Okay, now I'm scared

There are three reasons I don't tend to put much stock in conspiracy theories.

The first is that humans are seriously bad at keeping their mouths shut.  In fact, I wrote just a couple of months ago about a guy who developed a mathematical model that found the likelihood of a conspiracy staying secret varies inversely with the number of people who are involved in it.  So the idea of a grand global conspiracy that thousands of Illuminati operatives know about, but none of the rest of us do, is almost certainly nonsense.

The second is the more practical aspect.  A lot of conspiracies -- chemtrails, for example -- lack credence because what they're claiming is happening is next to impossible.  Okay, you could probably put some kind of nasty chemical in jet fuel so it gets spewed out in the exhaust contrail, but the fact remains that even so, it'd be an extremely stupid and inefficient way to poison people.  Likewise, the idea that the COVID-19 vaccine was being used as a delivery mechanism to inject people with 5G-capable microchips is indicative of the fact that whoever believes this understands neither microchips nor vaccines.

A third reason is specific to surveillance technology, which is a big part of a lot of alleged conspiracies.  Tracking even a fraction of the population of the world would generate so much data that it would be damn near impossible to analyze.  The idea that some evil agency is monitoring my every move, for example, is actually a little comical:

Evil conspirator #1: What's he doing now?

Evil conspirator #2:  Same as he was doing two hours ago.  He's eating potato chips and watching Doctor Who.

Evil conspirator #1:  The tracking device showed activity a few minutes ago, though.

Evil conspirator #2:  I think he got up to let his dog out.

So watching me 24/7 not only wouldn't generate anything sketchy, it would be the most boring and pointless job ever, sort of like monitoring Donald Trump to see how often he says something that's true.

But a recent development did raise my eyebrows.  A paper this week in Nature Communications describes a new invention -- a digital fiber that can store files and sense our physical activity and vital signs, and that's thin and flexible enough to be woven into cloth.

"Fibers still do what they've always done," said Yoel Fink of MIT, who was the senior author of the paper.  So my research has been to try to see if we can bring the world of devices and the world of function [together] to define a new path for fibers and align them with high-tech devices...  We think of the surface of our bodies as valued real estate, and we may be able to make better use of that real estate.  There's a lot of information that your body is communicating that we don't actually have the means to listen to or intercept.  That inaccessible data includes information about our health and physical activity.  To intercept that, sensing functions can be integrated into fabric."

Okay, that got my attention, but maybe not for the reason you think.  I still don't believe that it is practical to monitor large numbers of people continuously, and most of the enormous quantity of data generated would be useless in any case.  What concerns me here is something more specific -- and that's the potential use of tech like this to monitor people and inform marketers, insurance companies, and so on of our health and physical activities, without our knowledge or permission.

It's already bad enough.  I'm perfectly aware that my phone is listening to me, but (like I said) since my life is kind of boring anyhow, it can listen to its little electronic heart's content.  I will say that I've been startled at times by this, though -- last year around Halloween my wife and I were in the car and were laughing about people dressing their dogs up in costume, and I suggested that we get a Star Wars AT-AT costume for our hound, Lena.  With her long legs, it would be just about perfect.

Then I got home, got on my computer, looked at Facebook, and the first thing I saw was an advertisement for -- I shit you not -- AT-AT costumes for dogs.

I know that my online activity is generating targeted ads for me all the time -- you wouldn't believe how many ads I see for running gear and writing software like Grammarly -- but the dog costume thing definitely gave me the sense of being watched by Big Brother.

So I don't see the evil global conspirators as being the potential problem, here; I'm more suspicious of the evil greedy capitalists.  If our activities are being watched via the clothes we wear, there'll be no way to hide anything from becoming an opportunity for targeted marketing, not to mention our health information no longer being private -- HIPAA be damned.

I guess the solution is to be naked all the time.  Where I live, that'd work in the summer, but being naked in the winter in upstate New York is just asking to freeze off body parts you may actually have a use for.  Plus, the neighbors might object.  In default of that, it seems to be only a matter of time that the intimate details of your life and activities might be monitored by your t-shirt.

With or without your permission.

*************************************

Astronomer Michio Kaku has a new book out, and he's tackled a doozy of a topic.

One of the thorniest problems in physics over the last hundred years, one which has stymied some of the greatest minds humanity has ever produced, is the quest for finding a Grand Unified Theory.  There are four fundamental forces in nature that we know about; the strong and weak nuclear forces, electromagnetism, and gravity.  The first three can now be modeled by a single set of equations -- called the electroweak theory -- but gravity has staunchly resisted incorporation.

The problem is, the other three forces can be explained by quantum effects, while gravity seems to have little to no effect on the realm of the very small -- and likewise, quantum effects have virtually no impact on the large scales where gravity rules.  Trying to combine the two results in self-contradictions and impossibilities, and even models that seem to eliminate some of the problems -- such as the highly-publicized string theory -- face their own sent of deep issues, such as generating so many possible solutions that an experimental test is practically impossible.

Kaku's new book, The God Equation: The Quest for a Theory of Everything describes the history and current status of this seemingly intractable problem, and does so with his characteristic flair and humor.  If you're interesting in finding out about the cutting edge of physic lies, in terms that an intelligent layperson can understand, you'll really enjoy Kaku's book -- and come away with a deeper appreciation for how weird the universe actually is.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

5G fantasies

A week ago, I got my first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.  I was lucky enough to have the opportunity because I work part-time for a home health agency providing companion care to homebound seniors, and even though I'm currently furloughed because of the pandemic I still qualified -- and I certainly wasn't going to turn it down.  I'm happy to say that all I had as a side effect was some very minor arm soreness the next day, but otherwise, it was no big deal.

However, my mentioning this to a friend prompted an immediate concerned eyebrow-raise.  "Didn't you hear that the vaccine is being used to implant 5G surveillance microchips?" she asked me.  "You're not worried?"

I reassured her that no, I wasn't worried, and in any case if the FBI wants to surveil me, they can knock themselves out because it would be the most boring surveillance job ever.

First FBI Agent: What's he doing now?

Second FBI Agent: Same thing as for the last five days.  He's sitting at his computer drinking coffee and watching funny dog videos.

First FBI Agent: I thought this guy was a writer? 

Second FBI Agent: Supposedly he is.  Have you seen him actually write anything?

First FBI Agent: Well, four days ago he added three lines to his manuscript, deleted two of them, then told his wife that evening he'd been "very productive."

Secondly, even if I was up to no good, I'm not really that confident the FBI would catch on.  These are the same people who had several days before the Capitol riots where the far right was posting stuff all over Parler like, "Wow, that's really some riot we have planned for the Capitol on Wednesday, January 6, isn't it?" and "Here's a list of the people who are signed up as drivers when we go to the riot where we intend to break into the Capitol and threaten lawmakers" and "Here I am in my home at 512 Swamp Hollow Road, East Bunghole, Tennessee, planning to riot in the Capitol!  I bet the FBI will never know!" and still claimed they didn't have enough warning to prevent it.  And they took days afterward to start arresting people despite the fact that numerous rioters took selfies and videoed themselves breaking shit and vandalizing the place, and then posted them online.

Of course, the fact that the rioters did that sort of thing points to general low intelligence on their part, too.  I'm not saying I'm any kind of genius, but I do know that if I was inclined to break the law, I would not video myself with my phone and post it to my Twitter with the hashtag #CriminalActivityFTW. 

Anyhow, I tried to explain to my friend that there's no way you could inject a microchip via a vaccine, and she said she'd "seen it online" and that "they said it was possible."  So I said as gently as I could that it was an unfounded conspiracy theory, but that I'd look into it, and with a very small amount of digging found out that one of the most widely-circulated claims showed a circuit diagram alleged to be of the top-secret injectable microchip, but turned out to be the circuit diagram for a Boss Metal Zone MT-2 guitar distortion pedal where they'd cropped out words that would have been a dead giveaway, like "treble" and "bass" and "volume" and "footswitch."

Just for the record, I can vouch for the fact that the nurse who gave me the COVID-19 vaccine did not inject me with an electric guitar pedal.

You know, what strikes me about all this is that the caliber of conspiracy theories has really been going to hell lately.  They're not even trying to make them plausible any more.  Back in my day, you had your Faked Moon Landing Conspiracy and your Hollow Earth Conspiracy and your Roswell Alien Conspiracy and your The CIA Killed JFK Conspiracy, which were quality.  Now?  With QAnon in charge of our conspiracies, we're being told that a pizza parlor with no basement has a pedophilia ring operating out of its basement.

So I'm issuing a challenge to you yahoos to up your game.  I mean, really.  Is this the best you can do?  Because if it is, I want a refund.

But now I better wind this up and get back to watching funny dog videos.  This novel isn't gonna write itself, and besides, I gotta make the guys in the FBI surveillance van earn their paycheck.

******************************************

As a biologist, I've usually thought of myself as immune to being grossed out.  But I have to admit I was a little shocked to find out that the human microbiome -- the collection of bacteria and fungi that live in and on us -- outnumber actual human cells by a factor of ten.

You read that right: if you counted up all the cells in and on the surface of your body, for every one human cell with human DNA, there'd be ten cells of microorganisms, coming from over a thousand different species.

And that's in healthy humans.  This idea that "bacteria = bad" is profoundly wrong; not only do a lot of bacteria perform useful functions, producing products like yogurt, cheese, and the familiar flavor and aroma of chocolate, they directly contribute to good health.  Anyone who has been on an antibiotic long-term knows that wiping out the beneficial bacteria in your gut can lead to some pretty unpleasant side effects; most current treatments for bacterial infections kill the good guys along with the bad, leading to an imbalance in your microbiome that can persist for months afterward.

In The Human Superorganism: How the Microbiome is Revolutionizing the Pursuit of a Healthy Life, microbiologist Rodney Dietert shows how a lot of debilitating diseases, from asthma to allergies to irritable bowel syndrome to the inflammation that is at the root of heart disease, might be attributable to disturbances in the body's microbiome.  His contention is that restoring the normal microbiome should be the first line of treatment for these diseases, not the medications that often throw the microbiome further out of whack.

His book is fascinating and controversial, but his reasoning (and the experimental research he draws upon) is stellar.  If you're interested in health-related topics, you should read The Human Superorganism.  You'll never look at your own body the same way again.

[Note:  if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

Templar satellite

It is a never-ending source of amusement to me how easy it is to get the conspiracy theorists' knickers in a twist.

The latest example of this surrounds the launch on January 12 of a United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, carrying the top secret NROL-47 satellite.  From this you can see that the phrase "top secret" is a bit misapplied, here, given that everyone up to and including the folks over at Mysterious Universe knows the satellite was launched.

On the other hand, nobody much knows what it does, so the sobriquet is appropriate at least in that sense.  "NRO" stands for "National Reconnaissance Office," which is a branch of the Department of Defense that oversees the network of spy satellites, but other than that, not much is known about it.

So far, no problem, given that the United States launches surveillance satellites pretty much every other week.  But what sets this one apart -- and what has the conspiracy theorists experiencing multiple orgasms -- is the logo for the mission:

Well, to a conspiracy theorist, this is considered tantamount to an admission by the NRO that "we are an arm of the Illuminati."  On the other hand, the slogan, "Mali Nunquam Praevalebunt," is Latin for "Evil Shall Never Prevail," which sounds to my ears like a pretty positive message, for Fiendish Agents of the New World Order.

Maybe they're trying to improve their image.  I dunno.

Paul Seaburn, over at Mysterious Universe, weighs in on the topic:

[T]he logo shows a Knight Templar waving his sword as he battles with a dragon...  Why a Knights Templar symbol and what evil is this high-flying knight being sent to battle?...  Why, if it’s a secret spy satellite, would the NRO call attention to it with the sinister slogan and symbol?  “Evil will never prevail” has obvious biblical connotations — here’s a similar passage in Psalms 21:11: “Though they intended evil against You and devised a plot, They will not succeed.”  Then there’s the Knights Templar – warriors of the Crusades , protectors of the finances of the Catholic Church and possible guardians of the Holy Grail.  Who is the NRO sending this kind of message to? 

The dragon is an obvious symbol of China and that country has been launching spy satellites of its own recently, but so have Russia, Japan and India.  What’s on THEIR mission patches?  Could it mean something else?  Are these nations building a satellite wall against some ‘evil’ dragon flying in from somewhere else?  In the galaxy?  Or beyond?  Why are they calling it “evil”? 

And why in Latin?  Have the powers that be already received an alien message in Latin?

Okay, just hang on a moment.

There are a variety of questions I have about this claim, not the least of which is, "Is your skull filled with cobwebs and dead insects?"  Here are a few that I can think of right off the bat:

1. Are you aware that the fleur-de-lis is not the symbol of the Knights Templar?  The Templars went into battle wearing white with a red cross in the middle.  Some of the members of the Knights Templar who were also French had a fleur-de-lis on their coat-of-arms in addition to the red cross, but the two really weren't interchangeable.  So the knight on the seal doesn't appear to be a Templar.
2. Second, why is "Evil Shall Never Prevail" a "sinister message?"  Would you prefer, "You're Screwed, Evil's Gonna Win?"
3. Third, do you seriously think that the NROL-47 satellite was launched in order to fight dragons?
4. And fourth, that these dragons might be coming from "the galaxy... or beyond?"
5. Last, why the hell would we expect that aliens would speak Latin?  As Eddie Izzard established, speaking Latin didn't work out so well for the Romans trying to fight Hannibal, so it's kind of a stretch to think that an alien race would spend their time teaching their children "Amo, amas, amat" and the proper uses of the dative case.  I can say from personal experience that it's hard enough to get Earth children to study ancient languages, although it did help when I taught a group of students how to say "you have a nice ass" in Ancient Greek.  (And then I taught them how to say "thank you," because obviously, if you have one, you need the other.)

You know, the insignia of this mission makes me wonder if the Department of Defense knew perfectly well what kind of effect this would have on the Alex Joneses and David Ickes of the world, and decided to do it deliberately.  In other words, they're fucking with us.  If this is the case, all I can do is doff my hat in their direction, and bow down to their superior trolling ability.

But even if that's not the case... you people really need to calm down.  Whatever NROL-47 is about, I can pretty much guarantee that it's not a Templar weapon to combat an evil Latin-speaking Chinese dragon from outer space.  Maybe I'm going out on a limb saying this, but I'm feeling strangely confident about it.

FBI versus Facebook

For the latest reason to freak out, consider the claim over at America's Freedom Fighters that some of your Facebook friends are actually FBI agents conducting surveillance on your activities.

Now, there's good reason to be careful of what you post, and it has nothing to do with some undercover cop posing as your old college drinking buddy.  Doing anything online leaves a digital footprint so big it can be seen from space, and potential employers and college admissions officers now do routine checks to make sure that the person they're considering hasn't done anything too sketchy.  

Or stupid.  There are hundreds of stories of people who have been reprimanded, fired, or expelled for posting inappropriate stuff on social media, and most of them make you wonder how the people in question manage to tie their own shoelaces.  Examples include:

• The bank teller who told his boss he had to be away for a family emergency, and then the same day posted photos of himself at a Halloween party dressed as Tinkerbell.
• An Ohio school bus driver who was fired after posting photographs of herself drinking beer -- while seated behind the wheel of the school bus.
• A woman who called her boss a "total pervvy [sic] wanker" who made her "do shit stuff just to piss her off" on Facebook, evidently forgetting that she had recently friended him on Facebook.

And so on.  So yes, it is possible to get yourself into hot water from what you post.  It's why I'm pretty careful; I'm a teacher, a public figure in our little community, and I try to be fairly guarded about what I say and do online.  (Not, mind you, that my life is rife with drunken debauchery, or anything.  I'm such an introvert that I consider drinking a beer and watching an episode of Lost in Space a wild night.)

But still, there's such a thing as taking paranoia too far.  And the article "How Many of Your Facebook Friends are Undercover Feds?" takes the concept of being cautious about one's digital footprint, and runs right off the cliff with it.  The writer contends:

U.S. law enforcement agents are following the rest of the Internet world into popular social-networking services, going undercover with false online profiles to communicate with suspects and gather private information, according to an internal Justice Department document that offers a tantalizing glimpse of issues related to privacy and crime-fighting.

Which applies to me how, exactly?  They can check me out all they like.  Oh noes!  The Justice Department is going to see my vacation photographs!  Horrors!

The best part, though, is the article's signoff:

We urge you to very careful about who you ‘friend’- They could be a part of the government or the Left’s attack on Conservatives… GOD BLESS AMERICA!

And of course, they never tell you how you might tell your true friends from the Undercover Leftist FBI Covert Operatives.  You're left suspicious of everyone, which I have no doubt is the intent.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

What I find funny about this is two things.

First: you seriously think that you're that important?  Unless the person reading this blog is some kind of master criminal or terrorist or spy, the FBI clearly has better things to do with their time and resources than to go through photographs of what you had to eat at the Chinese restaurant last night.

Second: do you really think that if the FBI were interested in you, they wouldn't be able to find out about you unless they friended you on Facebook first?  That's so naïve, it's kind of adorable.  I mean, can't you just hear the conversation?

Agent #1:  "We've got to crack this case, and it all depends on finding out what Steve Hickenlooper had for dinner last night!  But dammit, he won't accept my friend request!" 

Agent #2:  "He's a wily one, Steve is."  *snaps his fingers*  "Hey, I've got it!  Maybe if you sent him a friend request posing as his high school girlfriend, LouEllen Finkwhistle!  He'd fall for that!" 

Agent #1:  "Isn't LouEllen the one who got fired for calling her boss a 'pervvy wanker'?" 

Agent #2:  "Yup.  She deleted her Facebook account after that happened.  So if you pretended to be her, Steve would never know it wasn't actually her." 

Agent #1:  *rubs his hands together*  "EX-cellent."

So anyway.  My advice is continue to have fun on social media, but do be careful what you put out there.  The rule of "once you put it online, it's online forever" is a pretty good one to follow.  But as far as thinking that your online contacts are all undercover agents spying on you -- relax.  No offense, but you're honestly not that interesting.

Of course, that's what I would say, isn't it?  So thanks for clicking on this post, and all.

*reaches for little black book to write down your name and email address*

EX-cellent.

Big Brother on the shelf

I'm probably in the minority here, but I think "Elf on the Shelf" is freakin' creepy.

Maybe I'm just not much into whimsy.  Or maybe I've watched too many horror movies.  But I find that little face, with the wide eyes and the fixed grin, a tad... sinister.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Of course, there's more than just the resemblance to Chucky that's a problem, here.  Its creators, mother/daughter team Carol Aebersold and Chandra Bell, thought it up in 2004, and wrote a children's book that rocketed into the number one bestseller spot in 2008.  Since then it has only increased in popularity; in 2012 the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade featured an Elf on the Shelf balloon.  This has led to its face appearing damn near everywhere.  The Atlantic writer Kate Tuttle says that The Elf on the Shelf is "a marketing juggernaut dressed up as a tradition," and that the idea is basically to "bully your child into thinking that good behavior equals gifts."  I think that's pretty accurate.  The whole thing seems more about selling stuff than it is about having fun, but maybe I'm a curmudgeon.

Okay, I'm definitely a curmudgeon.  But still.

However, there are people who go even further than I do.  Just a couple of days ago, an article appeared over at Education Action Group News about Professor Laura Pinto of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, who claims that the purpose of The Elf on the Shelf is to get children to "accept the surveillance state."

She calls the Elf "an external form of non-familial surveillance," which I suppose would be correct if the Elf was actually real.  "If you grow up thinking it’s cool for the elves to watch me and report back to Santa," Pinto writes, "well, then it’s cool for the NSA to watch me and report back to the government."

Isn't that a bit of a leap?  This takes the Slippery-Slope Fallacy and elevates it to the level of the Falling-Off-A-Cliff Fallacy.  It takes more than a silly doll to condition children to let themselves be browbeaten by authority.

And of course, it's not like we haven't been doing this sort of thing for years.  Many perfectly rational people were raised on "He knows when you've been sleeping, he knows when you're awake, he knows when you've been bad or good, so be good, for goodness sake!"

Which, I have to admit, is kind of sketchy in and of itself.  In terms of creepiness, those lines are right up there with "Every Breath You Take" by The Police, in which Sting informs his girlfriend, "Every breath you take, every move you make, every bond you break, every step you take, I'll be watching you," which I hear gets played a lot at weddings, despite sounding more like a reason for a restraining order than a marriage license.

But I digress.

My general opinion is that Elf on a Shelf is just the latest in a long line of marketing ploys designed to make parents completely crazy around the holidays, and that other than that, it's pretty harmless.  I'll be surprised it's turning kids into Sheeple.  But you never know.  Subtexts and subliminal messages are always possible.  Personally, I'm still a little suspicious of My Little Pony, which I'm convinced was created to give kids the impression that talking in a high-pitched grating whine is "cute."

And to judge by the little children I've seen lately, it seems to be working.