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369 lines
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<title>18 June, 2022</title>
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<title>Daily-Dose</title><meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" name="viewport"/><link href="styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><link href="../styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><style>*{overflow-x:hidden;}</style><link href="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.css" rel="stylesheet"/><script src="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.js"></script></head>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What We Learned About Trump, Pence, and the January 6th Mob</strong> - The third hearing on the attack on the Capitol revealed that the Proud Boys would have killed the Vice-President “if given the chance.” - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/what-we-learned-about-trump-pence-and-the-january-6th-mob">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Looking for Reasons to Be Hopeful About Gun Legislation</strong> - Canada initiates more real progress and, in this country, something would be better than nothing. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/looking-for-reasons-to-be-hopeful-about-gun-legislation">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Jerome Powell Races to Catch Up with Inflation</strong> - In announcing a big rate rise, the Fed chief conceded that the challenge of arresting rising prices without causing a recession is getting harder. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/jerome-powell-races-to-catch-up-with-inflation">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>After a Year in Office, What Has Israel’s Change Government Changed?</strong> - A vote in the Knesset and a protest on Jerusalem Day suggest that Benjamin Netanyahu’s influence endures. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/after-a-year-in-office-what-has-israels-change-government-changed">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>“We Have to Get Out of This Phase”: Ashish Jha on the Future of the Pandemic</strong> - President Biden’s COVID czar talks about his public-health philosophy, his Twitter threads, his unlikely path to the White House, and where we go from here. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-new-yorker-interview/we-have-to-get-out-of-this-phase-ashish-jha-on-the-future-of-the-pandemic">link</a></p></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><strong>If aliens are calling, let it go to voicemail</strong> -
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<figure>
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<img alt="The “Sky Eye” radio telescope in Qiannan Buyei and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Guizhou Province, China" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/y79yDsnxZm-TtoyYp75X9fwnHdk=/484x0:6349x4399/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/70990729/GettyImages_1300995024.0.jpg"/>
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<figcaption>
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The “Sky Eye” radio telescope in Qiannan Buyei and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Guizhou Province, China. | Qu Honglun/China News Service via Getty Images
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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Receiving signals from extraterrestrial civilizations could pose an existential risk. Really.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GvA9V1">
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Humans have invented a rogue’s gallery of nightmarish fictional aliens over the decades: <a href="https://aliens.fandom.com/wiki/Xenomorph">acid-blooded xenomorphs</a> who want to eat us and lay their eggs in our chest cavities; <a href="https://twilightzone.fandom.com/wiki/To_Serve_Man"><em>Twilight Zone</em> Kanamits</a> who want to fatten us up like cows and eat us; those <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Series/V1983">lizard creatures in the 1980s miniseries <em>V</em></a> who want to harvest us for food. (You may be sensing a theme here.)
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EfxdNF">
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But the most frightening vision isn’t an alien being at all — it’s a computer program.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uWTY8v">
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In the 1961 sci-fi drama <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054511/"><em>A for Andromeda</em></a>, written by the British cosmologist Fred Hoyle, a group of scientists running a radio telescope receive a signal originating from the Andromeda Nebula in outer space. They realize the message contains blueprints for the development of a highly advanced computer that generates a living organism called Andromeda.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="X3OKBP">
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Andromeda is quickly co-opted by the military for its technological skills, but the scientists discover that its true purpose — and that of the computer and the original signal from space — is to subjugate humanity and prepare the way for alien colonization.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="13h1z1">
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No one gets eaten in <em>A for Andromeda</em>, but it’s chilling precisely because it outlines a scenario that some scientists believe could represent a real existential threat from outer space, one that takes advantage of the very curiosity that leads us to look to the stars. If highly advanced aliens really wanted to conquer Earth, the most effective way likely wouldn’t be through fleets of warships crossing the stellar vastness. It would be through information that could be sent far faster. Call it “cosmic malware.”
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</p>
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<h3 id="GRKmhe">
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Phoning ET
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eaqhkY">
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To discuss the possibility of alien life seriously is to embark upon an uncharted sea of hypotheses. Personally, I fall on the <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AgentScully">Agent Scully</a> end of the alien believer spectrum. The revelation of intelligent extraterrestrials would be an extraordinary event, and as SETI pioneer Carl Sagan himself <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3114207/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CExtraordinary%20claims%20require%20extraordinary%20evidence%E2%80%9D%20was%20a%20phrase%20made%20popular,et%20al.%2C%201999).">once said</a>, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="itrEbI">
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Intelligent extraterrestrials who also want to hack our planet would be even more extraordinary. But this scenario became a bit easier to envision this week.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uEZfVR">
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On Wednesday, a story published in China’s state-backed Science and Technology Daily reported that the country’s giant Sky Eye radio telescope had picked up unusual signals from space. According to the piece, which cited the head of an extraterrestrial civilization search team that was launched in China in 2020, narrowband electromagnetic signals detected by the telescope differed from previous signals, and were in the process of being investigated.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Of5JMf">
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The story was apparently deleted from the internet for unknown reasons, though not before it was <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-15/china-says-it-may-have-detected-signals-from-alien-civilizations">picked up by other outlets</a>. At this point it’s difficult to know what, if anything, to make of the story or its disappearance. It wouldn’t be the first time an extraterrestrial search team found a signal that appeared notable, only to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/02/science/seti-investigates-an-alien-radio-signal.html">dismiss it after further research</a>. But the news is a reminder that there is little in the way of clear agreement about how the world should handle an authenticated message from an apparent alien civilization, or whether it can even be done safely.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8WcItb">
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For all the <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/5/8/21244090/pentagon-ufo-report-navy-alexander-wendt">recent interest in UFO sightings</a> — including NASA’s <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-to-set-up-independent-study-on-unidentified-aerial-phenomena/">surprising announcement</a> last week that it would launch a study team to investigate what it calls <a href="https://www.vox.com/22463659/ufo-videos-navy-alien-drone">“unidentified aerial phenomena”</a> — the chance that aliens would be physically visiting Earth is vanishingly small. The reason is simple: Space is big. Like, really, really, really big. And the idea that after decades of searching for ET with no success, there could be alien civilizations capable of crossing interstellar distances and showing up on our planetary doorstep beggars belief.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="okuPJi">
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But transmitting gigabytes of data across those vast interstellar distances would be comparatively easy. After all, human beings have been doing a variation of that for decades through what is known as active messaging.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9pUlZP">
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In 1974, the astronomer Frank Drake <a href="https://news.cornell.edu/stories/1999/11/25th-anniversary-first-attempt-phone-et-0">used the Arecibo Observatory</a> in Puerto Rico to blast 168 seconds of two-tone sound toward the star system M13. It sounded like noise, but any aliens listening might have noticed a clear, repetitive structure indicating its origin was non-natural — precisely the kind of signal that <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/12/what-happens-if-china-makes-first-contact/544131/">radio telescopes like China’s Sky Eye</a> are listening for here on Earth.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lewr9B">
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Such active messaging efforts were controversial from the start. Beyond the debate about who exactly should get to decide on behalf of the Earth when we try to say “hello” to aliens and what that message should be, transmitting our existence and location to unknown denizens of the cosmos could be inherently dangerous.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rH4ifI">
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“For all we know,” <a href="https://onezero.medium.com/maybe-lets-not-try-to-talk-to-aliens-f7b2a67b736d">wrote</a> then-Astronomer Royal Martin Ryle shortly after the Arecibo message, “any creatures out there might be malevolent — and hungry.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="H6uQvd">
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Those concerns haven’t put an end to efforts to actively signal to alien civilizations that are “very likely to be older and more technologically advanced than we are,” as Sigal Samuel <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/2/21/18224984/arecibo-message-aliens-kids-contest-seti-meti-extraterrestrial">wrote in a 2019</a> story about a crowdsourced contest to update the Arecibo message. But we shouldn’t be so sure that simply listening quietly for messages from space is a safer method of extraterrestrial discovery.
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</p>
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<h3 id="ekQNhG">
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Cosmic malware
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="knsf9d">
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In a <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/TURTRC">2012 paper</a>, the Russian transhumanist Alexey Turchin described what he called “global catastrophic risks of finding an extraterrestrial AI message” during the search for intelligent life. The scenario unfolds similarly to the plot of A for Andromeda. An alien civilization creates a signal beacon in space of clearly non-natural origin that draws our attention. A nearby radio transmitter sends a message containing instructions for how to build an impossibly advanced computer that could create an alien AI.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="D1qM7Q">
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The result is a phishing attempt on a cosmic scale. Just like a malware attack that takes over a user’s computer, the advanced alien AI could quickly take over the Earth’s infrastructure — and us with it. (Others in the broader existential risk community <a href="https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DWHkxqX4t79aThDkg/my-current-thoughts-on-the-risks-from-seti">have raised similar concerns</a> that hostile aliens could target us with malicious information.)
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="snrtDE">
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What can we do to protect ourselves? Well, we could simply choose <em>not </em>to build the alien computer. But Turchin assumes that the message would also contain “bait” in the form of promises that the computer could, for example, solve our biggest existential challenges or provide unlimited power to those who control it.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="n8p9yg">
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Geopolitics would play a role as well. Just as international competition has led nations in the past to embrace dangerous technologies — like nuclear weapons — out of fear that their adversaries would do so first, the same could happen again in the event of a message from space. How confident would policymakers in Washington be that China would safely handle such a signal if it received one first — or vice versa?
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tG8BWm">
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As existential risks go, cosmic malware doesn’t compare to out-of-control climate change or engineered pandemics. Someone or something would have to be out there to send that malicious message, and the more exoplanets we discover that could plausibly support life, the odder it is that we have yet to see any concrete evidence of that life.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Jb3ZUL">
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One day in 1950, at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the physicist Enrico Fermi <a href="https://www.space.com/25325-fermi-paradox.html">posed a question</a> to his lunch companions. Given the vast size and age of the universe, which should have allowed plenty of room and time for alien life to arise, why haven’t we seen them? In other words: “Where is everybody?”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2Q3qKs">
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Scientists have posited <a href="https://phys.org/news/2022-05-planetary-scientists-solution-fermi-paradox.html">dozens of answers</a> to his question, which became known as the “<a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/7/3/17522810/aliens-fermi-paradox-drake-equation">Fermi paradox</a>.” But perhaps the right answer is the simplest one: No one’s home. It would be a lonely answer, but at least it would be a safe one.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LesIVq">
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<em>A version of this story was initially published in the Future Perfect newsletter. </em><a href="https://confirmsubscription.com/h/d/A2BA26698741513A"><em><strong>Sign up here to subscribe!</strong></em></a>
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</p></li>
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<li><strong>In The Immortal King Rao, a tech billionaire becomes king of the world</strong> -
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<figure>
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<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/VVgXoWU78iFAZTkMuTWqGfoyjNc=/0x699:1838x2078/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/70988393/ImmortalKingRao_9780393541755.0.jpg"/>
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<figcaption>
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<em>The Immortal King Rao</em> by Vauhini Vara. | W.W. Norton & Company
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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A new novel paints a portrait of a world ruled by almighty algorithm.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xuoGoV">
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<em>The Vox Book Club is linking to </em><a href="https://go.skimresources.com/?xcust=___vx__p_22896526__t_w__r_vox.com/vox-book-club__d&id=66960X1516588&xs=1&url=https://bookshop.org/shop/voxbookclub?"><em>Bookshop.org</em></a><em> to support local and independent booksellers.</em>
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yPo0tU">
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In 1600, Queen Elizabeth I granted a group of London merchants the exclusive right to British trading with the East Indies, along with the right to wage war, if necessary. In 1757, what was now known as the East India Company put the license to use, attacked, and ultimately took control of Mughal Bengal, then one of the wealthiest provinces in one of the world’s wealthiest empires.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EXvPDI">
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By winning that battle, the East India Company took for itself the right to tax the citizens of Bengal. Shortly thereafter, the Hindi word for plunder, lut, entered the English language: loot.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5x4Lqe">
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As the East India Company took control of India, it gradually transformed itself from an early megacorporation into something closer to a government. It collected taxes, and it enforced their collection through the diligent use of a private army. It appointed governors from within its company’s ranks who were responsible for administering individual provinces.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IWVZhC">
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“This would be the equivalent,” <a href="https://www.history.com/news/east-india-company-england-trade">journalist Dave Roos once wrote,</a> “of Exxon Mobil drilling for oil in coastal Mexico, taking over a major Mexican city using private armed guards, and then electing a corporate middle manager as the mayor, judge and executioner.”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Toig87">
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It will perhaps not shock you to learn that this system of government was not received well by those forced to live under it. A corporation is accountable only to its shareholders, and its only responsibility is to safeguard their profits. Accordingly, the East India Company used its control of India not to safeguard the people who lived there but to transfer Indian wealth to British pockets at a massive scale. <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/08/23/britains-idyllic-country-houses-reveal-a-darker-history">One economist calculated</a> that India’s share of the global GDP went from 24.4 percent to 4.2 percent during its time under British rule.
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As the tech giants and oil corporations of our own time continue to steadily amass power, more than one historian has suggested that the East India Company can provide a warning of what their future might look like.
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“The East India Company — the first great multinational corporation, and the first to run amok — was the ultimate model for many of today’s joint-stock corporations,” <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/04/east-india-company-original-corporate-raiders">wrote William Dalrymple in the Guardian in 2015</a>. “The most powerful among them do not need their own armies: they can rely on governments to protect their interests and bail them out. The East India Company remains history’s most terrifying warning about the potential for the abuse of corporate power — and the insidious means by which the interests of shareholders become those of the state.”
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="o7xncz">
|
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|
|
In Vauhini Vara’s <a href="https://go.skimresources.com?id=66960X1516588&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fbookshop.org%2Fbooks%2Fthe-immortal-king-rao-9781324050308%2F9780393541755&xcust=VoxImmortalKingRao061722"><em>The Immortal King Rao</em></a>, the East India Company provides the historical antecedent for a system of government performed by a corporate entity known only as the Board, a tech megacorporation turned dystopian state. When the Board takes control of the world, “historians later noted that there had been plenty of historical precedent,” Vara writes. “You could go at least as far back, they said, as the British East India Company.”
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AJDf8y">
|
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|
The Board’s first CEO, our titular King Rao, grew up in the vicious aftermath of the East India Company’s rule. He’s born in 1951, three years after the end of British occupation of India, as the country struggles to rebuild its economy after centuries of looting. King’s a member of the Dalit untouchable caste, but his family is on its way up. They own a coconut farm called the Garden, built in a delta made fertile by the East India Company’s irrigation. Now they’re leveraging their way into the middle class through both the farm and the use of the Brahmin surname Rao.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4bBRZt">
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In three timelines laid out in alternating chapters, we see King’s childhood in the Garden, from his violent conception through his callow adolescence. We see him arrive in America in the 1960s to work as a software engineer, eventually becoming the Steve Jobs-like visionary at the head of a tech company called Coconut. And, in our frame narrative, we see him grow old with his daughter Athena, who serves as the loving, conflicted, betrayed narrator of her CEO father’s life story.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="G8ZEiv">
|
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|
Under King’s rule, the Board isn’t technically in charge of the world. The almighty Algorithm King programmed is in charge of the world, and the Board merely administers its decisions.
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QIGN3s">
|
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“People’s needs — food, water, energy, Internet, roads, shelter, schools, hospitals, protection, detention,” Vara writes, “would be fulfilled not through complex taxation and appropriation, but with an innovative model where, instead of paying taxes, people would have a portion of their Capital extracted monthly, the Algo determining the most efficient investment of funds.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2cMa0u">
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|
The idea is that the Algorithm is supposed to be less biased than fallible human beings, more fair and just. But the Algo, programmed by fallible human beings, merely institutionalizes their bias. All existing inequalities are exacerbated, all existing poverty deepened, all existing suffering made worse. Meanwhile, climate change has become irreversible, and mankind’s time is running out.
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mgTx6s">
|
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|
<em>The Immortal King Rao</em> is not solely an economic parable. Its emotional core lies in its fraught father-daughter relationship. We see King both cherish Athena and callously use her in a bid for his own immortality, hijacking her mind to upload his own consciousness. We see Athena by turns resentful and tender, cherishing her father and repudiating his works, turning the story of his own life into a weapon against his legacy.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="i7Xg0N">
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But what frames this novel on either end is commerce, brutal and implacable.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9dnP7Q">
|
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|
The legacy of the East India Company is that capitalism and colonialism are intertwined, that it may be impossible to fully disentangle them. In <em>The Immortal King Rao</em>, the knot only ever grows tighter.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="23uV00">
|
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Share your thoughts on <em>The Immortal King Rao</em> in the comments section below, and be sure to <a href="https://voxbookclubpresentstheimmortal.splashthat.com/">RSVP for our upcoming live discussion event with Vauhini Vara</a>. In the meantime, <a href="https://confirmsubscription.com/h/d/533DCA62F59CA120">subscribe to the Vox Book Club newsletter</a> to make sure you don’t miss anything.
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</p>
|
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<h3 id="lzSH8H">
|
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<strong>Discussion topics</strong>
|
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</h3>
|
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<ol>
|
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<li id="JRy8Rp">
|
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|
<a href="https://www.theeastindiacompany.com/finefood/luxury-hampers-gift-boxes/">The East India Company brand name</a> is now owned by Mumbai-born Sanjiv Mehta, who uses it to sell luxury foods and bespoke hampers out of a shop in London. Not a question, just wanted you to know.
|
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</li>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UGgAaN">
|
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|
It’s notable that while King is our protagonist, he’s outworked in every direction by the women in his life: Margie, his wife, who is the political and design force behind Coconut; Elemen, the mother of his child, who builds a rebellion against him; and Athena, his daughter, who tells the story of his life, including all his sins. (There’s also Miss Fit, who destroys his reputation, and Minnu, King’s childhood best friend who he betrays.) How do you see the women in King’s life functioning within this novel?
|
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</li>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UNu3Ku">
|
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|
|
Is Minnu the most tragic figure in this whole book? It’s a tough competition.
|
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</li>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qiJ4kl">
|
|||
|
|
Both King and Athena have doubled mother figures: King is born to Radha but raised by Sita, and Athena is genetically Margie’s but carried by Elemen. What do you make of that parallel?
|
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</li>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zVOzWO">
|
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|
We’ve got a heavily ambiguous ending here, in that it’s not clear who’s coming for Athena: the Shareholders or the Blanklanders. Do you prefer to read it one particular way or another?
|
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</li>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bfvoSs">
|
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|
One of the final questions of this novel is what the point of human existence on earth is. Athena proffers two potential answers: First, that the point might be to make a record of our stories as proof of our existence, and second, that all of it — all of human existence — might simply “mean nothing but itself.” What do you think?
|
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</li>
|
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|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hLCcHE">
|
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|
|
A subquestion of sorts to the above: Athena also offers two potential parables regarding whether or not another species might even be able to understand what human life was like if they could somehow read our stories. Do you think they could?
|
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|
|
</li>
|
|||
|
|
</ol>
|
|||
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|
<div id="8ZIvXq">
|
|||
|
|
<div id="coral_thread">
|
|||
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|
|||
|
|
</div></div></li>
|
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|
|
</ul>
|
|||
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|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li><strong>Meta is getting data about you from some surprising places</strong> -
|
|||
|
|
<figure>
|
|||
|
|
<img alt="A Meta logo is shown with a background of white slats." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/wY6x5Z5kwAe_IzNPcHoJ-Caxmgs=/300x0:7552x5439/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/70988188/GettyImages_1240853862.0.jpg"/>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
The Pixel tracking system collects and sends site visitor data to Meta, and Meta can match this to a user’s profile on Facebook or Instagram. | Jason Alden/Bloomberg via Getty Images
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
There doesn’t seem to be a corner of the internet Meta isn’t tracking.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JZ4aBr">
|
|||
|
|
You can’t see them, but Meta’s trackers are embedded in millions of websites all over the internet, collecting data about where you go and what you do and sending it back to Meta. A <a href="https://themarkup.org/pixel-hunt/2022/06/16/facebook-is-receiving-sensitive-medical-information-from-hospital-websites">recent investigation</a> shows that those trackers are on sites that even the most cynical among us might expect to be off-limits: those belonging to hospitals, including patient portals that are <a href="https://compliancy-group.com/patient-portals-and-the-hipaa-security-rule/">supposed to be</a> protected by health privacy laws.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="446c0l">
|
|||
|
|
This week, the Markup, a nonprofit news outlet that covers technology’s harms, has been publishing the latest findings of its <a href="https://themarkup.org/series/pixel-hunt">investigation</a> into Meta’s Pixels, which are pieces of code developers can embed on websites to track their visitors. So far, those stories reveal how websites owned by the <a href="https://themarkup.org/pixel-hunt/2022/04/28/applied-for-student-aid-online-facebook-saw-you">government</a>, <a href="https://themarkup.org/pixel-hunt/2022/06/15/facebook-and-anti-abortion-clinics-are-collecting-highly-sensitive-info-on-would-be-patients">pregnancy counseling centers</a>, and <a href="https://themarkup.org/pixel-hunt/2022/06/16/facebook-is-receiving-sensitive-medical-information-from-hospital-websites">hospitals</a> are sending data to Meta through Pixels, much of which would be considered sensitive to the users who unwittingly provided it.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iKz3sV">
|
|||
|
|
It’s easy and understandable to blame Meta for this, given the company’s much-deserved, less-than-stellar reputation on user privacy. In Pixel and other trackers, Meta has played an instrumental role in building the privacy-free, data-leaking online world we must navigate today. The company supplies a tracking system designed to suck up user data from millions of sites and spin it into advertising gold, and it <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/you-give-apps-sensitive-personal-information-then-they-tell-facebook-11550851636">knows very well</a> that there are many cases where the tool was implemented poorly at best and abused at worst. But this may also be a rare case of a Meta-related privacy scandal that isn’t entirely Meta’s fault, partly because Meta has done its best to place that blame elsewhere.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wKQqrw">
|
|||
|
|
Or, as security researcher Zach Edwards put it: “Facebook wants to have their data cake and not eat the violations, too.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OMViCJ">
|
|||
|
|
Businesses choose to put Meta’s trackers on their websites and apps, and they choose again which data about their visitors to send up to the social media giant. There’s simply no good excuse, in this day and age, for developers that use Meta’s <a href="https://www.facebook.com/help/331509497253087">business tools</a> not to understand how they work or what user data is being sent through them. At the very least, developers shouldn’t put them on health appointment scheduling pages or inside patient portals, which users have every reason to expect not to be secretly sending their data to nosy third parties because they’re often explicitly told by those sites that they aren’t. Meta created a monster, but those websites are feeding it.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="DpKgYJ">
|
|||
|
|
How Pixel makes tracking too easy
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fcUSd6">
|
|||
|
|
Meta makes Pixel available, free of charge, to businesses to embed in their sites. Pixel collects and sends site visitor data to Meta, and Meta can match this to a user’s profile on Facebook or Instagram, giving it that much more insight into that user. (There are <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/11/17225482/facebook-shadow-profiles-zuckerberg-congress-data-privacy">also cases</a> where Meta collects data about people who don’t even have Meta accounts.) Some data, like a visitor’s IP address, is collected by Meta automatically. But developers can also set Pixel up to track what it calls “<a href="https://www.facebookblueprint.com/student/activity/212739-reach-right-people-with-fb-pixel?sid=1e985d80-903a-432a-a8bd-26f83e498f46&sid_i=1#/page/5fc6e6ab4a46d349e9dff915">events</a>”: various actions users take on the site. That may include links they click on or responses in forms they fill out, and it helps businesses better understand users or focus on specific behaviors or actions.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SN9Lgr">
|
|||
|
|
All this data can then be used to target ads at those people, or to create what’s known as “<a href="https://www.facebook.com/business/help/164749007013531?id=401668390442328">lookalike audiences</a>.” This involves a business asking Meta to send ads to people who Meta believes are similar to its existing customers. The more data Meta gets from businesses through those trackers, the better it should be able to target ads. Meta may also use that data to improve its own products and services. Businesses may use Pixel data for analytics to improve their products and services as well.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aTc6u0">
|
|||
|
|
Businesses (or the third-party vendors they contract to build out their sites or run advertising campaigns) have a lot of control over what data about their customers Meta gets. The Markup discovered that, on some of the sites in its report, hospital website appointment pages were sending Meta the name of someone making an appointment, the date and time of the appointment, and which doctor the patient is seeing. If that’s happening, that’s because someone on the hospital’s end set Pixel up to do that. Either the hospital didn’t do its due diligence to protect that data or it didn’t consider it to be data worth protecting. Or perhaps it assumed that Meta’s tools would stop the company from collecting or using any sensitive data that was sent to it.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JQa95p">
|
|||
|
|
In its most recent hospital investigation, the Markup found that a third of the hospitals it looked at from a list of the top 100 hospitals in the country had a Pixel on appointment scheduling pages, and seven health systems had Pixels in their patient portals. Several of the websites removed Pixel after being contacted by the Markup.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vGQmcK">
|
|||
|
|
How can a hospital justify any of this? The only hospital that gave the Markup a detailed response, Houston Methodist, claimed that it didn’t believe it was sending protected health information to Meta. The Markup found that the hospital’s site told Meta when someone clicked “schedule appointment,” which doctor they scheduled the appointment for, and even that the doctor was found by searching “home abortion.” But Houston Methodist said scheduling an appointment didn’t mean the appointment was ever confirmed, nor that the person who scheduled the appointment was the person that appointment was actually for. Houston Methodist might think it isn’t violating patient privacy, but its patients may well feel differently. But they’d also have no way of knowing this was happening in the first place without <a href="https://rally.mozilla.org/about-rally/?utm_source=markupweb">using special tools</a> or having a certain level of technical knowledge. Houston Methodist has since removed the Pixel.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="U5Udpu">
|
|||
|
|
Another health system the Markup looked at, Novant Health, <a href="https://twitter.com/NovantHealth/status/1537534455165997058">said in a statement</a> that the Pixel was placed by a third-party vendor for a campaign to get more people to sign up for its patient portal system, and was only used to see how many people signed up. But the Markup found far more data than what was being sent to Meta, including medications that users listed and their sexual orientations. That third-party vendor appears to have made some mistakes here, but Novant’s the one that has a duty to its patients to keep their information private on websites that <a href="https://www.novantmychart.org/mychart/Authentication/Login?mode=stdfile&option=faq#TQ_priv">promise to do so</a>. Not the third-party vendor, and not Meta.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MxeB1f">
|
|||
|
|
This is not to let Meta off the hook. Again, it created the Pixel tracking system, and while it has <a href="https://www.facebook.com/business/help/1057016521436966?id=188852726110565">rules</a> and tools that are supposed to prevent certain types of sensitive information — like health conditions — from being sent to it, the Markup’s reports are evidence that those measures aren’t enough.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="saWp1V">
|
|||
|
|
Meta told Recode in a statement that “our system is designed to filter out potentially sensitive data it detects.” But the Markup found those filters lacking when it came to data from at least one crisis pregnancy center’s website. Meta didn’t respond to Recode’s questions about what it does if it finds that a business is violating its rules.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2dmi98">
|
|||
|
|
Edwards, the security researcher, was even less charitable about how much blame Meta should get here.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Hva8ez">
|
|||
|
|
“It’s 100 percent Facebook’s fault, in my opinion,” he said.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lj3AhA">
|
|||
|
|
Meta also didn’t respond to questions from Recode asking what it does to ensure businesses are following its policies, or what it does with the sensitive information businesses aren’t supposed to send it. As it stands, it looks as though Meta is making and distributing a tracking tool that can materially benefit Meta. But if that tool is exploited or used incorrectly, someone else is responsible. The only people who pay the price for that, it seems, are the site visitors whose privacy is unknowingly invaded.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="hz7mzv">
|
|||
|
|
What you can do to avoid Pixel
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UB88Qj">
|
|||
|
|
There are a few things you can do to protect yourself here. Browsers like Safari, Firefox, and Brave offer tracker blockers. Todd Feathers, one of the reporters on the Markup’s hospital story, told Recode they used Chrome browsers with no privacy extensions for their tests. Speaking of privacy extensions, you can <a href="https://privacybadger.org/">get</a> those, too. VPNs and Apple’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/6/7/22522994/apple-ios15-privacy-icloud">paid private relay service</a> can obscure your IP address from the sites you visit.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="toO32c">
|
|||
|
|
Finally, Meta <a href="https://www.facebook.com/privacy/dialog/privacy_center/ads">has controls</a> that limit tracking and ad targeting off of its platforms. The company claims that turning off “data about your activity from partners” or “<a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/1/28/21112380/facebook-activity-tool-data">off-Facebook activity</a>” will stop it from using data collected by Pixel from being used to target ads to you. This means placing some trust in Meta that its privacy tools do what it claims they do.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Hf091X">
|
|||
|
|
And there’s always, of course, asking your lawmaker to push for privacy laws that would make some of these practices explicitly illegal, or forcing companies to inform and get user consent before collecting and sending their data to anyone else. A few new federal privacy <a href="https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warren-wyden-murray-whitehouse-sanders-introduce-legislation-to-ban-data-brokers-from-selling-americans-location-and-health-data">bills</a> or <a href="https://energycommerce.house.gov/newsroom/press-releases/house-and-senate-leaders-release-bipartisan-discussion-draft-of">draft bills</a> have been introduced as recently as this week. The interest is there among some members of Congress, but <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22189727/2020-pandemic-ruined-digital-privacy">not in enough of them</a> to come close to passing anything yet.
|
|||
|
|
</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ind vs SA | Dinesh Karthik hits in unorthodox areas, difficult to bowl to him: Keshav Maharaj</strong> - ‘Dinesh Karthik has been in serious form in the role. He is certainly one of the best finishers in the game,’ said South Africa spinner Keshav Maharaj after the 4th ODI</p></li>
|
|||
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Table Tennis | Sathiyan Gnanasekaran loses in QF of Zagreb WTT Contender</strong> - India’s table tennis star Sathiyan Gnanasekaran lost to Chuang Chih-Yuan 7-11 9-11 5-11 in the quarterfinals of the WTT Contender 2022</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ranji Trophy semifinals | Mumbai march into finals, to meet Madhya Pradesh</strong> - Madhya Pradesh entering finals after 23 years will be facing the 41-time champions Mumbai in Bengaluru on June 22.</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>F1 puts brakes on porpoising for driver safety ahead of Canadian GP</strong> - Reaction is mixed throughout the Formula One paddock to a technical directive issued this week designed to address the dangerous bouncing of cars, aka ‘porpoising’ on the track</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ind vs SA fifth T20 international | Pacers and middle-order make India favourites in series decider</strong> - The series hasn't been one of India's best but somehow, just like top teams do, the ‘Men In Blue’ have found their way out to win matches under pressure.</p></li>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>UoM Academic Council okays renewal of accreditation of 173 degree colleges</strong> - After a heated debate, renewal granted for colleges in Mysuru, Mandya, Hassan and Chamarajnagar districts</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Shipping Ministry announces six service opportunities for ‘Agniveers’</strong> - According to an official statement, the scheme will enable Agniveers to acquire necessary training, with naval experience and professional certification to join the remunerative merchant navy across the world.</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Victims’ day on Sunday</strong> -</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Over 37,000 visit Prime Ministers’ Museum</strong> - Since it opened on April 21, Ministers, CMs and the CJI are among those who have visited</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Cong. chintan shibir held</strong> -</p></li>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Russia’s Putin condemns ‘mad and thoughtless’ Western sanctions</strong> - The Russian president says the economic restrictions are “more harmful” to those who imposed them.</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Europe heatwave: Outdoor events banned in parts of France</strong> - France forced to import electricity as air-conditioners and fans switched on for record heatwave.</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>French screen icon Jean-Louis Trintignant dies aged 91</strong> - The icon starred in Amour and other titles - and gained sympathy after the murder of his daughter.</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Italy’s Eni says Russian gas supply cut by half</strong> - Energy firm Eni says it will only receive half the gas requested from Russia after two days of shortfalls.</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Big Tech must deal with disinformation or face fines, says EU</strong> - Tighter EU rules will demand firms such as Google and Meta tackle disinformation on their platforms.</p></li>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The 25 best games we saw during this year’s “Not E3” showcases</strong> - Let us help you sift through a veritable mountain of promotional hype. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1861584">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Mitochondria and the origin of eukaryotes</strong> - Were organelles a driving force or late addition in the evolution of cells like ours? - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1861310">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Long COVID 20-50% less likely after omicron than delta in vaccinated people</strong> - It may seem reassuring, but it still means a whole lot of people with long-term symptoms. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1861657">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>As cryptocurrency tumbles, prices for new and used GPUs continue to fall</strong> - AMD’s Radeon RX 6000 series GPUs, in particular, are easy to find below MSRP. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1861596">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The US has a long way to go before adopting a universal charger policy</strong> - “Restore the sanity,” say US Senators Markey, Sanders, and Warren. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1861540">link</a></p></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
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<li><strong>I got chatting to a 14 year old girl on the Internet. She was clever, funny, flirty and sexy, so suggested we meet up. She turned out to be an undercover detective.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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How cool is that at her age?
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/1solarshadow"> /u/1solarshadow </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/vez8m0/i_got_chatting_to_a_14_year_old_girl_on_the/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/vez8m0/i_got_chatting_to_a_14_year_old_girl_on_the/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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<li><strong>My girlfriend thinks I’m terrible in bed.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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Kind of an unfair judgement to make in less than a minute.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/McStankee110"> /u/McStankee110 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/vek9pt/my_girlfriend_thinks_im_terrible_in_bed/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/vek9pt/my_girlfriend_thinks_im_terrible_in_bed/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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<li><strong>Life is like a penis</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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It gets hard when you least expect it
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Honey_Im_Homee"> /u/Honey_Im_Homee </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/veydrs/life_is_like_a_penis/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/veydrs/life_is_like_a_penis/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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<li><strong>The Supreme Court has been making some rash decisions lately…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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One could almost say they’ve been acting Ruth-lessly.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Resident-Employ"> /u/Resident-Employ </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/vemyz6/the_supreme_court_has_been_making_some_rash/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/vemyz6/the_supreme_court_has_been_making_some_rash/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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<li><strong>The Sexual Mosquito</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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A nymphomaniac woman was a regular at a sex shop, but after using their products for years she ended getting bored of the usual stuff. She asked the male cashier if there was something else out of the ordinary to try.<br/> He suggest the Sexual Mosquito. That got her attention, so she asked on how to use it.<br/> He told her to prepare herself (candles, perfumes, clothing etc.) and then open the case that the mosquito is in and it will do the rest.<br/> So that night the woman did as she was told, prepping herself and everything, then she lets go of the mosquito… but mosquito just stayed at the roof and did nothing.<br/> Disappointedly the woman called the sex shop about the mosquito doing nothing, but the male cashier from before told her to give it a moment.<br/> Long story short, the mosquito did nothing, and the woman called again for something to be done about this.<br/> So the cashier begrudgingly agreed to come over her place to see what the problem was and if he could do something. Dialogue ensues:<br/> Cashier: Ok where is that darn mosquito.<br/> Woman: Up there on the roof.<br/> He looks at the mosquito and says: OK LOOK! I WILL DEMONSTRATE THIS TO YOU FOR THE LAST TIME!
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/SightfulProtector"> /u/SightfulProtector </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/velgz3/the_sexual_mosquito/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/velgz3/the_sexual_mosquito/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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