Killer robot TERMINATORS: AI soldiers will develop 'moral compass' and DEFY orders

From The Daily Star.co.uk (Dec. 15):

Ex-cybernetics engineer Dr Ian Pearson predicts we are veering towards a future of conscious machines.

But if robots are thrust into action by military powers, the futurologist warns they will be capable of conjuring up their own "moral viewpoint".

And if they do, the ex-rocket scientist claims they may turn against the very people sending them out to battle.

Dr Pearson, who blogs for Futurizon, told Daily Star Online: "As AI continues to develop and as we head down the road towards consciousness – and it isn't going to be an overnight thing, but we're gradually making computers more and more sophisticated – at some point you're giving them access to moral education so they can learn morals themselves.

"You can give them reasoning capabilities and they might come up with a different moral code, which puts them on a higher pedestal than the humans they are supposed to be serving.

"They might decide themselves that, although they have been told to respect this particular moral viewpoint, actually theirs is more important and they might go off on their own direction which we might not approve of." [read more]

Robots developing their own moral code? Don’t think that is such a good idea.

Sad Radicals

From Conor Barnes on Quillette.com:

When I became an anarchist I was 18, depressed, anxious, and ready to save the world. I moved in with other anarchists and worked at a vegetarian co-op cafe. I protested against student tuition, prison privatization, and pipeline extensions. I had lawyer’s numbers sharpied on my ankle and I assisted friends who were pepper-sprayed at demos. I tabled zines, lived with my “chosen family,” and performed slam poems about the end of the world. While my radical community was deconstructing gender, monogamy, and mental health, we lived and breathed concepts and tools like call-outs, intersectionality, cultural appropriation, trigger warnings, safe spaces, privilege theory, and rape culture.

What is a radical community? For the purposes of this article, I will define it as a community that shares both an ideology of complete dissatisfaction with existing society due to its oppressive nature and a desire to radically alter or destroy that society because it cannot be redeemed by its own means. I eventually fell out with my own radical community. The ideology and the people within it had left me a burned and disillusioned wreck. As I deprogrammed, I watched a diluted version of my radical ideology explode out of academia and become fashionable: I watched the Left become woke.

Commentators have skewered social justice activists on the toxicity of the woke mindset. This is something that many radicals across North America are aware ofand are trying to understand. Nicholas Montgomery and Carla Bergman’s Joyful Militancy (JM), published last year, is the most thorough look at radical toxicity from a radical perspective (full disclosure: I very briefly met Nick Montgomery years ago. My anarchist clique did not like his anarchist clique). As they say, “there is a mild totalitarian undercurrent not just in call-out culture but also in how progressive communities police and define the bounds of who’s in and who’s out.”

………………

Faith

…………….

Instead of developing a relationship to God and a recognition of one’s own imperfection, we wanted our non-anarchist families and friends to develop their “analysis” and recognize their complicity in the evil of capitalism. These non-anarchist friends grew increasingly sparse the longer I was an anarchist. They didn’t see how terrible the world was, and they used problematic language that revealed hopelessly bad politics. Frustrated with them, I retreated further and further into the grey echo-chamber of my “chosen family.”

……………..

Fear

…………..

There is an overdeveloped muscle in radicalism: the critical reflex. It is able to find oppression behind any mundanity. Where does this critical reflex come from? French philosopher Paul Ricœur famously coined the term “school of suspicion” to describe Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud’s drive to uncover repressed meaning in text and society. Today’s radicals have inherited this drive by way of Foucault and other Marxo-Nietzscheans.

As radicals, we lived in what I call a paradigm of suspicion, one of the malignant ideas that emerge as a result of intellectual in-breeding. We inherited familial neuroses and saw insidious oppression and exploitation in all social relationships, stifling our ability to relate to others or ourselves without cynicism. Activists anxiously pore over interactions, looking for ways in which the mundane conceals domination. To see every interaction as containing hidden violence is to become a permanent victim, because if all you are is a nail, everything looks like a hammer.  [read more]

A very good case study of the radical Left.

The Seven Criteria for Project Selection

From FEE.org:

Deciding which creative projects to attempt is an incredibly difficult job, both as an artist and as any kind of executive producer.

We live in a world of infinite creative ideas but painfully finite resources. Each of us has a limited set of resources and skills, goals and values, and most importantly a limited amount of time with which to create, so it will never be possible to pursue every idea we have, no matter how good it seems on the surface.

In my estimation, there are no fewer than 7 specific criteria that must all align before a project makes sense, and each of these is variable and carries different weight on the decision.

First, as obvious as it might seem, we must start with a genuinely (1) Good Idea that can translate well to the chosen medium (video, audio, design, etc.).

Ideas are easy to come by, but frequently (especially in the non-profit world), they aren’t workable or interesting when turned into videos. Over the past 15 years that I've been producing original creative content, I've generated and/or been pitched several hundred different concepts, but very few of those were actually good for the intended medium.

Visual (and auditory) storytelling is different than writing an article, a white paper, or a book, and writing for video is a special skill that takes thinking beyond abstract concepts or dialogue, so finding an idea that actually makes sense for the medium is not easy—especially in an environment dominated by left-brained, systemizing thinkers such as economists, philosophers, and political scientists.

But beyond merely having a Good Idea, these ideas must (2) Fit Brand’s Vision, and they must (3) Fit Brand’s Tone.  [read more]

Ivy League Study Finds Liberals ‘Patronize’ Minorities, Conservatives Don’t

From The Daily Signal. (Dec. 12):

A study by Princeton and Yale researchers has found that white liberals act in “patronizing” ways toward blacks and other minorities, while white conservatives do not.

White Democratic presidential candidates and self-identified liberals are more likely to downplay their own competence when speaking to minorities, using fewer words that emphasize competence and more words that show warmth, according to the report titled “Self-Presentation in Interracial Settings: The Competence Downshift by White Liberals.”

In contrast, the study found that white conservatives do not address white and minority audiences in a significantly different fashion.

Cydney Dupree, an assistant professor of organizational behavior at the Yale School of Management who worked on the study alongside Princeton co-author Susan Fiske, said she was surprised by the findings.  [read more]

It’s nice to see that science has finally caught up to what most conservatives see in the Left.

The Left is patronizing because they think they are better than everyone else—they’re elitists. While conservatives see everyone equally because everyone (including themselves) have fallen from grace.

Adam and Eve? One Couple Spawned Humanity, Study Claims

From News Max.com (Nov. 25):

Despite a scientist fighting "hard" against the claim, humanity spawned from a single pair which lived 100,000 to 200,000 years ago, according to a new study, the U.K.'s Daily Mail reported.

"This conclusion is very surprising,'" University of Basel, Switzerland, research associate David Thaler told the paper. "And I fought against it as hard as I could."

Senior Research Associate Mark Stoeckle and Thaler surveyed the DNA of five million animals, including humans, "and deduced that we sprang from a single pair of adults after a catastrophic event almost wiped out the human race," per the report.

Stoeckle and Thaler concluded that 90 percent of all of today's animal species come from parents that all began giving birth at roughly the same time, less than 250 thousand years ago, leaving some doubt on human evolution. [read more]

A Look at Pay for Federal Employees Compared to Their Private-Sector Counterparts

From FEE.org:

Compensation for federal, state, and local government employees cost U.S. taxpayers $1.9 trillion in 2016. This amounts to an average of $15,176 from every household in the United States. President Trump recently moved to rein in some of these costs by canceling pay raises for federal civilian employees, who received $331 billion in compensation during 2017.

Some politicians and an association of federal employees have criticized Trump for this action, saying that federal workers are underpaid and deserve a raise. However, a broad range of studies have found that most federal civilian employees are paid better than comparable workers in the private sector.

………………………

Federal Worker Compensation

Contrary to those claims, a 2017 Congressional Budget Office study compared the compensation of full-time, year-round private sector workers to non-postal, civilian, federal workers in 2011 to 2015. It accounted for education, occupation, work experience, geographic location, employer size, and various demographic characteristics. The study found that:

• Federal workers received an average of 17 percent more total compensation than comparable private sector workers.
• Across various education levels, federal employee compensation premiums ranged from a low of –18 percent for workers with a professional degree or doctorate to a high of 53 percent for workers with a high school diploma or less:

The study did not account for “many characteristics that are not easy to observe or measure,” such as workers’ “natural ability, personal motivation, and effort.” Just Facts is unaware of comprehensive data that quantifies such attributes, but a scientific survey conducted in 2001 found that:

• “59 percent of federal workers say securing a paycheck was more important than doing something worthwhile.”
• “65 percent say job security was more important than helping the public.”
• “only 30 percent believe their organization does a very or somewhat good job of disciplining poor performers.”

The incentives for government employees to perform well are often mitigated by their pay systems. Per the Congressional Budget Office: “For most federal employees, salaries or wages are determined by their rank in a pay schedule,” and

most federal workers compensated under pay schedules move to progressively higher grades as they are eligible. That system ensures that employees in the same type of job who have similar tenure receive similar pay, but it limits managers’ flexibility to reward workers who perform well or to constrain the salaries of workers who perform poorly.

A 2010 study by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that full-time private industry workers worked an average of 12 percent more hours per year than full-time state and local government workers. This includes time spent working beyond assigned schedules at the workplace and at home.

In keeping with such realities and the principle of rewarding people for the quality and quantity of their work, Trump also wrote:

Federal employee pay must be performance-based, and aligned strategically toward recruiting, retaining, and rewarding high-performing federal employees and those with critical skill sets. Across-the-board pay increases and locality pay increases, in particular, have long-term fixed costs, yet fail to address existing pay disparities or target mission critical recruitment and retention goals.

[read more]

BreakPoint: Scientists, Atheism, and God

From Break Point.org:

Scientist Stephen Hawking, one of the smartest men in the world, did not believe in God. Well, how about other smart scientists—what do they think?

We often hear these days that there’s a fundamental conflict between science and religion, and that scientists don’t believe in God. As the late Stephen Hawking says in his new book, “Brief Answers to the Big Questions,” “There is no God. No one directs the universe.” There’s only one problem with this narrative—’’it’s not true. Don’t believe me; just ask scientists!

Elaine Howard Ecklund, director of Rice University’s Religion and Public Life Program has done just that, and she worries that the posthumously published words of Hawking, who died earlier this year, may lead you to believe that most scientists are atheists.

“Stephen Hawking left a great scientific legacy,” Ecklund said. “I do not think it is the intent of this recent work, but it is dangerous for science if Hawking’s religious legacy is to leave the public with the impression that scientists are all against God or—worse yet—against religious people.”

Between 2011 and 2016, Ecklund and her team conducted the first-ever international survey on what scientists think about religion. They found, contrary to popular wisdom, that over half of all the scientists in India, Italy, and Turkey self-identify as religious, and only a minority of scientists in each region say that science and religion are in conflict. In the U.S., this number is just 29 percent. [read more]

Science and religion are not in conflict. As Dr. Michael Guillen says in his book Can a Smart Person Believe in God? (2009) that to be a balanced person you have to have binocular vision: One eye sees the world through religion, the other through science.

China is building a vast civilian surveillance network

From Business Insider.com (Apr. 29):

China is setting up a vast surveillance system that tracks every single one of its 1.4 billion citizens — from using facial recognition to name and shame jaywalkers, to forcing people to download apps that can access all the photos on their smartphones.

The growth of China's surveillance technology comes as the state rolls out an enormous "social credit system" that ranks citizens based on their behaviour, and doles out rewards and punishments depending on their scores.

……………….

1. Using facial recognition technology that can pick people out of massive crowds.

At least 16 cities, municipalities, and provinces across China have already started using a facial recognition system that can scan the country's entire 1.4 billion-strong population — with 99.8% accuracy, Chinese state media reported.

China's facial recognition surveillance has already proven to be eerily effective: Police in Nanchang, southeastern China, managed to locate and arrest a wanted suspect out of a 60,000-person pop concert earlier this month, the state-run Xinhua news agency said.

……………..

2. Getting group chat admins to spy on people.

China holds people criminally liable for content posted in any group chat they initiate on messaging apps. The regulation applies even to private and encrypted apps, such as WhatsApp.

The government also requires tech companies to monitor and keep records of conversations for six months, and report any illegal activity to authorities.

3. Forcing citizens to download apps that allow the government to monitor their cell phone photos and videos.

The government has forced Uighurs, an ethnic minority in western China, to download an app that scans photos, videos, audio files, ebooks, and other documents, the US-government funded Open Technology Fund said.

The app, named 浄网 (pronounced "jingwang" in Mandarin Chinese, and literally means "cleansing the web"), extracts information including the phone number and model, and scours through its files, the Open Technology Fund reported.

It also warns users to delete files it deems dangerous and sends information about those files to an outside server.  [read more]

Talk about Big Brother watching you! George Orwell would be impressed.

The other ways that China is monitoring its citizens are:

1. Watching how people shop online.
2. Having law enforcement officers wear special glasses to identify people in crowded places, like streets and train stations.
3. Installing 'robot police' in train stations that scan people's faces and match those of wanted fugitives — like this one in Zhengzhou, central China.
4. Using facial recognition technology to root out jaywalkers.
5. Stopping pedestrians at random to check their phones.
6. Tracking people's social media posts, which can be linked to the user's family and location.
7. Building predictive software to aggregate data about people — without their knowledge — and flag those they consider threatening.

The In-N-Out Burger Boycott Shows that Under Socialism, Those Who Don’t Obey Won’t Eat

From FEE.org (Sept. 4):

Last week, Eric Bauman, the chair of the California Democratic Party, called for a boycott of the popular California hamburger chain In-N-Out Burger.

What was In-N-Out Burger’s crime? Los Angeles Magazine reported that the burger chain had contributed to the Republican Party.

Bauman tweeted a link to the story about the contribution and called the chain “creeps:”

Et tu In-N-Out? Tens of thousands of dollars donated to the California Republican Party... it’s time to #BoycottInNOut—let Trump and his cronies support these creeps... perhaps animal style!

Californians were not ready to give up eating at the popular chain. John Vigna, communication director for the California Democratic Party, announced the chair’s tweet was “just his personal view.” Vigna added, “Democrats are very fired up. Chair [Bauman] is definitely giving voice to a feeling a lot of people have right now.”

What Vigna calls “giving voice,” many of us might call bullying. It is hard to interpret the call for a boycott of In-and-Out as anything but a sign of California’s further descent into totalitarianism. Those who don’t support the ruling political regime will have their economic livelihood threatened.

Current events and history warn us: A political party demanding loyalty to the party as a condition for doing business is a terrible path to go down.  [read more]

The article goes on to say that these boycott tactics were used in the past by Hitler and currently by Venezuelan despot Nicolás Maduro. Both, by the way, are socialists.

Dick Morris: Bill Designed To Solve Crime Problem Is Really No Solution at All

From The Western Journal.com (Dec. 16):

Legislation nearing passage in the Senate will reverse decades of progress in reducing crime.

Originally designed by Republicans to improve conditions in prisons, the bill has been hijacked by Democrats* to slash sentences and release dangerous criminals.

But, because of its earlier incarnation, President Donald Trump, perhaps impelled by advice from his son-in-law Jared Kushner (whose father was in prison), is backing the bill.

He’s mistaken. It’s a bad piece of legislation.

The bill, called the First Step Act, would:

1. Immediately make retroactive Obama’s Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 that reduced crack penalties to the lower levels imposed for cocaine possession. The theory was that blacks used crack and whites used cocaine. But the bill equalized the sentences by lowering the crack penalties. It should have raised the cocaine sentences instead. This change will trigger the almost immediate release of 2,600 federal prison inmates.

2. Give judges the authority to bypass federal sentencing guidelines and impose lower sentences, precisely the kind of judicial discretion that led to the slap-on-the-wrist sentences that caused the crime wave of the 60s and 70s.

3. Dilute the “three strikes and you’re out” sentencing provisions imposing 25-year terms for a third felony conviction.

4. Increase time off sentences for all criminals — violent and otherwise — by one week per year served, allowing the release of 4,000 inmates the day the law takes effect.

The bill is really the “first step” in pursuing the Democrats’ agenda of decriminalizing crime by sharply reducing the number of people in prison.  [read more]

*The Left always hi-jacks good legislation and makes it bad.

The New Farm Bill Is So Bad That Supporters Don’t Want Its Details Released

From The Daily Signal.com (Dec. 7):

The current farm bill process is eerily similar to what happened with Obamacare.

In 2010, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., infamously uttered, “But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”

A recent statement by the ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., regarding the farm bill brings back bad memories.

As reported by Agri-Pulse: “Peterson acknowledged that the other negotiators didn’t want to talk about details of the bill until closer to the final votes. ‘There’s concern on some of the members’ part that when people find out what’s in the bill it will start unraveling,’ he said.”

The farm bill is already expected to be a disaster, from failing to strengthen work requirements in the food stamp program to failing to make even minor reforms to the out-of-control farm subsidy system (and actually making subsidies worse).

……………

Think about how bad the bill must be in light of what already has been reported about the bill. For example, we already know about, based on reports, the following absurdities in the bill:

The bill would protect farmers when commodity prices increase, not just decrease. The existing Price Loss Coverage program (one of the major subsidy programs) pays farmers when commodity prices fall below a price fixed in law (known as a reference price). The bill reportedly will make it possible for these reference prices to increase when prices increase, thereby ensuring farmers could continue to get taxpayer-funded subsidies.

The bill expands payments to non-farmers. One of the most egregious aspects of the current farm subsidy system is its payments to individuals who by any reasonable definition are not farmers.

What does the bill do? It makes this problem even worse by making it possible for “non-farming” cousins, nephews, and nieces to receive subsidies.

The bill completely ignores the massive cost overruns of the two new major subsidy programs, which are greater than 70 percent more expensive than what was projected. Congress created two major new subsidy programs last farm bill, namely the Price Loss Coverage and the Agricultural Risk Coverage programs. When the last farm bill was passed, the Congressional Budget Office projected that the costs of these programs would be about $18 billion over their first five years.  [read more]

Yea, the bill doesn’t sound good especially the “payments to non-farmers” part. I have cousins who are farmers. Should I get a subsidy when I am not a farmer?

How State Religion Made the Czechs the Least Religious People in Europe

From FEE.org (Sept. 4):

In all the articles about last week’s 50th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Prague, few took note of one of its enduring scars: widespread atheism. Some may be surprised to learn that the Czech people are the most irreligious people in Europe, not just because of decades of government-sponsored atheism, but because of centuries of government-enforced religion.

The Communist Co-Opting of Religion

When Communist officials first came to power in Czechoslovakia in 1948, undermining and eradicating religion became a top priority. The Marxists tried to co-opt the Roman Catholic Church with a “patriotic” organization, loyal to the regime, known as Catholic Action. (The more things change, the more they stay the same.) However, the Vatican quickly condemned the government’s creation.

The government began paying priests’ salaries—something not a single priest refused—in order to win their loyalty. The Office of Religious Affairs placed some of its loyal priests in positions of ecclesiastical authority. Yet the bishops maintained fidelity.

Failing at counterfeiting, the government resorted to confiscation. Prague ordered all monasteries closed on April 13, 1950, resulting in a massive seizure of church property. The Communist government plundered 429 buildings belonging to male monastic orders, 670 buildings belonging to female orders, some 2,000 works of art, another 2,000 historical artifacts, and 1.8 million books. This does not include the massive destruction of precious historical items, carried out on such a scale that even former Czechoslovakian Prime Minister Zdeněk Fierlinger lamented it.

……………..

“Force Is Never a Victory”

“The Communists, both yours [Russian] and ours, were always enemies of the Church,” a former Orthodox Archbishop of Prague told a Russian media outlet.

When it came to the Byzantine Catholic Church, the Communists sought “only liquidation,” the then-archbishop said in 2011. “We Orthodox know that such force is never a victory.”

“That the Czechoslovakian party members supposedly helped the Orthodox Church in Czechoslovakia was only their cunning maneuver,” he said. “In fact, the Communists only injured the work of Orthodoxy.”

……………

A Pox on Both Their Houses-of-Worship

Within a few decades, the state went from favoring to outlawing the Roman Catholic Church. Both sides used the State to wage war against one another, and the souls of the faithful became their casualties.

In the end, the Czechs declared a pox on both their houses-of-worship. The Czech Republic today has the highest level of atheism in Europe. Numbers vary—some place the number of atheists at two-thirds of the population or more—but all surveys find a majority of Czechs profess no belief in God.

That does not mean that the Czech people feel no yearning for communion with God. Such a state is an anthropological impossibility. However, as one writer in the Guardian put it, today in the Czech Republic “small evangelical and charismatic denominations are thriving.” Precisely those churches that have never used the State to “compel them to come in” are most likely to see the faithful enter.

Christians tempted to praise a large “Christian” government whose interventionist policies “help evangelize” must study the example of Czechoslovakia. If it is accurate that “government is not reason, it is not eloquence,” neither is it persuasion—and in the wrong hands, it quickly burns those who so recently controlled it. A state that can banish other denomination’s clergy one year can banish yours the next. The government that can seize control of your enemy’s churches can expropriate yours, as well.

The cautionary tale of recent history is: The Church that lives by the State shall die by the State.  [read more]

This is probably why the Constitution has the first amendment in it: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,…” The Founders were very weary of state sponsored religions. They knew from experience.

Man, 69, sues to lower age 20 years: ‘You can change your gender. Why not your age?’

From The Blaze.com (Nov. 8):

Emile Ratelband, a 69-year-old Dutchman, is suing to legally change his age.

Ratelband reasons that he lives in a society where people can change their genders, so to him, it only makes sense that he can change his age.

But why?

Ratelband cites several reasons as to why he wants to lower his age from 69 years to 49 years.

The Dutchman, who is a motivational speaker and media personality in the Netherlands, says that he'd likely have better luck dating, gaining employment, and making large purchases, such as homes or vehicles, if he were younger on paper.

“When I'm 69, I am limited,” he explains. “If I'm 49, then I can buy a new house, drive a different car. I can take up more work.”

Ratelband adds, "When I'm on Tinder and it says I'm 69, I don't get an answer. When I'm 49, with the face I have, I will be in a luxurious position."

“You can change your name. You can change your gender. Why not your age?” he asks.  [read more]

He does have a point. He is just participating in identity politics. Why stop with age? Why can’t a short person identity with a tall person? Short people can be discriminated against too. Why can’t a fat person identify with a skinny person? I could keep on going, but I won’t. The world is slowly going insane.

More articles on identity politics:

• If Gender Is Subjective, Makes Sense Age Should Be, Too
• We Have an Identity Problem

The 3 Big Differences Between Conservatives and Progressives

From The Daily Signal.com (Nov. 2):

What’s the difference between a conservative and a progressive?

Here are three examples.

No. 1: Conservatives and progressives have different views about individuals and communities.

Conservatives ask: “What can I do for myself, my family, my community, and my fellow citizens?”

Progressives ask: “What is unfair?” “What am I owed?” “What has offended me today?” “What must my country do for me?”

The traditional American ethic of achievement gives way to the progressive ethic of aggrievement.

……………….

No 2.: Conservatives and progressives have different views about diversity and choice.

For progressives, different ethnicities and gender identities are welcomed but a variety of opinions and ideas are not.

Just look at two areas of public life dominated by the left. On college campuses free speech is under attack. If you’re a conservative working at a social media company or using one of their platforms to share your views, you may find your job eliminated or your account deleted.

And when it comes to choice, progressives love the word, but they don’t want it to apply to our decisions on education, health care, and even how and where we live out our religious faith.

Conservatives take a different approach.

Parents, not the zip code they live in, should choose the school that is best for their child.

We all need health care, but we don’t all need the same kind or same amount. And while people should be free to live as they choose, no one should be forced to endorse or celebrate those choices if it violates their religious beliefs.

Conservatives say people should have choices. Progressives say one political solution fits all.

No. 3: Conservatives and progressives have a different view of “We the People.”

Whether it’s the Second Amendment, immigration, or putting limits on abortion, if we the people don’t pass laws progressives approve, they turn to judges, executive orders, and government bureaucrats behind closed doors to overturn the will of voters.

Whatever one may think about the wisdom of hiking the minimum wage, banning plastic straws, or removing controversial historical monuments, conservatives believe voters closest to the issues should be the ones making such decisions for their communities—not lawmakers in Washington or a panel of judges fives states away.

To sum it up, conservatives believe in individual rights, not special rights. Conservatives believe in allowing Texas to be Texas and Vermont to be Vermont. And conservatives believe we the people can vote with our feet about where we want to live and what laws we want to live under. [read more]

7 Things I'd Do if I Wanted to Keep Poor People Poor

Commentary from Brian Balfour on FEE.org:

If I wanted to keep poor people poor, there are several government policies I would favor. Let's count them down.

1: An Expanding Welfare State

For starters, I would advocate for a robust and ever-expanding welfare state—programs like Medicaid, food stamps, unemployment insurance, etc.

I would recognize that an effective recipe for keeping poor people poor is to create incentives that push them into decisions that prevent them from climbing out of poverty.

…………

2: Progressive Taxation Policy

If I wanted to keep poor people poor, I also would finance the welfare state poverty trap through punitive taxes on the job and wealth creators of society.

The key ingredient to economic growth, and thus a higher standard of living for society’s poor, is through productivity gains made possible by capital investment. High marginal taxes on profitable companies and small businesses alike discourage capital investment. As businesses decide to either not expand or take their businesses to more investment-friendly countries, job opportunities dry up.

3: Increase the Minimum Wage

If I wanted to keep poor people poor, I would advocate for higher government-enforced minimum wages. The law of supply and demand tells us that the higher the price of a good or service, the less of it will be demanded (other things held equal, of course). The demand for low-skilled labor is no exception. Minimum wage laws are an effective tool to cut off the bottom rung of the career ladder. [read more]

The Left likes all the policies above and the other four which are:

1. Support Restrictive “Green Energy” Policies
2. Increase the Business Regulatory Burden
3. Inflate the Money Supply
4. Impose High Tariffs

How Marijuana Harms a Developing Baby’s Brain

From Scientific American.com (Nov. 7):

SAN DIEGO—Marijuana has been legalized in some capacity in 31 U.S. states, in large part due to a softening stance around the potential harms of the drug and recognition of its medical benefits. As a result, cannabis has become the most commonly used illicit drug during pregnancy.

One recent study revealed that in 2016 7 percent of pregnant women in California used marijuana, with rates as high as 22 percent among teenage mothers. In Colorado 69 percent of dispensaries recommended the drug to pregnant women to help with morning sickness.

Whereas marijuana is not a major health risk for most adults, prenatal drug exposure can be harmful to unborn babies. Previous research has shown infants exposed to cannabis in the womb are 50 percent more likely to have a lower birth weight. Now three new studies presented Tuesday at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting here suggest prenatal cannabis exposure—at least in rodents—could have serious consequences for fetal brain development. “There’s become this relaxation—in part because [marijuana] is becoming legal in many states around the country—that it’s fine,” says Yasmin Hurd, who is director of the Addiction Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and was not involved in the new research. But, she adds, just because a drug is not very dangerous to adults does not mean it is harmless to the developing brain.

In one study researchers at Washington State University in Pullman showed rat pups born to mothers exposed to high amounts of cannabis vapor during pregnancy had trouble with cognitive flexibility. [read more]

China Plans To Launch Multiple Artificial Moons Into Orbit By 2022

From The Daily Wire.com (Oct. 20):

In a move that could save hundreds of millions of dollars in annual electricity costs, the Chinese government is planning to launch a "fake moon" into space in 2020.

The moon, according to China Daily, is actually an "illumination satellite" featuring reflective panels. These panels will catch and release light from the sun just as the moon does, although Wu Chunfeng, head of Tian Fu New Area Science Society in Chengdu, says the satellite has the potential to be approximately eight times as bright as the natural celestial reflector.

The satellite will allegedly be able to adjust its brightness, aim light in different directions (a possible aid in times of disaster), and limit or expand its ground coverage, which could range from 6 to 50 miles in diameter.  [read more]

Ethanol Is Terrible for Health and the Environment, but Government Keeps Backing It

From FEE.org (Aug. 19):

When the elected officials and bureaucrats who run a government want to stack the deck in favor of a politically connected special interest, they have three main ways that they can go about it:

1. They can subsidize the special interest, often using taxpayer cash.
2. They can penalize the competition of the special interest, often through tariffs.
3. They can mandate that people do business with the special interest.

Each of these actions is economically harmful as government-backed subsidies, penalties, and mandates all impose unnecessary costs on regular people. Worse, they often lead to predictable, if often unintended, consequences that do serious damage beyond what they do to personal finances.

In the case of ethanol in the United States, the federal government has employed all three measures over the years, frequently with bipartisan political support. Its subsidies keep afloat politically connected businesses that wouldn’t otherwise be able to keep themselves in business. Its tariffs have kept consumers from being able to buy cheaper sources of ethanol on the global market. And its mandate to put an increasing amount of corn-based ethanol into fuel makes food more expensive.  [read more]

4 Big Threats Pence Says China Poses to US

From The Daily Signal.com (Oct. 5):

The Chinese have attempted to spy on some 30 U.S. companies, the White House says, also warning that Beijing is meddling with U.S. elections.

Those are among the reasons Vice President Mike Pence amplified the Trump administration’s assertion that it will no longer play nice with the Chinese communist regime.

“Beijing is employing a whole-of-government approach, using political, economic, and military tools, as well as propaganda, to advance its influence and benefit its interests in the United States,” Pence said Thursday, speaking at the Hudson Institute in Washington.

……………….

Here are four key threats Chinese policies pose to the U.S., according to the vice president.

1. Cyber Espionage

Chinese spies found vulnerabilities in the U.S. technology supply chain to infiltrate computer networks of nearly 30 U.S. companies, including Apple and Amazon, as well as banks and federal contractors, Bloomberg Businessweek first reported Thursday, the same day Pence took China to task.

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2. Election Meddling

China is pushing a propaganda war in the United States, with an eye on both the 2018 midterm elections and the 2020 presidential election, Pence said, regarding Chinese election meddling.

“There can be no doubt: China is meddling in America’s democracy,” he said.

He noted that the U.S. intelligence community says that China “is targeting U.S. state and local governments and officials to exploit any divisions between federal and local levels on policy.”

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3. Squeezing US Companies

Pence called out Google for its seeming willingness to work with the Chinese government.

“Google should immediately end development of the ‘Dragonfly’ app that will strengthen Communist Party censorship and compromise the privacy of Chinese customers,” he said in his Thursday speech.

Pence also noted that Chinese officials tried to influence business leaders.

“In one recent example, China threatened to deny a business license for a major U.S. corporation if they refused to speak out against our administration’s policies,” Pence said.

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4. Military Buildup

The vice president also warned of China’s military buildup.

“China now spends as much on its military as the rest of Asia combined, and Beijing has prioritized capabilities to erode America’s military advantages on land, at sea, in the air, and in space,” Pence said.  [read more]

And the Left is worried about Russia. Yea, right. Although, Russia isn’t exactly our friend either.

5 Signs You’re In The Midst Of A Moral Panic

From The Daily Wire.com (Sept. 29):

Moral panics, or instances of mass hysteria, have occurred throughout history. Two of the most notorious are the Salem Witch Trials of the 1690s and the Satanic Panic of the 1980s and '90s. The panics almost exclusively involve women and children and fears for their safety, especially from sexual abuse.

We are in the midst of another such panic, but despite the similarities to past episodes, we are still unable to recognize it as such. The current panic has been playing out in the military and on college campuses for nearly a decade, but with the advent of the #MeToo movement, the mass hysteria is creeping into our regular legal system as well. The following are five of the biggest signs that we are experiencing another bout of mass hysteria, this time over sexual assault and harassment.

1. Due Process Goes Out The Window

Due process is the cornerstone of our legal system, but in times of mass hysteria, it becomes the enemy. In Salem, those accused of witchcraft were presumed guilty and, in many cases, denied counsel. The only evidence presented against them was an accusation.

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2. “Believe The Victim”

This may be the biggest tell of a moral panic. An accusation, we’re told, is sufficient enough. With due process being considered anathema to victims, accusations are all the evidence needed. During the Little Rascals case in North Carolina, some jurors didn’t believe the accusations, but during deliberations were bullied by other jurors if they didn’t believe the children.

Parents of children involved in the Little Rascals case told Frontline: “No child would lie about something like this.” In Wright’s article about the Ingram case in Washington, he wrote:

“These two hypotheses form the intellectual frame of the Ingram investigation: first, that the depth of the repression is a function of the intensity of the trauma; and, second, that victims must be believed. Once a victim’s account is believed, the evidence in a case may be stretched to fit it. Often, it’s a big stretch.” Paul Ingram himself said of his daughters, who made the accusations against him: “They wouldn’t lie about something like this.”  [read more]

The other three signs are:

3. Misleading And Faulty Statistics

4. Evidence, Schmevidence

5. Pseudo-Scientific Theories About Memory Reign Supreme