Good news for EU farmers, and us

Industrialised farming, here I use an over simplified definition, where you have a corporation owning massive large scale farming operations, is not a good idea. A corporation is geared towards profit. Profit first, is never good for us or the planet.

Planet, then people, then profit – that’s the right way to a sustainable future for farming (fishing, lumber, [insert anything you like here…]).

It’s great to see the EU recognising that it’s made mistakes and that they are going to rectify these to help support small scale farming. This will help slow down the decline and loss of these critically important farms and families from our communities.

For more insight, here is a great article form The Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/24/fewer-bigger-more-intensive-eu-vows-to-stem-drastic-loss-of-small-farms

Image credit: Albrecht Fietz from Pixabay

AI as a ‘hacker’

Excellent article by Bruce Schneier about the unintended consequences of allowing AI to “hack”. This is a bigger issue than most realise, take the time to read this article to get a better understanding of the issue and the possible outcomes.

If you don’t have enough to worry about already, consider a world where AIs are hackers.

Hacking is as old as humanity. We are creative problem solvers. We exploit loopholes, manipulate systems, and strive for more influence, power, and wealth. To date, hacking has exclusively been a human activity. Not for long.

As I lay out in a report I just published, artificial intelligence will eventually find vulnerabilities in all sorts of social, economic, and political systems, and then exploit them at unprecedented speed, scale, and scope. After hacking humanity, AI systems will then hack other AI systems, and humans will be little more than collateral damage.

When AIs Start Hacking – Bruce Schneier

Read the full article here: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/04/when-ais-start-hacking.html

Signal, Telegram or Whatsapp

Just throwing my hat in the ring here.

Firstly. No, enough already. Stop using whatsapp. Stop using software by a company (Facebook) that’s sole purpose is to sell your data for profit. It does that by siphoning every single bit of information it can possible get it’s hands on, from multiple sources. And then sells it. They do little or no good in the world compared to the harm it does. Add to that, the disasters we know of, Cambridge Analytica (and many others), the ability to influence elections, to act with almost no oversight, regulation or repercussion…Do you really want to be involved with this?

More insight and info:

So what then? Well you have very good alternatives.

Signal is best in class. Hands-down the first choice if you care about privacy or may do in the future. It offers many of the same features as Whatsapp and Telegram but with a 100% confidence that your data is your data. It’s owned and operated by a not-for-profit organisation.

Get it here: https://signal.org/download/

More info:

Telegram sits somewhere in-between these two. And is a good option for those looking for a drop-in replacement for Whatsapp and do not care about any future issues should there be a change of position or ownership.

Get it here: https://telegram.org/dl

But whatever you do, it’s time to walk away from Facebook.

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