What on Earth is going on in the world today? It's gone mad

[tented]

Tweet from Robert Reich in the wake of the completion of Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter:

 

[Federberg]

@mrzz is this true?

 

[mrzz]

@mrzz is this true?

View attachment 7291

I am not an expert. It makes some overall sense given that the early 2000's were the years were agro business expanded heavily in the whole Amazon area. But I would like to see the source to begin with.

If I were a staunch Lula defender, I would instantly reply (if these numbers are true) that back in those days there was almost no surveillance, and once the problem became evident, measures were taken. Probably (I do not have actual data to support what I am writing) the infrastructure needed for surveillance
was built around that time.

Anyway, you are a guy from the finance world. Even if those numbers are real, you can see the trends. It was getting better, clearly better, pre-Bolsonaro, and it reversed direction once the most stupid head of state of all times took office.

 

[Federberg]

I am not an expert. It makes some overall sense given that the early 2000's were the years were agro business expanded heavily in the whole Amazon area. But I would like to see the source to begin with.

If I were a staunch Lula defender, I would instantly reply (if these numbers are true) that back in those days there was almost no surveillance, and once the problem became evident, measures were taken. Probably (I do not have actual data to support what I am writing) the infrastructure needed for surveillance
was built around that time.

Anyway, you are a guy from the finance world. Even if those numbers are real, you can see the trends. It was getting better, clearly better, pre-Bolsonaro, and it reversed direction once the most stupid head of state of all times took office.

Thanks @mrzz the chart is interesting. My immediate thought was that it might have some relationship with the commodity cycle. The higher the likes of soybean go, the greater the pressure to clear space. That's possible but to be honest it seems to be a synchronous relationship and not necessarily a reactionary one. But that's just a basic eye test. I haven't aligned a monthly soybean chart to it for example.

So Bolso is out. Is he going to go tamely? I'm surprised I haven't heard much from him yet. Not sure how effective Lula will be though, given the dominance of pro-Bolsonaro people in the legislature. Interesting times!

 

[mrzz]

Thanks @mrzz the chart is interesting. My immediate thought was that it might have some relationship with the commodity cycle. The higher the likes of soybean go, the greater the pressure to clear space. That's possible but to be honest it seems to be a synchronous relationship and not necessarily a reactionary one. But that's just a basic eye test. I haven't aligned a monthly soybean chart to it for example.

So Bolso is out. Is he going to go tamely? I'm surprised I haven't heard much from him yet. Not sure how effective Lula will be though, given the dominance of pro-Bolsonaro people in the legislature. Interesting times!

Good catch about the commodity cycle. But there would be surely some lag, even if we are talking about mid to long term cycles. Not only it takes time to expand through the Amazon, there are just too many variables. And bear in mind that Agro-business in Brazil *always* want to expand.

Bolsonaro will go out without major dramas. The one thing that always stood out for me is that he is, above all, a coward. If he actually believed half the shit that comes out of his mouth, he would have a moral duty to do something. But he wouldn't anwyay, because he simply doesn't have the guts. This surely infuriates his most ardent supporters: they would love a tyrant, but they chose to follow a chicken-shit instead.

There is not exactly a Pro-Bolso majority on both houses (even if his party is the one with the largest representation), but surely Lula does not have it on his side either. He will have to negotiate with a lot of different forces. There is no political force or figure in Brazil wise -- or trustworthy -- enough to be able to lead a decent government if he has full control. The only chance the country has is the slim possibility that the momentum resulting of all political collisions points to a reasonable direction.

 

[Federberg]

Good catch about the commodity cycle. But there would be surely some lag, even if we are talking about mid to long term cycles. Not only it takes time to expand through the Amazon, there are just too many variables.

that's why I said from a basic eye test "it seems to be a synchronous relationship and not necessarily a reactionary one"

Bolsonaro will go out without major dramas. The one thing that always stood out for me is that he is, above all, a coward. If he actually believed half the shit that comes out of his mouth, he would have a moral duty to do something. But he wouldn't anwyay, because he simply doesn't have the guts. This surely infuriates his most ardent supporters: they would love a tyrant, but they chose to follow a chicken-shit instead.

There is not exactly a Pro-Bolso majority on both houses (even if his party is the one with the largest representation), but surely Lula does not have it on his side either. He will have to negotiate with a lot of different forces. There is no political force or figure in Brazil wise -- or trustworthy -- enough to be able to lead a decent government if he has full control. The only chance the country has is the slim possibility that the momentum resulting of all political collisions points to a reasonable direction.

that's interesting. Here's a comment from my friend who grew up in Brazil...

FYI - not filtered out of LATAM, but have seen a video from a whistleblower that some of the older (unaudited) electronic ballot boxes registered huge voting pattern anomalies when compared to the audited ones in same location. May be fake news, but would explain why all the data scientists on the TV stations I was watching were so confused by the results

It seems the election denialism from the Trumpistas has flown southwards..

 

[Kieran]

Has one of the great mysteries of the 20th Century been solved?

Lord Lucan 'is exact match for Australian pensioner', facial recognition expert claims​

“By using millions of images of faces as data, we have trained a very powerful computer algorithm to recognise and identify a face – even within a database of millions of faces and even if the input face is only a partial blurry image of a face.

“Unlike humans, the computer algorithm looks at a face very deeply - from the colour, texture, the different shapes, the ratios and proportions. It’s a very, very detailed way of analysing an image which goes far deeper than what the human eye can see.”

Of the results of his Lord Lucan analysis, he added: “In my experience, over the thousands of experiments we have done over many years, involving millions and millions of faces, the face recognition algorithm would not report such close resemblance unless it is from the same individual, or someone who looks extremely like them, such as their identical twin.”

 

[mrzz]

that's why I said from a basic eye test "it seems to be a synchronous relationship and not necessarily a reactionary one"

that's interesting. Here's a comment from my friend who grew up in Brazil...

FYI - not filtered out of LATAM, but have seen a video from a whistleblower that some of the older (unaudited) electronic ballot boxes registered huge voting pattern anomalies when compared to the audited ones in same location. May be fake news, but would explain why all the data scientists on the TV stations I was watching were so confused by the results

It seems the election denialism from the Trumpistas has flown southwards..

Re: point 1, I got it, but if it is synchronous (as it seems), without cause and effect, then both phenomena might depend on a third one, which seems odd. But it is even stranger if the spotted synchronicity is a coincidence... from this perspective cause and effect seems the least strange option, even if we cannot explain the apparent lack of lag.

Re: point 2, it is the other way around. Election denialism has flown northwards. This is a thing in Brazil since 2014 at least (actually, it dates back from the early 90's). Brazil was the first country in the world to use digital/electronic voting (really). Since then this is debated. In 2014 for some odd reason it got to another level. Problem is that the "deniers" simply cannot offer good/solid evidence when given the chance. And they had a lot of chances to make their case in the proper arenas.

"Data scientists" were not confused by the results. It is a long discussion, but careful analysis actually shows that things are consistent if you take into account a few things:

1) polling (before the first round) was changing in time, natural to expect it changed until election day;
2) some data institutes had outdated statistical stratification (bad mistake on them, but there is some poetical justice on this, as Bolsonaro government was the one that prevented the Federal Agency (IBGE) responsible for statistics from doing their job in the last few years. If you don't have good data on your whole population, obviously your sampling is screwed);
3) It is a known and documented phenomenon that around 2% of the population -- radical right wing voters -- deliberately lie in their answers to pre-election polls (some simply refuse to answer, some lie). Obviously this accounts for part of the discrepancy.

Results for the second round were in line with polls (inside the margin of error).

There is no solid evidence of fraud. There are, naturally, thousands of stories circulating. Personally, I randomly selected a few to fact check it myself. They were as solid as a vapor cloud.

 

[Front242]

The GOAT race will end a tie anyway as we all get turned to radioactive mush since Russian missiles have killed 2 people in Poland which is part of NATO. It's been fun while it lasted.

Only Ukrainian parts found so we should be ok! NATO should declare war on Ukraine now and blow them back to the Stone Age.

 

[Kieran]

Only Ukrainian parts found so we should be ok! NATO should declare war on Ukraine now and blow them back to the Stone Age.

Yeah, strategic accidents often have weird twists to them, alright. I suppose they’ll find a delivery docket still attached to the rockets with Boris Johnson’s wobbly signature on it…

 

[Fiero425]

Yeah, strategic accidents often have weird twists to them, alright. I suppose they’ll find a delivery docket still attached to the rockets with Boris Johnson’s wobbly signature on it…

Only in this World can we have something like a missile launch where there are casualties, but still call it an accident! Russia's to blame though!

 

[Front242]

Only in this World can we have something like a missile launch where there are casualties, but still call it an accident! Russia's to blame though!

Actually they aren't going by the reports it was only Ukrainian parts found.

 

[Fiero425]

Actually they aren't going by the reports it was only Ukrainian parts found.

If not for this :"illegal" war, there would be no missiles even positioned to be fired! Russia was allowed to attack Ukraine with no reason given!

 

[Front242]

If not for this :"illegal" war, there would be no missiles even positioned to be fired! Russia was allowed to attack Ukraine with no reason given!

Actually no. If the good old US of A stayed out of the equation and didn't install a puppet government and westernize Ukraine along with bio labs and building up NATO right on Russia's door step which they warned not to as far back as 2014/2015 then this could have been avoided. Also Boris Johnson flew over and fucked up the peace talks so he's got a lot to answer for.

 

[Fiero425]

Actually no. If the good old US of A stayed out of the equation and didn't install a puppet government and westernize Ukraine along with bio labs and building up NATO right on Russia's door step which they warned not to as far back as 2014/2015 then this could have been avoided. Also Boris Johnson flew over and fucked up the peace talks so he's got a lot to answer for.

You forgot Putin got the ball rolling on the rode to war and all this BS when he took back Crimea on Obama's watch!

 

[Front242]

You forgot Putin got the ball rolling on the rode to war and all this BS when he took back Crimea on Obama's watch!

You forgot the US are the biggest warmongers on the planet and blew the living shit out of over 1 million Iraqis claiming they had weapons of mass destruction which they knew damn well they didn't and the UK are just as much to blame there. Bush and Blair. This proxy war in Ukraine is nothing by comparison in terms of casualties and at least there's a reason for it unlike Iraq.

Comes down to nothing more than racism and I'm disgusted by the global sentiment of it all. They didn't give a shit about taking refugees from Iraq or Syria or Yemen who Israel (the supposed good guys) continue to blow the shit out of cos they only care about the white Ukrainians. It's disgraceful.

The US government and arms industry are loving this and will prolong it as long as possible to reap the massive profits from arms sales all while keeping Ukraine in massive debt which they'll make a mint on when they have to pay it back.

The US and UK are also loving the deflection that Russia are now the bad guy again but the more intelligent among society have better memories than yesterday.

 

[Kieran]

You forgot Putin got the ball rolling on the rode to war and all this BS when he took back Crimea on Obama's watch!

We sometimes forget how tyrants behave, they’re usually so cuddly…

 

[Front242]

You forgot Putin got the ball rolling on the rode to war and all this BS when he took back Crimea on Obama's watch!

Might want to go back and revisit history also about Obama who was no angel...in fact he was a POS...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/09/america-dropped-26171-bombs-2016-obama-legacy

"While candidate Obama came to office pledging to end George W Bush’s wars, he leaves office having been at war longer than any president in US history. He is also the only president to serve two complete terms with the nation at war.


President Obama did reduce the number of US soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, but he dramatically expanded the air wars and the use of special operations forces around the globe. In 2016, US special operators could be found in 70% of the world’s nations, 138 countries – a staggering jump of 130% since the days of the Bush administration.

Looking back at President Obama’s legacy, the Council on Foreign Relation’s Micah Zenko added up the defense department’s data on airstrikes and made a startling revelation: in 2016 alone, the Obama administration dropped at least 26,171 bombs. This means that every day last year, the US military blasted combatants or civilians overseas with 72 bombs; that’s three bombs every hour, 24 hours a day.

While most of these air attacks were in Syria and Iraq, US bombs also rained down on people in Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. That’s seven majority-Muslim countries.

One bombing technique that President Obama championed is drone strikes. As drone-warrior-in-chief, he spread the use of drones outside the declared battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, mainly to Pakistan and Yemen. Obama authorized over 10 times more drone strikes than George W Bush, and automatically painted all males of military age in these regions as combatants, making them fair game for remote controlled killing."

 

[britbox]

Be on guard!

 

[tented]

Be on guard!

Yes, there’s definitely a scary aspect to what can be done with technology these days. This was striking (to me) because of how quickly and seamlessly he transitioned from one face to the next.

It makes me wonder how we’ll be able to determine definitively what’s real and what’s not, particularly when this technology becomes readily available to everyone.