SatoshiNRH on Twitter.

About Ivy McLemore & Associates

Ivy McLemore & Associates (IM&A) is a digital marketing and PR agency that specializes in serving investment management and cryptocurrency clients seeking to gain and maintain a competitive edge. For more information, please visit http://www.ivymclemore.com.

CONTACT: Ivy McLemorePHONE: 212.323.2774EMAIL: satoshiPR@ivymclemore.comWEB: http://www.ivymclemore.com

Link:

Visionary Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto to Reveal Identity

Bitcoin Reaches Its Highest In More Than 2 Months – Forbes

Posted on by

Bitcoin rallied today, rising to its most in more than two months.

Bitcoin prices rallied today, reaching their loftiest value since mid-November as the broader market pushed higher.

The digital currency climbed to $8,848.92 at roughly 1:15 p.m. EST, according to CoinDesk data.

At this point, the cryptocurrency was up 3.6% for the day, and was trading at its highest level since November 12th, additional CoinDesk figures reveal.

The digital asset has been following a broad, upward trend for the last several days, pushing higher after reaching a 2020 low of $6852.09 on January 3rd.

[Ed note: Investing in cryptocoins or tokens is highly speculative and the market is largely unregulated. Anyone considering it should be prepared to lose their entire investment.]

When explaining bitcoins recent gains, analysts cited both technical and fundamental factors.

Christopher Brookins, founder and CIO atValiendero Digital Assets, spoke to these developments.

The sharp move is the confluence of uptick in fundamentals and technicals, he stated.

I think the bottom is firmly in, said Brookins, pointing to the strong uptick in bitcoins hash rate and his analysis of the Hurst exponent, a momentum indicator that helps determine the strength of a trend.

The digital currency was very oversold at the end of Q4, he added.

Joe DiPasquale, CEO of cryptocurrency hedge fund managerBitBull Capital, offered a similar perspective, also stating that bitcoins recent gains were driven by a mix of fundamental and technical factors.

First, the digital currency appreciated during the US-Iran tensions, going from $6,860 to $8,460, he stated.

This move took it above our previously cited support level at $7,700.

Then, new developments in Craig Wright's legal battle fueled speculations regarding him being Satoshi Nakamoto (and potentially having control over the billions worth of initially mined Bitcoins), pushing up Bitcoin SV, and by association, Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin, noted DiPasquale.

More specifically, there are rumors circulating that Wright has received the final keys for him to unlock the so-called Tulip Trust, which supposedly holds more than 1.1 million units of bitcoin.

Bitcoin SV has skyrocketed lately, its price up more than 90% in the last 24 hours at the time of this report, CoinMarketCap figures showed.

However, this rally is a completely speculative move, said Tim Enneking,managing director ofDigital Capital Management.

Short-Term Outlook

Going forward, market observers might benefit from watching a handful of key price levels, noted analysts.

Persistent buying momentum (at the moment, it looks like RSI will push towards 80) has allowed bitcoin to retest/break key resistance of $8442 and is currently completing a Kumo breakout, said Brookins.

If that holds, it would confirm a resumption of the bull trend, he stated.

However, Brookins added that in classic crypto form, bitcoin is trying to regain all of its Q4 loses in 2 weeks.

So, it's overbought right now, but I wouldn't stand in front of the train for a reversal just yet.

As long as $8442 (now support) holds after RSI decompresses, the bulls are in control again, stated Brookins.

Ramak J. Sedigh, founder & CEO of Plouton Mining, also weighed in.

A quick look at the trading volume shows a huge increase parallel to the price increases, he stated.

So unless we break out of the 8800 and 9000 resistance levels this is just another price manipulation - intentional or not. So its bound to come back to re-test the lows.

For now, bitcoins recent price rally looks too much too quickly, he stated.

Disclosure: I own some bitcoin, bitcoin cash, litecoin, ether and EOS.

View original post here:

Bitcoin Reaches Its Highest In More Than 2 Months - Forbes

Listicle: 5 Bitcoin Lightning Games you need to know – Sahiwal Tv

Posted on by

1. Lightning Duel

"This protocol is not big enough for both of us." The working subject for Lightning duel have now been. Because, due to the fact title indicates, the Satoshi mini game takes us to your crazy western. The online game advertises a 48 % fair possiblity to win the Mexican standoff and twice as much Satoshi bet.

Rien ne va plus: Another way to gamble hard earned Satoshi provides Thunder Sats, Roulette simulation just allows tough money wagers, specifically BTC. Minimum bet is 100 Satoshi then every thing on black colored!

If you have got a handful of satoshi from the large advantage, it is possible to join Unlock to try one's luck. The purpose of the overall game would be to click the proper hair and twice as much victory of 50 Satoshi each. But be mindful: in the event that you click many times, you shed every thing.

As long as the celebrated history of this Bitcoin dad continues to be confusing, the folklore around Satoshi Nakamoto must not end. Where is Nakamoto? joins the look for the writer of this Bitcoin white report and transforms it into a mini-game.

If you may be fortunate to get the best area, youll be richly compensated. The primary reward, Satoshi Nakamoto himself, is just provided when within the 16 by 16 area. For this, the lifter of this prize beckons an astonishing 18,000 satoshi.

The gameplay of RGB slot really is easy: deposit Satoshi, spot a wager and a cure for best. Because in the event that player achieves the best shade combo, profits trend. The much more improbable the result, the larger the entrainment logically. If you make the leap early adequate, you have got a good possibility of going house or apartment with even more Satoshi than were used.

As within the genuine casino, nevertheless, the exact same also pertains to the Bitcoin counterpart: in the long run, the financial institution constantly wins. As only a little gimmick, the provides tend to be great. Prove that little programs could be constructed on Lightning very quickly after all. However, users shouldnt be lured to wager bigger amounts.

See the original post:

Listicle: 5 Bitcoin Lightning Games you need to know - Sahiwal Tv

Bitcoin Hovers Around $8,700 As Poll Suggests $20,000 Bitcoin Price – Toshi Times

Posted on by

The cryptocurrency market is trading mostly sideways today, after some gains earlier in the week. At the moment of writing, the price of Bitcoin is trading at $8,697. However, although the price of Bitcoin is hovering around $8,700, a fresh poll suggests it may have a massive upside.

As it often the case, Bitcoins performance is dictating that of the larger cryptocurrency market. According to statistics from COIN360, the market is evenly split between intraday gains and losses.

However, perhaps the most notable crypto market news of the past week has been the meteoric rise of Bitcoin SV. Bitcoin SV is currently the fifth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. Whats more, the coin rose from well under $200 a few days ago to a high of roughly $440.

Although the coins price has since fallen, to a price of $317 at the time of writing, this still represents a massive price increase. The exact reason as to Bitcoin SVs dramatic price increase is not clear.

However, some suggest that rumors that Craig Wright could execute a massive Bitcoin sell-off and instead invest in his fork of choice, Bitcoin SV. This rumor was tied to the recent news that time is running out for Wright to prove he is Satoshi Nakamoto if he wants to escape legal sanctions.

The Bitcoin SV pump saw the cryptocurrency briefly overtake Bitcoin Cash as the fourth-largest crypto in the market. Although Bitcoin SV has since fallen, it will be interesting to see whether this was a tease of future market moves.

In Bitcoin news, however, a recent poll says that Bitcoins true value could be $20,000. This poll was undertaken by the economist and crypto analyst Alex Krger.

Moreover, he committed the poll over Twitter, which means it isnt entirely scientific. It is, nevertheless, interesting to take into account.

In it, a total of 4,079 people were asked regarding their sentiment for the premier cryptocurrency. A total of 47.1% of those asked regarding the cryptocurrency were adamant that Bitcoin will surpass its all-time high of roughly $20,000 by the end of this year.

Only a mere 14.8% of the respondent thought that Bitcoins price would be anywhere below $11,499 by the end of 2020.

Public sentiment does not decide everything, but it is an important factor for investment appetite. As such, it will be interesting to see whether Alex Krgers poll pans out.

Published January 16, 2020January 16, 2020

Go here to see the original:

Bitcoin Hovers Around $8,700 As Poll Suggests $20,000 Bitcoin Price - Toshi Times

Kraken CEO believes privacy coins will become widely accepted. – Coinnounce

Posted on by

Kraken CEO Jesse Powell, in a conversation with crypto and privacy advocate Naomi Brockwell, said that there are a lot of legitimate reasons to have financial privacy. He believes privacy coins such as Monero and Dash serve an important person, and it will take a lot of time for governments to understand the benefits of it.

Jesse Powell also emphasized on the importance of educating lawmakers and regulators about the importance and rationale of cryptocurrencies. When asked about the regulations around privacy coins, Powell replied that financial privacy is like a fundamental right. For example, an employer should not be able to track what employees spend their money on. He said that bitcoin transactions can be traced, and substantial information can be retrieved, and thats why privacy coins are important.

Kraken CEO, when asked about the importance of decentralized exchanges, replied that it would be nice to have DEXs there as we have already seen at least one case of a regulator going after a DEX creator, and in future, we will see more of that. He added that most DEXs are out there in the open, and it is known who the development teams are where they are. He further noted that a story like Satoshi Nakamoto is needed for a successful DEX so the regulators can not throw him in jail or ask to change the protocol.

Go here to see the original:

Kraken CEO believes privacy coins will become widely accepted. - Coinnounce

If Bitcoin is digital gold, theres room for other things: Balaji Srinivasan – AMBCrypto

Posted on by

Satoshi Nakamoto was not a troll. Satoshi Nakamoto was calm, cool, pragmatic and pro-technology. He avoided confrontation, he avoided confrontation of WikiLeaks, and he never yelled at anybody, asserted former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan, while addressing the controversy surrounding Nakamoto.com and its choice of name.

Nakamoto [the publication, and not Satoshi] was subjected to massive criticism from many in the community, soon after it launched in January, with many taking issue with the website being named after the creator of the worlds largest cryptocurrency.

On the latest episode of Unqualified Podcast hosted by Messaris Ryan Selkis, Srinivasan defended the publication and stated that with Nakamoto, he wants to create a community where everybody can win. Talking about the cryptocurrency industry and the age-long discourse and the ideological split between Bitcoin and altcoins, the former exec said,

If you think of Bitcoin as digital gold, I do think there is room for other things. I dont really want to argue that with people who think its a zero-sum game.. There are zero-sum games, but I dont think this is one

Srinivasan added,

Our philosophy is Bitcoin and and not Bitcoin or. And that is actually where the community is in practice. At Coinbase, no matter what community I met with, they may be in privacy coins, they may be in smart contracts platform, everybody knew, respected and held Bitcoin.

Apart from the name, another aspect that was hotly debated after the launch of Nakamoto.com was the list of contributors who came together from different backgrounds and identified themselves as pro-Bitcoin, with a lot of criticism leveled against BCH proponent Roger Ver and Ethereums Vitalik Buterin.

Follow this link:

If Bitcoin is digital gold, theres room for other things: Balaji Srinivasan - AMBCrypto

Predictions for the 2020s, From a Futurist, a Trend Forecaster and an Astrologer – Vogue

Posted on by

Astrologically, the new decade really doesnt start until the end of this year, on December 21. Every 20 years, Saturn and Jupiter meet. I have learned theyre happy to see each other. They set the tone for the coming 20 years, for culture, for fashion, for government, for literature, for the pace of our days, and our focus.

Jupiter and Saturn are important because theyre in the middle of the solar system. For the past 200 years, theyve always met in earth signs. It was Taurus, and Virgo, and Capricorn. This year, we have a name for it astrologers always call everything terrible namesits called the Grand Mutation. It sounds like the Ebola virus, but its not. Thats when theres a change in element. Saturn and Jupiter are going into air [signs]. Theyre aligning in Aquarius. It has a pretty huge effect on civilization.

The past 200 years, we saw the assembly line, the booming of manufacturing, and the industrial age. These are all earthy things, things you can buy, see, and touch. Now, when we move into the next 20 years where Aquarius is going to dominate, it will be the real flowering of the Age of Aquarius, like the 1960sflower power children. Its a lighter influence, a nonmaterialistic sign.

What Im really excited about is Aquarius likes to work in groups. To tackle big problems, like the environment, people will work across nations. It will no longer be, Well, the United States against France, against Germany, against China. No. These countries will work together in teams to tackle big problems that affect us all. Are the robots coming? Yes. But also, some very wonderful things with medicine.

Saturn, right now, is in Capricorn. Whenever you get a lot of Capricorn planets, you always get a conservative wind blowing through the world. You see it with Brexit, you see it here. In the late 80s and early 90s, there were a lot of planets in Capricorn. We had George Bush as president, and Ronald Reagan. We did in 2016, and Mr. Trump got in. With the next election, its sort of half and half, so its way too early to call. Its not destiny. People say, Whos going to win? I have no idea. We have to vote.

In 1982, Saturn and Jupiter met in an air sign. For the next 20 years, they were in air. Babies born in those years, from 1982 to 2000, those babies are going to lead the brigade into the future.

More:

Predictions for the 2020s, From a Futurist, a Trend Forecaster and an Astrologer - Vogue

Healthcare Innovator and Futurist to Benefitfocus One Place 2020 – AiThority

Posted on by

Rubin Pillay, MD, PhD to Discuss Healthcare 3.0 at Benefits Technology and Business Conference

Benefitfocus, Inc., a leading cloud-based benefits management platform and services provider, announced that Rubin Pillay, MD, PhD, Professor of Healthcare Innovation and medical futurist, will speak during the annualOne Place Conference.Benefitfocus benefits technology and business conference will be held onMarch 17-19inCharleston, SC.

Read More: The Future of Works Most Crucial Component: Artificial Intelligence

Were excited to welcome Dr. Pillay to our largest, most innovative event of the year. His background as a medical futurist and his 30-year career in healthcare as a clinician, academic and innovator make him well-suited to speak to the rapidly evolving healthcare space and the future of benefits during a pivotal time for change, saidRay August, Benefitfocus President and CEO. Our mission is to simplify employee benefits for everyone by bringing the entire benefits ecosystem together consumers, brokers, employers and carriers. Dr. Pillays experience brings a unique perspective to discussing dynamics and exploring innovative solutions to the toughest industry challenges.

Read More: What is Chinas Password Law and What it Means for the Blockchain Industry?

Dr. Pillay joins retired Air Force Col.Nicole Malachowski, the first woman on the Thunderbirds Air Demonstration Squadron and a White House Fellow and Adviser, andPhil Hansen, an internationally recognized multimedia artist, speaker and author. Dr. Pillay will present onWednesday, March 18, at9:00 a.m., on Healthcare 3.0: How Technology is Driving the Transition to Prosumers, Platforms and Outsurance.

Read More: Visa Acquires Plaid for $5.3 Billion; Pledges to Build a Secured Digital Fintech Ecosystem Globally

Read more:

Healthcare Innovator and Futurist to Benefitfocus One Place 2020 - AiThority

These Researchers Want You to Live In a Fungus Megastructure – Futurism

Posted on by

Imagine that you roll out of bed onto a living fungus floor. The walls and ceiling heck, the whole apartment building, down to the plumbing and electrical systems are made of fungus too. Wood and concrete are remnants of the distant past; this entire city, from the schools to the stores to the hospitals, is made ofliving fungus constantly growing, dying off and regenerating itself.

Thats the visionlaid out in a provocative new paper, which a team of European academics say is the first-ever exploration of living fungus potential as a raw material for futuristic, eco-friendly monolithic structures that would, in their telling, revolutionize the entire built environment and economy.

We propose to develop a structural substrate by using live fungal mycelium, reads the paper. Fungal buildings will self-grow, build, and repair themselves.

The idea is a response to the prospect of catastrophic climate change. Growing our building materials from biological materials, the theory goes, would makeconstruction less dependent on fossil fuels and environmentally-destructive mining operations.

Fungal materials can have a wide variety of mechanical properties ranging from foam-like to wood-like to polymer-like to elastomer-like, Han Wsten, a microbiologist at The Netherlands Utrecht University who co-authored the not-yet-peer-reviewed paper, told Futurism. The fact that we can make wood-like materials implies that we can use it for the building industry.

Along with other forms of living materials, fungal architecture is not a new idea other research groups have explored the idea of growing building materials out of mycelium. NASA,for instance, is currently testingwhether fungus could grow in Martian soil, potentially giving the space agency a low-cost way to grow space habitats onsite.

But those projects all involve killing the fungus after it grows, a process that makes it sturdier as a building material that the team says has already been used for load-bearing structures or boundary walls.

So far, they say, no one else has explored the possibility of building monolithic structures out of living fungus.

The selling point of our materials is that it is biodegradable, thereby helping to create a circular economy, Wsten said. At the same time, it should not degrade when actually used as a building material. We can work around this apparent paradox by coating the material. In fact, we also coat wood with paint of oils to protect it against degradation.

It may be that we will find a fungus that creates wood-like materials without the need of pressing, he said.

Even with a coating, Wsten went on to explain, the goal is to keep the fungal architecture alive so that an architect could rejuvenate it with water and trigger further growth if repairs or alternations were necessary. Those same coatings, the team says, could be used to capitalize on the fungus internal structure of networks to replace things like a buildings plumbing, electrical wiring, or other logistical needs.

Important to note: those ideas, like much of the teams research, remain fairly speculative.

Andrew Adamatzky, a computer scientist at the University of the West of England who also co-authored the paper, told Futurism that the team is working to build fungal versions of neuromorphic circuits and other electronics. He conceded that conventional wires are cheaper and easier to work with, but added that the living circuits will be self-growing, self-assembling and self-repairing, which no traditional circuitry can do.

This is really challenging, but a real opportunity to explore how buildings could grow, self-repair, adapt and disrupt conventional ways of building production by working with highly local resources and growing in-situ to minimize logistics and energy use in material production, said Phil Ayres, a co-author of the paper from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, aiming towards a circular economy for construction.

More on living materials: Scientists Create Living Concrete That Can Heal Itself

See more here:

These Researchers Want You to Live In a Fungus Megastructure - Futurism