Splinter: Muslim Americans win landmark victory against the NYPD’s post-9/11 spying
ACLU: Californians are winning the fight against secret surveillance
Mashable: Activists show up at Facebook HQ to demand better privacy
Gizmodo: Facebook backs off of creepy hospital data-sharing project for some reason
Washington Post: A power that lets police take property for themselves, even when there’s no crime
Ars Technica: Google employees revolt, say company should shut down military drone project Ed: Everyone, and every company, has a price, regardless of whether or not your slogan is “Don’t be evil”
New York Times: Trump’s irrational border plan
Mises: Starbucks and Dick’s can be anti-gun if consumers will let them. Ed: This article makes an important point. Namely, that property rights trump all other rights. Property rights, indeed, are the foundational right, from which all other rights spring, you could say. Which means that, regardless of what the government says about your right to “bear arms”, my rules about what happens on my property supersedes your right to carry a weapon when on it. If I open a business, it is my right to allow or prohibit firearms as I see fit. If I open cake-baking business, it is my right to do business with whom I choose. The ability to choose with whom to interact, the ability to discriminate among people, businesses, organizations, etc., is the essence of liberty. Forced interaction should be labeled plainly as slavery, which it most certainly is. Liberty eliminates the master/servant relationship.
Times of Israel: Twitter: 1 million accounts suspended for ‘terrorism promotion’ since 2015
Techdirt: More governments granting themselves extra censorship powers with “fake news” laws
Activist Post: New surveillance camera software allows law enforcement to identify groups of people in real-time
FEE: Venezuela’s president tackles economic crisis by deleting 3 zeroes from currency
Also FEE: China’s ‘Social Credit’ system sounds pretty dystopian, but are we far behind?
High Times: Legal marijuana sales could surpass soda sales by 2030 Ed: We can only hope
Seeker: Here’s how magic mushrooms probably became psychedelic
Quillette: The case for sustainable meat Ed: Personally ambivalent about an entirely plant-based diet, but I understand the moral dilemma present in the consumption of an animal that I couldn’t bring myself to kill. But is my lack of hesitation to kill a plant for consumption due to the fact that its anguish and pain isn’t communicable to me in terms that I understand at an emotional level the way a dog, cat, or cow’s is? Veggies are a cleaner, more silent kill, but is it not the snuffing out of a life nonetheless? I’ve never given the questions much consideration, mainly because I believe the problem of humans slaughtering and enslaving other humans takes precedence, but the pursuit of humane living is noble, granted that it is done with honest intentions, rather than shallow virtue-signalling.
Aeon: Dungeons and Dragons, no chess and Go: Why AI needs roleplay
