Soon to be vividly documented on Nat Geo WILD in “the secret life of drones”: Common drones are actually rather remarkable devices. These sleek, black machines are excellent and acrobatic fliers on par with falcons and hawks. Such aerial skills are on display during refueling season, when exciting docking rituals include an elaborate dance of chases, dives, and rolls. (slightly adapted from Nat Geo)
Hey, that’s a grrrreat idea, but why wait for electric vehicles when we could have (right now!) helicopters deliver gasoline through a boom permanently mounted on all car roofs, you know, just in case the driver runs out of fuel during that trip to the national park? AAA, are you listening?
Seriously, does Amazon expect mass-produced automobiles to be pre-emptively fitted with a roof-mounted dock (added cost; added weight and air resistance and therefore increased energy consumption; waste of space that could instead accommodate a sun-roof, a solar panel or various sensors; etc.) just in case the driver (possibly a computer) some day incorrectly overestimated the remaining range of the vehicle?
I saw no reference to a "conspiracy", or any conspiracy-like speculation, in the article.
I was thinking of this sentence: “overestimates U.S. fossil-fuel consumption, which some critics see as an attempt to boost the oil and gas industry.”
Continuing to do a poor job at prediction year after year, always failing in the same way, suggests that a revision in methodology is in order.
I agree. However, I also imagine that, in general, production forecasts are very difficult to get right, and I don’t find it shocking that they have been much more accurate with energy sources that (1) have been used for a long time (they can rely on long-term historical data), (2) require long-term planning on the part of operators (because deploying a typical utility-grade power plant is very costly and requires lengthy construction) and (3) have traditionally been concentrated among a relatively small number of operators. It seems that solar production dramatically changes the rules of the game, and I would have actually found it surprising if forecasters had managed to accurately predict the astounding success story (to borrow aaarrrgggh’s phrasing from an earlier comment) of solar energy production (both from technological and economical standpoints). Nonetheless, I certainly agree that it has now been well established that solar is here to stay and keep growing at astounding rates and, you’re right, they need to look at revising their forecasting methodology.
Underestimating installations (what the article’s title says) is not the same as making a bearish forecast (what the article actually describes). The author himself wrote: “In the agency’s defense, the pace of technological change is unpredictable. Conservative models are almost always wrong during times of breakneck technological or economic change (as with wind and solar), and the government is not in the business of rosy speculation.” Then, why look for a conspiracy?
You are accusing the EU of incompetence for stating that they are “not in favour of so-called backdoors, the utilisation of systemic vulnerabilities, because it weakens the overall security of our cyberspace, which we rely upon”, and at the same time you are praising Brexit, when Theresa May (and Cameron before her) as well as officials from other individual states (including France and Germany) have been advocating the mandatory use of backdoors. So I take it that you are a supporter of weak encryption.
The obvious problem is that it won’t stop high-calibre criminals (those used by governments to justify the need for backdoors) from using secure encryption, while putting everybody else at risk of exploitation by lower-calibre (but still tech-savvy) criminals. In the words of Matthew Green, cryptography professor at the Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute): “There’s no chance whatsoever you’re going to stop people who really want to use encryption, like terrorists and serious criminals. That’s just impossible.” (Source: The parallax, “Could strong encryption and backdoors coexist? Nope, experts say”)
If I understand correctly (I’m no expert, I was reading about it out of curiosity), there are several routes possible:
1. The centralised procedure The European Medicine Agency (EMA), located in London, processes applications, carries out a scientific assessment and issues a recommendation which, if favourable, leads to the European Commission granting a European marketing authorisation, valid in all Member States. This procedure is compulsory for products derived from biotechnology, for orphan medicinal products (rare diseases) and medicinal products intended for the treatment of AIDS, cancer, neurodegenerative disorders or diabetes; this procedure can also be used for other medicinal products that contain new active substances or are deemed specially innovative.
2. The decentralised procedure An identical application is simultaneously sent to any number of member states (chosen by the applicant). One of those member states volunteers to perform the assessment and sends its report and recommendation to the others, who can then either agree with it or challenge it (in which case the EMA will arbitrate). This procedure leads to national authorisations valid only in the member states involved. One source says that this procedure is particularly used for generic products (based on older active substances that have received prior approval).
3. The national procedure An application is sent to a single member state, which may issue a marketing authorisation valid only in that state. Reportedly, this procedure is now less frequently used.
4. The mutual recognition procedure Similar to the decentralised procedure, but taking as a base an existing authorisation already obtained in one member state through the national procedure. I presume that this procedure is mainly used for older products and will also become less frequently used.
I’m a bit puzzled: aren’t highly confidential documents stored, viewed and edited only on secured computers? Is it really that easy for a contractor (or even an employee) to grab a copy and leave with it, entirely unnoticed?
At my office, no one has physical access to their machines. They are all locked in shielded cabinets. We get a keyboard, mouse, and monitor. No access to USB, Network, or any other ports.
No network connection by any means to the Internet, and no cell phones are allowed in the building, period.
Place is pretty tight.
Don’t worry, next year, you’ll finally make it out of kindergarten.
Tragically, though flying in broad daylight, it was not escorted by a protective formation of fighter drones, making it an easy pick for the latest Talon strike fighters of the austral Aquiline air force.
For those who are merely confused and ignorant, yet not fully deprived of intellectual honesty or interest in learning, here are two excerpts from Wikipedia that may help:
“Assuming high growth in GHG emissions (IPCC scenario RCP8.5), presently dry regions may be affected by an increase in the risk of drought and reductions in soil moisture. Over most of the mid-latitude land masses and wet tropical regions, extreme precipitation events will very likely become more intense and frequent.” (in “Effects of global warming”).
“The warmer atmospheric temperatures observed over the past decades are expected to lead to a more vigorous hydrological cycle, including more extreme rainfall events. Erosion and soil degradation is more likely to occur.” (in “Climate change and agriculture”).
In those situations, I use the Task Manager third-party add-on to find out the culprit. In my experience, the cause of CPU hogging is often one of the several add-ons I use with Firefox. Saving the session and restarting often cures the ailment, though I sometimes find that I have to close specific pages (weird interaction of combination of pages and add-ons).
In Firefox (in “about:config”): - set “media.block-autoplay-until-in-foreground” to “true” to disable autoplay in background tabs (until you switch to them). - set “media.autoplay.enabled” to “false” to disable autoplay in all circumstances (see my comment earlier about a small glitch in YouTube).
For that (completely valid) use case, Firefox has “media.block-autoplay-until-in-foreground” (set it to “true”). Of course, that’s no longer necessary if you disabled autoplay entirely with “media.autoplay.enabled”, which affects both foreground and background tabs, and which you might like better.
I mentioned YouTube in particular because, in my experience, when autoplay (“media.autoplay.enabled”) is disabled, the YouTube player appears to be started but seeking, and requires clicking twice on the “play” button (once to pause, and once more to really start the video), which is a bit befuddling the first time. It’s only a glitch, though, and I still prefer that rather than having videos start in foreground tabs for all sites.
In Firefox (about:config), setting “media.autoplay.enabled” to “false” normally cures the problem. Obviously, it’ll affect all sites, including those where autoplay is largely expected (for example, YouTube), but it’s easy to get used to it.
Thanks! That sure was one sloppy/. post! Fortunately, the Swedish Wikipedia article does present a clear picture: the Swedish department of transportation outsourced its I.T. operation, which resulted in foreign technicians with (obviously) no Swedish security clearance to have complete access to a large amount of sensitive information.
Sure, those in charge of security had opposed the outsourcing, but the leadership could not resist the lure of all that taxpayers’ money that would be saved out of the deal... Yes, at the cost of massive risks: leaks of secret information, and dependence on foreign control and foreign labour for fairly critical government services.
This illustrates rather well the pitfalls of the cloud and outsourcing in general. I hope that the leaders of other countries (and of large corporations) are watching with interest and taking notes.
The existing rule was notable in that 1) It was a gross overreach for the FCC, in that it was implemented under Title II classification 2) It actually does not completely or correctly implement net neutrality (in the way people expect when they use the term)
How was it a “gross overreach” and a failure in regard to network neutrality?
As far as I understand, the FCC was created (through the Communications Act of 1934) for the regulation of the commerce of communication services by wire and radio. Its goals are, in part, the establishment of “a rapid, efficient, nation-wide, and world-wide wire and radio communication service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges”, which is “available... to all the people of the United States”.
The act covers commercial (for hire) telecommunications networks regardless of medium (wire, radio), form (telegraph, telephone, broadcast radio and, later, television and Internet), content (text, voice, images, etc.), addressing mode (unicast, broadcast).
Title II of the act defines rules applicable to common carriers (a carrier being defined as “any person engaged as common carrier for hire, in interstate or foreign communication by wire or radio...”). I don’t see how Internet data communications carriers (using wire or radio) could fail to be included in the definition.
The reference to commerce, and those to qualitative aspects of the service, including fairness (available to all and affordable), make the FCC’s mandate rather clear (no need for the FTC here). This is reinforced by Title II’s prohibition of “unjust or unreasonable charges [and] practices” (“directly or indirectly, by any means or device”), as well as “unjust or unreasonable discrimination in charges [and] practices”, either by advantaging or disadvantaging a particular person, class of persons, or locality.
I understand those articles as expressing the clear intent by Congress, from the very beginning, to ensure network neutrality, regardless of technology; and so I’d argue that the act does, in fact, a decent job covering the fundamentals in that regard.
So, in your point of view, what is the nature of the overreach? And how does the act fail to adequately address network neutrality?
Right now, we can’t get lawmakers to agree on (or even to rationally discuss) environmental protection (pollution, climate change, etc.), long-term energy needs, healthcare (vaccinations, etc.), telecommunications (network neutrality, voice-mail spam, etc.), and many other technology-related topics and the many abuses that they enable... and Musk is hoping that those same people would have the time, the personal interest and the capability of wrapping their brains around a still-vague mostly-future technology that’s totally absent from the minds of voters, and adequately legislate (writing durable and unambiguous laws) to protect us against its possible future abuses?
If Musk has specific concerns and wants to have a meaningful impact about this, he ought to use some of his knowledge, time and money to draft and submit some concrete proposal. Anything else is hot air, I’m afraid.
I remember when, not so long ago, people were making fun of presidents and other politicians for being technologically illiterate, and perhaps not even knowing what a “mouse” was. Well, I have to give it to the current administration. Not only are they masters of the technology (databases, social media, etc.), they’ve now officially embraced one of the latest social trends: doxing!
41 percent of adults said they have experienced harassment online, and 66 percent of people said they've seen it happen to others.
Correction: it should read:
“41 percent of adults said they have experienced harassment online, and 59 percent of people said they’ve, huh, seen it happen to, hum, well you know, others...”
On top of features, I would add: how long can the user reasonably expect to keep their device, which depends on several factors. Is the user likely to switch service provider (because they move, get better coverage, get a better deal, etc.) and would the device support the new set of radio frequencies? How durable is the device and can it be repaired (broken screen, etc.)? Given the user’s circumstances, how high are the risks that they could break or lose the device, and how well could they stomach a possible loss? Etc.
“Outdated jobs” because the decline of the coal industry has come from the rise of cheaper and better alternatives.
“Effortlessly swing” because, in the last presidential election, counties where there had been massive losses of coal mining jobs have overwhelmingly (over 80% in some places, one could say “extremely”) voted for Trump.
“Radical extreme” (relatively speaking) because, relatively to predecessor and more mainstream alternatives, the particular team that was so overwhelmingly favored in those regions is radical and extreme in many areas:
- blunt lack of realism (e.g., economics and technology, the principal causes of coal decline);
- unsubstantiated rejection of scientific consensus (e.g., in regard to pollution and its effects on human health and climate change);
- systematic and often unreasoned vilification of the previous administration and everything that it promoted;
- gratuitous defamation of the press, of individuals, of demographic groups, of local or state governments (e.g., affirmations of massive electoral fraud), of foreign allies, etc.;
- dogmatic demolition of government (e.g. the first-day-in-office executive order requiring federal agencies to revoke two regulations for every new one that they want to issue; defunding/disengagement of agencies; etc.).
- etc.
I’m obviously not trying to compare the Trump administration with Salafi jihadists, or even to compare the situation of the pauper in Saudi Arabia with that of the jobless in West Virginia! I see parallels, however, between the ways people who are facing a (relatively) dire economic situation are often unhesitatingly willing to reject mainstream leadership and take the risk of embracing a (relatively) extreme and unproven alternative that is largely based on the virulent, brazen and dogmatic rejection of past actions and actors, and is entirely unconcerned about public debate, rational analysis and consensus. And, like throwing the baby with the bath water, such opinion swing seems to be done without much regard for serious potential losses (even tangible ones; e.g., healthcare benefits that were well-received in black lung country).
Allowing (relatively) large populations to become greatly impoverished can lead them to make (relatively) radical choices that can have negative consequences on a much larger (or even global) scale. For that reason, I suspect that disengaging from the Middle-East at our first opportunity (energy independence) would not be terribly wise.
Slashdot Mirror
A whopping 42% of children ages 0-8 have their own tablet device
WHAT? They do?????
MOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!
We need to talk NOW!
(And stop shutting that basement door, dang it!)
“Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?”
Soon to be vividly documented on Nat Geo WILD in “the secret life of drones”: Common drones are actually rather remarkable devices. These sleek, black machines are excellent and acrobatic fliers on par with falcons and hawks. Such aerial skills are on display during refueling season, when exciting docking rituals include an elaborate dance of chases, dives, and rolls. (slightly adapted from Nat Geo)
Hey, that’s a grrrreat idea, but why wait for electric vehicles when we could have (right now!) helicopters deliver gasoline through a boom permanently mounted on all car roofs, you know, just in case the driver runs out of fuel during that trip to the national park? AAA, are you listening?
Seriously, does Amazon expect mass-produced automobiles to be pre-emptively fitted with a roof-mounted dock (added cost; added weight and air resistance and therefore increased energy consumption; waste of space that could instead accommodate a sun-roof, a solar panel or various sensors; etc.) just in case the driver (possibly a computer) some day incorrectly overestimated the remaining range of the vehicle?
I saw no reference to a "conspiracy", or any conspiracy-like speculation, in the article.
I was thinking of this sentence: “overestimates U.S. fossil-fuel consumption, which some critics see as an attempt to boost the oil and gas industry.”
Continuing to do a poor job at prediction year after year, always failing in the same way, suggests that a revision in methodology is in order.
I agree. However, I also imagine that, in general, production forecasts are very difficult to get right, and I don’t find it shocking that they have been much more accurate with energy sources that (1) have been used for a long time (they can rely on long-term historical data), (2) require long-term planning on the part of operators (because deploying a typical utility-grade power plant is very costly and requires lengthy construction) and (3) have traditionally been concentrated among a relatively small number of operators. It seems that solar production dramatically changes the rules of the game, and I would have actually found it surprising if forecasters had managed to accurately predict the astounding success story (to borrow aaarrrgggh’s phrasing from an earlier comment) of solar energy production (both from technological and economical standpoints). Nonetheless, I certainly agree that it has now been well established that solar is here to stay and keep growing at astounding rates and, you’re right, they need to look at revising their forecasting methodology.
Underestimating installations (what the article’s title says) is not the same as making a bearish forecast (what the article actually describes). The author himself wrote: “In the agency’s defense, the pace of technological change is unpredictable. Conservative models are almost always wrong during times of breakneck technological or economic change (as with wind and solar), and the government is not in the business of rosy speculation.” Then, why look for a conspiracy?
You are accusing the EU of incompetence for stating that they are “not in favour of so-called backdoors, the utilisation of systemic vulnerabilities, because it weakens the overall security of our cyberspace, which we rely upon”, and at the same time you are praising Brexit, when Theresa May (and Cameron before her) as well as officials from other individual states (including France and Germany) have been advocating the mandatory use of backdoors. So I take it that you are a supporter of weak encryption.
The obvious problem is that it won’t stop high-calibre criminals (those used by governments to justify the need for backdoors) from using secure encryption, while putting everybody else at risk of exploitation by lower-calibre (but still tech-savvy) criminals. In the words of Matthew Green, cryptography professor at the Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute): “There’s no chance whatsoever you’re going to stop people who really want to use encryption, like terrorists and serious criminals. That’s just impossible.” (Source: The parallax, “Could strong encryption and backdoors coexist? Nope, experts say”)
If I understand correctly (I’m no expert, I was reading about it out of curiosity), there are several routes possible:
The European Medicine Agency (EMA), located in London, processes applications, carries out a scientific assessment and issues a recommendation which, if favourable, leads to the European Commission granting a European marketing authorisation, valid in all Member States. This procedure is compulsory for products derived from biotechnology, for orphan medicinal products (rare diseases) and medicinal products intended for the treatment of AIDS, cancer, neurodegenerative disorders or diabetes; this procedure can also be used for other medicinal products that contain new active substances or are deemed specially innovative.
An identical application is simultaneously sent to any number of member states (chosen by the applicant). One of those member states volunteers to perform the assessment and sends its report and recommendation to the others, who can then either agree with it or challenge it (in which case the EMA will arbitrate). This procedure leads to national authorisations valid only in the member states involved. One source says that this procedure is particularly used for generic products (based on older active substances that have received prior approval).
An application is sent to a single member state, which may issue a marketing authorisation valid only in that state. Reportedly, this procedure is now less frequently used.
Similar to the decentralised procedure, but taking as a base an existing authorisation already obtained in one member state through the national procedure. I presume that this procedure is mainly used for older products and will also become less frequently used.
Main sources:
I’m a bit puzzled: aren’t highly confidential documents stored, viewed and edited only on secured computers? Is it really that easy for a contractor (or even an employee) to grab a copy and leave with it, entirely unnoticed?
At my office, no one has physical access to their machines. They are all locked in shielded cabinets. We get a keyboard, mouse, and monitor. No access to USB, Network, or any other ports.
No network connection by any means to the Internet, and no cell phones are allowed in the building, period.
Place is pretty tight.
Don’t worry, next year, you’ll finally make it out of kindergarten.
The machine ... resembled a stealth bomber.
Tragically, though flying in broad daylight, it was not escorted by a protective formation of fighter drones, making it an easy pick for the latest Talon strike fighters of the austral Aquiline air force.
For those who are merely confused and ignorant, yet not fully deprived of intellectual honesty or interest in learning, here are two excerpts from Wikipedia that may help:
“Assuming high growth in GHG emissions (IPCC scenario RCP8.5), presently dry regions may be affected by an increase in the risk of drought and reductions in soil moisture. Over most of the mid-latitude land masses and wet tropical regions, extreme precipitation events will very likely become more intense and frequent.” (in “Effects of global warming”).
“The warmer atmospheric temperatures observed over the past decades are expected to lead to a more vigorous hydrological cycle, including more extreme rainfall events. Erosion and soil degradation is more likely to occur.” (in “Climate change and agriculture”).
In those situations, I use the Task Manager third-party add-on to find out the culprit. In my experience, the cause of CPU hogging is often one of the several add-ons I use with Firefox. Saving the session and restarting often cures the ailment, though I sometimes find that I have to close specific pages (weird interaction of combination of pages and add-ons).
In Firefox (in “about:config”):
- set “media.block-autoplay-until-in-foreground” to “true” to disable autoplay in background tabs (until you switch to them).
- set “media.autoplay.enabled” to “false” to disable autoplay in all circumstances (see my comment earlier about a small glitch in YouTube).
For that (completely valid) use case, Firefox has “media.block-autoplay-until-in-foreground” (set it to “true”). Of course, that’s no longer necessary if you disabled autoplay entirely with “media.autoplay.enabled”, which affects both foreground and background tabs, and which you might like better.
I mentioned YouTube in particular because, in my experience, when autoplay (“media.autoplay.enabled”) is disabled, the YouTube player appears to be started but seeking, and requires clicking twice on the “play” button (once to pause, and once more to really start the video), which is a bit befuddling the first time. It’s only a glitch, though, and I still prefer that rather than having videos start in foreground tabs for all sites.
In Firefox (about:config), setting “media.autoplay.enabled” to “false” normally cures the problem. Obviously, it’ll affect all sites, including those where autoplay is largely expected (for example, YouTube), but it’s easy to get used to it.
Thanks! That sure was one sloppy /. post! Fortunately, the Swedish Wikipedia article does present a clear picture: the Swedish department of transportation outsourced its I.T. operation, which resulted in foreign technicians with (obviously) no Swedish security clearance to have complete access to a large amount of sensitive information.
Sure, those in charge of security had opposed the outsourcing, but the leadership could not resist the lure of all that taxpayers’ money that would be saved out of the deal... Yes, at the cost of massive risks: leaks of secret information, and dependence on foreign control and foreign labour for fairly critical government services.
This illustrates rather well the pitfalls of the cloud and outsourcing in general. I hope that the leaders of other countries (and of large corporations) are watching with interest and taking notes.
That’s what the circus lion said.
Also, you might have a better chance to actually get fiber to the home than ever in your lifetime.
The existing rule was notable in that 1) It was a gross overreach for the FCC, in that it was implemented under Title II classification 2) It actually does not completely or correctly implement net neutrality (in the way people expect when they use the term)
How was it a “gross overreach” and a failure in regard to network neutrality?
As far as I understand, the FCC was created (through the Communications Act of 1934) for the regulation of the commerce of communication services by wire and radio. Its goals are, in part, the establishment of “a rapid, efficient, nation-wide, and world-wide wire and radio communication service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges”, which is “available ... to all the people of the United States”.
The act covers commercial (for hire) telecommunications networks regardless of medium (wire, radio), form (telegraph, telephone, broadcast radio and, later, television and Internet), content (text, voice, images, etc.), addressing mode (unicast, broadcast).
Title II of the act defines rules applicable to common carriers (a carrier being defined as “any person engaged as common carrier for hire, in interstate or foreign communication by wire or radio...”). I don’t see how Internet data communications carriers (using wire or radio) could fail to be included in the definition.
The reference to commerce, and those to qualitative aspects of the service, including fairness (available to all and affordable), make the FCC’s mandate rather clear (no need for the FTC here). This is reinforced by Title II’s prohibition of “unjust or unreasonable charges [and] practices” (“directly or indirectly, by any means or device”), as well as “unjust or unreasonable discrimination in charges [and] practices”, either by advantaging or disadvantaging a particular person, class of persons, or locality.
I understand those articles as expressing the clear intent by Congress, from the very beginning, to ensure network neutrality, regardless of technology; and so I’d argue that the act does, in fact, a decent job covering the fundamentals in that regard.
So, in your point of view, what is the nature of the overreach? And how does the act fail to adequately address network neutrality?
Right now, we can’t get lawmakers to agree on (or even to rationally discuss) environmental protection (pollution, climate change, etc.), long-term energy needs, healthcare (vaccinations, etc.), telecommunications (network neutrality, voice-mail spam, etc.), and many other technology-related topics and the many abuses that they enable... and Musk is hoping that those same people would have the time, the personal interest and the capability of wrapping their brains around a still-vague mostly-future technology that’s totally absent from the minds of voters, and adequately legislate (writing durable and unambiguous laws) to protect us against its possible future abuses?
If Musk has specific concerns and wants to have a meaningful impact about this, he ought to use some of his knowledge, time and money to draft and submit some concrete proposal. Anything else is hot air, I’m afraid.
I remember when, not so long ago, people were making fun of presidents and other politicians for being technologically illiterate, and perhaps not even knowing what a “mouse” was. Well, I have to give it to the current administration. Not only are they masters of the technology (databases, social media, etc.), they’ve now officially embraced one of the latest social trends: doxing!
The times, they are a-changing...
41 percent of adults said they have experienced harassment online, and 66 percent of people said they've seen it happen to others.
Correction: it should read:
“41 percent of adults said they have experienced harassment online, and 59 percent of people said they’ve, huh, seen it happen to, hum, well you know, others...”
On top of features, I would add: how long can the user reasonably expect to keep their device, which depends on several factors. Is the user likely to switch service provider (because they move, get better coverage, get a better deal, etc.) and would the device support the new set of radio frequencies? How durable is the device and can it be repaired (broken screen, etc.)? Given the user’s circumstances, how high are the risks that they could break or lose the device, and how well could they stomach a possible loss? Etc.
“Outdated jobs” because the decline of the coal industry has come from the rise of cheaper and better alternatives.
“Effortlessly swing” because, in the last presidential election, counties where there had been massive losses of coal mining jobs have overwhelmingly (over 80% in some places, one could say “extremely”) voted for Trump.
“Radical extreme” (relatively speaking) because, relatively to predecessor and more mainstream alternatives, the particular team that was so overwhelmingly favored in those regions is radical and extreme in many areas:
- blunt lack of realism (e.g., economics and technology, the principal causes of coal decline);
- unsubstantiated rejection of scientific consensus (e.g., in regard to pollution and its effects on human health and climate change);
- systematic and often unreasoned vilification of the previous administration and everything that it promoted;
- gratuitous defamation of the press, of individuals, of demographic groups, of local or state governments (e.g., affirmations of massive electoral fraud), of foreign allies, etc.;
- dogmatic demolition of government (e.g. the first-day-in-office executive order requiring federal agencies to revoke two regulations for every new one that they want to issue; defunding/disengagement of agencies; etc.).
- etc.
I’m obviously not trying to compare the Trump administration with Salafi jihadists, or even to compare the situation of the pauper in Saudi Arabia with that of the jobless in West Virginia! I see parallels, however, between the ways people who are facing a (relatively) dire economic situation are often unhesitatingly willing to reject mainstream leadership and take the risk of embracing a (relatively) extreme and unproven alternative that is largely based on the virulent, brazen and dogmatic rejection of past actions and actors, and is entirely unconcerned about public debate, rational analysis and consensus. And, like throwing the baby with the bath water, such opinion swing seems to be done without much regard for serious potential losses (even tangible ones; e.g., healthcare benefits that were well-received in black lung country).
Allowing (relatively) large populations to become greatly impoverished can lead them to make (relatively) radical choices that can have negative consequences on a much larger (or even global) scale. For that reason, I suspect that disengaging from the Middle-East at our first opportunity (energy independence) would not be terribly wise.