Slashdot Mirror

April article about article in Science
https://www.theguardian.com/te...

Why would AI be any different?

Because it doesn't have a messy evolutionary history.

Human babies are known to be racist. This makes some level of evolutionary sense: favour your own.

If an AI is racist, it's for a different reason: it's picking up on inequalities (whether or not caused by society itself) that really do exist in the world today.

Besides, we as their creator are flawed beings so inherently, our creations will be also flawed.

No, this isn't what's happening at all.

An AI showing racial bias doesn't reveal racism on the part of the AI's designers, it shows that the data fed to the AI reveals politically-incorrect inequalities in society. An AI will detect these patterns, unless it's specifically designed not to.

In the EU, car insurance companies are specifically forbidden from factoring in your gender when deciding what price to offer you. That law is in place not because it's irrational to discriminate on gender (profit-wise, that is). If it were irrational, insurance companies wouldn't do it anyway. No, it's because it's seen as an unpleasant/immoral thing to do.

Female drivers really do get into fewer traffic accidents, but society sees it as unfair to penalise men just for being male. We see the same situation here with the AI.

Re 'Ever notice how rarely trolls put effort into any of the qualities you named, while their end goal is to influence people like puppets?"
GCHQ has tools to manipulate online information, leaked documents show (15 July 2014)
https://www.theguardian.com/uk...
The term automated would cover that effort.

Now they can reject asylum seekers without even bothering to process them.

Soon they'll be free to deport anybody that simply isn't a loyal enough American, eh, Comrade?

And the border wall will be transparent as well as solar powered.

Somebody please tell me that he's sundowning.

What are they calling "bias"? We read constantly about so-called racism based merely on the fact that one race objectively exhibits a particular trait over other races. That's called data, not bias.

It's a tricky question. Just because something is data, does not mean that it isn't biased: data can be biased-- in fact, 90% of what we do in experimental science is understanding the bias in data and figuring out how to get an unbiased measurement out of a biased data set. Almost all data is biased one way or another.

If, for example, white people caught shoplifting are usually given a warning and let off while black people caught shoplifting are arrested and prosecuted ("shopping while black"), the data will show a higher rate of shoplifting among blacks. You will need to go to the raw data to see the actuality. See: https://www.theguardian.com/la...

An AI with no correction for bias will reflect the bias of society.

The article linked is merely a summery of the propublica article, which is has more detail, here: https://www.propublica.org/art...

Only recently it was revealed that Mars' surface has a cocktail of substances that would "wipe out living organisms" (see this link
https://www.theguardian.com/sc... ).

So we know ancient Martians used herbicide to prevent weeds growing. This is proof Mars is a fertile land ripe for the taking.

Folks, the little data we have (compared to those who have all the data), it was becoming obvious. Only recently it was revealed that Mars' surface has a cocktail of substances that would "wipe out living organisms" (see this link https://www.theguardian.com/sc... ). The length of time, the sending of supplies, and trying to terraform, it's undertaking that would take an incredible amount of resources. And that is assuming the first manned mission even got there (which is question). I think many, many people questioned whether we would actually go to Mars in spite of all the hype. Funny enough the hype have information suggesting more and more that this is harder than anybody thought. So...we'd better start taking better care of our planet because it all likelihood, we aren't going anywhere. Perhaps like the North American expedition, someone will hock "The Queen's jewels", but save a few insanely rich tycoons sending a bunch of "serfs" on a possibly doomed test mission, this Mars dream, I suspect will postponed for a LONG time.

Or, just tell the Vietnamese that moon dust cures cancer.

It's quite possible that the link isn't even digital, it may be FM analogue.

very possibly. The Guardian says:

We are told by Ofcom who are investigating the matter, that you only need, and this is the frightening thing, a small transmitter and if you can get near where there is an outside broadcast or a signal and you can overpower that signal [and] you’re on the airwaves.

He learned Chinese and did after all, bring the worlds people together ... he leads an incredibly productive life...

Chinese is literally the least remarkable language to learn given that over 2 billion people have already done this. As for bringing people together, I think Facebook has done the exact opposite. It lets people post crap about their life online so they can avoid actually having any meaningful conversations with others.

Numerous studies have shown that Facebook use leads to a decline in mental health. In many ways, it is the McDonalds of the internet: wildly popular but bad for society's health. I'd hardly define creating something like that "productive" despite it being extremely financially rewarding.

Or perhaps the officials are wrong and the guy is overpowering a much weaker studio-to-transmitter link and using the station's own signal to broadcast his onanistic outrage.

Looks like the officials have been poorly summarised in the original article; it seems like a radio van to studio link was hijacked.

“We are told by Ofcom who are investigating the matter, that you only need, and this is the frightening thing, a small transmitter and if you can get near where there is an outside broadcast or a signal and you can overpower that signal [and] you’re on the airwaves.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv...

Side effects may include poisoning the crew.

But that's not true of most of Russia.

Siberia is so warm frozen viruses are thawing and infecting people
Slow-motion wrecks: how thawing permafrost is destroying Arctic cities

Sure, not many people live up north, but anthrax isn't really something you want to play around with.

The way this works in the US is:...

Yes, and one country's method results in jail time if you decide to become a conscientious objector while the other results in a slow painful death from radiation poison. By all means, fight your country's injustices, but don't try to morally equate them.

It's idiotic to blame all hacking by Russians on the Russian government. Many of those people really just do it for personal profit.

I'm not talking about how many "cyber" criminals reside in Russia, I'm talking about the very obvious state-sponsored groups.

Most of startups are failing to begin with. US is not hostile, since the key program, EB-1, targeted for top level proven talent is intact. There is also EB-2. Reality is that "investor visa" was abused, and that is the reason it is being rolled back. It was basically turned to money barter to visa, under the disguise of investment, see one link here https://www.theguardian.com/us.... Why nobody is discussing the reasoning why "investor visa" has been abused and, probably, it was the right thing to do.

You are not wrong. But then have to deal with a mechanism for creating infinite universes. Which is not science. It can at best be called fan-fic.

Not science?

"It sounds bonkers but the latest piece of evidence that could favour a multiverse comes from the UK’s Royal Astronomical Society. They recently published a study on the so-called ‘cold spot’. This is a particularly cool patch of space seen in the radiation produced by the formation of the Universe more than 13 billion years ago ... One of the study’s authors, Professor Tom Shanks of Durham University, told the RAS, “We can’t entirely rule out that the Spot is caused by an unlikely fluctuation explained by the standard [theory of the Big Bang]. But if that isn’t the answer, then there are more exotic explanations. Perhaps the most exciting of these is that the Cold Spot was caused by a collision between our universe and another bubble universe. If further, more detailed, analysis proves this to be the case then the Cold Spot might be taken as the first evidence for the multiverse.”
https://www.theguardian.com/sc...

You're totally out to lunch on Venezuela's problems. Every other oil-producing economy in the world was able to weather the drop in oil prices. Venezuela's problems are uniquely due to the socialist dictatorship in charge. For example, when inflation drove the prices of necessities up, the government mandated fixed prices for those necessities. Because shop owners could no longer afford to sell those necessities, they stopped selling them. Instant country-wide shortages of basic necessities like toilet paper. https://www.theguardian.com/gl...

Oh for fucks sake. Learn how to use fucking Google.

Lets start with a female friendly publication of alleged repute:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-e...

But lets go straight to a feminist national newspaper:
https://www.theguardian.com/li...

Note 'unwanted verbal advances'. That was in the notice published on the Nottingham police website, which sadly they've since hidden from view:
http://www.nottinghamshire.pol...

Of course, I've never harassed a woman in Nottingham, although I've been harassed by a man and assaulted by a woman. The police don't give a flying fuck about that though, no, it's just fucking misogyny is a hate crime and spending money on training police officers to be androphobic.

Enough references for you? If not, do your own fucking google searches.

Reza Aslan outrages Hindus by eating human brains on CNN

https://www.theguardian.com/me...

"The lengthy legal affair is likely to have proved expensive for Tesla, which hired London libel specialists Carter-Ruck and a top QC to fight its case from 2011. In the past year alone, Tesla has been ordered to pay £100,000 in costs on account to the BBC."

https://www.theguardian.com/bu...

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/c...

You know, there were once a people who believed this and enthralled this ideal in their religion. They are known by most as the Carthaginians. The Roman enmity towards these people is not so easily understood today. They always loathed them for their worship of profit over all else. As in the US, this trickled down into every aspect of life. Their disgusting artwork today looks like it belongs in the Museum of Modern Art or at Art Basel. They didn't simply enslave people, they operated strip mines all over the region and enslaved anyone they could and worked them to death. They abhored any work or sacrifice themselves, and believed as you do that profit is the prime motivator of life. So they didn't bother with any conception of virtue, especially the self-sacrificing kind necessary for military service. They just hired mercenaries.

Oh, and yes, it's true, the Carthaginians did in fact sacrifice their babies.

In time, they were utterly destroyed. Their short sighted focus on profit means we barely remember them as anything other than their war with Rome. We don't even remember why the war was fought, but they left nothing behind worth discussing, except crap art.

Keep on worshipping that golden calf. In time, justice will smite you.

I'm certain that if you could get away with it Try-onair would already be doing it.

You are absolutely right. They asked permission to do this five years ago, but were denied. Though I suspect they just threw around the plan for free publicity.

Heel striking is not necessarily bad an is normal for most people, https://www.theguardian.com/li...

>

Look, Trump already has a scientist he can refer to if so be. His name is Ben Carson. And he is as good as anyone Obama had working for him.

You mean the genius that claimed that the pyramids were there to store grain? See https://www.theguardian.com/us...

"As the inventor of the original fidget spinner – the ubiquitous new toy that has quickly become a craze in playgrounds around the world – Catherine Hettinger should be enjoying the high life."

"Hettinger held the patent on finger spinners for eight years, but surrendered it in 2005 because she could not afford the $400 (£310) renewal fee."
https://www.theguardian.com/li...

Things aren't necessarily as they seem.

A ransomware attack that affected at least 2,000 individuals and organisations worldwide on Tuesday appears to have been deliberately engineered to damage IT systems rather than extort funds, according to security researchers.

There was a link in the article to a prior one that contains a map of the Hywinds location.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/16/worlds-largest-floating-windfarm-to-be-built-off-scottish-coast

... not all Muslims, so far as I'm aware, throw homosexuals off of buildings.

True, it is mainly the ones that are in Islamic countries under Sharia law. Of course even Turkey isn't completely receptive at present either.

Turkish riot police crack down on banned Pride parade

Half of all British Muslims think homosexuality should be illegal, poll finds

Poll reveals 40pc of Muslims want sharia law in UK

Half of the Countries Where Same-Sex Acts Are Prohibited Are Islamic; Death Penalty in 13

What can you say about this?

Not that devout Muslims clearly don't have issues with homosexuals, but then again, I can go to a conservative Catholic forum and see the same anti-gay vitriol.

I doubt that you do, and to the extent that you could in a Catholic forum it wouldn't be consistent with church dogma which I expect will be more along the lines of homosexuality is an error, and disordered - hate the sin but love the sinner.

Meanwhile, all the false flag, false report, and literal violent bullshit has been coming out of the left.

Nope!

Nope!

Nope!

I will grant this did though.

But but muh conservatives! But but his tax returns!

And shadowy business dealings. He can't even keep his promises, note how he claimed he wasn't going to take money from foreigners staying at his hotels? oops

Only yesterday, the UK Parliament's computer systems face a cyber attack. MP's are upset because they fear their private correspondence with constituents might have been intercepted and used for blackmail.

And that's with existing encryption. Just imagine how much more data will be leaked if they manage to force weak encryption to be used!

Agree that the LRA is way under-reported, but

there is no doubt the overwhelming majority of terrorists are Christian

Uh. Citation needed. Every time there's a terrorist incident in the west, we all politely wait to find out the ideology behind it, and it almost invariably turns out to be jihadism.

Sorry, no, you're observing bias in data taking. Every time there's a violent incident in the west, we all wait to find the ideology behind it, and if it's Islam, it's labelled "terrorism" and if it's not, it's labelled "a nut job."

I'm British. This shit seems to happen every other week now, and it's never Christian extremism that motivates it

A statement that you contradict in your very next sentence.

The closest we've seen is https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/21/finsbury-park-mosque-attack-two-victims-in-critical-care a Muslim-hating nutter, but as far as we know he wasn't motivated by his own religion (if he even had one), but by a mad hatred of all muslims.

There's a perfect example of biased data taking right there. When it's a Christian attacking, you move to "as far as we know he wasn't motivated by his own religion." Do you take the same attitude of examining the details of their religion and saying it's not terrorism when it is an attack by a Muslim motivated by "a mad hatred of all Christians"?

(And, you apparently only know of one attack on Muslims? That's another example of biased data taking-- so, apparently, wherever you live, attacks on Muslims aren't news, while attacks by Muslims are.)

Here in the US, the data seems to show that no, the majority of terror attacks are not by Muslims: http://www.independent.co.uk/n...

Only yesterday, the UK Parliament's computer systems face a cyber attack. MP's are upset because they fear their private correspondence with constituents might have been intercepted and used for blackmail.

At the same time, they want to be able to crack the messages sent by instant messaging services. Because terrorists might be using them. As well as constituents who might be opposing their policies and planning decisions.

Agree that the LRA is way under-reported, but

there is no doubt the overwhelming majority of terrorists are Christian

Uh. Citation needed.

Every time there's a terrorist incident in the west, we all politely wait to find out the ideology behind it, and it almost invariably turns out to be jihadism. I'm British. This shit seems to happen every other week now, and it's never Christian extremism that motivates it. The closest we've seen is a Muslim-hating nutter, but as far as we know he wasn't motivated by his own religion (if he even had one), but by a mad hatred of all muslims.

I'll also leave you with this extremely NSFW submission from The Onion, which makes the point rather nicely.

In the West, no-one gets killed for making fun of Christianity.

The threat model is gov/mil/security services.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... will find a VPN user.
"Showing the usage of virtual private networks (VPNs) and machines that can potentially be hacked via TAO."
Thats why most governments have few or no laws or comments about the about encrypted VPN use. Revealed: how US and UK spy agencies defeat internet privacy and security (September 2013)
https://www.theguardian.com/wo...
"... Edge hill's initial aim was to decode the encrypted traffic certified by three major (unnamed) internet companies and 30 types of Virtual Private Network (VPN) ..."

In all my time on slashdot I only ever used the filter to block Katz.

Me, too. There was some kind of willful fuzziness going on with Katz that was simply incomprehensible.

I saw once piece at large by Katz in subsequent years that wasn't half bad, from his early days of animal farm, IIRC.

A tiny piece of the same mind fungus can be sometimes found in the writings of Clifford Stoll.

Theodore Dalrymple would figure prominently on any list of the same mind fungus manifesting sporadically on the other side of the brain.

Unclassified bio-hazard level 3: What scares the new atheists by John Grey.

Another guy capable of level-10 wool porn is Alain de Botton.

That is how The Guardian worded it, yes, and yes it was a direct admission. But let me quote Caldbeck's apology: "To say I'm sorry about my behavior is a categorical understatement" "my behavior played a role in perpetrating a gender-hostile environment"

Or, how about this line in his apology "It is outrageous and unethical for any person to leverage a position of power in exchange for sexual gain, it is clear to me now that that is exactly what I've done."

With all due respect, how can you read that and claim that he did not admit his guilt?

You need to get out more. He most certainly admitted it:

A prominent venture capitalist admitted to sexually harassing women in the tech industry, saying he leveraged his “position of power in exchange for sexual gain” in the latest discrimination and misconduct scandal to rock Silicon Valley.

Justin Caldbeck announced on Friday that he would be taking an indefinite leave of absence from Binary Capital, the firm he co-founded, following the claims of six women who accused the 40-year-old of making unwanted advances, often in the context of potential business deals.

The power dynamic that exists in venture capital is despicably unfair,” he said in his statement. “The gap of influence between male venture capitalists and female entrepreneurs is frightening and I hate that my behavior played a role in perpetrating a gender-hostile environment.”

So what is "position of power for sexual gain" again? And exactly what role did he play? Seek and ye shall find.

But after the story spread in Silicon Valley, Caldbeck reversed his position and issued a direct apology to the three women named in the article and “to the greater tech ecosystem, a community that I have utterly failed”.

He also said he was “deeply ashamed” of his lack of self-awareness and would seek professional counseling:

You don't seek professional help if you've done nothing wrong.

Also notice how different this is from his original blanket denial: In the original piece, Caldbeck said:

“I strongly deny the Information’s attacks on my character. The fact is, I have always enjoyed respectful relationships with female founders, business partners, and investors.”

He denied it. Now he admits he needs to get help for it.

More to the point, closed source products from Samsung appear to trying to hide stuff like this:
https://www.theguardian.com/en...

Just why, in the light of the VW et al diesel emissions testing scandal, do manufacturers continue to act like we trust them?

Oh, right, because consumers continue to buy their products.

He assumes that because, like many economic illiterates ... Real economies don't work that way.

You're quite assured about a profession that its own members admit has failed us (citation below). "Real economists" have assured us that free trade is our friend, that increased productivity is how we get more prosperity, and many other things that sound convincing but have not delivered. And regardless of how far our standard of living drops they preach the same. Free trade has lowered the standards of living by being a race to the bottom, as anyone with a good dose of sense can see. Much the same way that supply and demand would dictate that importing masses of workers by definition devalues the existing workers. Lastly although increased productivity is good in theory if the fruits of that aren't shared then to those left out it's the same as no gains in productivity. But what do I know, I still think all lives matter so I'm just a hopeless deplorable.

Citations:

https://www.theguardian.com/co...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/e...

Being smart, dumb, rich, or poor has fuck all to do with this type of delusional nonsense.

Example one
Example two

They're not getting duped. They fully expect to lose that money. They're getting exactly what they paid for: a green card in exchange for $500,000.

If you lived in China, had a net worth over around $10M, and wanted to have a hedge against Chinese political instability, $500K is a fucking bargain. You purchase your green card, then you move a portion of your assets to the US - say, by buying a second luxury apartment at fair market value, and just leaving it sit empty - and if China's economy crashes, you get on the next plane out of dodge and live in your cushy apartment.

This is an international phenomenon amongst UHNWI (ultrahigh net worth individuals) - American VCs including Peter Thiel are doing it too, and their destination of choice appears to be New Zealand in the event of political instability within the United States.

None of these investors - Chinese buying visas from the President's son - nor Thiel buying NZ citizenship via lobbying for it - gives a damn about whether their offshore investments provide a financial return. They're rational market hedges against the risk of domestic instability: spend $1-2M on insurance to guarantee that you'll live as well offshore post-crash on your remaining post-crash $3-5M wealth as you did at home on your original pre-crash $10M. (And if you start with $100M, the math is even easier: It's the same $1-2M on insurance, and you're left with $30-50M from your precrash $100M.)

US spy operation that manipulates social media : Military's 'sock puppet' software creates fake online identities to spread pro-American propaganda

The discovery that the US military is developing false online personalities – known to users of social media as "sock puppets" – could also encourage other governments, private companies and non-government organisations to do the same.

Yes. The Onion's audience considers them a credible source indeed!

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/27/china-kim-jong-un

They didn't do it on a larger scale, aside from being plain bigger.

Wrong. They did it on a massive scale.

We found many car manufacturers whose cars were tuned in some specific way to beat the regulatory tests, and performed horribly in any real-world scenario--typically on-par with the VW offerings.

You missed the point. VW did their cheating not by merely choosing settings that performed well on the test but not as well in the real world. VW actually cheated: they detected the test, and turned off their emissions controls.

Yes, other companies also had poorer performance in the real world. Check for example, the Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/en...
"the diesel cars [from other manufactures] passed the EU’s official lab-based regulatory test (called NEDC), but the test has failed to cut air pollution as governments intended because carmakers designed vehicles that perform better in the lab than on the road. There is no evidence of illegal activity, such as the “defeat devices” used by Volkswagen ."

They didn't do it on a larger scale, aside from being plain bigger.

Wrong. They did it on a massive scale.

We found many car manufacturers whose cars were tuned in some specific way to beat the regulatory tests, and performed horribly in any real-world scenario--typically on-par with the VW offerings.

You missed the point. VW did their cheating not by merely choosing settings that performed well on the test but not as well in the real world. VW actually cheated: they detected the test, and turned off their emissions controls.

Yes, other companies also had poorer performance in the real world. Check for example, the Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/en...
"the diesel cars [from other manufactures] passed the EU’s official lab-based regulatory test (called NEDC), but the test has failed to cut air pollution as governments intended because carmakers designed vehicles that perform better in the lab than on the road. There is no evidence of illegal activity, such as the “defeat devices” used by Volkswagen ."

You leave out the place where the officer told him repeatedly not to touch the weapon but he kept reaching for it.

Except that's not even what the cops claimed was happening.. He said the gun is in his glove box. Was he reaching for the glove box? No.

He was reaching for his ID which he was asked to produce.

In the video recordings, Reynolds can be heard disputing this from inside the car, saying that Castile, who had been asked for his license when the stop began, was reaching for his ID, not for a gun.

Yanez, though, said he believed Castile had grabbed a gun:

“I know he had an object and it was dark. And he was pulling it out with his right hand.

So a guy is asked for a license. In order to avoid scaring the cop before pulling his ID out he does the sensible thing and mentions he has a gun and that it's in his glovebox and then proceeds to get his license from his wallet, at which point the cop proceeds to shoot him even though it should be clear at this point he's not going for the gun.

It takes a gigantic idiot to even assume someone who's about to pull a gun an attempt to murder you in plain daylight is about to declare his intentions beforehand to an armed police officer right next to him.

If your hand has to go anywhere near the gun, tell the officer, let him acknowledge it - -

Sadly this individual did not.

But he did act exactly according to this rule. His hand never went near the gun which as he informed was in the glovebox, and he wasn't going for the glovebox, which he even confirmed a second time ('I'm not reaching for it'). The problem is the officer never listened or did not believe him that the gun was in the box and opened fire due to sheer panic and incompetence even though his hand was never near where the weapon was.

and he paid for not obeying the officer's instructions to not touch his firearm

Incorrect. He never touched his firearm at any point or even went near it. The officer thought he did, because the officer did not listen and/or believe him about the location of the gun.

Racism had nothing to do with it.

Agreed and mind you I never claimed it did. This is gross incompetence and lack of proper training. These kinds of individuals should not be working as mall cops let alone as police officers.

They win the business lottery and we act like they have psychic powers.

Go with PROVEN sources who use in-depth reasoning like Limits to growth which gives more insight into actual problems coming and has been amazingly correct... as well as open about the methods which can be updated and refined.

History shows us that we do not have enough jobs for people; meaningful work has long gone-- we socially engineered a consumer econ so we can have meaningless jobs solely for propping up the economy post WW2. That hasn't lasted long because the consuming population has already gone beyond the physical limits of Earth - so we can not extend that population to the 2/7 people in deep poverty today without multiple planets. When robot tech greatly accelerates the lost jobs we should notice...

Employer based healthcare requires full-time employment and until Obamacare helped you were tied ("motivated") into working full time at an employer. Especially a problem for older / less healthy looking job seekers (HR will not tell you that is why you were rejected... but it is.) Kids aren't the problem, it's the family health benefits.

So, we work part time as the new "full time" but somehow we get health insurance? Do we get paid as much for less work time?? Remember the 50-60s and how they predicted we would work LESS hours? we work more; furthermore, we have email etc invading our time off... robbing us of more of our lives. Americans don't seem to know how to live anymore-- work, consume, zone-out on TV. Little legit social activities and zero community... do you know your neighbor's names? (only next door is pathetic.) Only church goers have a little bit 1 day per week and not a great deal goes on most of those places either. It all helps feed into consumer addiction filling the voids created.

I can predict a huge amount of turmoil -- and I will be right because what we've seen already will continue into more chaos and insecurity. We can't go into Star Trek life styles without a lot of bad times first. People have trouble adjusting to major cultural and social changes -- the powerful have too much power at this turning point and they ALWAYS resist everything that can undermine their security! You think the wealthy elite will allow more equity as most tech progresses IN THEIR favor?

Ummm..there is a LOT of misinformation. Problem is a lot of people are drinking the Kool-Aid. Trump is know for the very things he accuses anyone who speaks ill against him. It's true that we have a lot of misinformation or incomplete information but if you look CAREFULLY (like Fox News who constantly has to correct their headlines and are used by intelligent comedians for material), is the media with misinformation is often corrupted/coerced/bought out by the very people who accuse the media .Trump has been shown praising Fox news. Because they are basically mouthpieces of Republican party. Their official excuse is as a "balancing force" for the pro-Democrat news media outlets. All of that is basically government propaganda no better than the mainstream in China or Russia. So using Trump as an example of media abuse is a contradiction in terms (sorry but there is proven evidence). To be clear, I don't trust EITHER party (both have been shown corrupt at high levels) and I think we need a fresh 3rd party to keep them honest. But there ARE independent journalists and they are the ones primarily attacked. I'll give a few sources for you to examine:

https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/
http://theintercept.com/
http://www.theguardian.com/
http://independent.co.uk/

Hopefully there will be more. Folks, please feel free to add to this list. Of course these people need donations to pay for their work. BTW, The Guardian and The Intercept worked together to expose the unconstitutional behavior of the NSA provided by Snowden. Pretty ballsy. If we want "real news" we need to find it and support it. otherwise the media companies and/or political parties will mute anything we truly need to know to have a real democracy.

Having the chance to participate in a major milestone for human achievement could be motivation enough. History would remember the brave pioneers that colonized the first extraterrestrial world, their legacy preserved to be taught to future generations to serve as an example to the spirit of exploration.

Those that never take the risks, they may have lived a longer life having played it safe, but they will be forgotten. You could spend your whole life never leaving the safety of your bedroom, and it's still no guarantee.