Monthly Archives: May 2022

Rural community college helps bring opioid crisis conversation out into the open – Northern Public Radio (WNIJ)

Posted: May 25, 2022 at 4:04 am

U.S. overdose deaths are at an all-time high. There were more than 100,000 overdose deaths in the United States from December 2020 to December 2021.

LaSalle County has one of the highest overdose death rates in Illinois. It also has high rates of opioid-related hospitalizations and emergency department visits.

But, even in the face of those statistics, the opioid crisis is often still described as a secret hidden in plain sight. Illinois Valley Community Colleges recent One Book, One College project tried to bring that secret out into the light.

Jayna Leipart Guttilla is the colleges collection, development and access librarian. She helped organize this years One Book initiative focused on the book Death in Mud Lick by Eric Eyre, which illustrates how opioids took over a West Virginia mining community.

The book was a jumping-off point to delve into conversations about how the epidemic started and what it looks like in Illinois. Leipart Guttilla calls it less of a book club and more of a set of community meetings with students, faculty and experts.

We are an hour away from any other [higher] educational institution. So we are we reach many people in rural areas, much more than I was initially aware of, she said. You read articles about the opioid epidemic, but what does that mean? It's just words on a page. When you hear the stories of families of people who were loved and cared for who have passed, it really takes on another dimension.

IVCC teamed up with local harm reduction and recovery organization Perfectly Flawed. Its founder Luke Tomsha was an injection drug user for over 14 years and is now trying to build a safe place for people navigating substance use or a path to recovery.

There's so much stigma out there related to substance use, and we've criminalized drug users," he said. "For so long, we've criminalized human behavior when, in fact, we needed to support the people who are struggling."

That perception of people with Substance Use Disorder is why Tomsha says education is so vital. And creating an empathetic environment with IVCC for the community to share their experiences made One Book all the more impactful.

Lori Brown also joined the colleges project. Shes the founder of Buddys Purpose -- an overdose awareness group she created after she lost her son to an overdose. IVCC center for accessibility and neuro diversitys Tina Hardy says hearing Lori and Luke inspired other people to talk about their and their familys experiences with addictive behavior.

We had one of our nursing instructors step forward and tell her story that she said she really hasn't told," said Hardy. "I thought that was really remarkable of her to step out and publicly put that out there. But I think it also helps our students, in the long run, appreciate who we have here and maybe foster closer connections.

She said it was a challenge to engage students, especially when they started and events were mostly online, but eventually, they had students ask really good questions. It helped that Death in Mud Lick author Eric Eyre reached out to Illinois Valley and participated in their analysis of his book.

Conversations around Death In Mud Lick led to a discussion about issues like unethical prescribing practices. It hit close to home. In 2018, a LaSalle County physician was sentenced to 12 years in prison for the illegal distribution of opioids.

But with a crisis with so many layers, they couldnt cover everything. Tomsha says continuing education is crucial.

There are so many racial disparities in the war on drugs as well that we didn't even touch on in the book," he said. "In predominately white communities, we might not think it affects us, but it does."

This Spring, Gov. J.B. Pritzker unveiled an Overdose Action Plan to limit opioid overdoses. Tomsha was one of the few people with lived experience on the states Opioid Overdose Prevention & Recovery Steering Committee that made recommendations for the report.

Now, he says, its about implementation and more education around issues like the Fentanyl-tainted drug supply, harm reduction techniques and life-saving medications like Naloxone.

Even though Illinois Valleys One Book, One College project on Death In Mud Lick is over, Jayna Leipart Guttilla says the conversations cant stop.

It affects more people than you realize. It certainly affects people in my family," she said. "And it's not something I would necessarily want to talk about. But I felt so empowered by the work that we did. I was really so honored to have the space to discuss these issues that are affecting people and that they don't have to feel shame about.

Tomsha says anyone using substances, seeking support, or treatment can find Perfectly Flaweds text and call line at perfectlyflawed.org.

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‘We Own This City’ Episode 5 Recap: Show Me a Hero – Decider

Posted: at 4:04 am

In other hands, We Own This City would be a black comedy rather than a drama. I mean, how else can you interpret the thousand sins by which the men of the Gun Trace Task Force went about their job of shaking people down under the cover of their badges? They pull a guy over on his way home from picking up pizza. They do Take Your Child to Work Day during what amounts to an armed robbery. They show up to work late and collect thousands of dollars in overtime. Their ringleader, Wayne Jenkins, pretends to be with the US attorneys office in order to shake down an arrestee. It isnt hard to imagine these developments being deployed as punchlines. The shows greatest strength, I think, is refusing to do sotreating these ridiculous developments at he grievous crimes against American citizens that they really are.

But theres a deeper problem with We Own This City, one that transcends its strengths and weaknesses as agitprop or institutional critique, and its on full display in this weeks episode. Dramatically speaking, what We Own This City lacks is characters.

Oh sure, there are plenty of people in the show, some of whose names you might even be able to remember from one week to the next. But the vast majority of those people can be split into one of two camps: exposition givers and exposition receivers.

Many of the shows most prominent rolesinvestigators Sieracki, Jensen, and Wise; DOJ employees Steele and Jacksonfall into the latter category; their role is simply to interview or interrogate other people about what the hell is going on, so that we in the audience can learn.

Then theres the other camp, the exposition givers. Crooked cops like Gondo and Rayam and Ward, people in power like the mayor and the chief of police, guest stars like Treat Williamss cop-turned-professor Brian Grabler: They respond to the interrogators and interviewers questions to deliver information that the show then passes along to us viewers.

Both halves of the equation are dramatically inert. Theres the occasional flash of human interest I suppose, like Jensens flute playing (Sieracki, predictably, asks if she knows any Jethro Tull), but for the most part these people are walking, breathing Wikipedia articles or Baltimore Sun investigations. They dont function the way characters in a drama are supposed to, living and changing and growing and surprising us.

Those qualities are reserved for just a precious few figures on the show. Wayne Jenkins is the most obvious case, and boy oh boy does the episode ever come alive in the rare instances when he shows up on screen, blasting the Geto Boys in his patrol car or testing a young cops willingness to break the rules. (The kid says fuck no, and sure enough, hes bounced out of the squad.)

Hersl, Jenkinss colleague and a legendarily brutal cop in his own right, is another possible exceptiona dark folk hero, a reverse Robin Hood who steals from the poor to give to himself. On the flipside, theres Sean Suiter, the honest cop who greatly benefits from actor Jamie Hectors magnetic screen presence. If theres any justice in the world, artistically speaking, Suiter and Jenkins will get into at least one major throwdown before the end.

But unfortunately, there is little justice in the world, inside or outside the small screen, and Jenkins and Suiters respective fates are already written in stone. If only the series starring them both could have properly immortalized them by giving them a fertile dramatic environment in which to live, instead of rattling off talking points.

And theres still the nagging question of whether those talking points go far enough. Grabler, the scholarly cop, claims that everything changed for the police when the phrase war on drugs was deployed, positioning police as a colonizing force in a war against the very citizens its ostensibly their job to protect. But take a look at the behavior of cops across the country prior to the War on Drugs terminology. Would you say that, broadly speaking, the cops bashing heads in Selma or Newark were on the side of the people? Of course not! So why do David Simon and George Pelecanos say it? Who are you gonna believe, them or your lying eyes?

Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.

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Russia, SpaceX, and Electronic Warfare: Its Dj Vu All Over Again – The Defense Post

Posted: at 4:03 am

Dave Tremper, who oversees electronic warfare from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, recentlysharedthe Department of Defense was impressed with SpaceXs ability to rapidly thwart a Russian electronic attack on their Starlink constellation.

He said that from the EW [electronic warfare] technologists perspective, that is fantastic, and that how they did that was eye-watering.

He later stated that this agility is something the US military needs. I agree with that; however, with his earlier comments, not so much.

Were SpaceXs efforts impressive? Yes.

Was this eye-watering? No.

Was this even EW? Debatable.

To be blunt, SpaceXs actions have been learned and relearned by numerous EW warriors over time. Those lessons, however, never seem to generate traction beyond observation and then a distant memory.

As one of many examples: on September 1, 2001, I pinned on Major and was appointed Wing Weapons Officer to the 355thfor the EC-130H Compass Call. Just days later, our nation was attacked.

As the Wing Weapons Officer, I pointed out that one of our newly installed jammers had the physical ability to counter a heavily used Taliban communications system.

However, the air force had not paid for the associated software, inhibiting the operator from employing the systems full range. My point was noted and appeared to be dismissed.

We were soon flying combat missions over Afghanistan. I continued to raise the issue until someone with enough power heard my plea.

Quickly, Air Combat Command, Air Staff, and others scrambled to respond. They sent the software engineer who designed the weapon system. Before each mission launch, he cracked open the operational flight program normally taboo.

He rewrote the code daily, creating an opportunity for the aircrew to use the system to its full ability. I had never seen such a thing.

Through my time deployed, I truly enjoyed speaking with this man. He was nearly a doppelganger of the Grateful DeadsJerry Garcia. During our talks, hed share stories of the amazing capabilities of this jammer (and others) and how other engineer friends lamented over true EW possibilities. I ate up every word.

After months deployed, I returned to the US and was asked by the lead weapon system contractor to speak to their engineers.This request raised massive red flags across senior military staff, far senior to my position as a major.

Their concern? An operator speaking directly to engineers could only mean one thing: more money. To this day, some associated with the weapon system at the military commands are still angered by this.

Thats my Starlink story, and while it may be new to some, it likely isnt all that different to many others across the EW world. Ive personally heard many.

Id also say the tactic employed by SpaceX wasnt all that unique. They employed the mass Principle of War; they flooded the zone, a tactic used in football, basketball, chess, checkers, and many others.

In fairness, Tremper is justified in raising the issue of SpaceX and Starlink, albeit, I think for different reasons.

First, the distance between operators and engineers at SpaceX is extremely short. From my experience, this is quite different in the US military.

As a young officer, I was often stifled from even commenting on capabilities engineers would discuss. It was akin to a child told to ignore all the candy in Wonkas Chocolate Factory.

Perhaps this is different in other military communities outside of electronic warfare, I can only speak from my experience.

Secondly, while I was happy to seeElon Muskand Starlink rapidly thwart Russian jamming, its worth pointing out it took a guy with (forgive my language) FU Money to make it happen.

More to the point, consider this hypothetical. Suppose Starlink was a military program, and the DoD asked the contractor to flood satellites over Ukraine.

Id suggest this is how that unfolds. After a few days, a well-prepared stack of papers laying out the cost of contracting, engineering, satellite recoding, satellite movement from optimum orbits, etcetera would be placed on a high-level officials desk in the Pentagon.

The total cost would likely exceed what the DoD would be willing to resource. Even if the DoD wanted to take such action, they probably wouldnt have immediate access to funds to execute.

The result? The departments answer would be, Thanks, but we will just work through the jamming.

Third, SpaceX engineers compensations are far better than the vast majority of their counterparts working for or in support of the DoD.

It also appears that there are far fewer engineers at SpaceX, relative to mission size and scope. Most have decision-making authority and are not blanketed under layers and layers of bureaucracy. Money, however, is only a portion of the issue.

For newly graduating engineer students, two of the top three companies identified as their dream job were Tesla and SpaceX. These companies get their pick of the litter and the chance to groom the cream of the crop.

While SpaceX has a vertically integrated, leaned out manpower, gave decision-making authority to the lowest levels, and created a competitive market for highly specialized skills, what has DoD EW done?

Arguably, gone the other way. Specific to the US Air Force, there are no longer Electronic Warfare Officers intensely trained on theelectromagnetic spectrum (EMS); instead, there are now hybrid Combat Systems Operators who receive generalized training across various disciplines.

At the DoD, there are more people associated with EW, however, most of them are tangential and have other higher priority responsibilities. Additionally, most personnel are horizontally integrated, and few have decision authority.

My point is not to criticize the US Air Force or DoD. There are benefits and reasons for the steps theyve taken.

However, Im pointing out that DoD leadership likely cant have their cake and eat it too. Specifically, they cant expect to mimic Starlinks EMS warriors if they arent willing to mimic SpaceXs from and funding, organizational, and staffing perspective.

While I realize some will see this article critical of those currently in EW leadership, Id ask they see past my harsh tone. Im appreciative theres an EW discussion at Trempers level and that it made it into media. On some levels, thats a win.

I am also hopeful conduits between operators and engineers can be fostered, with Congressional appropriators or authorizers creating funding for good ideas beyond the bounds of those in the Pentagon and the Major Command who only see turmoil when operators and engineers meet.

And my final hope, if my EW Jerry Garcia is still out there, Id love to link back up and hoist a beer. I truly miss our discussions and enjoyed every minute we had together. You know who you are, even if the world doesnt, and your efforts made the Taliban a lonely, isolated bunch. Our nation owes you a huge debt for being a plain-clothes civilian who came forward to fight.

Colonel (Retired)Jeffrey H. Fischer(@JeffFisch), US Air Force, is a 30-year Military Aviator, Electronic Warfare Officer with seven combat tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Balkans.

He flew both the Air Forces EC-130H Compass Call and the EA-6B Prowler while on a joint exchange with the US Navy, seeing considerable combat time in both airframes.

Additionally, Jeff served as a Defense Official at the US Embassy in Kosovo.

Jeff holds a masters degree from National Defense University and is the author ofLIVE RANGE. All royalties fromthis fiction thrillerwill go to Ukrainian Relief Efforts.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the US government.

The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of The Defense Post.

The Defense Post aims to publish a wide range of high-quality opinion and analysis from a diverse array of people do you want to send us yours?Click hereto submit an op-ed.

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SpaceX launch will send cremated remains of loved ones into space on Wednesday – WFTV Orlando

Posted: at 4:03 am

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. Families from around the country will be watching SpaceXs upcoming ride-share mission tomorrow with special interest.

Thats because its also a memorial flight.

On Wednesday, SpaceX will launch its latest ride-share mission, Transporter-5, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Among the numerous small satellites headed into orbit is a Celestis memorial spaceflight mission, called the Ascension Flight.

Celestis is set to fly a portion of the cremated remains of 47 people into space.

Participants will be launched into Earth orbit with a satellite. Theyll stay attached to that satellite that orbits the Earth for at least a decade, said Celestis CEO and co-founder Charles Chafer.

On Tuesday, those families held a memorial service to honor their loved ones before tomorrows mission.

Read: Brevard family honors a loved one, plans to launch his remains into space

A small portion of Marjorie Duftons cremated remains will be making the trip. Her son Michael told Channel 9 she was a trailblazer.

She had been invited to participate in the womens space program for the Mercury Program back in the early 60s. Before she was actually able to get into the program itself, they disbanded the entire womens program. That was one of her biggest disappointments in life although she went on to achieve many, many, things. She was a real adventurer. And this is my way of fulfilling that last wish, said Michael Dufton.

Read: Texas school shooting live updates: 14 students, 1 teacher, gunman dead in Uvalde

Melissa Teston hopes to do the same for her brother, Derek Yanes. The Tampa native would watch the Florida skies for rocket launches. Yanes was born with a condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia that kept him from joining the space program.

While he never would have met the physical capabilities of an earthly astronaut, hes able to become a heavenly astronaut, said Teston.

Read: Check your ticket: Unclaimed Florida Lottery ticket worth $100K set to expire in a week

For families, flights range from about $2,500 to $12,000, depending on the journey.

Wednesdays launch is scheduled to lift off at 2:35 p.m.

Click here to download the free WFTV news and weather apps, click here to download the WFTV Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.

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SpaceX’s 25th cargo mission to ISS launching early next month: All you need to know – Devdiscourse

Posted: at 4:03 am

NASA and SpaceX are targeting Tuesday, June 7, 2022, for the launch of the 25th cargo resupply services mission (SpaceX CRS-25) to the International Space Station (ISS).

The cargo Dragon will lift off on a Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida to deliver new science investigations, supplies, and equipment for the crew aboard the space station. This includes studies of the immune system, wound healing, soil communities, and an instrument to map the composition of Earth's dust, among others.

The SpaceX Dragon will carry the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) instrument that measures the mineral composition of dust in Earth's arid regions, creating a map that could improve understanding of how dust affects people and communities. Developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, EMIT will be installed on the exterior of the space station to map mineral dust blown into the air.

Other studies include:

More information can be found here.

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Terran Orbital Delivers The PTD-3 Satellite To Cape Canaveral SFS For Integration Into The SpaceX Transporter-5 Mission SatNews – SatNews

Posted: at 4:03 am

Terran Orbital Corporation (NYSE: LLAP) has delivered the Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator 3 (PTD-3) satellite to the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida for integration ahead of SpaceXs Transporter-5 mission.

PTD-3 is a 6-unit (6U) cubesat built and integrated by Terran Orbital to host and support launch and on-orbit operations of the TeraByte InfraRed Delivery (TBIRD) payload funded by NASAs Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program and developed by MIT Lincoln Laboratory (MITLL). The TBIRD mission is the second mission in the PTD series funded by the Small Spacecraft Technology program in NASAs Space Technology Mission Directorate.

The mission will demonstrate a space-to-ground data transfer capability at orders of magnitude faster than previously demonstrated technologies. This technology could open doors to large volume data communications and data accessibility for advanced space exploration delivering multiple terabytes of data per day to a single ground station.

Each PTD mission consists of a 6U cubesat weighing approximately 12 kilograms and measuring 36 cm 23 cm 10 cm. Each PTD spacecraft will also be equipped with deployable solar arrays that can provide a peak power of 120 watts while on-orbit.

Terran Orbital is thrilled to deliver pioneering satellite solutions that are changing the space landscape, said Terran Orbital Co-Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer, Marc Bell. PTD-3 will not only disrupt the way our Earth receives data, but also fine-tune future mission capabilities. We look forward to fostering our relationships with NASA, MITLL, and SpaceX as we continue to deliver groundbreaking technologies.

Terran Orbital is a leading manufacturer of ssmallsats primarily serving the United States aerospace and defense industry. Terran Orbital provides end-to-end satellite solutions by combining satellite design, production, launch planning, mission operations, and in-orbit support to meet the needs of the most demanding military, civil, and commercial customers. Learn more at http://www.terranorbital.com.

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Ethereum’s Buterin Has A Confession, Cathie Wood Makes Bold GDP Prediction, SpaceX Targets Sky-High Valua – Benzinga

Posted: at 4:03 am

As the market looks ahead to a new trading week during a period of volatility and a traditional lull ahead of Memorial Day, here's a recap of a few major headlines that hit the wire over the weekend.

1. Musk Harps On Twitter Spam Count: Tesla, Inc. TSLA chief executive officer Elon Musk is fixated on Twitter, Inc. TWTR spam accounts. He said in reply to a tweet that Twitter has a disincentive in reporting spam accounts, as it reduces its user numbers. Musk also suggested that Twitter's refusal to share its methodology to count spammersis making him suspicious.

2. Ethereum Founder No Longer A Billionaire: Ethereum ETH/USD founder Vitalik Buterin relayed via a tweet that he is no longer a billionaire. Buterin, who once had the distinction of beingthe youngest crypto billionaire, has apparently lost much of his fortuneamid the crypto market sell-off.

Ether, the native token of the Ethereum blockchain,has more than halved from a high of $4,859.50 on Nov.10.

Related Link: Tesla Drops To Number 2: Is Cathie Wood's Ark Invest Losing Confidence In Its Favorite Stock?

3. Cathie Wood's Sings AI's Virtues: Fund manager and Ark Invest founder Cathie Wood suggested over the weekend that artificial general intelligence has the potential to increase the year-over-year GDP growth rate from the current 3%-5% per year to 30%-50% per year in about six to 12 years, This, according to Wood, can be accomplished due to breakthroughs in AGI.

4. Consumer Electronics Demand Disappearing: Noted Apple, Inc. AAPL analystMing-Chi Kuo dropped a bombshell by suggestingthe easing of COVID lockdowns in China may not solve all the issues faced by consumer electronics companies. Demand is disappearing and is not deferred, he said.

5. SpaceX Seeks Fresh Funding: Elon Musk's SpaceX venture is reportedly looking to raise $1.725 billion in new capital that could increase the company's valuation to $127 billion. The company is exploring the sale of equity at $70 per unit, which is a 25% jump from the $56-a-share valuation that was prevailing in February, when it enacted a 10-for-1 split.

What Else: Walt Disney Company's DIS "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" continued to rule the roost for a third week in running, grossing $30 million from 4,534 theaters this weekend.

Musk's visit to Brazil and his talks with the nation's President Jair Bolsonaro regarding providing Starlink connection to rural schools and using the service for the surveillance of the Amazon rainforest also made headlines over the week.

For all the key biotech catalytic events scheduled for the week, read Benzinga's weekly preview.

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Texas Conservatives: Defenders Of Capitalism And The Free Market? Not So Much – Reform Austin

Posted: at 4:02 am

Republican leaders view social Darwinism as the leading method for developing a prosperous America. No government handouts, no government intervention. Leave the unfortunate majority to fend for themselves and let nature take its course. So long as the market represents their values.

Intervention now seems to be the winning strategy as conservative leaders strongarm corporations deviating from the path. Companies showing a semblance of support or sympathy for LGBTQ or pro-choice movements now find themselves in the crosshairs.

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick calls for conservatives to boycott the American staple, Walt Disney, after the company voiced opposition to Floridas Dont Say Gay law, which bans any reference to homosexuality in classrooms up to the fourth grade.

Cut off the Disney Channel. Cancel your park trip or your cruise if one is planned. If you own Disney stock, sell it. Although I did not own many shares of individual Disney stock, I sold them today, Patrick said.

Texas state comptroller Glenn Hegar warns Texas may need to divest all Ben & Jerrys shares due to the companys unwillingness to do business in Israels occupied West Bank

Fort Worth-based American Airlines offered a brief statement in 2021, opposing the election integrity bill that made it harder to vote. Patrick slammed the company, saying Texans are fed up with corporations that dont share our values trying to dictate public policy. He continued, saying that if Mister American Airlines still wants preferential treatment from the Legislature, it cannot turn around and slap [lawmakers] in the face.

More importantly, legislators are taking legal action to influence the behavior of businesses.

Last year, Patrick backed a bill requiring state investment and pension funds to divest from any company transitioning financial support from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

State Representative Briscoe Cain said he would bar Citigroup from underwriting municipal bonds in the state unless it reversed a policy assisting Texas employees to get abortions.

The free market doesnt seem that free.

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Humans Could Go Extinct. Here’s How and Who’s Trying to Stop It – CNET

Posted: at 4:02 am

There are days when it's hard not to wonder just how much time is left on the clock for humanity.

Whether it's war, famine, another grim report about climate change or a pandemic that's killed 6 million people to date, life on this planet can start to feel precarious. Sometimes, it all feels like an action movie entering its final act.

But is it actually possible that nearly 8 billion humans could one day disappear? That the planet could continue to spin in peace without us?

"The end of the world is such a great concept for giving shape to history," says Anders Sandberg, senior research fellow with the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford. "We want to know how it ends. We want there to be a meaning or a tragedy or a comedy. Maybe a laugh track at the end of the universe."

It turns out, scientists, scholars, policy experts and more are studying this question, trying to decipher how humanity's end could come about, and whether there's anything that can be done to prevent it.

The fact that anyone at all is worried that humans could go extinct is relatively new, says Thomas Moynihan, author of the book X-Risk: How Humanity Discovered Its Own Extinction.

There were fringe whispers in the 1700s. In the 1800s the Romantic poets picked up the idea. Mary Shelley's The Last Man was about a plague that just about killed off humanity. Few at the time were keen to read such an uplifting tale. The rise of Darwinism gave people some understanding that humans were part of a long-running chain of organisms. In 1924, Winston Churchill wrote the essay Shall We All Commit Suicide? about war's potential to destroy humans. But according to Moynihan, perhaps it wasn't until the detonation of the atomic bomb during World War II that people fully realized they might wipe themselves out.

Humans also eventually came to the realization that we might be the only ones out there exactly like us. Whatever we have, however flawed it is, could one day be lost entirely, not just from the planet, but from the universe.

"Once a species is gone, it's gone forever. Extinction is forever," Moynihan says, "We now understand the consequences of that."

There's more we can learn about where we're going as a species by looking into the past (even beyond all the pre-modern humans that are no longer with us), specifically, at the fossil record. In a 2020 article about human extinction in The Conversation, paleontologist Nick Longrich pointed out that 99.9% of all species that have ever lived on Earth are now extinct.

"Once a species is gone, it's gone forever. Extinction is forever."

Thomas Moynihan, author of X-Risk: How Humanity Discovered Its Own Extinction

So, maybe our odds aren't great. Further, humans also have some key vulnerabilities that could make it hard to survive some large-scale catastrophe -- we're these large, warm blooded animals that need a lot of food; our generations are relatively long, and we're not the most prolific of breeders, Longrich writes.

Being human also has some advantages, though.

"We're a deeply strange species -- widespread, abundant, supremely adaptable -- which all suggest we'll stick around for a while," Longrich writes, noting that humans are just about everywhere. We can adapt our diets in ways other species can't, and we can learn, and change our behaviors.

Those who work in the field of existential risk are nudging people in the present day to do just that: learn from and change our behaviors.

The Future of Life Institute is a Boston-based outreach organization that focuses on how to avoid making big, species-ending mistakes with technology. FLI's advisory board is packed with plenty of names from institutions like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, and Cambridge University, plus Elon Musk, Morgan Freeman and Alan Alda, for good measure.

Over the phone, Senior Advisor for Government Affairs Jared Brown tells me about something called the Collingridge Dilemma. When a new technology is developed, we see the benefits. Fire, for example, was great at keeping us warm and keeping predators away. By the time a technology becomes ingrained in the way a society functions, we start to learn about the downsides -- like burning down villages. Or, you know, three square miles of Chicago in 1871. On the whole, though, we mostly take the good and the bad together. A lot of people die in car wrecks every year, but we still drive cars.

Some lessons you don't get to learn twice.

"That works up until the point where some of the dangers are potentially catastrophic or existential. And you don't get to learn a lesson twice," Brown says.

When FLI looks at its four main existential threats -- artificial intelligence, climate change, nuclear weapons and biotechnology -- tech sits at the core of all of those, even going back to the invention of the combustion engine.

That's why groups like FLI are trying to get the powers that be, like lawmakers, to build safeguards now before we need them.

It's not always easy to talk to people about a subject that's somehow big and scary but also abstract enough not to be an immediate concern. Could a rogue AI intended to maximize paper clip production one day decide that humans are slowing down the process and must be eliminated? Eh, maybe. But it's not going to happen next week.

"The natural instinct is, 'That's somebody else's problem'... [or] even, 'If I believe you, what the heck am I going to do about it?'" Brown says.

In an unsettling turn, the pandemic has brought a bit of recency bias into the equation, he says. Perhaps it feels less like alarmist hand-wringing to worry about an event that seemingly came out of nowhere and affected every person on the planet.

For FLI, the point isn't so much about watching a countdown to disaster.

He said they don't need to know the exact likelihood that something could happen in the next 30 years to know there's enough uncertainty about the risk that it should be dealt with.

Despite those four major risk areas, mercifully there's no guarantee that a disaster would take out every single person on the planet. It's a small comfort, but as Sandberg puts it, "You can totally imagine someone holed up in a Walmart with a can opener."

As long as whatever disaster, or confluence of disasters, that befalls us leaves behind at least a few survivors, there could be hope. How many humans it would take for humanity to pull through remains up for debate. Depending who you ask, it could be from a thousand on up. Those people would still have to survive whatever other challenges cropped up along the way.

Stainless steel preservation chambers inside Alcor's facility.

"We still don't really understand the resiliencies of our societies," Sandberg says.

As impossibly grim as humans' prospects may look, even some of those people who ponder existential risk every day don't think humans are entirely down and out. At least not yet.

One key difference between humans and every other living thing on the planet is that humans have the ability to change their opinions of the world and to course-correct, Moynihan says. But just because we can change our ways, doesn't mean we always do.

"I think the future could be better in ways that we can't even comprehend," he says, "But that doesn't mean that it will be. What's worth fighting for is that ability for us to revise ourselves, correct the errors of the past, and continue muddling through."

Sandberg, meanwhile, wears a stainless steel medal on a chain around his neck everywhere he goes. He thinks of it as a secular St. Christopher medal -- the patron saint of travelers. Instead of featuring the third-century saint, this medal has instructions on what to do with Sandberg's body if he dies.

Pump it full of heparin; freeze quickly.

Sandberg's head is set to be frozen by the Alcor Life Extension Foundation and, ideally, revived in some far-off era.

The decision to join Alcor was made, in part, out of curiosity about what the future will be like -- pending many, many questions, both practical and existential as to whether this experiment works -- and to some extent, a dash of faith in the future.

"I am an optimist," Sandberg says, "the future could be awesome. I think the world is actually really good. And it could be even better, much better, which means that we have a reason to try to safeguard the future."

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Humans Could Go Extinct. Here's How and Who's Trying to Stop It - CNET

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Travis Barker Took Off Kourtney Kardashian’s Wedding Garter With His Teeth – Cosmopolitan

Posted: at 4:01 am

Unless you were under a rock all weekend, you know Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker officially got married (for real this time!) in a swanky, romantic Italian villa. Casual! Naturally, the whole weekend was ~a thing~ full of numerous outfit changes, and a reception that was held inwait for ita *literal* castle.

But of course, it wouldn't be a Kravis wedding without a buttload of PDA, and even though the newlyweds aren't necessarily considered traditionalists, they did partake in a usual wedding custom: the removing of the bride's garter. Because they are who they are, Travis slid down his wife while she was standing in a super sexy black version of her wedding gown and removed her thigh-high lace garter with his teeth. And Travis's 16-year-old daughter Alabama caught the entire moment and posted it to her Instagram Story:

TBH, the weirdest thing is not that Travis did thisbecause it's quite common for grooms, actuallybut it's that he did this while the DJ was playing "I Want You Back" by The Jackson 5. Sooo all of a sudden Ginuwine's "Pony" doesn't exist?? Or Trey Songz's "Dive In"??? Missed opportunities by the DJ to really take this up a notch!

I'm not even going to hold you: For a couple whose brand is quite literally shoving their tongues down each other's throat on damn near every red carpet they hit, and like, in general (lol), this garter moment was about as spicy as salt and pepper on a chicken breast.

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Travis Barker Took Off Kourtney Kardashian's Wedding Garter With His Teeth - Cosmopolitan

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