Misinformation Has Created a New World Disorder

www.scientificamerican.com /article/misinformation-has-created-a-new-world-disorder/
Claire Wardle
18-23 minutes
As someone who studies the impact of misinformation on society, I often wish the young entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley who enabled communication at speed had been forced to run a 9/11 scenario with their technologies before they deployed them commercially.

One of the most iconic images from that day shows a large clustering of New Yorkers staring upward. The power of the photograph is that we know the horror they're witnessing. It is easy to imagine that, today, almost everyone in that scene would be holding a smartphone. Some would be filming their observations and posting them to Twitter and Facebook. Powered by social media, rumors and misinformation would be rampant. Hate-filled posts aimed at the Muslim community would proliferate, the speculation and outrage boosted by algorithms responding to unprecedented levels of shares, comments and likes. Foreign agents of disinformation would amplify the division, driving wedges between communities and sowing chaos. Meanwhile those stranded on the tops of the towers would be livestreaming their final moments.

Victory for Boris Johnson’s all-new Tories

www.economist.com /leaders/2019/12/13/victory-for-boris-johnsons-all-new-tories

print-edition iconPrint edition | LeadersDec 13th 2019
7-8 minutes
BRITAIN’S ELECTION on December 12th was the most unpredictable in years—yet in the end the result was crushingly one-sided. As we went to press the next morning, Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party was heading for a majority of well over 70, the largest Tory margin since the days of Margaret Thatcher. Labour, meanwhile, was expecting its worst result since the 1930s. Mr Johnson, who diced with the possibility of being one of Britain’s shortest-serving prime ministers, is now all-powerful.

“Academic mobbing” undermines open inquiry and destroys the soul of universities Open Future

Jul 23rd 2019
9-12 minutes
This is a by-invitation commentary as part of The Economist’s Open Future initiative, which is designed to spur a global conversation across the ideological spectrum on individual rights, open markets, free speech, technology and more. You can comment here. More articles can be found here.


In a 1951 essay for the New York Times Magazine entitled “The Best Answer to Fanatacism—Liberalism”, the philosopher Bertrand Russell laid out ten principles which he believed summed up the liberal outlook. The fifth item on Russell’s list was, “Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.” This statement echoes the motto of Britain’s Royal Society (a learned society founded in 1660 for the promotion of scientific knowledge), which is Nullius in verba, meaning “Take nobody’s word for it.”

The new geopolitics of Turkey, Syria, and the West

Kemal Kirişci
Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Brookings Institute
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/02/14/the-new-geopolitics-of-turkey-syria-and-the-west/

As the turmoil in Syria enters its seventh year, its adverse geopolitical consequences stretch far beyond the Middle East. Developments in Syria have affected Turkey, too. Before the Arab Spring, Turkey was a rising star in its neighborhood, but has become a troubled nation in the years since. Its president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is increasingly cited as a model for authoritarians around the region and the world, and if tensions between Turkey and the West lead to a fracture, more adverse geopolitical consequences could follow.

Turkey has agreed to buy Russia's advanced missile-defense system, leaving NATO wondering what's next

Christopher Woody

Jul. 17, 2017, 1:48 PM

Business Insider


Turkey reached an agreement with Russia to purchase the latter's most sophisticated missile-defense system, the S-400, a senior Turkish military official told Bloomberg last week.

Under the $2.5 billion agreement Ankara would receive two batteries of the antiaircraft missile from Moscow within the coming year and then produce two more batteries in Turkey.

At the beginning of June, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow was ready to deliver the missile system, and a Russian military-industry official said an agreement on technical details had been reached in mid-June.

Hong Kong Protests: China Pushes Back Against U.S.

The Wall Street Journal

By CHARLES HUTZLER

Oct. 1, 2014 11:56 p.m. ET

In a rare public spat, China's foreign minister, Wang Yi, pushed back against U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on the Hong Kong protests, with the Chinese official saying the U.S. should stay out of China's internal affairs.

For China, Limited Tools to Quell Unrest in Hong Kong

By EDWARD WONG and CHRIS BUCKLEYSEPT. 29, 2014

The New York Times

BEIJING — China’s Communist Party has ample experience extinguishing unrest. For years it has used a deft mix of censorship, arrests, armed force and, increasingly, money to repress or soften calls for political change.

Mission accomplished, says Snowden: Washington Post

Mon Dec 23, 2013 11:35pm EST

(Reuters) - Former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden, who revealed extensive details of global electronic surveillance by the U.S. spy agency, said in an interview published on Tuesday that he has accomplished what he set out to do.

"For me, in terms of personal satisfaction, the mission's already accomplished," he told the Washington Post. The newspaper said it spoke to Snowden over two days of nearly unbroken conversation in Moscow, "fueled by burgers, pasta, ice cream and Russian pastry."

Democracy’s Cradle, Rocking the World

The New York Times

By MARK MAZOWER

Published: June 29, 2011

YESTERDAY, the whole world was watching Greece as its Parliament voted to pass a divisive package of austerity measures that could have critical ramifications for the global financial system. It may come as a surprise that this tiny tip of the Balkan Peninsula could command such attention. We usually think of Greece as the home of Plato and Pericles, its real importance lying deep in antiquity. But this is hardly the first time that to understand Europe’s future, you need to turn away from the big powers at the center of the continent and look closely at what is happening in Athens. For the past 200 years, Greece has been at the forefront of Europe’s evolution.