I had another dream, I had another life
Most of what I read about Snowden makes me think that no one knows what’s really going on. Or, phrased differently, the folks who do know what’s going on aren’t talking. Still, here are two interesting theories that I thought were interesting enough to share.
So this is pretty awesome:
It is a city shrouded in myth, swallowed by the Mediterranean Sea and buried in sand and mud for more than 1,200 years. But now archeologists are unearthing the mysteries of Heracleion, uncovering amazingly well-preserved artifacts that tell the story of a vibrant classical-era port.
More pics and video at ScienceDump.
I witnessed this first-hand when my post about food insurance vs. health insurance got picked up on Reddit. It was obvious from some of the earliest comments that folks hadn’t bothered to read the article, because they were like “Well… he didn’t bring up X” when, in fact, I did bring up X. So, not a surprising article from Slate, but they do have lots of specific data to back up the reality that folks just don’t finish reading articles. Often even if they share them!
I wonder how many people finished reading that article, though…
[This piece might make more sense to Mormons, but I think it should be of interest to anyone.]
Defining anti-Mormonism can be tricky, but here’s one pretty good indicator. When the denizens of the ex-Mormon subReddit are calling you out, you must have really crossed some lines. And yet, when it comes to the newly launched FutureMissionary.com, that’s exactly what’s going on:
With a headline like that, you might expect a link to InfoWars or at least the DailyCaller. Nope, Business Insider is the one reporting:
Even before Glenn Greenwald published a top secret court order compelling Verizon to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems and interviewed NSA whistleblower Eric Snowden, there were credible reports that the NSA was intercepting U.S. communications.
The most significant of those occurred in July, when the court that was established to “hear applications for and grant orders approving electronic surveillance,” called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), found that the NSA violated the Fourth Amendment’s restriction against unreasonable searches and seizures “on at least one occasion.”
Guess that answers John Oliver’s concern. (Can’t get embed to work, follow the link for a clip from the Daily Show.) He had said: “The problem here, Mr. President… No one is saying you broke any laws. We’re just saying it’s a little bit weird you didn’t have to.”
Turns out, he (or, rather, the NSA) did have to. They apparently sort of broke a big one we like to call the Fourth Amendment.
There’s more information about government surveillance coming out of the woodwork than I can keep up with. One of the most interesting stories I’ve read since the news broke last week is a blog post from Backblaze about whether or not the NSA is using Backblaze storage pods to keep all that data they’re snooping. Backblaze is an online backup company offering unlimited, low-cost data backup. They keep costs down by building their own storage racks. They don’t sell the racks, but they do open-source all the designs. Version is 3.0 which stores 180TB of data for less than $2,000.
The post makes a very solid case that the NSA might be building their own Backblaze storage pods. There’s a lot of extra information about the intersection of IT and national intelligence that’s interesting as well, such as the fact that the NSA might be interested in the Backblaze pods because they are open-source, which makes it easier to keep the purchases secret.
Other interesting stores:
So last week we found out that the government has been routinely collecting all of the metadata from cell phone calls virtually all Americans make for years. Then we learned that the NSA has the capability to tap directly into the databases of Internet giants like Google, Microsoft, and Apple to collect search history, emails, file transfer history, and even live chats of individual users. Big news, eh? (Guardian, NYT)
Not to bestselling author and major blogger John Scalzi, who wrote about the revelations:
Apparently I was the only person in the US who assumed the government was already doing something very much like this? Because it was doing it under Bush, and if Obama had gotten around to stopping doing it, his administration would have made a big deal about it, no? And since the Obama Administration never said a single word about it that I can recall, it was probably still going on? So I guess what I would say is, yeah, seems not surprising in the least…
Scalzi’s attitude is refreshing next to all the faux shock and muted outrage from the Left–who would have screamed bloody murder if this were going on under Bush–and the sudden remembrance of civil liberties from the Right–who notably didn’t make a fuss under Bush. In that spirit, I want to try and talk about the program itself: what it really entails in terms of privacy and civil liberties and what it really offers in terms of safety. FWIW, I’m a skeptic of the more extreme claims of the privacy movement (who often strike me as 21st century Luddites) and also of a lot of security measures in the wake of 9/11 (which are often best described as “security theater“).
Let’s start with the successes of the government program, such as they are, which is codenamed Stellar Wind.
Really big and surprising news: the source behind the recently revealed NSA spying programs has chosen to reveal his identity.
Everything about this story is compelling: his rationale for the leak, the story of how he executed it, his own background, and even his comparison of himself to Bradley Manning. I won’t attempt to summarize. You should just read the whole thing.
Oarfish are mysterious because, until now, they’ve only ever been observed near the surface of the water dead or dying, and not in their native, deep ocean habitat. There’s nothing really impressive about the dead specimens except their size (up to 30 feet long) and shape (weirdly flat).
But now there’s video of a live oarfish taking by a remotely operated vehicle. Alive and where they belong, these creatures a beautiful and amazing looking. Watch for yourself:
You can get more details from the story at GrindTV.com.
I read a very odd piece in Psychology Today that purports to be written by a “diagnosed sociopath”. Psychology is well outside my area of expertise, but I’m not sure if that matters because the author seemed to be relying much more heavily on Hollywood notions of sociopathy than the DSM’s definition of antisocial personality disorder. According to Hollywood, sociopaths are amoral (correct), manipulative (fairly correct), and brilliant (not necessarily). They villains around which plots revolve and who inspire heroes to come forth and do battle, so they’re sort of a big deal.
But M. E. Thomas is no supervillain. There was this one time that she followed a guy and fantasized about strangling him, but then she lost him. Not really how big a threat that ever was, because she had no weapon, no physical advantage, no training, and not even a plan. Oh yeah, and like I mentioned, she couldn’t even manage to keep up with him. So how, exactly, was she going to overpower him and strangle him to death? Also, there was this time she was so sarcastic to her dad that he put his hand through a wall. While it’s not exactly Andy Griffith’s Mayberry, it’s hardly American Pysho, either.
I understand that a main point she’s making is that not all sociopaths are violent criminals. Some are just a-holes. OK, point made. But… why would I read a book about that? A memoir has to either have interesting events or an interesting person, but M. E. Thomas evidences neither.
The only reason I was prodded into writing this post is the following:
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a sociopath’s dream. Mormons believe that everyone has the potential to be godlike—I believe this includes me. Every being is capable of salvation; my actions are what matters, not my ruthless thoughts, not my nefarious motivations. Everyone is a sinner, and I never felt that I was outside this norm.
See, this is when I knew that M. E. Thomas is seriously deficient in the practical intellect department. The idea that a sociopath is cut out for “potential to be godlike” in a religion that defines God in terms of His empathy is ridiculous to the point of genuinely sad. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not trying to pass judgment on her moral worth. Not my department. But the fact that she’s advancing such a ludicrous argument shows how completely out of touch she is. I’m not sure to what extent “delusions of grandeur” or “narcissism” play a role in sociopathy, but those are the only traits where’s she’s nailing perfect 10s.
But it’s just too delicious of a quote for anti-Mormons to pass up, especially because it summons up some additional bogeymen. She’s got the noxious idea that Mormons believe we earn salvation through our works and also the fun stereotype that we’re a superficial bunch obsessed with behavior and outward appearances and completely immune to moral introspection. Neither is true, but both will please those who already have an axe to grind, and so I’m fairly confident I’ll be seeing the “sociopath’s dream” quote on an image in my Facebook feed eventually. (Hey, at least it will add some variety.)
I can’t hardly wait.
In any case, I just don’t believe that articles like this one are really going to move copies of the book. It’s got the subtitle: “A life hiding in plain sight”, but I don’t think there’s anything “hidden” about non-violent sociopaths. I think we all know who they are. We just have a different word for them. We call them assholes.