VIDEO — Julia Tourianski on the Sentencing of Ross Ulbricht and Anarchy in Rojava
via DECENTRALIZE
Jun 2, 2015
Julia Tourianski joins us to talk about her experiences as an activist and filmmaker challenging power structures through her blog and YouTube channel Brave the World, where she covers topics ranging from armed self-defense to anarchism.
We also ask her about her participation in the “Free Ross” movement that has arisen organically over the course of Ulbricht’s imprisonment, and she shares some ways (see full notes below) that decentralists can support Ross and his family even after the sentencing.
Special Guest: Julia Tourianski (https://twitter.com/bravetheworld)
Hosted By: Tony Sakich, James Walpole, & [Eric Martindal
Produced By: [Chaz Ferguson] (https://twitter.com/unchaz)
Want to support Ross in prison? Tomorrow (06/05/15) Julia will be sending a care package of printed screenshots of tweets, comments, and stories sent to @BraveTheWorld on Twitter (https://twitter.com/bravetheworld) or directed through her contact page(http://bravetheworld.com/contact-page/) at BraveTheWorld.com.
If you’re watching this show at a later time, you can still support Ross and his family by donating to his Defense Fund (http://freeross.org/donate-now-2/) or by directing letters to the address listed at FreeRoss.org (http://freeross.org/contact-us-2/).
VIDEO — What “Out of Control” Biohacking Means For the Future
via ReasonTV
Mar 11, 2015
“One of the reason that the authorities tend to be anxious about the future is that things are, in a sense, getting out of control,” says Jay Cornell, co-author of the new book The Disinformation Encyclopedia of Transhumanism and the Singularity.
Reason TV interviewed Cornell and co-author R.U. Sirius, who both worked as editors of the transhumanist/futurist magazine h+. They discussed the future of of biohacking, body modification, and the effects that decentralizing technologies such as 3-D printing will have on the future of scientific innovation in America.
Approximately 7 minutes. Interview by Zach Weissmueller. Camera by Justin Monticello. Music by Lee Rosevere and Psilopat.
[Potent News editor’s note: One of the youtube commentors, SweetLiberty01, mentioned, “There is always risk with every new technological advancement that someone will use it for harm. However, for the most part, individual entrepreneurs use technology for innovations that better mankind (which is how they profit from their creations), whereas governments craft new technologies into weapons. While some might fear the solitary mad scientist, I lose a lot more sleep wondering what the next “innovation” governments or military organizations around the globe are going to come up with.”]
The Community Responds on the Day Before the Sentencing of Ross Ulbricht
via Coin Telegraph
by Jamie Redman
2015-05-28 07:03 PM
In a letter to Judge Katherine Forrest, Ross Ulbricht will plead for leniency at his May 29 sentencing following his conviction for the crime of being the owner and operator of the Silk Road online marketplace.
“Even now I understand what a terrible mistake I made. I’ve had my youth, and I know you must take away my middle years, but please leave me my old age.”
— Ross Ulbricht in a letter to Judge Forrest
The 31-year-old Ulbricht faces a mandatory minimum 20 years in prison and a maximum of life. He was found guilty on all seven felony counts based on being the creator of the anonymous online marketplace, under the pseudonym Dread Pirate Roberts (DPR).
Ulbricht will be sentenced at 1:00 p.m. EST in Judge Forrest’s courtroom at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Courthouse in New York City. The charges are all non-violent. Ulbricht says in his letter that the Silk Road was “supposed to be about giving people the freedom to make their own choices and pursue their own happiness.”
Prosecutors in his trial sent the judge a 16-page letter requesting that Ulbricht be given “a lengthy sentence at his judgment on Friday, one substantially above the mandatory minimum.” The Department of Justice attorneys contend the motivation is to “send a clear message” to the Dark Web drug market.
Many in the crypto environment have been vocal about the case, which they see as an issue that is far bigger than Bitcoin. They believe the drug war is a fraud and that our Internet freedoms are at stake.
Before Ulbricht received his sentenced, many supporters wanted to speak out. In responses shared with CoinTelegraph, members of the Bitcoin community commented on the case of the Silk Road and the upcoming sentencing.
[…CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE]
[related: Silk Road Founder Ross Ulbricht Sentenced To Life In Prison]
VIDEO — Neil Sanders AV5 The Art of Creating Reality
via We Are Change Edinburgh
Sept 26, 2014
Want to know how to sell more effectively? How can you alter the beliefs of your clients? How to make products or ideologies seem more desirable? How can we stretch the truth, stage-manage scenarios and skillfully exploit language to ensure the public sees things as we wish them to be presented and received?
Neil Sanders, presents a ‘sales seminar’ like no other; taking you through the tricks of the marketing trade to allow you to more effectively manipulate the perceptions of your consumers and become successful and efficient salesmen.
Learn the secret techniques that are being utilised now in advertising, news media and politics to increase success, define societal positions and sell reality – the reality we decide – to the masses.
Exposed: Ferguson Protesters Were Paid ‘Rent-A-Mobs’
via Truth Uncensored
by Lauren Richardson
May 19, 2015
It turns out the ‘protesters’ we were seeing in Ferguson, and possibly those in New York and Baltimore, are not angry citizens as we were meant to believe, they are rent-a-mobs who expected to be paid while they cry “no justice, no peace.”
A group in Missouri has been paying protesters $5,000 a month to generate civil unrest in Ferguson, the troubled St. Louis suburb where black youth Michael Brown was killed by a white police officer last August.
Turns out some of the ‘protesters’ haven’t been paid and are demanding what they were promised. They held a sit-in at the offices of Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE) and posted a demand letter online.
[…CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE]
[related: This Woman Has a Fiery Message for the Post-ACORN Org That Won’t Pay Her for Protesting in Ferguson]
PayPal Asserts Copyright Ownership Over All Intellectual Property of its Users
via By Paul Joseph Watson infowars.com
In an alarming new update to its user agreement released this week, PayPal has announced that it will assert copyright ownership over all intellectual property of anyone who uses its payment services.
The update comes in the aftermath of the announcement that eBay and PayPal will split apart into two separate companies.
Under the heading “Intellectual Property,” PayPal announces that it is introducing a new paragraph to its agreement, effective July 1, 2015, that will allow the company to “use content that you post for publication using the Services”.
“When providing us with content or posting content (in each case for publication, whether on- or off-line) using the Services, you grant the PayPal Group a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicensable (through multiple tiers) right to exercise any and all copyright, publicity, trademarks, database rights and intellectual property rights you have in the content, in any media known now or in the future. Further, to the fullest extent permitted under applicable law, you waive your moral rights and promise not to assert such rights against the PayPal Group, its sublicensees or assignees. You represent and warrant that none of the following infringe any intellectual property right: your provision of content to us, your posting of content using the Services, and the PayPal Group’s use of such content (including of works derived from it) in connection with the Services.”
PayPal users reacted to the terms of agreement update by expressing their shock and confusion.
“Wow! Does this mean that anything I might funnel through Paypal will belong to them, and that they can do what they like with it, without consultation, interference or redress?” asked one respondent. “So, for example, my business website: they could override my copyright if I channel it through them in any of their services?”
How Blockchain Tech is Inspiring the Art World
via Coin Desk
Published on May 14, 2015 at 20:25 BST
Since its creation in 2009, bitcoin’s blockchain has proved that value can be moved across a network that cuts out the traditional ‘middle men’.
While the broad strokes of distributed ledger technologies like bitcoin are a hot topic, it’s not just Wall Street or multi-national corporations that are paying attention.
Artists are also exploring how the experimental technology can provide new ways to track and verify ownership through tools like smart contracts – authenticated by cryptographic data.
Blockchain authentication
Stephan Vogler, an artist and entrepreneur based in Germany, thinks the blockchain may be the answer to the art world’s perennial problem, authenticity.
Forgery is rife in the art world. While traditional forms of licensing would create a tradable commodity, he said, buyers could not be certain the license was authentic – nor would they be able to assert whether the author had created multiple copies of the piece.
“Bitcoin offers a solution to this problem. Just like bitcoin can replace banknotes, it can replace the piece of paper with the license text on it. I see great potential in bitcoin and its technology.”
He continued: “The blockchain is the first decentralised trustable database, which can track the ownership of virtual properties in a reliable way.”
By placing a hash value – a set of cryptographic functions that enable people to identify data – of his digital artwork on the bitcoin blockchain, the artist enables potential buyers to verify that the artwork has been licensed.
PN 