[America's Way to Go?] Death at Yosemite: Travel-blogging couple perish in 800-foot fall. They may have been taking pictures, relative says.

washingtonpost.com

By Allyson Chiu

October 31 at 7:29 AM

She was a “mermaid-haired wanderess” and self-described “adrenaline-junkie.” He was an avid photographer known for his “phantasmagoric” skills and patience. Together, Vishnu Viswanath and Meenakshi “Minaxi” Moorthy were married travel bloggers who regularly shared their adventures and infectious positivity with thousands of Instagram followers.

They frolicked in the dunes of the White Sands National Monument in New Mexico, embraced under cherry blossom trees in full bloom at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in New York and road-tripped across the country in a red Mustang convertible.

Just last week, the couple’s travels took them to Yosemite National Park, a breathtaking landscape of craggy granite cliffs and thundering waterfalls. It would be their final journey.

Viswanath, 29, and Moorthy, 30, were identified by park officials Monday as the two people who died last week after falling from Taft Point, a popular overlook that towers 3,500 feet above Yosemite Valley, the Fresno Bee reported. They fell about 800 feet “in an area with very steep terrain,” according to a Friday news release from the National Park Service that announced the recovery of their bodies. During the recovery process, park rangers had to use “technical climbing and rappelling techniques” and a helicopter, the release said. 

“It’s clearly a very tragic circumstance and as the investigation progresses we will have a better idea of possibly what happened,” park spokesman Jamie Richards told KFSN, noting that it is “too early to speculate.” “We do not know any of the circumstances of what may have happened up there.”

Two people who knew the couple, however, believe they may have been trying to take a photo.

The high school sweethearts who wed in 2014 ran a travel blog called “Holidays And HappilyEverAfters” and boasted an Instagram following of more than 17,800 people. Born in India, the pair had resided in New York until recently moving to California, where Viswanath — when he wasn’t traveling — worked as a software engineer for Cisco Systems in San Jose, the Mercury News reported.

“Diagnosed with the ‘curious case of interminable travel bug’ and a huge believer of ‘happily-ever-afters’, we will share with y’all, our holiday escapades, travel hacks, tips (and quips!),” read one post on their blog, which has been taken down. 

Their Instagram account is filled with photos of exotic subjects, including the pristine white sand beaches of the Maldives and Italy’s Florence Cathedral. The couple also commemorated their anniversary in dramatic fashion, with a hot-air balloon ride in 2016 and skydiving last year.

“Hurling myself out of a perfectly functioning airplane was a dream forever for this pink-haired daredevil,” Moorthy wrote in the caption of the video from the skydiving excursion. Fittingly, she wore a T-shirt bearing the words “GIMME DANGER.”

Several photos show Moorthy posing near the edge of sharp cliffs, no guardrails in sight. On Facebook, Viswanath’s cover photo is a picture of him and his wife at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon standing on a high rock outcropping with their arms extended wide and huge smiles on their faces. 

“Living life on the edge,” the photo’s caption reads.

At Yosemite’s Taft Point, their tripod was set up near one of the overlook’s ledges, Jishnu Viswanath, Vishnu’s brother, told the Associated Press on Tuesday. The pair were taking a selfie when they fell, he said. It was unclear how he knows that. He did not respond to messages from The Washington Post.

An unidentified couple get married at Taft Point in California's Yosemite National Park on Sept. 27. (Amanda Lee Myers/AP)

A safety railing is installed at the very tip of Taft Point, but there are open areas where a person could walk right up to the edge of the precipice. Sean Matteson, who was at the overlook at the same time as the couple, told the AP he believes he may have taken the last pictures of Moorthy, capturing her in the background of his own selfies.

“She was very close to the edge, but it looked like she was enjoying herself,” said Matteson, who remembered seeing Moorthy because of her bright pink hair. “She gave me the willies. There aren’t any railings. . . . But she seemed comfortable. She didn’t seem like she was in distress or anything.” 

Raj Katta, who has known the pair for three years, told The Washington Post in a phone interview he also thought snapping a photo was “possibly the reason” his friends fell. Katta, a 24-year-old data engineer in New York, met Vishnu Viswanath at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill., where they were both completing a master’s program in computer science.

Katta said he never expected this to happen to Viswanath and Moorthy.

“They’re adventurous, but they always were thoughtful,” he said. “They know what they’re doing, they always had, but one instance changed everything.”

Based on their social media posts, Viswanath and Moorthy appeared to be aware of the dangers involved with taking photos at the edges of canyons, mountains or tall buildings. On Instagram, Moorthy warned her followers in at least two posts to exercise caution when attempting these kinds of pictures. 

“Please be careful ...,” she wrote in November of last year, alongside a photo of her in a Wonder Woman costume at the Grand Canyon. “The wind gusts are extremely dangerous and your adrenaline rage is not worth your life.” Moorthy added that she and her husband had “waited quite a bit” and made sure it was safe before taking the picture.

Another photo shared earlier this year, also of Moorthy at the Grand Canyon, was solely dedicated to discussing the “limits of #doitforthegram.”

“A lot of us including yours truly is a fan of daredevilry attempts of standing at the edge of cliffs and skyscrapers, but did you know that wind gusts can be FATAL???" Moorthy wrote. “Is our life worth one photo?”

It continued: “When we squirm at another selfie attempt gone south from a skyscraper, let’s remember to save that in our core memory...”

More than 250 people have died worldwide in the last six years while taking selfies, according to a recent study from researchers in India published in the Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care. One of the main causes of the selfie-related deaths included falling from heights, the study found. At Yosemite in September, an Israeli teenager fell to his death while trying to take a selfie at the top of Nevada Falls, which is 600 feet high, the Independent reported. 

Richards, the Park Service spokesman, told the Mercury News that the metal railing at Taft Point was undamaged. Park officials do not plan to install any more railings at the overlook, she said.

“We want all visitors who come to Yosemite National Park to come here, have an adventure, experience the wonder and magic . . . and go home in the same condition that they arrived here,” Richards told KFSN. “Any time that does not happen, it is a tragic day.”

After learning about the death of his friends, Katta said, he was “not able to digest” the news, adding that he even needed to stay home from work.

“I don’t know how this happened,” he said. “I still can’t believe it to be honest.”

Katta said that Moorthy, “lively” and always searching for the next adventure, and Viswanath, an organized planner, were “perfect for each other.”

“They loved traveling and it was a way of celebrating their love,” he said.

The Conversation: Trump Can’t Unite Us. Can Anyone? - Note for a Discussion, "E Pluribus Unum? What Keeps the United States United."

Frank Bruni and Ross Douthat, "After far-right terrorist attacks, the president sticks to what he does best: polarize," The New York Times, Oct. 30, 2018

Image from article: President Trump at an event in Indiana on Saturday.CreditCreditDoug Mills/The New York Times

Frank Bruni: Ross, I would typically begin with some idle pleasantry — “Hey, it’s good to talk with you” — but this doesn’t seem to me a moment for idle pleasantries, and “good” just doesn’t cut it. Not after the massacre of 11 Jewish Americans in a Pittsburgh synagogue on Saturday. Not after the pipe bombs of last week. Not amid ugly talk and ugly tweets. I’m hugely worried about this country, and I do not believe that President Trump has it in him to unite us [JB emphasis] and heal our wounds. Please, please, please tell me I’m wrong.

Ross Douthat: Of course you’re not wrong, Frank. In his presidency Donald Trump has shown no interest in actually presiding over the country, as opposed to just trying to mobilize his own coalition against the liberal Other. For him to respond to a pair of far-right terrorist attacks with defensiveness and partisanship is simply who he is — a self-justifying polarizer who finds the other aspects of the job tedious and prefers, even amid trauma, to just hurl rhetorical grenades from his Twitter feed.

Frank: Is that it, then? We give up on hoping for anything better from him and … do what? It’s a serious question. The presidency has enormous moral force, quaint as that notion sounds right now, and if the president has no moral compass, what can we do so that we don’t unravel further as we wait him out?

Ross: Well, if you’re a Democrat, you try to beat his party at the polls. I’ve said before in these conversations that I think Trump has some modicum of self-control, but it’s mostly linked to self-interest. If you want him to abjure a polarizing response to tragedy, you need to show that it’s a bad political strategy. Which I think it is; I think politically the horror in Pittsburgh and the mail bombs are a gift to Democrats, because they highlight one of the most specific ways that Trump is ill-suited to his office.

Frank: As someone who wants keenly for Democrats to do well on Nov. 6, because the country needs that safeguard against Trump’s worst impulses, I find it hard to see any gifts anywhere right now. The fact of Trump’s presidency, the way he conducts it and the screaming all around it are about a reality that preceded him, is bigger than him and will survive him. I’m referring to a quickly vanishing sense of common ground and purpose in America. Hate is filling that void.

Ross: Yes, but it’s the nature of politics that you defeat hate not just by wringing your hands and bemoaning its awfulness but by offering an alternative that seems more attractive. For the Democrats right now that means casting their party as a unifying force rather than just the equally polarized answer to Trumpism.

For Republicans who don’t like the Trumpist style, it means offering a conservative politics that somehow answers the grievances Trump addresses — anxiety about globalization, mass immigration, liberal cultural power, the empty establishment-Republican policy agenda — without lapsing into conspiracy theories and worse forms of madness. That’s still the only way that the gyre will ever narrow.

Frank: Let me tell you what else it has to mean for Republicans (and then, yes, I’ll get to Democrats). They have to stop making excuses for Trump’s utter abdication of the responsibilities of leadership. They have to stop dressing that up as some unfamiliar anagram of boldness.

Over the weekend, explaining away Trump’s continued name-calling, Vice President Pence said, “Everyone has their own style, and frankly, people on both sides of the aisle use strong language about our political differences.” Oh, so all’s well with the president’s puerility if plenty of other people are just as bad? I thought the leader of the free world was supposed to be a cut above. Or has that been cut from the job description?

Ross: Once you’ve decided to stick with Trump through thick and thin — as Pence certainly has — this is the only argument you can make. But the real problem with the president’s rhetoric isn’t that he uses strong language, even insults — it’s that he feeds conspiratorial and apocalyptic thinking among people who trust him because they distrust the mainstream press. That’s what carries us beyond simple polarization into more dangerous territory — beyond being angry at the media for its biases (which is fine) to regarding reporters as the “enemy of the people.”

You can see a lot of the dynamic among Democrats in this cycle as reflecting two competing impulses in response — one that tries to make politics normal again, attacking the G.O.P. on health care and taxes and corruption, and one that wants to leap into the vortex, too, screaming about Manchurian candidates and looming fascism.

Frank: Democrats continue to grapple with, and to be divided about, the proper response to Trump. And to look at the midterms is to see different Democrats behaving differently, often in accordance with the dynamics and demographic profiles of their districts.

But I wish that all of us would stop speaking of this as a tactical question. It’s a moral one. It’s vital and urgent that a better kind of politics be modeled, before we all sink any deeper, and I’d implore Democrats to do that, because Republicans certainly won’t, not as long as they’re quivering before and genuflecting to Trump. Know what else is vital and urgent? That we in the media give that better politics as much coverage as we do whatever new insult Trump flings.

Ross: Maybe, but I’m a little wary of that formulation because there’s a constant media temptation to use positive coverage as a kind of wish-casting, where the definition of “better politics” is just “politics as liberal journalists wish it to be.” The 17,000 profiles of Beto O’Rourke, who’s interesting enough but not nearly as relevant to a possible Democratic revival as a less liberal candidate would have been, are a case in point. So was all the hosanna-ing over Emmanuel Macron, the great centrist hope (current approval rating: 29 percent) when he ascended to the French presidency.

Journalists don’t need to cover Trump wall to wall, but they also shouldn’t feed liberal delusions about how easily the populism tide will be turned back.

Frank: Ross, there have been only 16,423 profiles of Beto. But seriously, what I’m saying isn’t about Beto or French Beto, liberals or conservatives, populism or socialism. When I mention “a better politics,” I’m not talking about Medicare for All or whether the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency should be preserved or the wall or any policy or partisan stripe. I’m talking about the nature of our conversations, the quality of our interactions. I’m talking about a fidelity to truth. I’m talking about an emphasis on inspiration over fear.

That can come in many ideological guises. That can come from politicians old or young, male or female, white or black, straight or gay, etc. But it is what Trump has tugged us ever farther from. It’s what, honestly, I think he’d be content to destroy forevermore, because he thrives in its opposite.

Ross: I’m not going to argue with your high-mindedness, but I just want to put in a plug for journalism that helps us understand where fear-based politics comes from. The latest Trumpian figure on the world stage is Jair Bolsonaro, a not-so-crypto-authoritarian who just won an absolutely crushing victory to become Brazil’s next president. Our colleagues put together this video on the roots of his unexpected-to-liberals support among many Brazilian women, and I highly recommend it.

I think generally that’s what we need more of from journalists — a way for the kind of people who find the success of populism simply incomprehensible to see the world as it looks to the people voting for populists. That’s the beginning of the kind of wisdom that will help us leave the darkest parts of Trumpism behind.

Frank: I am in no way arguing against that kind of journalism! We agree on that. I’m arguing against a constant aghast (but not really), scandalized (but not quite), censorious (but titillated) rehashing of Trump’s tantrums. And I’m urging politicians who want to better us not to traffic in fear. You brought up Beto: All the profiles stem partly from his amazing fund-raising and crowds, which in turn reflect an approach by him that is almost steadfastly uplifting and optimistic.

Since this is our last chat before the midterms, let’s pivot to those. A few specific predictions?

Ross: Dear God, man, you want predictions? Didn’t 2016 cure you of that malady? And with a whole week of twists and turns to go? O.K., fine: In addition to a boring, safe prediction that the G.O.P. loses the House and keeps the Senate, I think Republicans will win close races in Missouri and Indiana and actually increase their Senate majority — launching, in turn, approximately 17,000 liberal think pieces urging the abolition of the Senate. Your turn.

Frank: Again with the hyperbole! And again with the 17,000 number! I promise you there will not be more than 14,913 such think pieces. I agree on the Senate: Republicans will probably get North Dakota, too. An interesting twist in the House is that two states crucial to Trump’s election, Michigan and Pennsylvania, will be sites of red-to-blue pickups of seats for Democrats and will also see Democrats win the governor’s races, in my humble and reckless opinion.

Ross: I buy that: I think Trump’s campaign populism won him the Midwest but his deference to Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell’s unpopular economic agenda once in office has cost his party the chance to seal that realignment. But we’ll know for sure by the next time we convene, so until then, Frank.

Frank: Until then, Ross. And now I’m off to write a Beto profile.

Ross: 17,001!

lycanthropy - Word of the day [Happy Halloween!]

WORD OF THE DAY October 31, 2018

lycanthropy  noun | lye-KAN-thruh-pee   Definition 1 : a delusion that one has become a wolf 2 : the assumption of the form and characteristics of a wolf held to be possible by witchcraft or magic ... Did You Know? If you happen to be afflicted with lycanthropy, the full moon is apt to cause you an inordinate amount of distress. Lycanthropy can refer to either the delusional idea that one is a wolf or to the werewolf transformations that have been the stuff of superstitions for centuries. In some cultures, similar myths involve human transformation into other equally feared animals: hyenas and leopards in Africa, for example, and tigers in Asia. The word lycanthropy itself, however, comes from the Greek words lykos, meaning "wolf," and anthrōpos, meaning "human being." Werewolf myths are usually associated with the phases of the moon; the animal nature of the werewolf (or lycanthrope) is typically thought to take over when the moon is full. Examples of LYCANTHROPY The 1941 film The Wolf Man starred Lon Chaney, Jr., as a man cursed with lycanthropy. "Born in 1859, Alfred Edward Housman came from a talented family…. His sister Clemence's novella, The Were-Wolf, is one of the most powerful stories ever written about lycanthropy." — Michael Dirda, The Washington Post, 13 July 2017

Technology: The Bloody Consequences of the Electric Scooter Revolution

Olivia Carville, Bloomberg, October 30, 2018, 5:00 AM EDT; via AK; original article contains links and a video

• Hundreds of patients injured in scooter accidents across U.S.
• Bird and Lime slapped with class-action lawsuit in California

image (not from article) from

A lawsuit targeting electric scooter-sharing companies seizes on the dangers of zipping around town on two wheels and brings gory detail to one of the more polarizing technology trends to emerge over the last year.

Nine people who were injured by electric scooters filed the class-action suit on Oct. 19 in Los Angeles County Superior Court. It accuses startups Bird Rides Inc. and Lime -- as well as their manufacturers Xiaomi Corp. and Segway Inc. -- of gross negligence, claiming the companies knew the scooters were dangerous and deployed them in a way that was certain to cause injuries.

Since e-scooters zoomed into the U.S. last September with the arrival of Bird, hundreds of riders and pedestrians have landed in the hospital with injuries ranging from severe gravel rash to knocked-out teeth, ripped out toenails and detached biceps, according to doctors and victims.

Last month, three people died while riding scooters in Dallas, Cleveland and Washington DC.

There is no official tally on the number of scooter-related injuries in the country since hospitals code their patients based on the type of injury they are admitted with, rather than what caused it. But one metric Bird and Lime have been closely tracking is the number of rides their scooters have handled: more than 20 million combined -- and growing everyday.

Electric scooters have appeared in more than 100 cities worldwide with the startups aiming to usher in a new, environmentally friendly era of micro transportation. After a remarkable one-year ascent, Bird and Lime are now two of the youngest startups to earn unicorn status in Silicon Valley with valuations of $2 billion and $3 billion or more, respectively.

The rapid rise of the scooter revolution has been plagued by controversy, complaints and concussions. Citing fears over public safety, officials in some cities, including San Francisco and Santa Monica, have temporarily banned electric scooters and filed criminal complaints against the companies behind them for operating without a business permit. Some frustrated vigilante residents have tossed scooters into the ocean, buried them in the sand and even set them on fire.

According to the lawsuit, two of the plaintiffs were injured by tripping over scooters left discarded on the sidewalk, four were rammed into from behind as they walked, including a 7-year-old boy who suffered severe damage to eight of his front teeth and had to get his lip stitched back together. “These companies are putting profit over safety,” Catherine Lerer, the personal injury lawyer at McGee Lerer who represents the plaintiffs, said in an interview for Bloomberg’s Decrypted podcast.

Since filing the lawsuit, Lerer said an additional 75 people who have suffered from scooter injuries have contacted her, including a 67-year-old man with a brain injury.

Bird and Lime say safety is a top priority. But from their perspective, cars are the real transportation danger.

“Class action attorneys with a real interest in improving transportation safety should be focused on reducing the 40,000 deaths caused by cars every year in the U.S.,” a Bird spokesperson said in a written statement.

Lime said it could not comment on pending litigation, but in an interview on Bloomberg’s Decrypted podcast, Taylor Bennett, director of public affairs, said Lime has upgraded its scooters with new safety features three times in the past year. The latest version has bigger tires to take on potholes, brakes on the back wheel to prevent riders hurtling over the handlebars and dual suspension. The company is also handing out 250,000 helmets to its riders.

Dr. Wally Ghurabi, medical director of one of the emergency departments at UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica -- ground zero for the scooter boom -- said plastic surgeons have spent hours cleaning asphalt out of facial wounds to prevent gravel-rash tattoos.

“You can break your face, break your nose, break your facial bones, break your skull and bleed inside your skull,” Ghurabi said, ticking off some of the risks of electric scooters.

Victor San Andres was hurled over the handlebars of his electric scooter when the front brakes malfunctioned as he was cruising downhill in June. He remembers “flying through the air,” but said his mind has mercifully wiped out the moment his face collided with the pavement. He was knocked unconscious and suffered from severe facial lacerations, a broken pinkie finger and a ripped out toenail.

San Andres, an online video producer, was injured in New York --where the scooter-sharing companies aren’t authorized to operate, but some people have personal electric scooters. San Andres was given the scooter for free in exchange for uploading positive promotional scooter videos online. He isn’t a signatory on the class-action suit.

Monaco: Beware of the Invasion of the Billionaire Baby Boomers (BBBs) -- They will be invading your beaches, high on booze/reefer madness, while sunning on a Yatchs caravan! ... :)

investopedia.com

Amy Fontinelle, "Looking to Retire in Monaco? Here's How," investopedia.com, October 28, 2018 — 10:47 PM EDT; original article contains links

image (not from entry) from

If you’re well off and you’ve always dreamed of living on the Riviera, glamorous Monaco might be your ideal retirement destination, with world-renowned events such as the Formula 1 Grand Prix, the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters tennis tournament and the Monaco Yacht Show, and attractions like the Casino de Monte-Carlo. In this wealthy principality, you won’t have to fear for your safety or wonder when the electricity will come back on, and the country’s healthcare, rule of law, financial institutions and transportation networks are sound.

While Monaco, the world’s second-smallest independent state, is not part of the European Union, it is nearby many other desirable European destinations. Monaco’s official language is French, but English is a close second, so you’ll be able to get by if you speak only English. The country has mild, wet winters and warm, dry summers.

Visas and Residency

You don’t have to become a resident to buy or rent property or to stay in Monaco for up to three months. But if you want to live there year-round, you’ll need to get a residence card, and – unless you’re a citizen of the European Union, Liechtenstein, Norway or Iceland – that means getting a long-stay visa from France first.

Get this document from your nearest French consulate. You’ll need to prove your identity, show that you have a place to live in Monaco, prove that you can support yourself financially and prove that you don’t have a criminal record. You’ll have to renew your residence card repeatedly, first at one-year intervals, then at three-year intervals. Eventually you’ll be eligible for a 10-year residence card. More than 60% of Monaco’s population of just under 40,000 are immigrants, so you’ll be in good company.

Cost of Living

If you’re coming from the United States, you'll be subject to the dollar's relationship to the euro, which varies slightly with the economic times. You won’t need to own a car, though; the nation is so small – 2 square kilometers, or about three times the size of the national mall in Washington, D.C. – that you could cover it all on foot. There are even elevators to take you up steep streets. There’s an inexpensive bus system as well, and you can always take the tourist train or even hire a limo. Most groceries are priced reasonably, as are many restaurant meals.

Housing will be your biggest expense. In 2018, buying an apartment in Monaco costs about $6,000 per square foot. Compare that to about $1,300 in New York City and about $700 in Los Angeles. Or to the price of other European cities, like London at $1,600 or Paris, where you can buy an apartment for about $1,100 per square foot.

Indeed, you might feel out of place in Monaco if you aren’t rich. While the United States has the greatest number of ultra high net worth individuals in the world, Monaco has the highest concentration of them, with 574 ultra high net worth individuals per 100,000 residents, compared with 12.7 per 100,000 in the United States.

Taxes

Many very wealthy people choose to live in Monaco because it has no income tax, unless you're a French citizen, and no capital gains tax. It also has a limited estate tax – you can leave your holdings to your spouse and direct heirs and pay no taxes. You will pay taxes when you buy things, as Monaco has a value-added tax (VAT) of 20%. Depending on your residency status and sources of retirement income, you might also pay taxes to your home country. U.S. citizens are required to pay U.S. taxes even if they live abroad.

Citizenship

You might be wondering if a foreigner can become a citizen of Monaco, not just a resident. The requirements to become a naturalized citizen of Monaco are that you have lived in Monaco for at least 10 consecutive years, that you renounce your citizenship to any other country and that becoming a naturalized citizen of Monaco will relieve you of any military service obligation in your former country.  However, the Prince has the right to refuse any request for naturalization for any reason, even if you meet the basic requirements.

The Bottom Line

Monaco offers a pleasant climate, modern comforts and glamour. It also has plenty of activities to keep you entertained, plus it’s a short flight or drive to other exciting European destinations, like the French Riviera, which is just down the hill.

If you can afford the high cost of housing and feel comfortable among the elite, Monaco might be the right retirement destination for you.

Read more: Looking to Retire in Monaco? Here's How | Investopedia https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/070715/looking-retire-monaco-heres-how.asp#ixzz5VRBGBW64
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The illusions about cyberdemocracy continue to be tumbling down ...

Nicholas Thompson and Ian Bremmer, "The AI Cold War That Threatens Us All," Wired; original article contains links; see also

uncaptioned image from article

Excerpt:

AFTER THE END of the Cold War, conventional wisdom in the West came to be guided by two articles of faith: that liberal democracy was destined to spread across the planet, and that digital technology would be the wind at its back. The censorship, media consolidation, and propaganda that had propped up Soviet-era autocracies would simply be inoperable in the age of the internet. The World Wide Web would give people free, unmediated access to the world’s information. It would enable citizens to organize, hold governments accountable, and evade the predations of the state.

No one had more confidence in the liberalizing effects of technology than the tech companies themselves: Twitter was, in one executive’s words, “the free speech wing of the free speech party”; Facebook wanted to make the world more open and connected; Google, cofounded by a refugee from the Soviet Union, wanted to organize the world’s information and make it accessible to all.

As the era of social media kicked in, the techno-optimists’ twin articles of faith looked unassailable. In 2009, during Iran’s Green Revolution, outsiders marveled at how protest organizers on Twitter circumvented the state’s media blackout. A year later, the Arab Spring toppled regimes in Tunisia and Egypt and sparked protests across the Middle East, spreading with all the virality of a social media phenomenon—because, in large part, that’s what it was. “If you want to liberate a society, all you need is the internet,” said Wael Ghonim, an Egyptian Google executive who set up the primary Facebook group that helped galvanize dissenters in Cairo.

It didn’t take long, however, for the Arab Spring to turn into winter—in ways that would become eerily familiar to Western countries in a few years. ...

Of course, it’s not just in Egypt and the Middle East that things have gone sour. In a remarkably short time, the exuberance surrounding the spread of liberalism and technology has turned into a crisis of faith in both. Overall, the number of liberal democracies in the world has been in steady decline for a decade. According to Freedom House, 71 countries last year saw declines in their political rights and freedoms; only 35 saw improvements.

While the crisis of democracy has many causes, social media platforms have come to seem like a prime culprit. The recent wave of anti­establishment politicians and nativist political movements—Donald Trump in the United States; Brexit in the UK; the resurgent right wing in Germany, Italy, or across Eastern Europe—has revealed not only a deep disenchantment with the global rules and institutions of Western democracy, but also an automated media landscape that rewards demagoguery with clicks. Political opinions have become more polarized, populations have become more tribal, and civic nationalism is disintegrating.

Which leaves us where we are now: Rather than cheering for the way social platforms spread democracy, we are busy assessing the extent to which they corrode it. ...

Nicholas Thompson (@nxthompson) is editor in chief of WIRED. Ian Bremmer (@­ianbremmer) is a political scientist and president of the Eurasia Group.

Liberal Hypocrisy in College Admissions? Note for a Discussion, "E Pluribus Unum? What Keeps the United States United."

Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times, Oct. 27, 2018; see also

The legacy system is affirmative action for the privileged.

Image from article: A statue of John Harvard overlooks Harvard Yard, the oldest part of Harvard University’s campus.

We progressives hail opportunity, egalitarianism and diversity. Yet here’s our dirty little secret: Some of our most liberal bastions in America rely on a system of inherited privilege that benefits rich whites at the expense of almost everyone else.

I’m talking about “legacy preferences” that elite universities give to children of graduates. These universities constitute some of the world’s greatest public goods, but they rig admissions to favor applicants who already have had every privilege in life.

A lawsuit against Harvard University has put a focus on admissions policies that the plaintiffs argue hurt Asian-American applicants. I disagree with the suit, seeing it as a false flag operation that aims to dismantle affirmative action for black and Latino students.

But the suit has shone a light on a genuine problem: legacy, coupled with preferences for large donors and for faculty children. Most of the best universities in America systematically discriminate in favor of affluent, privileged alumni children. If that isn’t enough to get your kids accepted, donate $5 million to the university, and they’ll get a second look.

“It’s a hereditary principle at work in an area that should be meritocratic,” observed Richard Reeves of the Brookings Institution, who criticized legacy preferences in his book “Dream Hoarders.” Reeves noted the irony that in Europe and most of the rest of the world, there is no such explicit system of legacy preferences, yet in supposedly egalitarian America it is formal and systematic.

Isn’t it a bit hypocritical that institutions so associated with liberalism should embrace a hereditary aristocratic structure? Ah, never underestimate the power of self-interest to shape people’s views. As Reeves put it dryly: “American liberalism tends to diminish as the issues get closer to home.”

I write this as a beneficiary of affirmative action. I was an Oregon farm boy, and Ivy League schools wanted the occasional country bumpkin, so I milked this for all it was worth by writing a college essay about me vaccinating sheep, picking strawberries and competing in the Future Farmers of America.

Harvard wanted hicks from the sticks, so it chose me to help diversify its freshman class — and then Harvard had a huge impact on me. I’m also proud to have served some years ago on Harvard’s board and to have been a visiting fellow at its Kennedy School of Government.

There’s disagreement about how much advantage legacy confers. Material submitted in the trial now underway suggests that over a six-year period, 33.6 percent of legacy children were admitted to Harvard, compared with 5.9 percent of nonlegacy applicants.

Seven years ago, a Harvard doctoral student named Michael Hurwitz used sophisticated statistical techniques and found that having a parent graduate increased the chance of admission at 30 top colleges by 45 percentage points. For example, a candidate who otherwise had a 20 percent shot became a 65 percent prospect with a parent who had graduated from that school.

Earlier, a 2004 Princeton study estimated that legacy at top schools was worth an additional 160 points on an SAT, out of 1600 points.

Legacy preferences apparently were introduced in America in the early 1900s as a way to keep out Jewish students. To their credit, some American universities, including M.I.T. — not to mention Oxford and Cambridge in Britain — don’t give a legacy preference.

The top universities say that legacy preferences help create a multigenerational community of alumni, and that’s a legitimate argument. They also note that rewarding donors helps encourage donations that can be used to finance scholarships for needy kids.

Yet on balance, I’m troubled that some of America’s greatest institutions grant a transformative opportunity disproportionately to kids already steeped in advantage, from violin lessons to chess tournaments to SAT coaching. On top of that, letting wealthy families pay for extra consideration feels, to use a technical term, yucky.

Liberals object to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision allowing tycoons to buy political influence, so why allow tycoons to buy influence in college admissions?

More broadly, what happened to equal opportunity and meritocracy? They may be ideals rather than reality, but why defend a formal structure of hereditary privilege and monetary advantage in accessing top universities?

“Legacy preferences give a leg up to applicants who have typically led privileged lives,” said Susan Dynarski, a (Harvard-trained) professor of economics, education and public policy at the University of Michigan. “It’s the polar opposite of affirmative action, which boosts applicants who have faced adversity. It’s unconscionable for a handful of elite colleges to amass enormous tax-advantaged endowments and use them to perpetuate privilege in this way.”

The larger problem is that 38 colleges, including five from the Ivy League, had more students from the top 1 percent than from the bottom 60 percent. Over all, children from the top 1 percent are 77 times more likely to attend Ivy League colleges than children from the bottom 20 percent.

When family background already matters so much, do America’s best universities really want to put their thumb on the scales to help already privileged children — or allow their families to make a donation that buys a second thumb to press on the scales?

The student journalists of The Harvard Crimson editorialized: “Legacy preference is, in the simplest terms, wrong. It takes opportunities from those with less and turns them over to those who have more.”

Nicholas Kristof has been a columnist for The Times since 2001, and was a longtime foreign correspondent before that. He has won two Pulitzer Prizes, for his coverage of China and of the genocide in Darfur. @NickKristof • Facebook

There May Soon Be Three Internets. America’s Won’t Necessarily Be the Best.

The Editorial Board, The New York Times; see also

A breakup of the web grants privacy, security and freedom to some, and not so much to others. 

Morozov image from

[JB note: Am surprised that Evgeny Morozov -- a prophet regarding the delusion that the internet=universal peace, understanding, and democracy -- is seldom, if at all, mentioned in the current second thoughts about the blessing of (increasingly considered misgivings about) the social media: Facebook, Twitter, etc. It was most instructive to students and me that, quite a few years ago, Morozov addressed one of my Georgetown classes on propaganda/public diplomacy, when he eloquently pointed out that the latest communications technology is not necessarily a solution to the world's problems, and indeed can be used/misused to the contrary. See John Brown, "Remember When Social Media Was the Solution to All Our Global Problems?" Huffington Post (2014); What’s important, what’s happening, and what’s public diplomacy," Huffington Post (2010)]. See also.]

image from article, with attribution: "Rose Wong"

In September, Eric Schmidt, the former Google chief executive and Alphabet chairman, said that in the next 10 to 15 years, the internet would most likely be split in two — one internet led by China and one internet led by the United States.

Mr. Schmidt, speaking at a private event hosted by a venture capital firm, did not seem to seriously entertain the possibility that the internet would remain global. He’s correct to rule out that possibility — if anything, the flaw in Mr. Schmidt’s thinking is that he too quickly dismisses the European internet that is coalescing around the European Union’s ever-heightening regulation of technology platforms. All signs point to a future with three internets.

The received wisdom was once that a unified, unbounded web promoted democracy through the free flow of information. Things don’t seem quite so simple anymore. China’s tight control of the internet within its borders continues to tamp down talk of democracy, and an increasingly sophisticated system of digital surveillance plays a major role in human rights abuses, such as the persecution of the Uighurs. We’ve also seen the dark side to connecting people to one another — as illustrated by how misinformation on social media played a significant role in the violence in Myanmar.

There’s a world of difference between the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, known commonly as G.D.P.R., and China’s technologically enforced censorship regime, often dubbed “the Great Firewall.” But all three spheres — Europe, America and China — are generating sets of rules, regulations and norms that are beginning to rub up against one another. What’s more, the actual physical location of data has increasingly become separated by region, with data confined to data centers inside the borders of countries with data localization laws.

The information superhighway cracks apart more easily when so much of it depends on privately owned infrastructure. An error at Amazon Web Services created losses of service across the web in 2017; a storm disrupting a data center in Northern Virginia created similar failures in 2012. These were unintentional blackouts; the corporate custodians of the internet have it within their power to do far more. Of course, nobody wants to turn off the internet completely — that wouldn’t make anyone money. But when a single company with huge market share chooses to comply with a law — or more worryingly, a mere suggestion from the authorities — a large chunk of the internet ends up falling in line.

The power of a handful of platforms and services combined with the dismal state of international cooperation across the world pushes us closer and closer to a splintered internet. Meanwhile, American companies that once implicitly pushed democratic values abroad are more reticent to take a stand.

In 2010, Google shut down its operations in China after it was revealed that the Chinese government had been hacking the Gmail accounts of dissidents and surveilling them through the search engine. “At some point you have to stand back and challenge this and say, this goes beyond the line of what we’re comfortable with, and adopt that for moral reasons,” said Sergey Brin, a Google co-founder, in an interview with Der Spiegel at the time.

But eight years later, Google is working on a search engine for China known as Dragonfly. Its launch will be conditional on the approval of Chinese officials and will therefore comply with stringent censorship requirements. An internal memo written by one of the engineers on the project described surveillance capabilities built into the engine — namely by requiring users to log in and then tracking their browsing histories. This data will be accessible by an unnamed Chinese partner, presumably the government.

Google says all features are speculative and no decision has been made on whether to launch Dragonfly, but a leaked transcript of a meeting inside Google later acquired by The Intercept, a news site, contradicts that line. In the transcript, Google’s head of search, Ben Gomes, is quoted as saying that it hoped to launch within six to nine months, although the unstable American-China relationship makes it difficult to predict when or even whether the Chinese government will give the go-ahead. “There is a huge binary difference between being launched and not launched,” said Mr. Gomes. “And so we want to be careful that we don’t miss that window if it ever comes.”

Internet censorship and surveillance were once hallmarks of oppressive governments — with Egypt, Iran and China being prime examples. It’s since become clear that secretive digital surveillance isn’t just the domain of anti-democratic forces. The Snowden revelations in 2013 knocked the United States off its high horse, and may have pushed the technology industry into an increasingly agnostic outlook on human rights. Its relationship with the government isn’t improving, either, when the industry is being hammered by the Trump administration’s continuing trade wars. (This month, Vice President Mike Pence condemned Dragonfly as part of a longer, confrontational speech accusing China of “economic aggression.”)

As governments push toward a splintered internet, American corporations do little to counteract Balkanization and instead do whatever is necessary to expand their operations. If the future of the internet is a tripartite cold war, Silicon Valley wants to be making money in all three of those worlds.

Part of the rationalization is that whether or not American companies get in on the action, a homegrown company will readily enact the kind of censorship and surveillance that its government requires. (Indeed, if Google launches in China, it has an uphill battle to fight against Baidu, the entrenched, government-endorsed Chinese search engine.)

What this future will bring for Europe and the United States is not clear. Mr. Gomes’s leaked speech from inside Google sounded almost dystopian at times. “This is a world none of us have ever lived in before,” Mr. Gomes told employees. “All I am saying, we have built a set of hacks, and we have kept them.” He seemed to hint at scenarios the tech sector had never imagined before. The world may be a very different place since the election of Donald Trump, but it’s still hard to imagine that what’s deployed in China will ever be deployed at home. Yet even the best possible version of the disaggregated web has serious — though still uncertain — implications for a global future: What sorts of ideas and speech will become bounded by borders? What will an increasingly disconnected world do to the spread of innovation and to scientific progress? What will consumer protections around privacy and security look like as the internets diverge? And would the partitioning of the internet precipitate a slowing, or even a reversal, of globalization?

A chillier relationship with Europe and increasing hostilities with China spur on the trend toward Balkanization — and vice versa, creating a feedback loop. If things continue along this path, the next decade may see the internet relegated to little more than just another front on the new cold war.