Schulman describes this episode in a book she wrote some years later, Conflict Is Not Abuse. The book’s central insight is that people experiencing the inevitable discomfort of human misunderstanding often overstate the harm that has been done to them — they describe themselves as victims rather than as participants in a shared situation. And overstating harm itself can cause harm, whether it leads to social shunning or physical violence.
That even a stripped-down version of the 2021 Games will happen is hardly a foregone conclusion. The pandemic may not be under control by then. Even if it is, and even if an effective vaccine against the coronavirus is developed in time, the Games still might not happen. The postponement is likely going to add billions to a budget that was already triple that of the original projection of the Tokyo bid that the IOC had accepted in 2013. Public opinion in Japan seems to be swinging against the Games, too. In a recent survey, 77 percent of respondents said that the Olympics could not be held next year. In another poll, a slim majority of Tokyo residents said the same thing.
Xi Jinping is using artificial intelligence to enhance his government’s totalitarian control—and he’s exporting this technology to regimes around the globe.
By 2030, AI supremacy might be within range for China. The country will likely have the world’s largest economy, and new money to spend on AI applications for its military. It may have the most sophisticated drone swarms. It may have autonomous weapons systems that can forecast an adversary’s actions after a brief exposure to a theater of war, and make battlefield decisions much faster than human cognition allows. Its missile-detection algorithms could void America’s first-strike nuclear advantage. AI could upturn the global balance of power.
The widespread protests over George Floyd’s death helped prompt legislators to repeal a law known as Section 50-A, which kept police disciplinary records from public view.
In March, 2018, BuzzFeed began publishing a series of articles based on the records and announced plans to publish them in its own online database. Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch was so alarmed that he asked city officials to identify the source of what he termed “stolen records” and to “hold those responsible accountable.” No such efforts were made, but the city’s law department directed the Municipal Library to restrict access to its archive of personnel orders, a library official confirmed. “I couldn’t believe that I was watching a progressive mayor remove from public view records of government misconduct from a public archive,” Conti-Cook said.
The president’s restrictions on Chinese tech may be part of an eye-for-an-eye logic called reciprocity. The price could be a global patchwork of online fiefs.
Mr. Wang did not address China’s own restrictions on American websites, saying only that other countries might begin using national security as an excuse to act against U.S. companies. “The United States must not open Pandora’s box, or it will suffer the consequences,” he said.
This strikes many people of color as disingenuous. “How about when the rights of Hispanics, Black Americans, and Muslims are trampled on?” an activist in Lansing said. “Where are these rallies? Where is all this outcry? We don’t see it.” Attorney General Nessel, who, as a private lawyer, successfully challenged Michigan’s ban on same-sex marriage in a case that, along with others, was upheld by the Supreme Court, told me, “You didn’t see these people who now refuse to enforce the Governor’s orders saying, ‘Well, if you’re a county clerk and you don’t like the law, go ahead and start handing out marriage licenses to same-sex couples.’ These same sheriffs would have been horrified had that happened.”
It was a sign of impending doom, to some, when earlier this summer Parscale began coming in more often just as the target on his back swelled to carnival proportions. The polls? Trump trailed his almost-invisible challenger by double digits nationally and by a considerable margin in most battleground states. The messaging? Well, you try to “spin” six months in which 160,000 Americans died and at least 5 million more were infected by a virus you first said wouldn’t be much to worry about. Six months in which your best case for reelection — the greatest economy in the world — was destroyed too. The offense? Trump couldn’t even settle on a nickname for Joe Biden. Was he “Sleepy Joe,” or “Creepy Joe,” or “Beijing Biden”? That tiny Tulsa rally Parscale had organized — which followed weeks of massive hype — preceded a spike in coronavirus infections in the city that, local officials said, was probably born of the event, where the guest list included Herman Cain, who later died. Meanwhile, nationwide, there was civil unrest that Trump, whose political career had begun with a media tour to promote a racist conspiracy theory called birtherism, was unfit to handle. Yet there was an attitude, naïve and cocky, that led Parscale to compare the campaign to the Death Star, ready to fire but with no apparent idea where to aim. What was next? Locusts? How could the circumstances be any worse? The campaign was in a hole so deep it was actually historic — a deficit not just bigger, at this point in the race, than any an incumbent had ever overcome, but bigger than any an incumbent had ever even faced.
Last September, when I was in Hong Kong reporting on the anti-government protests engulfing the city, I spent an afternoon in the industrial-looking headquarters of Apple Daily, a popular tabloid owned by perhaps the city’s most unusual tycoon, an outspoken democracy activist and one of the Communist Party’s leading critics. To meet Jimmy Lai, I walked through the publication’s vast open-plan office, where hundreds of staff members busily put out the day’s news. “When I went into the publishing business, twenty-five years ago, it was a no-brainer,” Lai told me in his office, which resembled the appearance of its owner: determinedly functional and, unusually for Hong Kong, absent of status markers. “Information is freedom, and I wanted to be in the business of delivering freedom.” Lai admitted that back then he hardly thought this was a risky proposition. “I believed that all of China was going forward, that it was inevitable China would adapt to openness.”
Yevgeny Prigozhin can be described as the Renaissance man of deniable Russian black ops. An ex convict who served time for robbery, fraud and involving a minor in drinking and criminal activity, he began his legitimate business career in the 90s as a St.
Yevgeny Prigozhin can be described as the Renaissance man of deniable Russian black ops. An ex convict who served time for robbery, fraud and forcing minors into prostitution, he began his legitimate business career in the 90s as a St. Petersburg restaurant owner and later as caterer for the Kremlin.
Yevgeny Prigozhin can be described as the Renaissance man of deniable Russian black ops. An ex convict who served time for robbery, fraud and involving a minor in drinking and criminal activity, he began his legitimate business career in the 90s as a St.
Now, a long-running investigation by Bellingcat, The Insider and Der Spiegel has uncovered that Yevgeny Prigozhin’s disinformation, political interference and military operations are tightly integrated with Russia’s Defense Ministry and its intelligence arm, the GRU. Prigozhin’s private infrastructure – along with that of other government-dependent entrepreneurs, like Kostantin Malofeev – it appears serves as a deniable veneer and a round-tripping money laundering channel for government-mandated overseas operations.
It was around 2:30 AM—a couple hours before closing time at the strip club—when Cesar Sayoc’s coworkers noticed him acting strangely. A bouncer and occasional emcee at the club, Sayoc had worked that night but finished up earlier. Now he’d come back in, t
At some point during Sayoc’s breakdown, he resolved to take more drastic action. In 2017 and 2018, according to federal prosecutors, Sayoc plugged a number of alarming terms into Google: “How to kill all democrats,” “Kill George soros head off,” “Kill all socialist.” In March 2018, he searched the phrases “What a letter bomb” and “How do they make letter bomb”; among the results was a YouTube video labeled “demonstration of a letter bomb.”
The pro-democracy figure is the most high-profile person detained under the sweeping legislation imposed by Beijing. “It’s hard to believe this is Hong Kong,” said a journalist.
The pro-democracy figure is the most high-profile person detained under the sweeping legislation imposed by Beijing. “It’s hard to believe this is Hong Kong,” said a journalist.
In it, he had his pants unbuttoned and his arm around a woman who was not his wife. In an accompanying post, he had a glass of what he described as “black water” that appeared to be alcohol.
The new referees in American politics are Facebook, Google and Twitter, and they would be wise to pay attention to lessons the old media tried to learn.
The new referees in American politics are Facebook, Google and Twitter, and they would be wise to pay attention to lessons the old media tried to learn.
These ads seem to have come from the same playbook that Trump has been relying on for months now, with little success if you believe the polls. To get a better idea of how the campaign is trying to motivate the President’s loyal supporters and reach out to less committed ones, I downloaded the campaign’s official app, which promised to supply me with “exclusive content and campaign updates.” For a couple of days, I dived into the online Trump world, which turned out to be an immersive experience.
If Republicans succeed in their long-sought goal of privatizing the Postal Service, they will suck out what life remains in many of the communities they theoretically represent.
I’ve lived most of my life in small towns in pretty remote rural areas. Some were in red regions, some were purplish-blue—but every last one of them centered on the local post office. I remember years of picking up the mail from a little window in the postmaster’s living room. (If you called her the postmistress, she would tartly reply, “Uncle Sam can’t afford mistresses.”) Eventually, she needed her parlor back, to have room to work on her genealogy projects, so the community built a small freestanding building. Where I live now, the local post office takes up a third of the space in the only business in our town, a country store complete with potbellied stove and rocking chairs. It’s probably why we still have a store: if you’re there to pick up mail, you might as well get some eggs, too.
Kaufman became famous writing self-conscious films in a self-conscious time. In his début novel, he reminds us of the triumphs—and blind spots—of a generation.
Kaufman became famous writing self-conscious films in a self-conscious time. In his début novel, he reminds us of the triumphs—and blind spots—of a generation.
The streets of Minsk and other Belarusian cities have been battlegrounds since Sunday evening, when authorities announced that eighty per cent of voters had chosen to reëlect Alexander Lukashenka, who has been President for twenty-six years. His electoral opponent, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, has fled the country. At least three thousand people have been arrested, one protester has died, and an unknown number have been injured.
Last week, NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro asked Joe Biden whether, if elected, he could envision Donald Trump being prosecuted. Biden replied that the prosecution of a former president would be a “very, very unusual thing” and probably “not very good for democracy.” The former vice president said he would not stand in the way if the Justice Department wanted to bring a case, but when Garcia-Navarro pressed him, he suggested she was trying to bait him into a version of Trump’s threat against his 2016 opponent: “Lock her up.”
