Local transit union submits petition with about 1,600 member signatures in opposition to regional service in Edmonton area

Almost 1,600 transit workers in Edmonton and St. Albert have signed a petition opposing the move to regional transit service.

© Provided by Edmonton Journal Amalgamated Transit Union Local 569 has submitted a petition in opposition to the move to regional transit service.

Dustin Cook 3/5/2021 EDMONTON JOURNAL / POSTMEDIA

Amalgamated Transit Union Local 569 president Steve Bradshaw submitted the petition via email to all councillors and mayors of the eight member municipalities Friday morning. Bradshaw said the union is calling for certainty that the regional transit commission , having just received legal approval from the province in January, isn’t privatized.

About 70 per cent of affected union employees signed the petition that was also on display on a giant banner outside Edmonton city hall.

“We’re not sure it’s an idea that can’t work. But, it won’t work as a privatized deal and we want to have a seat at the table. We want to be involved in decisions that are being made about the service that we operate and we want to protect our jobs, we want to protect our union and we want to protect our jurisdiction,” Bradshaw said. “Ultimately, it’s about continuing a high level of service.”

Ward 10 Coun. Michael Walters, who also serves as vice-chairman of the commission board, said labour relations discussions still need to happen but the plan has always been to continue the partnership with the union. The commission sent a letter to the union outlining a willingness to engage with them but hasn’t heard back, Walters said.

“Mr. Bradshaw appears to be manufacturing this boogeyman that this is privatization when it’s never been that,” he said. “I’m confused about why he would continue to try to frighten his members and City of Edmonton employees about something that’s not real.”

The goal in moving forward with regional transit is to provide more efficient transit service across the Edmonton region and bring down the costs, Walters said, noting the commission wants to make the new system work for all parties.

Once the system is in full swing, projected to be in 2026, it is estimated regional service will save $3.9 million annually and reduce redundancy by 615 service hours per week.

The commission board, made up of elected officials from member municipalities, is currently in the process of hiring a CEO which Bradshaw said is where some of his concerns lie.

People with years of experience in operating transit systems didn’t make the shortlist, Bradshaw said, causing him to fear it is moving in a more corporate direction.

“The main fear with privatization is it will set up a degradation of service, it will impact our communities because of poor service, it will impact our taxpayers because they’re going to end up paying amounts to unlimited liabilities for this system,” he said. “On the union’s level, of course, we’re very concerned for our members’ jobs and our members’ pay and benefits.”

Once a CEO is hired, the commission will work to roll out the first wave of regional service in mid to late 2022. Originally the regional transit discussion involved 13 municipalities in the Edmonton metropolitan area, but eight have signed on to continue with the commission. Regional transit will provide service to Edmonton, St. Albert, Spruce Grove, Stony Plain, Beaumont, the City of Leduc, Fort Saskatchewan and Devon.

duscook@postmedia.com

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ARE WE JUST A NODE IN GOD'S MIND

The Universe Might Be One Big Neural Network, Study Finds

Caroline Delbert 

POPULAR MECHANICS

3/5/2021

© artpartner-images 

A physicist suggests the whole universe could be a single neural network. Here's what that means.

One scientist says the universe is a giant neural net.

The wild concept uses neural net theory to unify quantum and classical mechanics.

This is a great jumping-off point for larger philosophical discussions.

In a thought-provoking new paper, a physicist suggests the whole universe could be a single neural network—a competing“theory of everything” that could unite quantum and classical mechanics, he says.

If this is true—and that’s a really, really big if—it would mean pretty enormous things for the nature of the universe.
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➡ You love weird f#@!-ing science. So do we. 

Let’s nerd out over this stuff together

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What’s a Neural Network?

A neural network is what’s called a data structure, which is a shape or format for organizing ideas inside computer hardware. If you’ve ever made a shopping list or written down the steps to complete a task, you’ve made a data structure. If you’ve“opened a ticket” in an IT support system at your job, that ticket probably joined a data structure called a queue. You may have even programmed these structures, too, writing code for stacks, trees, and more.

“Modeled loosely on the human brain, a neural net consists of thousands or even millions of simple processing nodes that are densely interconnected,” the Massachusetts Institute of Technology explains. And the neural net isn’t just the physical data structure—it’s an umbrella term for both the structure and the weighted, programmed approach to using the structure in artificial intelligence.

 
In the simplest terms, a neural net is like any other net. A fish could push one part of a net far out of shape. A knitted sweater shifts to fit your body. The weights in a neural net, like a struggling fish or a bicep, note who and what is deforming the net. The best data points peek through and are skimmed off. And the approach is thought to model the human mind, hence the name neural net.

© Westend61 - Getty Images gettyimages-1139000285

Is the Universe One Big Neural Network?

With this idea in mind, how can it be that the whole universe is like a neural net? Take it from Vitaly Vanchurin, a physics professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth, who published his paper “The World as a Neural Network” on the arXiv pre-print server last year:
“We discuss a possibility that the entire universe on its most fundamental level is a neural network. We identify two different types of dynamical degrees of freedom:“trainable” variables and“hidden” variables. We consider the trainable variables to argue that near equilibrium their dynamics [are] well approximated by Madelung equations and further away from the equilibrium by Hamilton-Jacobi equations. This shows that the trainable variables can indeed exhibit classical and quantum behaviors.”

Basically, Vanchurin says we can use the idea of a neural net to model the universe, in a way that could bring together quantum and classical mechanics. This is a key mismatch in physics, creating a phantom barrier between phenomena explained by Einstein’s theory of general relativity, for example, versus the close-up spooky trompe l’oeil effects of quantum mechanics.

The same set of variables is affected by a quantum phenomenon at one end of their spectrum and a classical one at the far other end, per Vanchurin’s theory. That means the same values are affected by both at once, with some pivot point or even overlap somewhere in the middle between them.

“In this paper, I consider another possibility that a microscopic neural network is the fundamental structure and everything else, i.e. quantum mechanics, general relativity and macroscopic observers, emerges from it,” Vanchurin told Futurism.“So far, things look rather promising.”

The theory could bear out over further review, including any peer review before publication in a journal. But what’s arguably most interesting about Vanchurin’s concept is what it implies for ideas: A unifying theory could still be lying just out of sight, and the structure we imagine modeling the human brain could also model the molecular level of the entire universe.

“Would this theory mean we’re living in a simulation?” Futurism’s Victor Tangermann asked Vanchurin.“No, we live in a neural network,” he replied. “But we might never know the difference.”

World must do more to support democracy 

in Myanmar: Bob Rae

Chris Hall 

CBC

3/6/2021
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© Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press Canada's Ambassador to the United Nations Bob Rae says the international community must do more to support the democratic movement in Myanmar.

Bob Rae says the international community must support the democratic movement in Myanmar as protesters there continue to risk their lives to protest against last month's military coup.

Canada's ambassador to the United Nations says it's the only way to honour the courage shown by those standing up for democracy.

"I do think that what we're seeing now is an unprecedented level of support for a widespread and deep democracy within Myanmar," Rae said in an interview airing Saturday on CBC's The House.

"We have not seen demonstrations of the kind we're seeing in Myanmar for four generations. And I think it's really important for us to stress that."

The death toll in Myanmar, also known as Burma, continues to rise as police and military officials crack down on the protests.

The UN says more than 50 people have died, and about 1,000 others — including civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi — have been detained.
Persecution of Rohingya

Suu Kyi came under heavy criticism for her failure to stop the military from its campaign of ethnic cleansing against the country's Rohingya Muslim minority — a failure that led Canada to strip her of honorary Canadian citizenship in 2018.

Rae, who served as Canada's special envoy to Myanmar on the Rohingya crisis until 2018, was asked if that past makes it more difficult to organize international support for her.

"The short answer to that is, of course it does, but it doesn't stop us from doing it," he said. "The fact remains that she was democratically elected leader of a political party that won an election and that has to be recognized."

Canada has imposed sanctions on military officials already. But Myanmar is not a member of the United Nations Security Council and the fear is that China or Russia would veto any measures the UN might take.

The UN's special envoy to Myanmar, Christine Schraner Bergener, called Friday for the Security Council to present a unified front in demanding an end to the coup and the release of those detained.

"It is critical that this council is resolute and coherent in putting the security forces on notice and standing with the people of Myanmar firmly, in support of the clear November election results," she said.
Calls for 'collective action'

"There is an urgency for collective action," she added. "How much more can we allow the Myanmar military to get away with?"

Rae believes there's a consensus that more can be done to stop the violence now.

"I think we do have to look at what else can we do to isolate the military, to freeze their assets wherever we can find them, and to work with every conceivable partner that we can find to create the conditions for the transition to democracy," he said.

© Lee Jin-man/The Associated Press A member of a South Korean civic group holds a sign as she attends at a rally against Myanmar's military coup in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, March 3, 2021.

"It's going to be extremely difficult, but I think this issue is far from over. The outcome is not by any means settled."

But time is running short. The images emerging from the protests show unarmed people being shot by authorities and ambulance attendants being beaten when they try to assist the injured.

Tin Maung Htoo lives in London, Ontario. He's been posting some of those videos and photos on social media, including one of a 19-year-old woman, Kyal Sin, who was shot dead while wearing a t-shirt that said, "Everything will be OK."

"When I look at the video ... she is the only female ... at the forefront, blocking and confronting the police and the military on the street," he said in a separate interview for The House.

"She was also taking control. Telling other colleagues, 'Be careful, be careful. You cannot be tired. Keep fighting. Keep standing. Keep holding.' That was the message she was [saying] in Burmese."
Calls for Canada to do more

Tin is the coordinator of a new group called Burmese Canadian Action Network. His group wrote to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau this week urging Canada to do more to help end the violence.

"Burma has been under totalitarian, authoritarian rule for half a century," he said. "So when these people think this is enough, enough is enough ... they want to move forward."

Tin said he believes people will continue to risk their lives for democracy — to show the world that the military can't be allowed to win.

That same message was delivered last week by Myanmar's then ambassador to the UN during a special meeting of the general assembly.

"Now is not the time for the international community to tolerate the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Myanmar's military," Kyaw Moe Tun said. The country's military rulers fired him the next day.

Rae said that speech — and the daily protests on the streets — demonstrate rare courage.

"And I think it's a reminder that courage is probably the most important of all the virtues, because it's the virtue that makes all the other things possible in life," he said. "Without courage, we have nothing."

Digging into the drought: Why one massive Prairie rainstorm doesn't help

Kevin MacKay 

The Weather Network

3/5/2021

Embedded content: https://players.brightcove.net/1942203455001/B1CSR9sVf_default/index.html?videoId=6235951300001

Precipitation, of all kinds, is the lifeblood of the Prairies, but the region’s wellbeing relies on a delicate balance – too much, and too little, are both consistent concerns.

The need for precipitation exists year-round, even outside the actual growing season. Winter snow is needed to ensure plenty of soil moisture and full reservoirs to kick things off in the spring, while welcome summer rains top up reserves and ease the burden on irrigation systems.

This past winter, however, the snows haven’t held up their end of that bargain. Around 80 per cent of the Canadian Prairie have received less than half their seasonal average rainfall.

While a less voluminous snowpack means somewhat drier soil in the spring – a boon for farmers hoping for early access to their fields – there’s less moisture on hand as the spring turns to summer, with its hotter and drier days set to strain water supplies.

© Provided by The Weather Network

And prior to the winter, it was a mixed bag across the region. Over the past 12 months, the western Prairies saw above-average precipitation, while areas from roughly Regina and eastward to northern Ontario were below by 100-200 mm depending on location.

But there’s one glaring outlier that is a good example of how getting an enormous amount of precipitation all at once is not as preferable as having it spread out more consistently: Brandon, Man., which unlike the rest of the eastern Prairies saw above-average precipitation.

What could be behind this?

Digging into the data, we can find records of a single storm that dropped an astounding 155 mm of rain on June 28th last year in a 10-hour window, nearly double the monthly average and 30 per cent of all precipitation over the last year.

© Provided by The Weather Network

However, that doesn’t mean Brandon escaped the drought conditions. Normally, the Prairie region’s summer precipitation comes from convective and frontal thunderstorms from June to August. Ideally, they don’t become severe, avoiding damaging hail and flooding rain, instead providing manageable pulses of moisture.

Brandon’s deluge, however, was simply too much water. In such cases, flash flooding can occur when heavy rain falls on very dry soil, forcing the bulk of the water into drainage systems, so the soil only really benefits from a small portion of it, whether directly or through reservoirs, which themselves wouldn’t have snagged 100 per cent of it.

Flash flooding can occur when heavy rain falls on very dry soil, acting more like concrete. This forces the water to run down the drainage system, bypassing the parched soil. Yes, a portion of the rainfall was snatched up by the farmland and reservoirs but not 100% of it.

So, no, Brandon didn’t escape its drought. Seasonal precipitation timing, event duration, temperature, and crop status all play an additional role when analyzing the significance of a drought, and that single deluge wasn’t enough for farmers.

Nearly Six-Foot-Long Glowing Shark Discovered in Deep Sea Off New Zealand

The kitefin shark is one of three species of glowing sharks described in a new paper      

Photos of the kitefin shark glowing in the dark. (J Mallefet / UC Louvain / FNRS)
By Alex Fox
SMITHSONIANMAG.COM
MARCH 5, 2021

Scientists have discovered three species of glowing sharks in the deep ocean near New Zealand, reports Elle Hunt for the Guardian. One of the species, the kitefin shark, can reach lengths of nearly six feet and researchers say its cool blue glow makes it the largest known species of luminous vertebrate on Earth.

The three bioluminescent sharks—the kitefin shark, the blackbelly lanternshark and the southern lanternshark—were hauled up from the deep during fish surveys of an ocean bottom feature called the Chatham Rise off the east coast of New Zealand in January 2020. All three sharks inhabit the ocean’s mesopelagic or “twilight” zone, which spans depths of 660 to 3,300 feet below the surface.

Bioluminescence is relatively common in the deep sea among fish and squids, but its presence has been murkier and less well-studied among sharks, reports Elizabeth Claire Alberts for Mongabay. A study detailing the discovery, published last month in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, confirms the three sharks’ bioluminescence but suggests their biochemical mechanism for producing light may be different from most sea creatures, per Mongabay.

Most bioluminescence in the deep sea involves a chemical compound called luciferin that glows when it interacts with oxygen. Researchers tell Mongabay that this trio of sharks appears to produce light some other way.

Researchers aren’t exactly sure what purpose the ability to glow serves for the sharks but speculate that their glowing bellies could make them harder to see from below. In the darkness of the deep sea, the ocean surface is a faintly luminous backdrop against which a glowing shark would disappear when viewed from below, concealing it from predators or prey. Per the Guardian, the kitefin may also be using its glow to illuminate prey on the seafloor.

“I tend to say they are the MacGyver users of light, because they use bioluminescence in many different ways,” Jérôme Mallefet, a marine biologist at the Université Catholique de Louvainthe and the study’s lead author, tells Mongabay.


Curiously, the kitefin’s dorsal fin also emits light. Speaking with the Guardian, Mallefet says “we are still very surprised by the glow on the dorsal fin. Why? For which purpose?”

Mallefet says he hopes he will soon be able to safely travel for his research and continue investigating the glowing denizens of the deep. “We hope by highlighting something new in the deep sea of New Zealand—glowing sharks—that maybe people will start thinking we should protect this environment before destroying it,” he tells Mongabay.

“I hope the new generation will carry that message, and I’m more than happy to [add] my little piece of the jigsaw to a big program to protect the ocean,” Mallefet says.

NEW ZEALAND sees 8.1 magnitude earthquake, lifts tsunami warnings following series of quakes

Third earthquake was one of the most powerful in region in modern history

By Peter Aitken | Fox News

3/5/2021

New Zealand residents were given the all-clear to return to their homes after a series of earthquakes over several hours set off tsunami warnings, according to reports.

Three earthquakes struck the Pacific region over a period of 6 hours on Friday, with the last quake registering as 8.1 magnitude -- one of the most powerful earthquakes in the region in modern history.

GREAT BARRIER ISLAND, NEW ZEALAND: Residents wait on higher ground following a tsunami warning on March 5, 2021 in Great Barrier Island, New Zealand. A number of low-lying coastal areas were evacuated across New Zealand following a series of earthquakes this morning. While the threat level has now been downgraded, wave surges are still expected along coastal areas, with New Zealanders warned to stay off beaches. (Photo by Bridget Cameron)

Officials issued advisories for coastal areas after the first quake -- registering as 7.3 magnitude -- originated around 100 miles from the islands.


"We expect New Zealand coastal areas to experience strong and unusual currents and unpredictable surges at the shore," New Zealand's National Emergency Management Agency tweeted.

The quakes created waves ranging from 3 to 10 feet in height and forcing officials to issue tsunami warnings in various countries around the Pacific.

The strongest quake originated about 620 miles northeast of New Zealand.

Even Hawaii observed a tsunami warning that lasted 2 and a half hours, Hawaii News Now reported.

GREAT BARRIER ISLAND, NEW ZEALAND: Residents wait on higher ground following a tsunami warning on March 5, 2021 in Great Barrier Island, New Zealand. A number of low-lying coastal areas were evacuated across New Zealand following a series of earthquakes this morning. While the threat level has now been downgraded, wave surges are still expected along coastal areas, with New Zealanders warned to stay off beaches. (Photo by Bridget Cameron)

Despite the significant strength of the earthquakes, no widespread injuries or deaths have been reported. New Zealand residents only reported gridlock as people fled their homes for higher ground, as well as some structural damage.

A smaller, 6.3 magnitude earthquake in 2011 killed 185 people on the southern-most island of Christchurch.

Residents have been told they may return home, but have been warned to remain off beaches, although authorities said the largest waves have passed, the BBC reported.

Congress Member Rejects US Interference in ICC Probe of Israel

CHAIRWOMAN TLAIB OF THE PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRATS CAUCUS

ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda in a statement on 03 March 2021 said that formal \investigations into war crimes in the Palestinian Territories will be opened regarding the December 2019 conflicts. | Photo: EFE/EPA/EVA PLEVIER / POOL

Published 5 March 2021 

by Tortilla con sal

U.S. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib refutes Washington's interference in the ICC's decision to investigate war crimes in occupied Palestine.

Michigan's U.S. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib denounced through her Twitter account on Thursday the U.S. Government's attempts to interfere and derail a probe by the International Criminal Court (ICC) into Israeli war crimes committed against the Palestinian people.

ICC Opens Investigation Into Israeli War Crimes in Palestine

"No one is above the law. The ICC has the authority and duty to independently and impartially investigate and bring justice to the victims of human rights violations and war crimes in Palestine and Israel. The United States must not interfere with its ability to do so," the Democratic lawmaker wrote on Twitter.

The chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC), Fatou Bensouda, announced on Wednesday the opening of an investigation into Israeli war crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories, after she ruled on February 5 that she has jurisdiction to investigate atrocities committed by the Israeli army in the occupied West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Al-Quds (Jerusalem), lands that Israel has occupied for more than 50 years.

However, the White House censured the decision of this body. The U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, stated on Twitter the same day that the U.S. was firmly opposed to the investigation and that it will continue to maintain its "firm commitment to Israel and its security."

This, while Bensouda made clear last June that the investigation into war crimes committed by the Tel Aviv regime against the Palestinians, faces no obstacles, thus rejecting claims and warnings by Israel and its U.S. ally to halt the process.

by teleSUR/capc-MS

THE LARGEST MASS MURDERER IN AMERICAN HISTORY
Press Sec Psaki: Trump Doesn’t Deserve Vaccine Credit After 500K COVID Deaths

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki speaks during the daily press briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on March 4, 2021, in Washington, D.C.SAMUEL CORUM / GETTY IMAGES

BYChris Walker, Truthout

PUBLISHED March 4, 2021


While fielding questions during the daily White House press briefing on Thursday, Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked how much credit former President Donald Trump should get regarding the rollout of coronavirus vaccines across the United States.

“I don’t think anyone deserves credit when half a million people in the country have died from this pandemic,” the press secretary said.

ABC News senior White House correspondent Mary Bruce asked the question to Psaki on Thursday.

Current President Joe Biden “has been pretty critical of the prior administration’s handling of the pandemic, saying you inherited a mess here,” Bruce began, “but when it comes to vaccinations, you are following some of the same playbook here, so does the prior administration deserve some credit for laying the groundwork?”

Psaki questioned where that question came from. Bruce explained that it was suggested by Trump’s former coronavirus testing czar Brett Giroir, who had claimed Biden’s vaccine plan was 99 percent copied from Trump’s.

“He has said that the prior administration deserves more credit here for at least getting the ball rolling on some of these,” Bruce added.

Psaki rejected that argument outright.

“What our focus is on and what the president’s focus is on when he came into office just over a month ago, was ensuring we have enough vaccines. We are going to have them now,” Psaki added, stating that there were “not enough” vaccines available when Biden initially took office.

Psaki’s response is in line with previous criticisms from Biden, who has said in the past that Trump failed to procure enough doses of coronavirus vaccines before he left office.

The Biden administration purchased 200 million more doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in February, saying at the time that they had brought the vaccine totals high enough to vaccinate every person in the U.S.

“While scientists did their job in discovering vaccines in record time, my predecessor — I’ll be very blunt about it — did not do his job in getting ready for the massive challenge of vaccinating hundreds of millions,” Biden said in February.

In more recent days, the Biden administration also helped to broker a deal between two competing pharmaceutical companies, Johnson & Johnson and Merck, to produce millions more doses of a third vaccine in the coming months.

The increase in vaccine doses, Biden has said, will mean that every adult in the U.S. will be able to get vaccinated by the end of May.

Far from being helpful in putting a halt to the pandemic, Trump’s actions as president likely made matters worse. A study from the medical journal The Lancet noted Trump’s “appalling response” to the pandemic, which included making the wearing of masks a political issue. The manner in which the former president behaved regarding the virus “expedited the spread of Covid-19,” the report concluded. (The report also concluded that if the U.S. had the same health care system and approach to COVID-19 that other wealthy nations have employed, there could have been 40 percent fewer deaths from the virus than had actually occurred.)

A separate study, which examined 18 of Trump’s political campaign rallies held last year (which featured tightly packed crowds and very few in attendance wearing masks), found that the rallies were connected to at least 700 deaths and tens of thousands of coronavirus infections across the country.

By the time Trump had exited office, more than 400,000 Americans had died from COVID-19 — a stunning number that is worlds apart from what the former president had predicted just over one year ago.

While 118,000 more Americans have died due to coronavirus since Trump’s departure from office, it does appear that numbers are now trending in a better direction. On January 20, the last day Trump was in office, the seven-day average of new daily cases stood at 195,064 cases per day. As of March 3, that number has been reduced to 64,409 cases per day, a decrease of nearly 67 percent.

Social Networks, the New Dominant Media

by Ignacio Ramonet, OPINION, TELESUR

“(…) although the digital revolution has allowed an indisputable democratization of communication – a goal that seemed absolutely unthinkable – this democratization now leads to an uncontrolled and disorderly proliferation of messages, as well as to the deafening noise created above all by social networks”.

The modern Internet, the Web, was invented in 1989, thirty-two years ago. In other words, we are living the first minutes of a phenomenon that is here to stay for centuries. Let’s think that the printing press was invented in 1440, and that three decades later it had hardly changed anything, but it ended up disrupting the world: it changed culture, politics, economics, science, history. It is clear that many of the parameters we know are being profoundly modified, not so much by the current pandemic of Covid-19, but above all by the widespread irruption of technological changes and social networks. And not only in terms of communication – is truth dying – but also in finance, commerce, transport, tourism, knowledge, culture… Not to mention the new dangers of surveillance and loss of privacy.

Now, with the Web and social networks, it is no longer only the state that watches over us. Some giant private companies (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, etc.) know more about us than we do. In the coming years, with artificial intelligence and 5G technology, algorithms will determine the course of our lives more than our own will. Let no one think that such decisive changes in communication will not have consequences for the very organization of society and its political structuring as we have known it up to now. The future is a long way off and the decisive changes have only just begun.

“(…) although the digital revolution has allowed an indisputable democratization of communication – a goal that seemed absolutely unthinkable – this democratization now leads to an uncontrolled and disorderly proliferation of messages, as well as to the deafening noise created above all by social networks”.

We live in a universe in which our privacy is under great threat; we are more under surveillance than ever through biometrics or video surveillance cameras, much more than George Orwell himself imagined in his dystopian novel 1984. Moreover, robotics, drones and artificial intelligence threaten to create an ecosystem from which human beings could end up being expelled; not to mention the “crisis of truth” – in terms of information – replaced by fake news, post-truth, new manipulations or alternative truths. At this point, the future could be approaching our most terrifying past faster than we think.

On the emancipatory aspect of the current digital revolution, the most notable aspect is the “effective democratization of information”. An ideal that constituted a fundamental demand, and to some extent a dream, since the social revolt of May 1968 – i.e. the desire for citizens to take control of the means of communication and above all of information – has to some extent been realized. Today, with the mass equipping of lightweight digital communication devices (smartphones, laptops, tablets and others), individual citizens have more communicational firepower than, for example, the first global television channel, Cable News Network (CNN), had in 1986. It is much cheaper and easier to operate. Every citizen is now what used to be called a mass media. Many people are unaware of it or don’t know the real power at their disposal. Today, in the face of the big media corporations, we are no longer unarmed. Whether we are making optimal use of the communication superpower at our disposal is another matter.

In that sense, even though the digital revolution has allowed for a new solution to the problems of information and communication, has it solved them? The answer is no, because in life every solution creates a new problem. This is the tragic human condition. The ancient Greeks illustrated it with the myth of Sisyphus, condemned to push a huge boulder to the top of a mountain; once he reached the top, the boulder slipped out of his hands and tumbled back down to the foot of the mountain. Then Sisyphus had to pull it back up to the top, where it slipped again, and so on until the end of eternity.

In this sense, although the digital revolution has allowed an indisputable democratization of communication – a goal that seemed absolutely unthinkable – this democratization now leads to an uncontrolled and disorderly proliferation of messages, as well as to the deafening noise created above all by social networks. This is precisely what constitutes the new problem. As we said, truth has now been diluted. If we all have our truth, what then is the real truth? Or is it, as Donald Trump said, that “truth is relative”?

At the same time, the objectivity of information (if it ever existed) has disappeared, manipulations have multiplied, intoxications proliferate like another pandemic, disinformation dominates and the war of narratives spreads. Never before have fake news, delusional narratives, “emotional information” and plots been “constructed” with such sophistication. To make matters worse, many surveys show that citizens prefer and believe fake news more than real news because the former corresponds better to what we think. Neurobiological studies confirm that we adhere more to what we believe than to what goes against our beliefs. It has never been easier to fool ourselves.

More than a “new frontier”, the Internet, i.e. cyberspace or digitalandia, is our “new territory”. We live in two spaces, our usual, three-dimensional space and the digital space of the screens. A parallel space, as in science fiction or quantum universes, where things or people can be in two places at the same time. Obviously, our relationship to the world, from a phenomenological point of view, cannot be the same. The Internet – and tomorrow Artificial Intelligence – gives our brains unprecedented extensions. Certainly the new digital sociability, accelerated by socializing networks such as Facebook or Tinder, is profoundly modifying our relational behavior. I don’t think there can be any “turning back”. Networks are simply the defining structural parameters of contemporary society.

We must also be aware that the Internet is no longer the decentralized space of freedom that made it possible to escape dependence on the mainstream media. Without most Internet users realizing it, the Internet has become centralized around a few giant companies that we have already mentioned – the GAFA (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon) – which monopolies it and which almost no one can do without. Their power is such, as we have just seen, that they even allow themselves to censor the president of the United States when Twitter and Facebook cut off his access and silenced Donald Trump himself at the beginning of January.

We did not understand in the early 2000s that the economic model of “advertising versus free” would create a dangerous phenomenon of centralization, because advertisers have an interest in working with the biggest, with those who have the largest audience. We must now succeed in going against this logic in order to decentralize the Internet again. Public opinion must realize that free access leads to such a centralization of the Internet that, little by little, control becomes stronger and surveillance becomes generalized.

In this regard, it should be pointed out that surveillance today is essentially based on technological, automatic information, much more than on human information. It is a matter of “diagnosing the dangerousness” of an individual on the basis of more or less proven elements of suspicion and the surveillance (with the complicity of the GAFA) of his or her contacts in networks and messages; with the paradoxical idea that, to guarantee freedoms, we must begin by limiting them. Let it be understood: the problem is not surveillance in general, but mass clandestine surveillance.

In a democratic state, the authorities are fully legitimized to monitor any individual they deem suspicious, relying on the law and making use of a judge’s prior authorization. In the new sphere of surveillance, every person is a priori considered suspicious, especially if the “algorithmic black boxes” mechanically classify them as “threatening” after analyzing their network contacts and communications. This new security theory considers that human beings are devoid of true free will or autonomous thought. It is therefore pointless to try to retroactively intervene in the family environment or social causes in order to prevent possible aberrations. All that is desired now, with faith in the surveillance reports, is to repress as soon as possible before the crime is committed. This deterministic conception of society, imagined some sixty years ago by the American science fiction writer Philip K. Dick in his novel Minority Report, is gradually gaining ground. It is the “favorite” that is now being pursued, under the pretext of “anticipating the threat”.

To this end, commercial companies and advertising agencies search our lives. We are increasingly being watched, spied on, monitored, controlled, and put on file. Every day, new technologies are being perfected to track our footprints. The online giants secretly compile exhaustive files of our personal and contact data, extracted from our activities on social networks via various electronic media.

However, this generalized vigilance does not prevent the awakening of some long-silent and now interconnected societies. Undoubtedly, what was called in 2011 the “Arab Spring”, like the “Indignados movement” in Spain and “Occupy Wall Street” in the United States, would not have been possible – in the way they developed – without the communicational innovations brought about by the internet revolution. This is due not only to the use of the main social networks, which were then only just spreading – Facebook was created in 2006 and Twitter was launched in 2009 – but also to the use of email, messaging, and simply the smartphone. The impact of the popular demonstrations provoked by these communicational innovations was very strong in 2011, regardless of the nature of the political systems (authoritarian or democratic) against which they clashed.

Of course, in the Arab world, which had been “frozen” for various reasons for half a century, the “shock” had spectacular consequences: two dictatorships (Tunisia and Egypt) collapsed, and in two other countries (Libya and Syria) painful civil wars began which, ten years later, have still not ended. Even within democratic systems – Spain, Greece, Portugal, and the United States – there were considerable shocks that year that definitively changed the way politics was conducted. Take Spain, for example, where, in the heat of this movement, a new left-wing party, Podemos, emerged, which voters eventually propelled to power in 2019, in coalition with the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE). This is not a small thing.

I would like to add two thoughts. First, that these communicational innovations soon gave rise to a political use of social networks. We cannot be naïve. There are manuals for using the networks with subversive intentions. They have been used against Cuba countless times, as well as against the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela and against the government of President Nicolás Maduro. Let us also remember that between 2003 and 2006, in an organized and planned manner, with financing from powerful interests, what were called “color revolutions” had already taken place in Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004), Kyrgyzstan (2005), etc.; with the undisguised intention of breaking these countries’ alliances with Moscow and diminishing Russia’s power.

Secondly, we will comment that in the autumn of 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic spread to the entire planet, the world – from Hong Kong to Chile, via Iraq, Lebanon, Algeria, France, Catalonia, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Colombia, among other nations – was experiencing a trail of large popular protests driven and accentuated by the use of social networks. All the governments of these countries, theoretically democratic, did not know, in most cases, how to deal with this new type of social protest except with brutal repression.

So we could, in effect, say that on the one hand, social networks and messaging of a new kind (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, Signal, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Zoom, TikTok and others) have undeniably expanded the space of our freedom of expression, but at the same time they have multiplied infinitely the capacities for manipulation of minds and surveillance of citizens. It is classic. We could say, to paraphrase Marx, that history is the history of technological innovations. Each technological innovation provides a solution to a problem, and in turn, as we have already stressed, each solution creates a new problem. In other words, whenever there is a leap forward in communication technologies, we are indeed faced with progress in terms of the capacity for expression, but also with the danger of confusion, confrontation and new mental intoxications. This is normal. There is nothing new in this respect. Every power that has a monopoly on public expression despairs at the appearance of any democratizing communication technology that threatens its solitary use of the word. Think again of the invention of the printing press in 1440, and the panic of the Church and the throne at a machine that would suddenly take away their monopoly on truth.

Faced with the dilemma of dangers vs. advantages, the question remains: what to do? It depends on who is asking the question. If it is the people, it is foreseeable that they will want to make immediate use of the excessive power conferred by the networks, without taking the precaution of being wary of the second aspect: the manipulation to which they may be subjected. Disappointment can therefore be strong.

If it is the powers-that-be who are asking the question, I would say that they must keep their cool; they cannot dream that, by some miracle, the networks that are already here for goodwill disappear. It too must adapt to this new reality, to this new communicational normality. Censorship, denial or blindness are of no use, they would only aggravate the problem, seen from the point of view of those in power. The rigid breaks, while the flexible resists. Therefore, power must understand that the networks are a new space for debate and confrontation, and constitute perhaps, in the political field, the main contemporary space for dialectical confrontation. It is today’s agora, and it is there, to a large extent – as it was in the pages of newspapers for a long time – where the major disputes and controversies are now being settled. Anyone who does not want to be the big loser of our time must be present in this central space of debate.

Yes, social networks are the dominant media, just as television, radio, cinema or the press were in the past. It is a considerable revolution, as there has never been before in the field of communication. Once again, any major change in the field of communication will inevitably have a decisive impact on social and political issues. There are no exceptions. From the invention of writing to the Internet, via the printing press.

In any country, the networks are forcing all other mass media (print media, radio, cinema, television) to rethink themselves. A media Darwinism is underway. The media that does not adapt to the new ecosystem will disappear. Adapting does not mean that the other media must do what the networks do. No. The networks are also the territory, as we have already said, of manipulation, intoxication, fake news, “emotional truths”, “alternative truths”, conspiracy stories. The written press, for example, must concentrate on its qualities: the quality of the writing, the brilliance of the story, the originality of the subject matter, the reality of the testimony, the authenticity of the information, the intelligence of the analysis and the guarantee of verified truth.