Brazil's election goes beyond a battle between left and right – democracy is also on the ballot

Jeffrey W. Rubin, Associate Professor of History, Boston University 

Rafael R. Ioris, Professor of Modern Latin America History, University of Denver

THE CONVERSATION
Tue, September 27, 2022 

Winds of change in Brazil, or an ill breeze? Gustavo Minas/Getty Images

Two very different Brazils could emerge after voters go the polls to elect a president on Oct. 2, 2022.

In one scenario, Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s current president, will manage to stay in power – by either winning the vote or illegally ignoring it – and continue to push the country down an authoritarian road.

Alternately, the country will begin the process of rebuilding its democratic institutions, which have been undermined during Bolsonaro’s four years in power. That project will be the task of a broad center-left coalition led by former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers Party.

As experts on Brazilian politics and modern Latin American history, we have studied Brazil from the ground up. Seen from afar, the dynamics playing out in the Brazilian election are a clear example of the broader crisis of liberal democracy, with right-wing authoritarians in ascent globally. But the high-stakes choice confronting Brazilians in this election has also been shaped by complicated social and political experiences unique to Brazil.

Whatever happened to the ‘pink tide’?

In the first decade of the 21st century, Brazil led a regionwide “pink tide” in which Latin America, governed largely by leftist presidents, experienced unprecedented levels of inclusive growth through democratic politics. Lula’s economic and welfare policies, for example, brought 30 million people out of poverty and provided lower-income, mostly nonwhite Brazilians with new opportunities for upward mobility.

After 2012, however, as Brazil’s economy slowed, traditional elites mobilized in order to resist this progressive path. Their efforts gained ground with an explosive corruption scandal, called “Lava Jato,” or “Car Wash.” Though politicians across the spectrum were implicated, the operation targeted the Workers Party in particular and generated widespread anger toward the party.

Subsequent anti-left sentiment, led by privileged groups and deftly managed through social media campaigns, grew to include voters across the economic and political spectrum. This provided a perfect opening for Bolsonaro, a former military captain and undistinguished congressman, to seize right-wing momentum. Building on the deepened polarization generated by the illegitimate impeachment of Lula’s successor, Dilma Rousseff, Bolsonaro rebranded himself as an outsider poised to overturn a corrupt political establishment.

Bolsonaro, much like Donald Trump in the U.S. two years earlier, won 2018 elections by combining masterful spectacle with derogatory language. Bolsonaro’s campaign rhetoric was explicitly sexist, anti-Black and anti-LGBTQ. His victory was also tied to the fact that Lula, the front-runner then as now, was arrested on trumped-up charges and prevented from competing.

Repositioning Lula

The overturning of Lula’s corruption conviction in 2021 repositioned him as the most viable opposition candidate for the presidency, and he has consistently led Bolsonaro in the polls.

And while Lula is running as a leftist, he is perhaps more accurately seen in this election as the best chance to steer the country back to democratic norms.

As president, Bolsonaro has flaunted his authoritarian bent. He has praised Brazil’s 1964-1985 dictatorship, cultivated nostalgia for military rule – while filling his cabinet with retired and active-duty generals – and disparaged human rights, especially of minorities. Throughout his term in office, Bolsonaro has actively promoted the destruction of the Amazon forest and portrayed indigenous peoples and environmental groups as working against the interests of the nation.

He has also consistently attacked the country’s democratic institutions, particularly Brazil’s Supreme Court.

At the same time, Bolsonaro has made serious policy missteps that have dented his popularity, such as his egregious mishandling of the COVID-19 crisis and the rolling back of popular economic and social policies that improved the lives of ordinary Brazilians.

Around a third of Brazilians continue to support Bolsonaro’s bid for reelection. But the erosion in his polling numbers has opened the path for some moderate conservatives to join ranks with Lula to try to prevent Bolsonaro’s reelection.
Nostalgia for dictatorship … and traditional values

Despite party labels, this election is more complex than a conventional left-right optic would suggest.

Both sides of the political spectrum have become deeply embedded in Brazilian society in crosscutting ways that span religion, race, gender and sexuality, and class.

For example, some lower-income voters who benefited from Lula’s policies support Bolsonaro today, often out of outrage over past corruption scandals and the current economic precarity they themselves face. Meanwhile, nostalgia for a military dictatorship that most citizens never experienced influences some voters, particularly conservative ones.

Brazilians are also experiencing a period of social change marked by the advance of LGBTQ and women’s rights. While embraced by many, some Brazilians feel uncomfortable with new roles for women and with the queer identities increasingly prevalent among the younger generation. Spurred on by evangelical and charismatic Catholic movements, this distress has sparked longing for “traditional” values in family and community life, and has seen some Brazilians call for a return to dictatorship, claiming that life was more orderly and less violent then.

And after the election?

So where does this leave things going into the Oct. 2 election?

So far, Lula stands far ahead in the polls. Strategically choosing a centrist and past presidential candidate as his running mate, Lula has combined progressive commitments with promises to steer a mainstream economic course. In short, he is appealing both to the left and the center.

In turn, Bolsonaro has studied and weaponized Trump’s playbook, saying that he will accept defeat in the upcoming election only if he himself judges that they were fairly held. Many Brazilians worry that by attacking the results before polling day, Bolsonaro is preparing the way to try to stay in power illegally. There is also concern over how the Brazilian military might react should Bolsonaro refuse to accept the election results.

More than just the future of Brazil is at stake in these elections. The current return of the left across Latin America has renewed hopes that gains in cutting poverty, which took off 20 years ago, will resume. So far this year, leftists Gabriel Boric and Gustavo Petro have won elections in Chile and Colombia, respectively. Brazil now seems likely to join this group, swinging the region’s ideological pendulum to the left in an apparent revival of the “pink tide.”

But a Lula victory would do more than tip the left-right balance in Latin America. What links Lula, Boric and Petro is their commitment to progressive agendas and their willingness to negotiate in democratic contexts. Were Lula to win and take office in Brazil, the policies of these leaders could complement those of President Joe Biden in a hemisphere-wide effort to strengthen democracy.

The alternative – a Bolsonaro win, or worse, a coup – would dash these hopes.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Jeffrey W. Rubin, Boston University and Rafael R. Ioris, University of Denver. 

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Jeffrey W. Rubin received funding from the MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Mellon-LASA grants, the Open Society Foundations, the American Philosophical Society, and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University

Rafael R. Ioris received funding from the National Research Council of Brazil, the Research Agency of the State of Sao Paulo, the Andrew Mellon Foundation, and the Rockfeller Archive

Religion is shaping Brazil's presidential election – but its evangelicals aren't the same as America's

Amy Erica Smith, Associate Professor of Political Science as well as Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean's Professor, Iowa State University
Mon, September 26, 2022

Pastor Silas Malafaia, second from left, prays alongside President Jair Bolsonaro, far left, at the Assembly of God Victory in Christ Church in Rio de Janeiro. AP Photo/Bruna Prado

With one week to go before Brazil’s presidential election, the two front-runners are battling for the religious vote.

Last month, first lady Michelle Bolsonaro told an evangelical church service that the presidential palace had been “consecrated to demons” under previous presidential administrations – a gibe against former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, commonly known as Lula, and his center-left Workers’ Party.

Lula is running again in this year’s election, whose first round is Oct. 2, 2022, and has joined the fray. In his official campaign kickoff in August 2022, for instance, he alleged that the right-wing current president, Jair Bolsonaro, is “possessed by the devil.”

Lula has been heavily favored to win the election and retake the office he held from 2003 to 2010. In polls, he currently runs about 15 percentage points ahead of Bolsonaro.

Religious voters are an important part of the story. Bolsonaro – whom international media dubbed the “Trump of the Tropics” for his persona as a conservative firebrand, his anti-democratic streak, and his ability to attract a Christian base – garnered 70% of evangelical support in the 2018 election. Scholars, including me, argue that without the evangelical vote, he would have narrowly lost.

However, as a political scientist who has written a book about religious politics in Brazil, I see these comparisons between the U.S. and Brazil as also glossing over key differences. Yes, Bolsonaro and Trump are very similar in how they use religion. Yet the ways evangelical communities work and how religion shapes politics is different in each country – and my own research suggests that conservative Christians will not be as consistent a base for Bolsonaro as they are for Trump and the Republican Party.

Who’s who

One key difference is the language used: who “evangelicals” are in the first place.

In Latin America, traditionally a Catholic stronghold, the Spanish and Portuguese term “evangelico” is applied to nearly all non-Catholic Christians, including Protestant denominations that are usually classified as “mainline” or even “progressive” in the U.S. Estimates indicate that around a third of Brazilians identify as evangelical today, up from just a few percentage points in 1970. In the same period, the percentage of Catholics has fallen from over 90% to right about half.

By contrast, in the U.S. the term “evangelical” is reserved for theologically conservative Protestant groups, as well as Christians who have had a “born-again” experience of religious awakening. Americans also increasingly apply the term “evangelical” in a political sense, to refer to predominantly white political conservatives who are affiliated with Protestant churches.

Evangelicals pray and dance during a campaign rally for former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro on Sept. 9, 2022. AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd

As a result, the group of people termed “evangelicals” is much more diverse in Latin America than in the United States – and it’s politically quite diverse, too. All this said, many evangelicals in Brazil do have some tendency to adopt theologically conservative beliefs, such as interpreting the Bible literally.

Dozens of parties

A second major difference is the lack of strong partisan affiliation on Brazil’s religious right. Since the 1970s, many Americans are used to associating evangelicalism with the Republican Party. The founding of groups such as Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority helped spur evangelicals to become a strong base for political conservatism.

However, there is no political party in Brazil that can claim such a strong link to evangelicals as a whole. Brazilian politics is famously fragmented, especially on the right, and there are dozens of parties in Congress at any given time. Many parties – mostly conservative ones – court evangelicals, but none have shored up strong loyalty across the wide spectrum of evangelical denominations and churches.

Jair Bolsonaro personifies this weak partisanship. Bolsonaro ran for the presidency in 2018 under the Social Liberal Party, but then left the party to attempt to form his own party in 2019 after taking office. Those efforts ultimately failed, and he joined the Liberal Party in late 2021.

Evangelicals may support Jair Bolsonaro, but polls have shown they have little loyalty to whatever party he is affiliated with at the moment. As a result, the president cannot count on his voters to also elect his political allies. Ultimately, this very weak partisanship in the electorate weakens presidents, since they have to negotiate with a highly fragmented Congress.

Key issues

A third difference between evangelicals in Brazil and the U.S. relates to their views on political issues. Like their counterparts in the U.S., religious conservatives in Brazil feel very strongly about issues related to sex and gender. In a striking parallel to recent controversies in U.S. public schools, Brazilian evangelicals mobilized politically over the past decade to oppose efforts to teach children and teenagers tolerance on LGBTQ issues.

However, Brazilian evangelicals are much less conservative than their American counterparts on many other issues. This is particularly the case for topics on which U.S. evangelicals often follow cues from the Republican Party. For instance, my research shows that Brazilian evangelicals from a wide range of denominations are highly supportive of environmental action such as preventing deforestation.

Many Brazilian evangelicals have historically tended to come from poor areas and communities of color, leading them to support issues such as welfare policy and affirmative action. About 1 in 3 Brazilian evangelicals identifies as white, versus 2 in 3 in the U.S.

As a result, they are likely to be attracted to President Bolsonaro for his conservative stances on gender and sexuality. However, they may penalize him for his very weak record of environmental protection as well as what is generally recognized as poor performance on the economy and COVID-19.

Electoral merchandise with images of former President Lula are displayed on a street in Brasilia, Brazil, Sept. 20, 2022. AP Photo/Eraldo Peres
Tea leaves

What does this mean for the upcoming presidential election? Bolsonaro is again attracting evangelicals, though not yet as strongly as in 2018. New evidence indicates that only about a quarter of evangelical churches are getting involved in the campaign so far this year – a substantially lower share than what my co-authors and I documented in 2018.

However, particular churches are still taking a strong stance. Brazil’s most politically engaged Pentecostal church, the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, is urging its followers to begin a monthlong “fast” from secular news sources. This will presumably increase the political influence of church leaders, including the church’s head, Bishop Edir Macedo, who is an ardent Bolsonaro supporter.

Like their U.S. counterparts, Brazilian evangelicals tend to be highly religious and believe that religion should influence politics. What that means in 2022, however, is harder to divine than ever. After Bolsonaro’s four years in office, evangelicals may well judge him by his track record, not just by his promises – which could be both a blessing and a curse for him.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Amy Erica Smith, Iowa State University. The Conversation has a variety of fascinating free newsletters.

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Amy Erica Smith currently receives funding from an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship, as well as a Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean's Professorship at Iowa State University. Research reported in this article was previously funded by a Fulbright Fellowship, a Luce/ACLS Fellowship in Religion, Journalism, and International Affairs, a Wilson Center Fellowship, and a Seed Grant from the Global Religion Research Initiative. She sits on the Research Council of Instituto Civis, as well as the editorial boards of a number of journals, including the Journal of Democracy. She also sits on the Ames Community School Board in Ames, Iowa, USA.

Lula challenges Bolsonaro's grip on Brazil evangelical vote


Former Brazilian President and presidential candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva holds a rally during the presidential campaign in Curitiba


Tue, September 27, 2022 
By Jimin Kang

RECIFE, Brazil (Reuters) - When Ariel Nery left the pews of her conservative evangelical megachurch for the floor cushions and hammocks of the progressive Igreja Mangue church four years ago, the backlash from her family often left her in tears on Sunday nights.

For the same reason, the 25-year-old is avoiding a chat with her parents, stalwart supporters of right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, about her plans to vote on Sunday for his leftist rival, ex-President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

"I'm afraid because I don't want to ruin my relationship with my family," Nery said.

She is far from the only evangelical Christian in Brazil dancing around that delicate matter.

Although Bolsonaro and his allies have worked to transform Brazil's fast-growing evangelical churches into the bedrock of his political base, this year's campaign has shown the limits of that electoral strategy.

After Bolsonaro won the evangelical vote two-to-one in 2018, many more evangelicals — especially poorer women — are weighing a vote for Lula, whose legacy of generous social programs speaks powerfully to Brazil's less affluent evangelical voters.

The two were running neck-and-neck among evangelical voters until a few months ago, according to pollster Datafolha. Even as Bolsonaro has built up an advantage over Lula in the heat of the campaign, he struggled to break past 50% of the evangelical vote in recent Datafolha surveys.

Looking to bolster the 'shy' Lula vote among evangelicals, the Workers Party (PT) is partnering with leftist pastors like Paulo Marcelo Schallenberger, whose sermons aim to counter the party's "demonization" in evangelical circles.

"We receive huge numbers of people in the church who are going to vote for Lula, but don't admit it ... because if they do, they will be persecuted by their churches and cast away," Schallenberger told Reuters, reflecting on his own experience of being ostracized by colleagues for his politics.

Indeed, many of Brazil's evangelical churches and their high-profile pastors have embraced Bolsonaro, who defends traditional family structures, vows to fight abortion rights and casts rivals as communist "demons" in Cold War-style rhetoric.

"Bolsonaro indisputably defends the most conservative ideals along with the conservative evangelical Christian population," said Renato Antunes, 41, a traditional Baptist pastor and city councilman in the northeastern city of Recife. To show his opposition to abortion, he uses a plastic figurine of a life-size fetus as a paperweight for his office Bible.

Bolsonaro has peppered his public schedule with near daily events alongside religious leaders. His campaign has created a prominent role for his third wife, Michelle Bolsonaro, who wears her evangelical Christian faith proudly on the campaign trail.

"We will bring the presence of Lord Jesus to the government and declare that this nation belongs to the Lord," she told the March for Jesus in Rio de Janeiro last month. "The gates of Hell will not prevail over our family and the Brazilian church."

But for plenty of evangelical Christians, the fiery partisan rhetoric from conservative pastors is turning them away from traditional megachurches and their powerbroker pastors.

Political polarization is contributing to the roughly 20% of evangelical Brazilians who called themselves "unchurched" in the last census, according to Rodolfo Capler, a Baptist pastor and researcher at the Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo.

As the evangelical population grows quickly – from 20% of Brazil in 2010 to roughly 30% now and on pace to outnumber the current Catholic majority in about a decade – it is also becoming more diverse, Capler said.

"Independent churches are opening a path for new generations. They are creating freer environments where people can express their thoughts, sexualities, and political beliefs," he said.

While congregants pray stoically on pews at Recife's Assembleia de Deus megachurch, the scene across the Capibaribe River at Igreja Mangue tells a different story: young adults share their life stories during worship as a barefoot pastor in a t-shirt sits among them.

"It's a refuge where I can be myself among so many different people, understanding that the kingdom of God is not about uniformity, but diversity in unity," said Nery.

(This story deletes extra words 'in Recife' in penultimate paragraph)

(Reporting by Jimin Kang; Editing by Brad Haynes and Alistair Bell) 

Brazil election: ‘We'll vote for Bolsonaro because he is God’

Katy Watson - BBC South America correspondent, in Recife
Tue, September 27, 2022 

Jair Bolsonaro is seeking re-election after becoming president of Brazil in January 2019

In the first of two profiles of the leading candidates in the race to become Brazil's new president, Katy Watson asks if incumbent Jair Bolsonaro is - as his fans argue - a great leader, or someone who disdains democracy.

Wherever Jair Bolsonaro goes, he likes to stir controversy - but few were expecting him to do so on the eve of Queen Elizabeth II's funeral. As world leaders flew to the UK to mark her passing, President Bolsonaro saw an opportunity to do some campaigning.

While British mourners accused him and his fans of lacking respect in a period of mourning, he was undeterred.

"We're on the right path," he told his supporters from the balcony of the Brazilian residence, saying Brazil did not want to discuss the legalisation of abortion or drugs, with cheers from the crowd in response. And he repeated his often-cited slogan: "God, homeland, family and freedom".

Another familiar mantra at his campaign events is the chant: "Mito, mito, mito."

He is, to his fans, a "myth" - a legendary leader - and they are convinced their man will be re-elected in October.

Despite polls showing his main rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in the lead, nothing will deter Mr Bolsonaro's greatest supporters from believing the president, who has himself denounced the polls as a lie, is the only man to lead the country.

Pastor Laura Almeida, at the Mustard Seed Ministry in the north-eastern city of Recife, is one of his most committed fans. Standing in front of her Sunday congregation, she sings his praises.

"We'll vote for Bolsonaro because he is God," she tells her members. "He defends the same principles as us in accordance with the word of God."

Pastor Laura Almeida says she believes that President Bolsonaro is the saviour who will ease the people's suffering

After the service, she explains her thinking to me.

"Whenever people are suffering, when they believe in an all-powerful creator, I think God raises up a saviour," she says.

I ask her if that saviour is President Bolsonaro. "Yes," she replies. "Today in Brazil, I think that's him."

Mr Bolsonaro sings from the same song sheet as many evangelicals. He preaches the importance of family, he is vehemently against abortion and he is known for his homophobic comments.

And it was congregations like Laura's that got him elected in 2018.

"Evangelicals are growing in Brazil," says Prof Vinicius do Valle, Director of the Evangelical Observatory information service in Brazil. "They are now about 30% of the population - only two decades ago, it was about 15% so they are increasing very quickly and it's changing the way we do politics here."

But it is not the same way that the church has traditionally been involved.

"The Catholic Church played a democratic role in the past decades," says the professor, referring to the Church speaking out during the military dictatorship. "But that hasn't happened when it comes to evangelical churches. They are playing a role in Bolsonaro's election and against democratic institutions in Brazil - we see ministers calling people to go to protests against democratic institutions."

Mr Bolsonaro does not separate politics from prayer. His campaign language is littered with religious references. Even lifting himself up to a godly status.

He hit this year's campaign trail in Juiz de Fora, the city where he was stabbed in 2018 - the place where, in his own words, he was "born again".

Gilson Machado describes the president as an "old uncle"

But in the north-east of Brazil, he has a tough job on his hands to convince voters he is the man for them. This is not Mr Bolsonaro's natural stomping ground. In fact, it was the only region where he lost in 2018.

The poorest region in the country, it is where Lula was born and with which he has been associated for all of his political career. For that reason, it has become the ultimate challenge for President Bolsonaro to gain ground here.

Gilson Machado is an affable local politician. A former tourism minister under Mr Bolsonaro, he is perhaps most well-known - or infamous - for his love of playing the accordion. Now, he is running for senate in Pernambuco, but he is also head of Mr Bolsonaro's national campaign in the north-east, and is a great friend of the president.

"He's an old uncle and he likes football, he doesn't drink, he loves his family, he's a Christian and he's a hard, hard worker," he says. "He's the man for the world - the biggest right-wing president of the world right now."

That feeling is shared by nuclear medicine doctor Mitchell Lewis. Although it is not shared by his medical school friends Geraldo Aguiar and Kalina Sá, who are sitting with him at his dining table, enjoying a glass of wine.

From left to right: Geraldo Aguiar, Kalina Sá and Mitchell Lewis - friends with opposing views

In such a polarised political contest, it is surprising the three remain friends. So many relationships have fallen foul of politics in Brazil these past few years.

"What makes you a Bolsonarista [a Bolsonaro supporter] is when he speaks directly to your heart, to your soul," he says. "Bolsonaro freed this voice from all these people you see in the streets screaming 'Mito!'."

Geraldo says he is going to vote for Lula. Mitchell shakes his head.

"Bolsonaro lost a great opportunity to be seen as responsible and confront this pandemic in an intelligent way," Geraldo says, criticising how he behaved during the pandemic. "I don't think he has the emotional intelligence for this."

Kalina though, is on the fence after having voted for Bolsonaro in 2018.

"I am totally against [Lula's] Workers' Party, but I don't think Bolsonaro was a good leader," she says. "He has not listened, and with that, he lost my vote. Those who support Bolsonaro do so no matter what, independently of what he does."

Ultimate commitment or blind adoration? Mitchell has the last word.

"I'm not a religious person, I am an atheist, but when Bolsonaro says that he has a mission from God, I start questioning my lack of belief."

Elon Musk wants to beat censors in Iran. What about India and China?



Tim Fernholz
Tue, September 27, 2022

Elon Musk’s plan to offer satellite internet service in Iran and Cuba is stressing his unusual definition of free speech.

“By ‘free speech,’ I simply mean that which matches the law,” Elon Musk explained in April, after signing a contract to purchase the social media network Twitter.

Musk got cold feet on that deal, but the serial entrepreneur still operates his own global telecommunications network, SpaceX’s Starlink satellites.

As anti-government protests have broken out in Iran, the theocratic regime there has done its best to shut down internet access and block its citizens from contacting the rest of the world. In response, Musk says he will make his satellite network operational there.

This, of course, would involve breaking the law in those countries.

“Providing service to Iran and Cuba is an interesting position for SpaceX, since presumably they would have to use black market channels to get ground terminals to people, and probably accept payment in contradiction of local laws—maybe using cryptocurrency?” said David Burbach, a professor of international relations at the Naval War College, speaking in his personal capacity. “SpaceX has previously said they would follow national laws.”

SpaceX did not respond to questions about the legality of its plans, or how it would it get terminals into either country.

How to break through a national firewall

When it comes to freedom of speech, few outside of Iran’s Supreme Council or the top ranks of Cuba’s Communist Party would object to allowing people to access information and communication services. That highlights how Musk’s simplistic definition of free speech catered to those who fear so-called “cancel culture,” but doesn’t do much when governments prevent speech and assembly.

The company has been praised by the Ukrainian government for deploying the Starlink network there as a measure to avoid Russia’s efforts to disrupt the country’s communications. But Ukraine’s government okayed the technology, and the US government’s logistics pipeline sent in the required user terminals. Now, it will be up to dissidents and their supporters to smuggle user terminals into these countries. (Unless, of course, some secret arm of the US government is quietly helping out.)

The decision to do business in Iran and Cuba raises questions about Starlink’s standards. In the past, SpaceX executives have told Quartz they have no plans to do business in either Russia or China, two other states with repressive governments and state-controlled media. Those governments have too much power to cause problems for SpaceX and Musk’s other interests, notably his car company Tesla, which makes and sells its vehicles in China.

The other markets Starlink needs to succeed

Starlink itself is by definition global, and to succeed as a business it must gain regulatory permission in countries around the world to serve more customers. The network, though still incomplete, is already being stressed by US uptake, while its capacity goes unused over much of the rest of the globe. But many potential Starlink markets sit in the gray area between US and western European speech norms and those that crackdown harshly on open expression.

Countries like India, the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and others with strict restrictions on speech and internet access could be potentially lucrative markets for the service. Telecom analysts say regulators in those countries, already known as difficult places for foreign firms to do business, are likely to be non-plussed by the Iran and Cuba decisions.

There are other complications: Starlink depends mainly on ground stations to relay data from satellites to users and back again, at least until it launches more new satellites that can communicate with each other using lasers. Iran and Cuba won’t host ground stations, so users will need to transmit through those in other countries. That will mean worse service, as we’ve seen in parts of Ukraine that are far from stations in Poland, Lithuania and Turkey, and could also put political pressure on nearby countries that do host them.

Providing service over the objection of local governments “will likely make Starlink an even bigger target for state-sponsored cyberattacks—a hefty challenge for companies big or small,” notes Caleb Henry, a satellite analyst at Quilty Analytics.

And then there’s the finances. SpaceX loses money on every Starlink terminal it sells, but the service itself isn’t cheap, with start-up costs in the neighborhood of $500 and monthly service fees of $100. Even if users in restrictive countries can figure out how to pay SpaceX, they may face difficulties coming up with the money to do so. Barring some kind of subsidy or change in business model, it’s hard to see many customers being able to afford the service in these countries.

PRISON LABOR IS SLAVERY
Alabama prisoners refusing to work in 2nd day of protest


Tue, September 27, 2022 

MONTGOMERY, Ala (AP) — Alabama inmates were in their second day of a work strike Tuesday, refusing to labor in prison kitchens, laundries and factories to protest conditions in the state’s overcrowded, understaffed lock-ups.

Prisoners including those who provide food, laundry and janitorial services refused to show up for work at major state prisons, leaving staff scrambling to keep the facilities running.

“They are running a slaughterhouse," Diyawn Caldwell, founder of the advocacy group Both Sides of the Wall, said of Alabama's prison system, which the U.S. Department of Justice has called one of the most violent and understaffed in the country. Caldwell's husband is incarcerated at a state prison.

The Department of Justice has an ongoing civil lawsuit against Alabama over conditions in its prisons, saying the state is failing to protect male inmates from inmate-on-inmate violence and excessive force at the hands of prison staff.

The 2020 lawsuit alleges that conditions in the prison system are so poor that they violate the ban on cruel and unusual punishment and that state officials are “deliberately indifferent” to the problems. Alabama officials have acknowledged problems in the prison system but dispute the Justice Department’s accusations.

The Alabama Department of Corrections confirmed Tuesday that the work stoppage was “still active in most male facilities.” However, the department maintained that “facilities are operational and there have been no disruption of critical services, which include meals.”

Family members of several inmates, however, said prisons were not distributing three daily meals and prisoners were given paper sacks containing corndogs or sandwiches.

Inmate labor provides a vital role in keeping prisons functioning.

“HOW LONG CAN 25 PEOPLE RUN A PRISON WITH 1000, 1800, 2300, etc. PRISONERS?” inmate organizers of the work stoppage wrote in a press statement about the strike.

Caldwell said organizers are hoping to persuade federal officials to go ahead intervene in the prison system. She said they are also seeking a number of changes related to release and sentencing such as repealing the Habitual Felony Offender Act, establishing uniform criteria for parole that would guarantee release, streamlining the review process for medical furloughs and reviewing elderly incarcerated individuals for immediate release.

Supporters, including family members, delivered the demands to the prison system headquarters after a protest on Monday.

A spokesperson for Gov. Kay Ivey told reporters that the demands were unreasonable and thanked prison staff for maintaining facilities.

"It is also important for these protestors to understand that a lot of their demands would require legislation, not unilateral action. Some of these demands suggest that criminals like murderers and serial child sex offenders can walk the streets, and I can tell you that will never happen in the state of Alabama where we will always prioritize the safety of our citizens," Ivey's office told news outlets.

The strike, while not directly related, comes after photos of an emaciated inmate at Alabama‘s Elmore Correctional Facility went viral. Kastellio Vaughan's sister had posted the photos to Facebook with the message, “Get Help.”

The disturbing image prompted outrage and allegation of medical neglect. The prison system said that Vaughan had refused medical assessment and left the hospital following surgery against medical advice

“This is horrific,” Ben Crump, an attorney representing Vaughan said in a statement. “Let’s be clear, the State of Alabama has tried to deflect any action or responsibility for Mr. Vaughan’s condition at every turn.

The prison system issued a statement Tuesday saying that Vaughn had surgery for an obstructed bowel in August and was hospitalized in September for a complication. Both times he was discharged against medical advice, the prison system said, and has since refused medical assessment and medical treatment.

“The ADOC offers medical assessment and treatment to all inmates but does not force them to accept that care,” the prison system said.

‘Slavery by any name is wrong’: the push to end unpaid labor in prisons

Michael Sainato
Tue, September 27, 2022 

Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

When prison reformer Johnny Perez was incarcerated he made sheets, underwear and pillowcases working for Corcraft, a manufacturing division of New York State Correctional Services that uses prisoners to manufacture products for state and local agencies. His pay ranged between 17 cents and 36 cents an hour.

“We have a system that forces people to work and not only forces them to work but does not give them an adequate living wage,” said Perez. “Slavery by any name is wrong. Slavery in any shape or form is wrong.”

Perez is now part of a nationwide movement that hopes to reform what some have called the “slavery loophole” that allows incarcerated people to be paid tiny sums for jobs that – if they refuse to do them – can have dire consequences.

The 13th amendment of the US constitution, ratified in 1865, abolished slavery and involuntary servitude. But it contained an exception for “a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted”.

This exception clause has been used to exploit prisoners in the US as workers, paying them nothing to a few dollars a day to perform jobs ranging from prison services to manufacturing or working for private employers where the majority of their pay is deducted for room and board and other expenses by the jurisdictions where they are incarcerated.

A report published by the American Civil Liberties Union in June 2022 found about 800,000 prisoners out of the 1.2 million in state and federal prisons are forced to work, generating a conservative estimate of $11bn annually in goods and services while average wages range from 13 cents to 52 cents per hour. Five states – Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi and Texas – force prisoners to work without pay. The report concluded that the labor conditions of US prisoners violate fundamental human rights to life and dignity.

A campaign to amend the constitution at the federal level and end the exception of the 13th amendment is being promoted by the US representative Nikema Williams and the senator Jeff Merkley. The bill has 175 co-sponsors in the House, 170 Democrats and 5 Republicans, and 14 co-sponsors in the US Senate, but has yet to leave committee for a floor vote in either the House or Senate.

In the meantime the #EndTheException coalition, consisting of more than 80 national organizations, including criminal justice reform, civil rights and labor groups, is leading efforts to pass the abolition amendment at the federal level and through ballot initiatives at the state level.

In November voters will decide on whether to remove exception clauses from their state constitutions in Alabama, Louisiana, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont. An abolition amendment passed in the California assembly, but failed to receive a Senate vote this year so that it could be on the ballot for voters this November.

“The reality is that it is 2022 and in the United States, slavery is still legal,” said Bianca Tylek, founder and executive director of the non-profit Worth Rises. “These five states would join Colorado, Utah and Nebraska, states that have already ended the exception of their state’s constitutions. And so that would be exciting, that would bring that number to eight, with five out the eight being red states and I think that bodes well for where the campaign can go at the federal level.”

It is time for change, said Johnny Perez. He emphasized that in prison, individuals aren’t provided adequate basic necessities such as food, toiletries, clothing and office supplies, and that the measly wages paid by these jobs don’t cover these extra expenses.

Refusing a work assignment can also have adverse consequences, he said, ranging from being placed in solitary confinement to having any work issues placed on your record which affects parole and status within a prison that determines what privileges you receive. Workers in prison do not get any paid time off and are often forced to work even when sick unless an infirmary affirms they are not able to work.

Despite having five years’ full-time experience manufacturing textiles while in prison, that experience isn’t included on Perez’s résumé; incarcerated people, rather than have educational programs available to better support them upon release, are forced to do arduous manual labor jobs and often aren’t able to find work in the same industry when they are released.

“It’s still continuing to happen and it disproportionately impacts Black, brown and Indigenous people in this country,” said Perez. “So long as the exception clause exists, we will always have an underclass in this society that is going to be the dumping ground for our problems and our shortcomings.”

This month the #EndTheException coalition launched the Except For Me digital campaign to raise awareness of the issues, ending with the delivery of a petition to Congress in support of the abolition amendment and an art installation in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

“This exception is about people and it’s about people for whom the 13th amendment doesn’t apply,” added Tylek. “We really want people to see those people and see the people that society has successfully otherwise hidden away.”

Among those featured in the campaign is Britt White, who worked at a Burger King franchise in Alabama while in community status until 2014; about 60% of her wages were taken by the state of Alabama to cover fees, room and board or restitution.

“Prison itself is expensive,” said White. “I can only speak for the state of Alabama where I was incarcerated, so providing hygiene, trying to supplement the lack of nourishment is very expensive, and my family had their own bills and financial responsibilities they had to take care of. I still had more support than most people did and it was still very difficult to survive in prison because everything has a cost associated with it.”

White explained there were medical fees associated with received medical care and sometimes the food provided was not fit for human consumption.

“I just can’t emphasize enough the lack of agency that you have,” added White. “If we are going to allow people who are incarcerated to work jobs, we need to pay them a livable wage and we need to center their dignity. We don’t need to place them in positions where there are hostile environments where they can be retaliated against and lose their agency.”

Her experience in the Alabama department of corrections drove her to work as an organizer in criminal justice reform to address the corruption and despair she witnessed and experienced in the prison system.

“We cannot condemn people, and then say that you deserve to be put away or you can’t come back to society, you’re not trustworthy enough to live in the community with other people, but you are still good enough for us to make a profit. That is unforgivable,” White said. “And that is the part that is still very reminiscent of slavery that my ancestors went through is that they were not good enough to be viewed as 100% as human beings, but they weren’t substantial enough to make a profit off of. That is the exception that has to be ended in our communities.”

 Involuntary Servitude: How Prison Labor is Modern Day Slavery

ByShira Hoffer

February 3, 2022  HARVARD REVIEW 

Note: I have been using the term “incarcerated people” throughout my column (as opposed to “inmates”, “prisoners”, “criminals”, or similar labels). As I use this term frequently in this article, I wanted to clarify my motivation. The term “incarcerated people” emphasizes personhood, with “incarcerated” as a temporary descriptor of a person’s situation. The first step in criminal justice advocacy is to see incarcerated people as people first.

Joseph Lascaze, Manager of the Smart Justice Campaign for the ACLU of New Hampshire, looked forward to his job in the woodworking facility while incarcerated in New Hampshire. He says it helped to relieve the monotony of prison life, and gave him a chance to learn a new skill. Woodworking is not the most common of trades though — the number one job in prison is the job of a barber. 

“People spend years cutting hair, becoming amazing barbers,” explains Lascaze. “But the irony is tremendous: once they are released from prison, they cannot become barbers, because it is illegal for felons to receive a barber’s license.”

This irony is a part of what activists call the “prison-industrial complex.” What is the prison-industrial complex? Why do people keep referring to prison labor as “modern day slavery”? What type of labor is performed by incarcerated people? Do they make money for it? And how should incarcerated people be allowed or required to spend their time? 

The prison-industrial complex, most simply put, is a term used to describe the relationship between prisons and industry. It is a term encapsulating centuries of governmental and economic benefit from prisons and prison labor at the expense of those incarcerated. Prison abolition activists use the term as a catch-all to describe our system of incarceration. Critical Resistance, an abolition organization, uses the term “to describe the overlapping interests of government and industry that use surveillance, policing, and imprisonment as solutions to economic, social and political problems.” While the term “prison-industrial complex” refers to issues ranging from the construction of new prisons to the exorbitant costs of canteen items, one of most common associations with the term is with prison labor — a form of modern-day slavery.

Though the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution is known as the amendment which abolished slavery, there is an exception: as punishment for a crime of which one is “duly convicted,” slavery and involuntary servitude are permitted. Ratified in 1865, the 13th Amendment paved the way for Jim Crow laws in the South. Legislatures established black codes, strict laws explicitly punishing Black people for petty crimes such as loitering, not carrying proof of employment and more. Violators of these codes could be thrown in prison, and according to the 13th Amendment’s loophole, they could then be required to perform unpaid, harsh labor. Until World War II, this practice of “convict leasing” was common. 

The convict leasing system was designed to continue the subjugation of Black people after slavery was outlawed; it was not until this system was implemented that there were more Black people than White people incarcerated in the US, and that has not changed. It is on the back of this system that our system of incarceration has been built. 

While convict-leasing as an official practice has ended, the issue of prison labor has not been resolved. There are three primary types of labor performed in prison: in-house prison labor, industry labor, and work-release programs. This article will address the first two, as work-release programs fall more into the categories of alternative sentencing or pre-release options.

In-house prison labor is by far the most common type of prison labor, and typically refers to prison maintenance jobs including kitchen duty, cleaning, or groundskeeping. Workers can be punished, even sent to solitary confinement, for taking a sick day, even in the eight states where in-house labor is unpaid. But being paid is not much. The average low and high rates across the US for in-house labor are 14 and 63 cents per hour, respectively, and that is before wage garnishment, which can account for up to half of one’s earnings (though wage garnishments can arguably go to worthy sources, such as victims’ reparation funds). For a state-by-state breakdown of wages and sources, see this resource from the Prison Policy Initiative.

Not only do prison laborers receive pennies compared to the rest of the workforce, they do not receive any of the benefits of employment either. In employment law, a critical distinction is drawn between an employee and a worker: employees get protections and workers do not. Although current labor laws do not explicitly exclude incarcerated people from the employee category, lawsuits against prisons for labor violations have historically been found in favor of the prison due to the unique relationship between the employer and the “employee.” As of now, labor protections appear out of reach for incarcerated workers. 

Slightly different from in-house prison labor, industry labor refers to non-prison-related jobs which incarcerated people can perform, including phone banking, packaging, textile work, etc. It often makes headlines when wildfires rage in California, as there is a prison-firefighter program which puts incarcerated peoples’ lives on the line to fight fires for as little as $1.45 a day — and then does not allow them to become firefighters when they are released. At the federal level, these jobs are regulated through the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program — now called UNICOR — and most states have similar state-level organizations. While participating companies are required to pay minimum wage, wage garnishment is practiced in industry jobs as well, even for room and board. In other words, some incarcerated individuals are paying rent on their prison cells. 

The PIECP’s mission is “to protect society and reduce crime by preparing inmates with job training and practical work skills for reentry success.” It markets itself as a “thriving corrections program that provides marketable skills and qualifications for inmates to succeed as productive citizens in our communities.” However, even the Bureau of Justice admits that incarcerated people are not the “first beneficiaries” of PIECP income, and post-release, jobs are not guaranteed. Some companies will use prison labor, and then refuse to hire the same person who worked for them while incarcerated as part of a company policy not to hire those with criminal records. 

While the fewest number of incarcerated people work industry jobs, their labor still produces billions of dollars for the economy, providing a strong incentive for companies to continue to support prison proliferation as opposed to criminal justice reform. And these are influential organizations too — companies such as Pillsbury and Campbell Soup source from PIECP participants. You in fact, may be — and Harvard certainly is — contributing to the prison industrial complex by purchasing or investing in companies which operate or contract with prisons. Do not take this as a personal attack — it just goes to show how deeply entrenched our economic system is in prison labor (though if you are interested in how your investments may be contributing to the PIC, check out this tool).

There are some — notably formerly incarcerated individuals themselves — who argue that the issue of prison labor is overplayed or misplaced in social justice activism. Some argue that the real problem in prison is boredom and not overwork, and argue that the solution is more diverse job training, not less labor. Others argue that labor brings meaning to life, and anti-prison-labor activists deter companies from contracting fairly with prisons — which would be a good thing — for fear of criticism for contracting with prisons at all. There seems, however, to be consensus that the status quo is unfair.

This consensus hovers around two main issues: the conditions of prison labor and the impact of the prison labor industry on mass incarceration. Even if one were to argue that incarcerated people do not deserve to work in the same conditions as everyday citizens, one would still be faced with the fact that allowing the proliferation of prison labor incentivizes the mass incarceration of largely black and brown folks to their detriment, and to the benefit of big businesses. If the goal of prison labor — as PIECP states — is to contribute to the rehabilitation of incarcerated people to facilitate their reintegration into society, then I believe a few things need to change: 

1. Incarcerated people must be afforded the same labor rights as every employee, especially the right to report unfair/discriminatory labor practices withough fear of retaliation. 
2. Incarcerated people should be paid commensurate with their job difficulty and the prison economy.
3. Incarcerated people must not be forced or otherwise coerced into dangerous work; if they choose to engage in such work, feedback and safety protocols should be robust.
4. No company should be able to benefit from prison labor if they are unwilling to hire formerly incarcerated individuals; there should be well-established pathways from incarcerated employment to employment after re-entry. 
5. Past incarceration status should be added to the list of protected characteristics for employment.

In summary, in a system modeled off of slavery and under threat of punishment or lack of funds for necessities, most incarcerated individuals work full days, making less than $1 per hour with no benefits and with no guarantee of post-release employment. While one may argue that incarcerated people should be satisfied to have any work or income at all, the conditions of their “employment” are not livable.

Joseph Lascaze does not like telling people he was formerly incarcerated, but he says he does so both for transparency and to initiate a “cultural shift.” While campaigns like Ban the Box — a push to remove the criminal record checkbox from job applications — are popular, Lascaze thinks that what is ultimately needed is for society to view people with criminal records first and foremost as people. I can only agree.

Image by Javad Esmaeili licensed under the Unsplash License.

THEY SHOULD DRIVE TESLA'S😈

For Angola’s Super Rich, It’s No Longer Cool to Drive a Ferrari



Henrique Almeida and Candido Mendes
Tue, September 27, 2022 

(Bloomberg) -- Toward the tail-end of Jose Eduardo dos Santos’s almost four-decade rule of Angola, Porsches, BMWs and even the occasional Ferrari meandered through the streets of downtown Luanda past legions of beggars.

Such public displays of affluence in one of the world’s most unequal nations are becoming less commonplace as the government intensifies a crackdown on graft, with many of the well-heeled trying to hide their wealth or pretending they were never really that rich after all.

“The market is tough,” said Kolly Villa, a luxury-car salesman in Luanda, the capital, who imports custom-made vehicles from the US to Angola. “People aren’t buying or using their own luxury cars because they’re afraid to go out on the street.”

Angola’s oil-fired economy boomed after a 27-year civil war ended in 2002, but the spoils largely ended up in the hands of a tiny elite with close ties to the former president. They included his daughter, Isabel, who became the continent’s richest woman with stakes in industries ranging from banking and cement to telecommunications and diamonds.

Rich Angolans who made their way to Portugal, the southwestern African nation’s former colonial power, established a reputation for living flashy lifestyles. Several bought multimillion-euro apartments and mansions in the seaside town of Cascais, and some residents blamed them for inflating real-estate prices. “You must think I’m Angolan,” became a common retort from those who felt they were being over-charged.

Then Joao Lourenco, a former army general, replaced Dos Santos in 2017 and unleashed an anti-corruption drive that’s targeted several members of his predecessor’s inner circle, and ostentatious displays of wealth became noticeably less prevalent. As Lourenco, 68, began a new five-year term this month, he pledged to intensify his campaign and spread wealth more evenly in a nation where the World Bank estimates that about half of the population of 33 million lives on less than $1.90 per day.

Corruption Probes

The government says it has already opened more than 3,000 corruption, money-laundering and other commercial probes since Lourenco came to power, and more than $20 billion worth of illicitly acquired assets have been seized in Angola and abroad.

Those targeted include Isabel dos Santos, who had her assets in Angola and Portugal frozen after an international media investigation dubbed the Luanda Leaks implicated her in several questionable business deals. She served as the chairwoman of Sonangol, Angola’s state oil company, during her father’s tenure and her net worth exceeded $2 billion. She’s denied wrongdoing and alleged that she is the victim of a political vendetta.

Jose Filomeno dos Santos, Isabel’s half-brother who ran Angola’s $5-billion sovereign wealth fund, was accused by Angola’s finance ministry of trying to siphon $1.5 billion from the central bank just days before his father stepped down as president. He was sentenced to five years in prison after a court found him guilty of taking part in an illegal transfer of $500 million from the central bank to an account in the UK.

At least three former ministers who served in Dos Santos’s cabinet have also been subjected to judicial inquiries. Dos Santos, who held power from 1979 to 2017, died in July at the age of 79.

Read more: Why Impoverished Angola Is Targeting a Billionaire: QuickTake

Paulo Carvalho, a sociology professor at Agostinho Neto University in Luanda, is among those who’ve observed distinct behavioral changes among the wealthy.

“Rich Angolans always had a tendency to flaunt their wealth in the face of others,” he said. “The fight against corruption forced many in the so-called elite to become more discreet.”

Alexandre Pacheco, founder of Luanda-based online real estate broker My Imovel, has seen a pick-up in demand for luxury properties after a prolonged recession, and also detected a shift in attitude among those shopping for homes worth more than $500,000.

“Most of the people who have the financial capacity to buy these properties ask others to do it for them,” he said.

Election Outcome

Opposition parties accuse Lourenco of using his anti-graft crusade as a smokescreen to distract from the country’s economic woes and settle political scores, and allege that the abuse of taxpayer funds remains rife. Public disenchantment over corruption, rampant poverty and unemployment saw support for the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, which has held power for almost half a century, fall to 51% in Aug. 24 elections -- the lowest level since the civil war ended.

Lourenco denies that prosecutions have been selective, and said he remains committed to raising living standards.

“The bodies of justice will proceed with their work in preventing and fighting corruption and impunity, which still exists,” he said in a Sept. 16 speech after being inaugurated for a second term.

Rich Angolans’ newfound penchant for austerity was absent from that ceremony --- dozens of Toyota Land Cruisers with tinted windows were seen leaving the venue in Luanda.

“Such displays of wealth, even if they have been tamed down, are no longer acceptable,” said Manuel Alves da Rocha, an economics professor at the Catholic University of Angola in Luanda, who has taught many of the nation’s top government officials. “The time has come to start caring for the rest of the population.”

No human could do that: Is AI becoming too alien?

Fred Schwaller, Deutsche Welle - Yesterday 

Computers are solving problems no human could ever decode — and in ways that feel distinctly nonhuman to us. Should we embrace or rethink the strange intelligence of machines?In 2019, five of the top poker players in the world sat down in a casino to play poker against a computer. Over the course of the game they lost big -- some $1.7 million (E1.77 million) -- to a poker bot called Pluribus.


Human intelligence is very different from artificial intelligence.

© Roman Budnikov/Zoonar/picture alliance

It was the first time an artificial-intelligence (AI) program beat elite human players at a game of more than two players.

In a post-game interview, the players were asked how they felt about losing to a computer. Pluribus, they said, ʺbluffed really well. No human would ever bet like that.ʺ

One player said the bot played like 'an alien', betting hundreds of times more than human players did, even when it was bluffing.

How a bot learned to play poker

ʺWhy was it so alien? It's because Pluribus learned how to play poker completely differently to how humans do," Eng Lim Guo, Chief Technology Officer at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, told DW.

When a human learns to play poker, Guo explained, they learn two main skills: How to make superior mathematical decisions, and how to read their opponents.

But Pluribus didn't learn this way. Instead, it got incredibly good at one aspect of poker -- bluffing -- through trillions of games of trial and error.

ʺThey trained the machines how to bluff by pitching two machines against each other over trillions of games,ʺ said Guo. ʺAt the end of the training, a bot emerged that was an expert at bluffing.ʺ

This method of learning is called reinforcement learning. It's a unique way to learn one task by repeating the task over and over again until it finds the best methods.

ʺIt explored more spaces of probability than humans ever have since the game was invented. It found different ways of playing,ʺ said Guo.

AI doesn't 'think' like we do

Pluribus' reinforcement learning requires ways of storing information that humans simply don't have the capacity for.

ʺWe grow AI systems,ʺ explained Guo. ʺA machine accumulates and accumulates information over time.ʺ

But the brain doesn't do this. We don't have the time on Earth to train ourselves trillions of times in poker, so instead we make predictions based on past and similar experiences and pick the best solution accordingly.

In the brain, this learning requires the construction of new neural connections. But we also subtract information, pruning the connections we don't use.

ʺWe both accumulate new memories and forget things all the time. Somehow, we make assessments of what is worth storing and forgetting,ʺ said Upinder Bhalla, professor of computational neuroscience at the National Centre for Biological Sciences, India.

Bhalla explained that the efficiency of human computation comes from this subtractive nature of the brain, which allows us to focus on the meaningful information at hand and attend to the things most important for our survival.

But an AI system can only accumulate data, mindlessly exploring all the realms of possibility in a defined set until it finds the best answer.

For Bhalla, AI systems are way out there in their own tree of evolution, separate from anything remotely lifelike.

ʺArtificial intelligence is vastly different to human intelligence because a computer's architecture is completely different from the brain,ʺ he said.

AI is not capable of emotions

One of the reasons why humans find it hard to bluff is due to a phenomenon called loss aversion. Essentially, a potential loss is perceived as emotionally more severe than an equivalent gain. Betting money on a bad hand requires you to overcome this fear.

Pluribus doesn't experience loss aversion. It bluffed like no human would, betting hundreds of times the value of the pot because it had no fear. Playing poker against an emotionless AI meant all the rules of human emotion went out the window.

In fact, no AI systems with feelings currently exist. Specially trained AI systems have poor performance in recognizing human emotion, let alone being able to mimic them. It will be a long time until computers can truly bluff in the emotional ways humans do.

ʺIt's hardly surprising that AI's seem alien to us,ʺ Bhalla told DW. ʺThe way it achieves its amazing capabilities is very unhuman, very unbiological.ʺ

AI 'alienness' could help science

Irina Higgins, a research scientist at Google subsidiary DeepMind, warns that developing AIs that become too alien might be problematic.

ʺAs we develop AI systems, the danger is we invent a brain v2.0 which we also will not fully understand. We need to align AI with humans, making it less alien so we can understand and control it,ʺ Higgins told DW.

But AI being alien might also be a good thing, she said.

ʺIn science, AI systems that have 'alien' ways of analysing data can help us discover things humans haven't thought of,ʺ she said.

Higgins pointed to AlphaFold, the AI system from Deepmind that has predicted the 3D structure of over 100,000 proteins from their amino acid sequences.

ʺResolving protein structures is one of the most fundamental questions in biology. AlphaFold helps us know how proteins and drugs interact, advancing biological research,ʺ said Higgins.

For Higgins, this is the best example of how the alienness of AI can be used to help humans answer big questions, rather than replace human intelligence entirely.

AI development is still in its infancy. Where we go from here, explained Bhalla, depends on how we approach the development of AI.

ʺAI and computers will be different, but not monstrous. It's incumbent on us make sure we train AI systems to become decent, much like we do with our children,ʺ said Bhalla.

Stay tuned for the next article about AI and the brain...

Edited by Clare Roth and Zulfikar Abbany

Copyright 2022 DW.COM, Deutsche Welle. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Amlo promised to take Mexico’s army off the streets – but he made it more powerful

5Steve Fisher in Mexico City
Tue, September 27, 2022 

Photograph: Ulises Ruiz/AFP/Getty Images

For much of the past decade, Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, was an opponent of military involvement in the country’s so-called war on drugs.

When then president Felipe Calderón deployed the army in full force in 2006, López Obrador – best known as Amlo – called for the troops to return to their barracks. When Calderón’s successor, Enrique Peña Nieto, tried to codify the presence of the military into law, Amlo decried the move and said, if he became president, that would change.

“We will not use force to resolve social problems,” López Obrador said in 2017. “We are going to confront insecurity and violence by addressing the root causes, not as they have been doing.”

All that changed when López Obrador took power.

Soon after taking office in December 2018, he created a new force, known as the national guard, to take over public security across the country. And then he successfully pushed his political party, and allied parties, to hand the control of the national guard over to the Mexican army.

The Mexican senate voted the measure into law earlier this month despite López Obrador promising the newly created force would remain under civilian control.

The national guard was meant to replace the disbanded federal police as a public security force. Now, analysts say placing the force under the control of the military is a final step in the militarization of public security in Mexico.

The move has sparked an outcry from human rights organizations who state that, rather than turn security over to the military, the government should instead reform state and local police forces.

“Nowhere in the world has the deployment of soldiers, armed to the teeth, pacified a country,” said security expert Catalina Pérez Correa.

Experts say the expansion of military powers often result in increased human rights violations. And the Mexican military has a long history of massacres in the country.

Related: Can Mexico’s 43 missing students get justice at last – or will politics prevail?

In 1968, soldiers and police forces gunned down what some estimates suggest was 300 students. In 2014, troops summarily executed 22 people in the state of Guerrero. The military has also been implicated in one of the most notorious atrocities of recent years: the disappearance of 43 student teachers who were pulled off a convoy of buses by corrupt police and cartel gunmen.

Earlier this month a retired army general and two other soldiers were arrested after a government truth commission announced that six of the missing students had been kept alive for days before being executed on the orders of the general, who was then commander of a local military base.

The national guard has also come under scrutiny.

In the state of Tamaulipas, members of the force are under investigation for the extrajudicial killing of six people. And troops are under investigation for killing a state prosecutor in the state of Sonora.

And the new force, numbering over 113,000, has had limited success in combating crime when compared to civilian law enforcement, according to security analyst Alejandro Hope.

The national guard is replacing police forces across the country, but its own statistics show few arrests and investigations, compared with other police forces, said Hope. Government statistics show the national guard arrested more than 8,000 people in 2021 compared with the federal police who, with 38,000 agents, arrested 21,702 people in 2018.

“It is an institution that patrols and does not investigate,” Hope said of the fledgling force. “There is a near total absence of investigative work.”

Critics of the plan say that the military deployment has done nothing to reduce the violence, and may well have contributed to Mexico’s spiralling death toll.

Calderón sends in the army

Mexico’s “war on drugs” began in late 2006 when the president at the time, Felipe Calderón, ordered thousands of troops onto the streets in response to an explosion of horrific violence in his native state of Michoacán.

Calderón hoped to smash the drug cartels with his heavily militarized onslaught but the approach was counter-productive and exacted a catastrophic human toll. As Mexico’s military went on the offensive, the body count sky-rocketed to new heights and tens of thousands were forced from their homes, disappeared or killed.

Kingpin strategy

Simultaneously Calderón also began pursuing the so-called “kingpin strategy” by which authorities sought to decapitate the cartels by targeting their leaders.

That policy resulted in some high-profile scalps – notably Arturo Beltrán Leyva who was gunned down by Mexican marines in 2009 – but also did little to bring peace. In fact, many believe such tactics served only to pulverize the world of organized crime, creating even more violence as new, less predictable factions squabbled for their piece of the pie.

Under Calderón’s successor, Enrique Peña Nieto, the government’s rhetoric on crime softened as Mexico sought to shed its reputation as the headquarters of some the world’s most murderous mafia groups.

But Calderón’s policies largely survived, with authorities targeting prominent cartel leaders such as Sinaloa’s Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

When “El Chapo” was arrested in early 2016, Mexico’s president bragged: “Mission accomplished”. But the violence went on. By the time Peña Nieto left office in 2018, Mexico had suffered another record year of murders, with nearly 36,000 people slain.

"Hugs not bullets"

The leftwing populist Andrés Manuel López Obrador took power in December, promising a dramatic change in tactics. López Obrador, or Amlo as most call him, vowed to attack the social roots of crime, offering vocational training to more than 2.3 million disadvantaged young people at risk of being ensnared by the cartels.

“It will be virtually impossible to achieve peace without justice and [social] welfare,” Amlo said, promising to slash the murder rate from an average of 89 killings per day with his “hugs not bullets” doctrine.

Amlo also pledged to chair daily 6am security meetings and create a 60,000 strong "National Guard". But those measures have yet to pay off, with the new security force used mostly to hunt Central American migrants.

Mexico now suffers an average of about 96 murders per day, with nearly 29,000 people killed since Amlo took office.

In the past 15 years, the number of soldiers on the streets has more than doubled. In the same period, homicides increased by 240%, according to public records requests cited by the Mexican news outlet Animal Politico.

In giving the military greater control, Amlo is following the lead of other Latin American countries who have expanded the functions of the military. In Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro ordered the military to do everything from monitoring the voting process to managing schools to combating deforestation in the Amazon. In El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele had soldiers march into parliament to demand an increase in security funds.

In Mexico, Amlo has ordered the military to do everything from building an airport to providing logistics to the Covid pandemic response to building a controversial new train network across several southern states. Such roles, the president’s critics say, have little to do with enforcing the law.

“They want to create an addiction to the presence of the military” in Mexico, Hope said.