Society

In Mother Jones, Zohar Lazar posits that the recent spate of pedophilia conspiracies are merely a reactionary response to a changing social order. As progressive policies take hold in America, the conservative fringe, Zohar claims, is freaking out by inventing false conspiracies about secret pedophilia rings. But it’s not all fantasy. A decades-long progressive policy push for the loosening of sexual taboos and legal constraints has drastic implications for children’s rights and safety.

The decision by Microsoft to invest $1 billion in OpenAI, a company jointly founded by Elon Musk, brings closer the time when machines threaten to replace humans in any tasks that humans do today. OpenAI, which was founded just four years ago, has pioneered a range of technologies which have pushed the frontiers of massive data processing in defiance of the physical and computer capabilities that governed such developments for generations. Now, with the investment from Microsoft, the pace of technological change is likely to accelerate rapidly. Today, Artificial Intelligence is at a level of what is known as 'weak AI’ and relies on humans to create the algorithms which allow for the crunching of massive amounts of data to produce new and often predictive results.

If you do ever find yourself in Moscow with a spare morning or afternoon to discharge, might I recommend a visit to the Museum of Cosmonautics? Roosting below the grandly named ‘Monument to the Conquerors of Space’, the frigid, rather shabby rooms of this museum contain exhibits that are as moving as anything that’s ever been placed in a glass box for tourists to gawp at. When you consider that Soviet Cosmonauts ‘touched the face of God’ using crude, dangerous technology that contained less processing power than the average contemporary fridge – when you consider the sheer bravery of men like Gagarin, Belyayev and Komarov – the major response is (and ought to be) pride. Pride on a human level, that is to say, a species-level pride.

The election of Donald Trump has pulled American debate away from objectivity and turned publications into actors in a political battle. After Donald Trump’s election, the New Yorker magazine lost no time nailing its colors to the anti-Trump mast. David Remnick, its editor, lamented that Obama – a 'man of integrity, dignity, and generous spirit' – was being supplanted by 'vulgarity unbounded, a knowledge-free national leader' who would 'set markets tumbling', 'strike fear into the hearts of the vulnerable, the weak' etc. This set the tone for the magazine’s subsequent reporting. Those sympathetic to Trump are treated in the same way – as I have found out.

When Elon Musk took to the stage at the California Academy of Sciences on Tuesday, he gave the world the first insight into his vision for mapping and ultimately controlling the brain. Three years ago, Musk formed Neuralink which was specifically created to respond to the threat that Musk’ believes is posed by the imminent threat of thinking machines powered by AI. Musk believes that phase of the information revolution could mark the end of humanity as robots outpace humans in intelligence and pace of evolution. His answer is to fully understand exactly how the brain works and, in the process, he believes that the new science will find the cure for many of humanity’s most deadly illnesses such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and PTSD.

I’ve never met Dale Peck, but I know him. That is to say, I’m familiar with the type, a generation of gay, downtown New York City artist I came to know well during my formative years in the city. When I arrived about 15 years ago, New York’s transformation into a globalist monoculture was well under way. The counterculture was nouveau hipsterdom, the first youth movement defined by consumerism – trucker hats, PBR, silkscreening and iPods. Peck’s generation, these scrappy gay men, 20 years older than me, had lived through more interesting and dangerous times and I gravitated toward them. Many never had money but were rich in grit and bawdy tales and remained the same low-rent bon vivants they had been in the 1990s.

As a young journalist in the mid-2000s, there was the occasional circumstance where I was asked to ‘prove it’: upon showing up to a news event I was covering, whoever ran check-in insisted that I show some press credentials. You know, those badges you see on episodes of Law & Order to denote that someone’s a reporter. (More often than not, the guest star probably holds it up and indignantly yells ‘Press!’ in order to enter a crime scene.) Working for a digital-first outlet – CNET Networks, later acquired by CBS – I never had anything like it except maybe business cards. To me, it seemed like an antiquated request; to the people checking my legitimacy, it was an obvious question.

Yesterday Twitter announced it was making some big changes, promising us a ‘whole new Twitter’. They put out the following statement on everyone’s timeline:'New features and a new look are launching soon. Bookmarks, account switching, dark mode, and so much more — before long, you’ll be able to see what’s happening even faster.'I must say after reading their proposed ‘changes’, I’m not terribly excited by this rather moribund list of ‘new features’ and so I have taken the liberty of proposing some changes that will actually benefit its user base.

Imagine this: One day in the near future, you innocently upload a picture to Facebook that shows you enjoying a summer picnic. A former friend with a grudge, or perhaps an ex-lover, copies the image, and uploads it to a software solution called DeepNude. The program strips the clothes from your fully clothed picture, and creates a new picture of you, naked. The picture of you in your birthday suit gets uploaded to social media, and then distributed to friends and family, as well as enemies and complete strangers. Your life is now one of instant humiliation, embarrassment and shame. The recently released app DeepNude is the latest shot against privacy from the digital Wild West.

Why do dogs lick their own genitals? Because they can. And wouldn’t it be great to be able to do whatever you like? Only those at the very top and bottom of society have the license to live like that. Our culture lionizes them even after the grubby final reel. They’re the Gatsbys, the Scarfaces — but also the Jeffrey Epsteins. The rich are different, like F. Scott Fitzgerald said. The degree of difference may vary, but the ways of difference don’t change much. The degree of difference between the very rich and the merely affluent is wider now than at any time since the Gilded Age — and wider than it was in 1925 when Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby, his groveling tribute to those who differ by having more money than sense. But the ways of difference remain much the same.

We are constantly pushing toward the apocalypse. Whether it's Judgment Day, suicidal death cults, or freaking out about how we only have five minutes to reverse climate change, the End of Days looms large in our imaginations. Relatively new to the End Times game are the transhumanists, who hope to defer the end for all time. Transhumanists believe that we can integrate humanity with tech to extend life, or even live forever.Transhumanists want us to evolve into a tech-integrated species. This would allow us to extend human life through deferring and even annulling the physical decay that ends in death. Organ replacement, micro repairs with nanotech, and AI integration would decrease likelihood of death by natural causes.

The 'Goldwater rule' is the informal name of the American Psychiatric Association’s guideline that it is unethical for psychiatrists to give ‘a professional opinion about public figures whom they have not examined in person, and from whom they have not obtained consent to discuss their mental health in public statements.’ It’s named after 1964 Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, who sued a magazine and won after it published a story claiming over a thousand mental health experts said he was unfit for office. ‘Fuck that,’ reflected psychologist and Yale professor Bandy X. Lee when she looked at the Goldwater rule in 2017.

Sex work is real work, says Teen Vogue, that bastion of female-forward journalism — and apparently a valid career move. Calling prostitution ‘sex work’ and approving of sex work are part of the progressive political platform. The push back against reactionaries who believe women should not be sell their bodies is swift and fierce. Teen Vogue is spearheading a change in how girls see themselves, their sexuality, and their bodies. Tlaleng Mofokeng, the doctor who wrote ‘Why Sex Work is Real Work’, argues for countries to adopt a system where it's illegal to buy sex, but not to sell it. Prostitution is not in decline, and until sex-doll brothels really take off, it's unlikely to be.

The New York Times is dropping its political cartoons. Well, what a surprise! Making people laugh has never been easy. I’ve been supporting ex-wives and making a living from banging out cartoons since 1953, God help me. I started with selling drawings to the British music magazine, Melody Maker. They printed them and paid me two guineas a time, which was worth £2 and 2 shillings, or about $5.50. You could buy a house for five quid then, and you could afford to get married, God help me! There were lots of magazines and newspapers around then and I worked for most of them: Lilliput and Tatler are still going but jokeless. Punch’s editor Malcolm Muggeridge said that if I kept sending my work in I’d soon become a regular, (then, added ‘God help you!’).

A romantic dinner for two, five years from now: Karen is sitting across the table from Ryan. Sipping her oaky but floral Chardonnay, she reflects on just how great life is these days. Ryan is everything she ever wanted in a man. His skin tone is exactly the color and feel she was looking for. His conversation is interesting, ranging sensitively from Tolstoy to cheeseburgers. Thanks to facial recognition, he always knows her mood. It’s almost uncanny how he’s always there to give just the right amount of empathy, just at the right time, or even slightly earlier. He knows her likes and dislikes, her interests and her expertise. At last, she has found her intellectual equal. And the sex.