Is it Facebook or Propaganda-book? | Drawing no Line in the Bloody Sand | Can the Planet Feed the World?

“We work to eat to get the strength to work to eat to get the strength to work.” – John Dos Passos

“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.” – Aldous Huxley

Is it Facebook or Propaganda-book? Most Americans understand that Russians used social media to attack the 2016 election, attempting to sway public opinion through an avalanche of disinformation, “fake news”, disseminated throughout Facebook and Twitter. In the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections, the same thing is happening, but this time Americans are doing it. Domestic sites are directly emulating the Russian playbook by aggressively creating networks of mostly-fake Facebook pages and accounts. By planting false information and made-up stories, then using the network to share parts so that they quickly proliferate online, it gives the appearance that the ideas being promoted enjoy widespread popularity. The activity is being replicated on Twitter.

An information warfare researcher who studies social media said these were “well-developed networks of Americans targeting other Americans with purposefully designed manipulations.” Additionally, as Facebook’s head of security pointed out, while traditional spam networks typically used celebrity gossip or natural disaster stories to get people to click on links that take them to ad-filled websites, today sensational political content was proving more effective in driving traffic.

Additional read: “How to Delete Facebook and Instagram From Your Life Forever: Lost faith in Facebook and Instagram after data leakages, breaches and too much noise? Here’s a guide to breaking up with the social network and its photo-sharing app for good.” Or: How I Learned to Stop Scrolling and Love the Outdoors. (NYT)

Looks Like Someone Skipped History Class: Germany’s far-right AfD party is encouraging school children to denounce teachers who express political opinions or criticize the party. Neutral Schools, an online portal, has been launched as a pilot project in Hamburg, with the AfD inviting pupils to post anonymous complaints on the site about suspect teachers. The platform has sparked heated debate and the party is facing growing calls from teachers and cultural figureheads to end the project, with many accusing the AfD of adopting tactics used during the Nazi and Communist eras. (Guardian)

Drawing no Line in the Bloody Sand: President Trump told Fox & Friends hosts early Thursday that his administration was taking the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who entered the Saudi consulate in Turkey on October 2 and never came out, “very very seriously”. “We don’t like it. I don’t like it. No good,” Trump said. Then he added that US relations with the Saudi kingdom were “excellent.” Such pronouncements illustrate the growing rift between Congress and the White House over the administration’s Saudi Arabia policies. One senator tweeted Thursday that “The Saudis will keep killing civilians and journalists as long as we keep arming and assisting them.” If it is found that the Saudi crown prince or leadership orchestrated the death of of Khashoggi and gets away with such murder due to its political, military, and financial ties, then the post World War II international world order no longer exists. (NYT)

And I Think It’s Gonna Be A Long Long…Never Mind: The Russian Soyuz rocket carrying one American and one Russian astronaut to the International Space Station developed a thruster problem two minutes after takeoff. The men were forced to abort the mission and make an emergency “ballistic landing” in Kazakhstan in their capsule. Rocket launches will remain grounded while the Russian space agency Roscosmos investigates the incident. (Guardian) And, “Houston, we have a rocket bubble: Some experts are skeptical that space will become a trillion-dollar industry, and a bubble may already be forming in the current space economy. (Axios)

Can the Planet Feed the World? Combating climate change by drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions isn’t the only crisis incumbent upon world leaders to fix. Figuring out how to feed future billions of people without destroying the environment is another. A new report published in the journal Nature argues that a sustainable food system that doesn’t ravage the environment will require dramatic reforms, including a radical change in dietary habits. Current methods of producing, distributing and consuming food aren’t environmentally sustainable, and without a huge reduction in meat consumption, efforts to keep climate change at an acceptable level won’t be successful. Bottom line: Cheeseburgers must be out, fruits and vegetables must be in.

The director of the Sustainable Science Center at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark put it this way: “the food system is broken and needs to be fixed if we have any hope of feeding 9 to 10 billion.” Currently half the planet’s ice-free surface is devoted to livestock or the growing of feed for those animals. It’s an area equal to North and South America combined. Rain forests are steadily being cleared for cropland. The demand for food is increasing faster than the population, bringing with it a higher demand for meat and other forms of animal protein. 70 percent of the world’s freshwater is already used in agriculture, and demand for that water will only intensify.

Get Smarter in Just 5 Minutes: 500,000 people read Morning Brew first thing every day. Why? Because it’s the only newsletter that will tell you everything you need to know about the business world before you get to the office.

Trying To Make Sense of It All: NPR’s Scott Detrow reviews three important works from Pulitzer Prize-winning historians, all aiming to put the current state of American politics into context. The two newest are Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Leadership in Turbulent Times, and Joseph J. Ellis’s American Dialogue, The Founders and Us. Jon Meacham’s The Soul of America, The Battle for Our Better Angels was released last May. Their book jackets describe the authors as trying to make sense of the “discord of our times, our “current climate of partisan fury” and a “divided America that is currently incapable of sustained argument and is feeling unsure of its destiny.” (NPR)

– “Ambushed at Home: Children poisoned by lead on U.S. Army bases as hazards go ignored” and “A child poisoned in National Guard housing. A family left in the dark: A U.S. soldier’s daughter got lead poisoning while living in military housing. The Louisiana National Guard said their home wasn’t to blame. Reuters reviewed records showing otherwise. Now, a mother  fears for her  daughter’s  future and her husband’s career.” (Reuters)

– “‘Quite Something’: Kanye West Makes A Statement In The Oval Office:It was surreal moment even for a White House accustomed to surreal moments.” (NPR)

– “Trump calls ‘loco’ Federal Reserve ‘too aggressive’: ‘I’m paying interest at a high rate because of our Fed. And I’d like our Fed not to be so aggressive because I think they’re making a big mistake,’ Trump said in a Thursday morning interview on Fox & Friends.” (Reuters)

– “A Future Where Everything Becomes a Computer Is as Creepy as You Feared: In recent years, the tech industry’s largest powers set their sights on a new target for digital conquest. They promised wild conveniences and unimaginable benefits to our health and happiness. There’s just one catch, which often goes unstated: If their novelties take off without any intervention or supervision from the government, we could be inviting a nightmarish set of security and privacy vulnerabilities into the world.” (NYT)

– “The Battle for the Home: If the first stage of competition in consumer technology was the race to be the computer users went to (won by Microsoft and the PC), and the second was to be the computer users carried with them (won by Apple in terms of profits, and Google in terms of marketshare), the outlines of the current battle came sharply into focus over the last month: what company will win the race to be the computer within which users live?” (Stratechery)

– “Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?:Across the technology industry, rank-and-file employees are demanding greater insight into how their companies are deploying the technology that they built.” At a very high level software is simply a tool, and there are two types of software: one that better connects people and the other that connects tools and services better (internet plumbing). (NYT)

– “A Brain Scientist Who Studies Alzheimer’s Explains How She Stays Mentally Fit: ‘People who have a lot of social interactions, particularly in mid-life, have a lower risk of Alzheimer’s dementia in later life,’ Langbaum says. ‘There’s something about being around people that’s helpful for our brains.’” (NPR)

– “Americans Strongly Dislike PC Culture: Youth isn’t a good proxy for support of political correctness, and race isn’t either.” (Atlantic)

– “America Is Losing Its Edge for Startups: It used to be that 95 percent of global startup and venture-capital activity happened in the U.S. Today, it’s just over one-half.” (CityLab)

– “Growing Up In The Library: Learning and relearning what it means to have a book on borrowed time.” I spent just as much time growing up in the Tallahassee’s main public library than I did at home. It is a fantastic institution that felt like what church ought to be: a quiet place where homeless could feel safe, where children could learn, the world’s mysteries could be explored, and where all could be educated and entertained. The San Francisco public libraries are also excellent. And today it’s possible to take the library with you as it’s possible in many libraries to check out eAudiobooks via Axis 360 or Overdrive (New Yorker)

“Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.” – Aldous Huxley

Please consider making a donation to Daily Pnut, an independently operated and bootstrapped publication. Many thanks to everyone who already supports us!