2013-10-22

Signs of the Social Mood in Mid October 2013

Here are some headlines all coming across today.

EU to be destroyed? Watch out for the rise of a European Tea Party

California to be destroyed? ‘Sea Serpents’ Or Harbingers? Oarfish Washed Up Year Before Japan Quake
Fishermen in Japan reported a sharp uptick in oarfish sightings in March 2010 following the massive magnitude-8.8 earthquake in Chile that same month, which marked almost exactly one year before the country was devastated by its own magnitude-8.9 quake in northeast Japan.

...According to traditional Japanese lore, oarfish rise to the water’s surface and beach themselves to warn of an impending earthquake, a notion that some scientists have speculated could be supported by the bottom-dwelling fish being more sensitive to seismic shifts.

...Scientists, however, say there is no data to support an actual link between the two phenomena.
I'd bet on the Japanese tradition (and the Ring of Fire is increasingly active), but still, the article jumps to one of the largest disasters in decades.

Wind turbines causing illnesses? 'Wind Turbine Syndrome' Blamed for Mysterious Symptoms in Cape Cod Town
Sue Hobart, a bridal florist from Massachusetts, couldn't understand why she suddenly developed headaches, ringing in her ears, insomnia and dizziness to the point of falling "flat on my face" in the driveway.

"I thought I was just getting older and tired," said the 57-year-old from Falmouth.

Months earlier, in the summer of 2010, three wind turbines had been erected in her town, one of which runs around the clock, 1,600 feet from her home.

World to be destroyed? 'Terminator' on hold? Debate to stop killer robots takes global stage
At a UN General Assembly First Committee on Disarmament and International Security side event Monday, mission delegates from Egypt, France, and Switzerland voiced an interest in regulating "killer robots" — completely autonomous weapon systems — in warfare. They are some of the first international voices backing ideas that the Human Rights Watch and Campaign to Stop Killer Robots have been championing for about a year.

But before deliberations about regulating killer robots can take place, experts say they want more transparency from governments already using semi-autonomous systems, like the Phalanx naval weapon system, that to a degree can fire on their own, without a human "pulling the trigger."

"We are not luddites, we are not trying to stop the advance of robotics," Jody Williams, 1997 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and one of the panelists at Monday's UN event, said. But, "I don't want to see robots operating on their own, armed with lethal weapons."

The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots launched in April this year, and calls for a ban on weapon systems that can make target and kill decisions without a human "in the loop."
As social mood declines, science and technology will increasingly be used for war and terrorism and seen as tools of destruction.

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