The Origin Of The Most Problems

the origin of most problems Author: Tio Review: Sasha, Seb Proofread: Sasha, Seb Design: Tio Year: 2018-2019 Special thanks to Jennifer Mary Tess Sandulescu f or designing/drawing the Statopus and Privatopus :) Summary: This journey, if properly understood, can give birth to one of the most significant ideas in human history, if not the most significant one. It sure sounds like an extraordinary claim, but we will provide extraordinarily well sourced evidence throughout this book. There will be no wishful thinking in this book, and no hard-to-grasp language. We are trying to showcase how one single thing, just one, creates most of our problems regardless of societies, cultures, and eras: from famine to wars, from data collection to abuse, from crimes to climate change, from corruption to poor quality goods and services, and so forth. It is like a force that pushes people to behave destructively, but much like a fish being pushed by the water current not asking about the water or the current, humans may not understand this force despite it being everywhere and influencing them on a daily basis. Once this is understood, solutions will follow. Once solutions follow, society will change. This book is also the start of a new direction for TROM, one that is sharply defined and has real implications in day-to-day life, providing a serious path forward towards greatly improving our society. It has the ingredients to showcase how organizations like TROM can work together in a decentralized way to bring such a change. If the origin of most problems is to be tackled, then most problems will disappear. Embark, enjoy, educate. Chapters: THE ST E S O T RY: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 8 ● the word _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 24 ● the sentence _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 26 ● the paragraph _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 28 UNDERST S A T ND: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 114 ● trading with currencies: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 118 ● cryptocurrencies _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 118 ● trading without currencies: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 156 ● influencer marketing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 156 ● data collection and the scam of “free” _ _ _ 172 ● social credits and citizenship _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 238 ● other forms of trade _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 258 ACCEPT: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 276 ● space exploration _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 278 ● knowledge _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 318 ● open source _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 326 ● science research _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 344 ● science media _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 352 ● breaking promises _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 388 GET READY: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 400 ● ACT and CRAP _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 402 ● Statopus: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 438 ● surveillance and control _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 440 ● abuse and corruption _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 476 ● war and propaganda _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 490 ● Privatopus _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 508 ● internet/digital _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 512 ● clothes/wearables and furniture _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 590 ● grocery products _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 612 ● media _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 670 ● transportation _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 686 ● healthcare _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 714 FIGHT: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 748 ● the world is fine, we need not intervene _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 750 ● the world is not fine, we need to intervene _ _ _ _ _ _ 796 ● the world needs an enemy: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 916 ● focusing on a problem will force solutions _ _ 922 ● societies are not invented, they evolve _ _ _ _ _ 960 PUTTING EVERYTHING INTO T PERSPECTIVE _ _ _ _ _ 1134 What do we want? I think this is the best question that not many seem to have the time or drive to ponder about, perhaps being caught up in trying to change something in the world (activism!?), and this is what I am going to ask TROM right now. I want to do that because we must not lose track of what we are trying to achieve. So, TROM, what is it that you want? Why all of this struggle with books and videos, social networks and newsletters, quizzes and memes? 00. the st 00. the story 00. the story 00. the story A simple, but powerful message Over these past years since TROM has become a thing, I’ve come across many groups of people or just individual people who claim to be aligned with what TROM is, and they contacted me several times over the years to try and explain that to me. I’ve heard about groups who want to intelligently manage the Earth’s resources and provide for everyone, groups who were all about promoting self sustainable technology, and those who only proposed renewable energy; people who were saying that becoming vegan is the way to go about changing the world, groups who were against money and those who were pro cryptocurrencies. Gift economies, different currencies, meritocracies, or ‘true’ democracies. Many many ideas. A planet of them. But what I think is lacking amongst these groups is a clear vision of what it is that we want, because we all seem to want a better world for everyone and to get rid of the problems we see today: war, violence, poverty, stress, corruption, and so on. So we indeed have many things in common like ending hunger and poverty, taking care of people and the environment, using clean renewable sources of energy, becoming a planetary species, arriving at decisions through science, creating a level of security and comfort for all of us, and so forth. That’s all great, but to me it seems all over the place. Where to focus first and how? Which one is more important? This is why I decided to define TROM’s mission in one word, that can then be described easily in a sentence, and afterwards understood in simple paragraphs that even a 10 year old would understand. And all of this will encompass the common ideas that all of these organizations seem to have. Basically, most of what I’ve heard being talked about in terms of changing the world for the past many years is engulfed into what I am going to describe in a single word, then a sentence, then several paragraphs. Imagine talking to a 10 year old If a 10 year old kid, with an open mind, would ask me what is this TROM project that I and others are dedicating so much time for, what would I answer? To imagine explaining this project to a kid is important because you assume that the kid doesn’t know much about our society (because s/he is too young and didn’t get to experience or learn much about the society we live in) so you’ll have to explain the project damn well and in a very simple way. If you can do that, then it means that you (who is explaining this project) understand what this project is all about, and it also means that the explanation can be used for everyone out there with an open mind because if a 10 year old is capable of understanding this, anyone is (at least in theory). I’m presenting esenting you the TR you the TROM M Superhero! Superhero! He has no fear of authority and can walk butt naked in front of academia without a sweat of shame. :) HI! That fucking ivory business kills 55 elephants a day! He says things as they are and doesn't prostitute over anything He respects humans, but has no mercy for their unscientific values C'mon man, there is no God! He is the arrow of the science bow. Color him fearless and scientific and it will match his outfit. Voil Voi à, th là, the TR e TROM Superhero. Superhero. Ok, enough with the intro. Let’s see him in action. Ta-da! Hi Kid :). I’ve heard that you are curious about me. Who am I? What do I want? What’s my mission? Say no more, let’s waste no time, and let me show you: “me”. I am giving you one word: trade. Keep it in mind because this word is the cause of most of the world’s problems. Actually, all problems, except a few (maybe). The The word: word: trade trade The sentenc sentence: We play a game in this world (all of us), the: “I have something, you have something else”, and we exchange what we have with each other, which in turn creates an imbalance of power (some have more, some have less), and this imbalance gives rise to so many problems because if I have something that you need, then I can be bossy with you over that and manipulate you or others who need what I have. The Paragr Paragraphs: Think about the Monopoly game. You and your friends get around to play it. You know the rules, right? You each start with the same amount of money, you get to choose the Monopoly playing piece, you roll the dice and see if you are lucky or not, and so forth. But I want you to gather your friends and play Monopoly based on my rules. First thing first: I will start by giving you all a different amount of money to start with. Kid: Hold on, why? TROM: Not fair? Well, are your parents rich? elijah Kid: Not really. I mean they earn enough but we are not the richest. TROM: How much do Elijah’s parents (your friend) make? He has expensive gadgets and every summer he goes on expensive trips with his family, I’ve heard. Kid: A lot more than my parents for sure. TROM: So you see...we need to start the game in the same way. You get less money than Elijah, and more than Stacey because her parents make less than yours. Imagine you inherit the money and properties from your parents like the rest of the players do, despite the fact that you start as a brand new player in this game. It sucks, I know. Elijah is also going to own a few properties, houses and hotels from the get go. You only have a small property and one house. Again, like in the real life. Kid: But that’s really unfair to be honest. Anyways, go on. TROM: Well let’s start and you’ll see others what I am trying to teach you. stacey The Kid starts the game with his friends and soon realizes how his disadvantage is getting worse and worse with every roll of the dice. Kid: Why does Elijah get to roll the dice two times when we only get to roll once? TROM: These are my rules, Kid, don’t forget! Keep on playing! Elijah is starting to make more and more money. He bribes other players, makes hard to refuse offers to others so that he can expand his properties, he pays his way out every time he goes to jail, and does everything he can to get richer and richer. Elijah makes an offer to the Kid: “I’ll give you 2.000 for this property.” Kid: Nah. That’s my best property. Elijah: I need it because I have the rest. If you sell it to me you won’t pay if you land on any of the same properties. So you won’t have to worry about that. Kid: Hm…but then I’ll have nothing…. Elijah: Well, you decide...I already have lots of properties and money so is not like I really need yours, but I think you should accept my offer because it is in your best interest, Kid. Stacey: Elijah I will sell you two of my properties that you need with the same rules that you made for the Kid (to not pay you when I land on them) – but only if you don’t make the deal with the Kid. If the Kid makes the deal with you then I am ruined since we compete for the same place in the game. If he doesn’t get charged when he lands on those expensive properties that you have but I will, it will be very bad for me. I already have very little money. I am also open to making more deals with you. What do you say? Elijah makes the deal with Stacey. The Kid is very upset. So upset that he steals some money from the bank when no one’s looking. But his financial situation is still awful. TROM: See Kid….the Abuser, the Charlatan, and the Thief. The wonderful trio. That’s the ACT. Elijah, Stacey, and you. Elijah is so powerful that he can abuse anyone into making deals with him and his cartel for his own advantage, and Stacey needs to survive in the game so she becomes a charlatan deceiving Elijah and others for her own interest. And you...what do you do? You are stealing money from the bank….you’re the thief!? Kid: Yeah but…. TROM: No worries. Please continue with the game I won’t interrupt for a while. After some playing time, Elijah and a few other friends gain so much power that they have no competition. They created a cartel, a monopoly. Aha, Monopoly! If you wonder what that means it is exactly this: “the exclusive possession or control of the supply or trade in a commodity or service”. Basically they rule the game and the others are fucked. The game is now controlled by them. The other kids are depressed, in trouble, disadvantaged, and transformed into thieves and charlatans as their only resort for survival. These disadvantaged ones have no chance against the cartel. Most properties are owned by Elijah and the other cartel members (many of whom they owned before the game started), they have so much money that every time they get ‘taxed’ by the game’s rules it is either that the ‘tax’ is very easy for them to pay (because they have so much money), or they get away with it just because they own the game. Although the cartels are responsible for the most Common, Recurring, and Amplifying Problems (CRAP) in this game, everyone is either an Abuser, a Charlatan, or a Thief (ACT), and they too create a lot of CRAP. The ACT creates the CRAP basically, either alone, in groups, or bigger groups called cartels. ACT creates the CRAP. Simple enough to remember it I hope :). The Kid finds himself paying more and more money to these rich bastards even if his pile of money is as thin as the air at 100 km altitude. Any revolt against the cartel seems pointless. Any attempt to make more money seems like a bad joke. But now the things get even worse for the Kid because he is getting caught stealing money for the second time. Elijah: You’re going to jail! Stacey: That’s so unfair Kid!!! You are not allowed to take money from the bank! Give back twice as much as you stole as punishment! Elijah: Let’s also move the bank away from him so he doesn’t steal again! The Kid is punished and sent to jail. The bank moved away from him, closer to the richest players because, they say, they have no need to steal any money so they won’t. After some more time spent playing the game, the Kid is out of the jail, the bank is away from him, and he is broke. Elijah on the other hand wants to build more hotels and stealing some money from the so-close-to-him-bank is too tempting for him. So he does that too. Stacey sees that but instead of saying anything she asks Elijah for some money to shut up. Elijah can’t refuse and gives some to her. The Kid desperately tries to make friends with the other players to plot against Elijah and Stacey. TROM: What a surprise (applause). Elijah becomes the thief, Stacey the abuser, and you Kid….a charlatan. Interesting game. I know I am annoying staying here and observing and commenting, but that’s exactly what I expected to see: abusers, charlatans, and thieves who will eventually grow into cartels (monopolies), and an interbreed of them all. TROM: Some of you are so poor yet others are filthy rich. A perfect inequality. This is the CRAP you little pricks just created: corruption, anger, lies, deception, and so on. Kid: Ok I’m done. There is no fun in this. From the beginning I found no fun in starting with a disadvantage but now it has become ridiculous. I’m out! TROM: No! You stay and play! Kid: What!? Are you serious!? TROM: What if you had no choice of leaving the game? What if you would be denied access to food and shelter and basic life necessities if you refused to play it? This is how real life is, Kid. Sorry to be so aggressive now but you must learn a lesson. You may think that Monopoly is just a board game, but it is not. You are playing the same exact game in your ‘real’ day-to-day life, a game that you cannot leave at your will. You see, you are born in a very unequal world. You own what your parents have acquired, including their debt. TROM: Others have a lot more, some a lot less. The house you stay in, the car your parents have, your clothes, everything you and your family own, is what you are born with. You are just a kid, a new human born in this world, but you start life in the most unequal manner possible. Do you think you can just stop playing the day-to-day game? Give up money, work, nationality, and all that? What would you do? And do you think the society will let you go away on your own? Where? All of the land is owned, all of the food is the property of “who-knows”. Kid: But real life is not a game! Monopoly is. But not life. TROM: Really? Is this your phone? Kid: Sure it is. TROM: Well, I think it is not. Prove it! Kid: Just ask my parents. TROM: So it is yours because your parents say so? What if I call my parents and they say it is mine? Kid: What!? I have my photos and apps and contacts on my phone. TROM: No no. These are my photos of you on my own phone. All of what is in the phone is mine, it’ just not about me. Photos of you, in my own phone. Kid: Ridiculous. TROM: Not really. Suppose we delete all that you have on your phone, how can you tell it is yours? Kid: My parents bought it for me. We will ask the store where we bought it from. TROM: People and papers. That’s all it is. This phone is “yours” only because others say so. Look at Elijah’s Monopoly properties. Are these his properties? Kid: Yes! TROM: Why? I don’t think so, I think they are mine. Kid: Hm… TROM: When the Monopoly game ends, everything goes back into the box. All of those fake properties and hotels, all of the fake money and playing pieces. At that point they are no one’s. They are pieces of paper and plastic. Agree? Kid: Yeah. TROM: Then the only reason Elijah owned those properties and hotels and could use those fake papers to buy more, is because you all agreed upon that when you played the game. Otherwise, they would not have had any value. If you, in the middle of the game, would decide not to play or accept the properties and hotels and all that as real, could you have done that? Kid: Of course. TROM: So that’s my point: in this “real life” that we play day by day, we do the exact same thing. We play pretend. The only difference is that the stuff doesn't go back into the box, the people do. And you can’t just stop playing the game because others won’t let you. All of those clothes, phones, houses, cars, properties, and so on, are only yours because we all play this game and we accept them as being yours. If you go on and ask people if they are yours, from your parents to the store you bought them from, to the police, they can only verbally agree with that and show you some papers written by others which say that the stuff is yours (documents). That’s al : people and papers. Like plastic and papers. It’s a play pretend game. Your parents play it, your friends play it, your teachers play it, you are playing it, everyone plays it. If I refuse to accept that your stuff is yours right now and I say that it is mine, I don’t break any cosmic law. Physics and biology will be the same. We will still breath oxygen, and gravity will still exist :). The Universe is still the same. Only if I am going to take this phone from you, you’ll call other people (parents, cops) and they will use force to take this phone from me and give it back to you. There is nothing out there that says you posses anything. Your heart is clearly yours. It is part of your body. Same with your all your body parts. But not the other stuff that you acquire in this world. Of course I won’t take this phone and assume it is mine, as it would be equally ridiculous, but I want you to learn perhaps the most important lesson of your life: the real world is just a game. No more real than Monopoly, but a lot more cruel. At least in Monopoly you get to start with equal advantages and can leave the game any time you want. Kid: But is everything an invention? Play-pretend? TROM: Pretty much, yes. Jobs (like teachers, doctors, policeman), documents, countries and nationalities, money and laws, and so forth. But that doesn’t necessarily make them useless or without a value somehow. A doctor pretends to be a doctor but she is knowledgeable enough to fix your health problems. She is just a human who knows how to fix health problems, but anything more than that is just an invention (the label, the job, the social status, the salary, what she owns, etc.). However we will always play pretend in one way or another, no matter what society we live in, so this is not important. What is important is for you to understand that life is just a game. Why is that important? Well, in our Monopoly game, knowing it is just a game, how would you improve it? Kid: Will give everyone a fair start. Same amount of money and no one owns any property from the get-go. TROM: Perfect! So you see, now that you understand that it is just a game you can change the rules of the game to make the game more fair. That’s exactly what I wanted you to learn. You want a fix for it and you apply it. Kid: So you mean that I can do that in real life too? TROM: Exactly! We can change everything about our real life game, because…. Kid: ….it is just a game! :) I get it now. This is like...wow...can we really do that? TROM: Sure we can! Not long ago in this real life game it was ok to sell people for money. Slaves. That’s still going on today in a few parts of the world, but we changed that quite a lot. We changed that rule. Women were not allowed to earn money at one point, people of different colors were paid less, and so many other such rules existed and still exist today but partially they were improved. Things do change though. We, as a society, no longer accept public beheading (awful stuff) or put people in prison for talking against the president. At least not as much as we did in the past. Kid: So then, what should we change? What first? And how? How to fix it? TROM: Tell me some of the things you would change in our society. Kid: I would give everyone a fair start in life. All will have the same amount of money and properties. All people should be equal! TROM: It’s like starting the board Monopoly game using its own rules and not mine? Kid: Yes, exactly! TROM: That’s great. So all people in the world would get the same money and properties to start with. But what happens when you and your friends play Monopoly by starting all as equal? What happens after an hour let’s say? Kid: Some will have more, some will have less…. TROM: You see, a fair start will end up in the same kind of result. Some will be super rich, some super poor. Some players will still cheat, lie, steal, groups of people will ally against others to gain power and wealth, and so on. The Monopoly (cartels) will still come into existence. The abuser, the charlatan, and the thief will still exist, alongside the cartels and the CRAP they will create: corruption, lies, abuse of power, and so on. Kid: This is depressing. TROM: Think more! For example, back to the Monopoly game, what would you do to make the game fair? Kid: Hm...I will move the bank away from any player so that they don’t steal. I will also not allow for people to own more than two sets of properties. And players can’t collaborate with each other to form cartels. And maybe more…. TROM: Sounds awesome! Let’s give it a try. The Kid invents his own rules to try to fix the game: from draconian punishments for those who steal or cheat, to more proactive approaches like helping those in need. But nothing really works. Some are still super rich and some are very poor. The cartels are still forming because who can stop that when a handful of people have so much financial power in the game? Who can stop them from ‘collaborating’ with each other? The Kid can be bribed and he can change or soften his laws, and because all of the players are still a mutation of the abusers combined with charlatans and thieves, then the Kid’s rules seem pointless. His effort of creating a fair Monopoly game is a complete disaster. Elijah: You won’t let me own more than two sets of properties? No problem, I own two of the most expensive ones and I’ll build a ton of houses and hotels on them so when you step over them you’ll go bankrupt. Stacey: You won’t let me make deals with others? No worries, I will sell the properties Elijah wants to the bank, and he is gonna buy them from there. And guess what? Because I did that (wink wink) he will be nicer with me when I land on his properties. Can you stop that?! I don’t think so! I didn't make any deal with him. It just happened that I sold the properties he needed to the bank and he became nicer with me after he bought them from the bank…. :) Kid: I don’t think anything works. No rules that I put in place seem to stop people from stealing, abusing others, becoming charlatans or creating cartels. They find loopholes in everything I do. They seem a step ahead of me... TROM: Indeed. But that’s because you forgot something essential. Tell me first, and think well about this, who is responsible for the problems you see in this game? Kid: Everyone!? TROM: Yes! The problems of cheating, and stealing and bad things happening in the game (the CRAP) are not a result of viruses, aliens, or a bad odor in the air. It is people. Humans. The ACT (Abuser, Charlatan, Thief) and the CRAP (Common, Recurring, Amplifying Problems) they create. TROM: Now let me ask you this: How old is your grandma? Kid: 76. TROM: How’s her health? Kid: Alright. She complains about her health a lot, but in general she is ok. TROM: Have you ever seen a photo of your grandma when she was young? Kid: Ah yes, she was very beautiful. She was a dancer. A flamenco dancer. Well, she’s still beautiful I guess. She has a very soft voice and she cares about me a lot and I care about her. TROM: When you look at that photo of your young grandma and look at your grandma now, what do you see? What changed? Kid: Well, she is old now!? TROM: Yes. Wrinkles, health problems. That’s becoming old. You understand very well what that means. Everyone gets old. Right? Kid: Yes...what does this have to do with anything? TROM: Have you ever had a cold? Kid: Yes. TROM: Ok, how did you cope with it? Kid: Stayed at home. Felt fine in a few days. But I am still confused... TROM: If your grandma gets a cold it will take her longer to get well. Sadly some old people can die from a flu. That’s because they are fragile. Their bodies can’t fight diseases very well. The older you get the more your body will stop functioning like it used to do. We have many health problems in the world: cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, strokes, and so on. Let's write them on this blackboard and I’ll explain in a minute why we do that. I will do it for you, you don't have to know what these health problems are, hold on. TROM: Look at the blackboard. Although we have many health problems in our world, like the flu we talked about, the ones on the blackboard are primarily because of us getting old and are the most severe ones. A flu is a nothing thing, but Alzheimer's disease or cardiovascular disease are deadly. Around 150,000 people die each day in the world. 100,000 of them die because of those kind of diseases that I showed you on the blackboard. The diseases of old age. Hearts and kidneys are failing, our pipes (blood vessels) get clogged, and so on. When we get old our bodies stop functioning well and we get those diseases. Like a car that after many years of use stops functioning properly. Parts of the car are failing, and our bodies do the same. We are biological machines after all. So most people in the world die because of those diseases on the blackboard. But, now my question to you is: what is causing those diseases? Kid: As you said, being old!? TROM: Yes yes yes! TROM: To solve those health problems we need to first recognize what creates them (getting old), then fix that. Basically keep your grandma young. And if we manage to do that then we fix most of the healthcare problems that kill people every day. Taking this approach could save a third of all the people who die. Amazing! Kid: How can you keep my grandma young? TROM: I don’t know, but what you should understand is that we just recognized what kills most people in the world. That’s the most important bit. Kid: But everyone gets old. That’s normal. atherosclerosis, cardiovascular disease, cancer, arthritis, cataracts, osteoporosis, type two diabetes, hypertension, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, osteoarthritis, age-related macular degeneration, hearing loss..... TROM: First you learned that life is just a game, and now you are going to learn your second lesson: nothing is ‘normal’. This is where you have to think “out of the box”. Don’t be afraid to think big! If everyone says getting old is normal, it does not make it normal. Some 100 years ago if you were to cut your finger a little bit (something that happens to all of us nowadays) and get an infection, it was normal that you could die from it. Kid: Really? Only a simple cut? TROM: Yes! But then humans invented some medicine and sanitation that will save your life in those scenarios, and nowadays cutting your finger is often ignored and no one is scared of dying from it. What was completely normal 100 years ago, is not normal anymore. Almost half of all children died before the age of 5 some 200 years ago. Again, it was normal back then. Some parents would have more kids because they knew that some of them would probably die. Sad way of looking at things, but it was normal for them - they were used to this even if it was tragic for everyone of course. In 1900, the three leading causes of death were pneumonia, tuberculosis, and diarrhea, treatable diseases today, but those caused one third of all deaths in 1900 - like today two thirds of all deaths are due to people getting old. Point is, getting old seems normal today, but is not normal at all in a scientific sense, and we can see aging as a death causing problem (as a disease), like pneumonia or tuberculosis were not long ago. Many scientists today are starting to recognize that and work on tackling aging like they tackle any disease. Kid: …. Interesting … Very interesting. TROM: Ok Kid. We’ve learned two super important things: first that life is a game and we can change its rules, and second that nothing is normal (we can basically challenge everything as long as we keep our approach scientific). What I am trying to teach you has nothing to do with either the Monopoly game or aging. These are just to prove a point. Prepare yourself because now everything will make sense. I will write words on the blackboard again, though this time I will not write health problems but world wide problems. Do you agree that these are huge problems today? Kid: Of course. Yes! hunger, TROM: Ok then. Like with the drug ab most deadly health problems being corrupt caused by a single thing (aging), environm all of these huge (most ‘deadly’) slavery, world wide issues (and tons pollutio more) are created, again, by a power, la single thing. One single thing. quality But, we need to think out of the box again, not be afraid to think big. Kid: People?! TROM: Yes, but no! Indeed no alien creates our inequality and violence, and no bad smell creates terrorism, but this is where everyone gets things wrong and that’s the reason no one can fix anything in our world or in the Monopoly game itself. They correctly point out that “people” are the source of all problems, but they don’t understand something else: what makes people do those atrocities and have those bad behaviors. r, theft, violence, inequality, buse, terrorism, war, ption, bribery, destruction of the nment, stress, starvation, y, crime, climate change, tion, lack of education, abuse of , lack of basic needs, poor y products, and lots lots more. Think about the Monopoly game again. You wanted to fix it and the only way you tried to fix it was to “attack” two layers of the game: the ACT and the CRAP. The abusers, charlatans and thieves, plus the cartels some of them create (the conglomeration of powerful players), and all of the CRAP (Common, Recurring, Amplifying Problems) they create. People and the crap they create. Elijah, Stacy, you and others created the shady, unfair, bad, and inequality situation in the game. You were the ACT and you created all of the CRAP in the game. That’s correct. You kids created the cartels and everything else. So then you tried to make people honest and make them play fair, and dissolve the cartels and combat the smelly CRAP. And you failed. Why did you fail? Because people are not the problem, the game itself is. And no rule can make the Monopoly game fair. When you see people like Elijah, you, your parents, ‘saints’ and criminals, dictators and priests, kind and awful, they are not born like that. They learn how to behave, and behave according to how they were raised and the situations they face. They are like water. Water is not like this or like that. It becomes ice when it is cold outside, liquid when it is warm, and vapor when it is very hot. People are the same. In the same way that you don’t laugh spontaneously, but only when you hear a joke, you don’t just steal spontaneously or behave badly all of a sudden. Something triggers you. A situation. The environment you are facing. When you played Monopoly you stole and did some shady stuff there :D, but I bet you are not like that in real life unless you encounter the same kind of situation. You stole in the game because you were cornered (you had no money), but you may wrongly assume that you were cornered by others when in fact others behaved the way they behaved because of the situations they were facing. Elijah abused you into making hard to refuse deals with him, but you would do the same in his situation and in fact I am sure that you were in his situation in the past when you played the same game. Right? Kid: Hm, yes. When I play “well” and make lots of money I too behave the same, I think. I am Elijah, and Elijah is me when he doesn’t play “well”. TROM: Ok then, so what made you steal? Kid: The situation? The game? TROM: Yes! The game made you behave the way you did, and so it was for the other players. It’s the environment (situation) you were in. And sure, some in the same situation will behave differently than others, because of how they were raised, but that’s also the overall environment one grows in and faces. Point is, the environment makes people behave the way they do, whatever that means: kill others, help others, like video games or hate movies. Whatever their behavior is. TROM: Back to the “real” game, all of those problems like terrorism, bad products, lies, corruption, wars, and so on, are created by what, if not people? Think out of the box - I told you something in the beginning ;). Kid: Trade! The trade game! TROM: Finally, yes! The Game Of Trade (GOT) makes people behave badly, they become the ACT and create the CRAP. The GOT creates the ACT which creates the CRAP. :D - The environment of trade creates abusers, charlatans and thieves, and they create the awful situations we see today in the world. We trade stuff with each other, and the only reason we do that is because that’s how the game we play works. If we start all as equal, it does not matter because we all play the same trade game. In Monopoly even if you start with the same amount of money and hunger, thef properties you will have to play the trade game: drug abuse, acquire, sell, make deals with others, make more corruption, b money, and so on. Because that’s the nature of the environment game itself. slavery, crim pollution, l These will lead to all of the power, lack bad problems you know the quality prod Monopoly game creates. No rule can make any of these games just because the force of trade will push people to find loopholes and still put their profit over anything else. And that’s the same in the real life, with the trade game that we play. The problems that I listed above are like a reflection of the problems that would arise in a Monopoly game. There is no way to make the Monopoly game fair. That’s the idea. As long as the game requires you to trade between each other it will create imbalance of power and it will push anyone to do ‘bad’ things. Same happens in our world game when people steal and cheat. They do that because we live in a world where we are made to do that. If your parents would not have money to buy food for you, they would go and steal food or money to buy food for you because they love you and want you to eat and have a good life. But they are not bad people. heft, violence, inequality, e, terrorism, war, n, bribery, destruction of the nt, stress, starvation, rime, climate change, n, lack of education, abuse of ck of basic needs, poor oducts, and lots lots more. Kid: Is everything a trade? I mean, for example, if I give my bike to my friend for a ride and he gives me his skateboard for a ride, is that a trade? TROM: It is the need for trade that’s the problem. Would you give your bike to your friend for a ride if he had no skateboard to give you back? Kid: Sure, he is my friend. TROM: You do that because he is your friend. So you don’t need anything back from him. So, no trade. What you describe is sharing. TROM: But what if your friend really needed your bike when you really need it too? Would you choose to give the bike to him? Say both of you had the same urgent need for a bike, who would get to use it? Kid: Me, of course, because it is my bike. TROM: You see, that’s the problem: the need for trade. That’s not sharing anymore, that’s a need for trade. If your friend really needed a bike, you had one but you need it too (or didn’t want to give it to him), then that creates a need for trade. If there were enough bikes around then such a situation would never happen. TROM: Tell me, if your friend would give you, say 1 million dollars, to give him your bike in that situation, would you? Kid: Hm, that’s hard to refuse. If I didn’t need my bike that urgently….but I don’t think there is such an emergency that I won’t take the 1 million.... So I would take the money and give him the bike. TROM: Aha! See, you too are in need for trade. If you had access to anything you need and want, really anything (cars and planes, houses and food, gadgets and toys) would you take that 1 million? Kid: Maybe... TROM: But why? What would you do with the money if you could only spend it for yourself? What would you buy for yourself if you already had everything you wanted? Kid: So I could not buy anything with that money? TROM: Well, you could buy anything you want for yourself, but as I said you already had access to anything you want. Kid: Then the 1 million is pointless. TROM: Yes. It is. If we had whatever we needed and wanted then we would not trade because there will be no reason for that. You and your friend, the bike and skateboard, are not the problem at all. The fact that we lack access to stuff is the problem. Kid: Is all trade bad, then? TROM: Yes because it creates instability of power. You and your friend (or anyone else) could trade bikes for skateboards, Pokemon cards for fidget spinners, and all could be ok. You create fair trades between you guys and you are all happy. No problem at all. But the fact that there could be a problem, that’s a serious problem. If one of you really needed what the other had, then the other could take advantage of his power. TROM: In highschool I loved movies. Loved them! I was watching 3-4 movies a day. That’s 5 or so hours a day spent on watching movies. I slept 7, went to school another 7, and the rest (5 or so hours) spent eating and doing other stuff. So I spent 50% of my free time watching movies. Because I loved movies I learned where to get the latest releases (online) and at that time this was very hard to get your hands on. I became the only guy in my town who had the latest releases. That made me “powerful” amongst my friends. They would come to me to give them these juicy latest releases. I loved that. I became important. I gave them lots of movies and enjoyed recommending new movies to them. But in time the situation changed. Because I knew I was holding a powerful position by having something they didn’t and wanted to have, I became a bit shitty with them. I took advantage of my advantage and sometimes asked for stuff in return, or just accepted the stuff they would give me (a drink, money, sometimes I would ask them for other movies in return or software, stuff like that). Although they were my friends, the fact that I held that power made me change my behavior. Why would I give them these movies for free when I struggled so much to get a hold of them?! Later on I made a website and I started to sell these movies online. I would buy them from some shady online places that I knew, and sell them back to others (made copies of them on DVDs). I made a small ‘fortune’ out of that. At times I could not work alone on dealing with orders and I paid a few other friends to help me with that. But you see, instead of just sharing these movies online with those who wanted them and share them for free (because what is digital can be replicated billions of times without a cost), I would rather sell the movies to them. I became a charlatan and an abuser. I then started to not give movies away to friends who would ask for some but give me nothing in return - I would prefer to say that I don’t have any new movies. They gave me nothing, I gave them nothing. No trade, no movies to give. nic n e ice guy a guy t t at he the beginning beginning a a bit of it of a dic a d khe ickhe ad af after a ter w a while hile compl omp ete let douc e douchebag in the e the e nd Once I was waiting for a big order from this shady place I was buying these movies from - many new titles on brand new DVDs - remember this was a “black market” thing that I was doing back then. The package came via the post office. I was so excited! Went there, paid a large sum of money for that package, and they gave me a package that was light as a feather. It was empty. I felt a lump inside of my throat and a pressure in my chest. I was scammed big time. Apparently I wasn’t the only charlatan, there were more out there and they were doing these jackass stunts. I was so shocked I wanted to burst into tears and anger. I lost a shit load of money (for a kid). I had the address of the guy who sent the empty package and a phone number (something required by the post office to send packages). I called and called and no one answered. I wanted to go to that address and confront the other charlatan. I sent him messages lying that my parents worked in the justice department and that we filed a complaint against him and if he sends my money back we will not pursue the complaint. Nothing worked, of course. My only option, I thought, was to get my revenge. And I did the same scam this guy did to me. I had a classmate whose mother worked at a post office and we managed to send empty packages with inexistent names and addresses to unaware “customers”. First package sent, and we got some money from it. We were thrilled. I gave my classmate a percentage. We then sent several more and made more and more money, I am ashamed to say. I became a thief. So instead of me buying blank DVDs and burning movies to them then send them to “customers” in this fair way, I preferred to take the shortcut and send empty packages for a bigger monetary reward. Plus if I would have sold real movies that I had, I wouldn’t be able to lie that I have the latest releases, the bleeding edge releases, that I didn’t. When people saw my lies online, that I have the movie that just came out a day ago, they would order it immediately. Lying brought me more “customers”, easier, and more profits. Now imagine if I were not a 16 year old boy with movies and DVDs, but instead a 50 year old man owning a drug company. Ponder about that. That's the moral of the story: when the need for trade is present then it transform people into jackasses and they will create awful things. TROM: Want to know what put a stop to my awful behavior? Kid: I sure do. TROM: Abundance and Education. The Internet became faster and people could easily share these movies online for free on dedicated HUBs (online networks). Full of them. No one would be stupid enough to buy my DVDs. Also my lies about having the latest releases that no one had were easily spotted by people becoming more educated - they knew that such brand new releases can’t be obtained so quickly and if they were they should already be shared on HUBs. My “business” went bankrupt and I scammed unaware people...I am ashamed of what I did, but my environment made me do that. So many of my friends are still doing similar scams today, and they started because they were poor or were influenced by their entourage to want more, to acquire more. These people won’t stop until the need for trade disappears and makes what they do obsolete, like it did for me. I just could not trade because of the abundance of free movies that anyone could find online. But one more important thing you have to remember: if I was very poor or motivated enough to acquire more, going bankrupt wouldn’t have stopped me from finding new scamming methods. The fact that I was also part of a middle class family and had pretty much what I needed at that time, made me stop doing scams. This story is a classic example of what happens under the force of trade, and it can be found underneath every human or organization in the world today that is engaging in similar actions and behaviors on a daily basis to keep their differential advantage alive and thriving; to survive or grow in this game. I do stuff for your stuff To To summarize: summarize: We play a game, “The Game of Trade”. We trade our labor, energy, skills, knowledge, comfort, security, and so forth, for our needs and wants. That’s how simple it is. What we have to understand is that this is JUST a game and we can change it any way we want to. Take what you need, man, is not like they are mine. If you’re hungry, just eat :). Let’s forbid the trade of Elephant ivory! Arrest that criminal! The Game of Trade breeds bad behaviors that create lots of problems for everyone: pollution of the environment, corruption, slavery, lies, killing of animals, and so on. The problem is that most people believe that human behavior is the problem or the CRAP they create. So they either try to punish and change people’s behavior, or make the CRAP they create less crappy. And so those who try to fix this world are trapped in a loop because they don’t address the ‘elephant’ in the room (the force): what makes people behave so badly. People don’t understand that trade is the source of most problems. Trade is the force that pushes people to behave badly. They don’t think bold and out of the box. Or, more than likely, they are not aware of this. I have no food for my family so I’m going to hunt some Elephants to sell their tusks as ivory. The problems on your left are created by aging, the ones on the right by trade. We currently do not know how to fix aging, but a lot of progress is being done and the most important step is happening: the awareness of what is the core problem. atherosclerosis, cardiovascular disease, cancer, arthritis, cataracts, osteoporosis, type two diabetes, hypertension, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, osteoarthritis, age-related macular degeneration, hearing loss..... We also may not know how to tackle trade, but that’s not even important. The important bit is to understand that trade is the source of those problems, meaning most problems we see in the world today. hunger, theft, violence, inequality, drug abuse, terrorism, war, corruption, bribery, destruction of the environment, stress, starvation, slavery, crime, climate change, pollution, lack of education, abuse of power, lack of basic needs, poor quality products, and lots lots more. I challenge you: take any domain in this world (fishing, electronics, school, friendship, religion, terrorism, scientific research, everything) and put the microscope on any of them and at their core you’ll see that the force of trade is everywhere and it influences everything, mostly in a bad way. Keep in mind this chain of events: t t h h ee ffo o r r c c ee o o ff ttr r a a d d ee c c r r eea a ttees s tth h ee b b a a d d b b eeh h a a vviio o r r s s,, a a n n d d tth h ee b b a a d d b b eeh h a a vviio o r r s s c c r r eea a ttee tth h ee ppr r o o b b lleem m s s.. got act Game Of Trade creates Abusers, Charlata the force the beha act crap crap atans, Thieves: creates Common, Recurring, and haviors Amplifying Problems hunger, theft, violence, inequality, drug abuse, terrorism, war, corruption, bribery, destruction of the environment, stress, starvation, slavery, crime, climate change, pollution, lack of education, abuse of power, lack of basic needs, poor quality products, and lots lots more. Ok Kid? Kid!? Where are you!? Oh, there you are. Yes you who is reading this book. I am talking to you. I sure hope that you are the Kid because I want you to have an open mind and think big because I want to take you with me on a journey through the real life game, the game of trade, the one you play on a daily basis. I will show you how the force of trade pushes people to behave badly. I will show you what kinds of behaviors it creates and how groups of people transformed into Monopolies that are basically owning the game. And then I’ll show you how much mess these people create all around the world: from China to Africa, Europe to America, and even outside planet Earth. This might be a lengthy journey, but in order to understand how the game works, you need to know it in detail. And after I show you the bad and the ugly, I’ll show you the good. Because we can indeed change this and I’ll equip you with several tools that you can take with you to try and change the game. UNDERSTAND, ACCEPT, GET READY, FIGHT! Come with me! UNDERSTAND T H E F O R C E : G O T Before understanding the effects of the force, we must understand what the force is. So, let’s talk about currency vs money vs trade. Today’s society is almost entirely based on trade. People go to work because they trade their skills, energy, and time in return for food, comfort, a place to stay, and so forth. WAKE UP GO WORK TRADE: ENERGY, TIME, GET: CURRENCY, FOOD, They represent this with money, but could be anything else (any currency) or it can be a direct trade: like they do some work in return for food or whatever they may need or want. The crazy maze you see in the world: companies, governments, businesses, jobs, ownership, social statuses, prices, they all revolve around this trade notion. Everyone is in a constant trade with others, an imbalance that will destroy the entire human species if left alone. IF CURRENCY EXCHANGE E, SKILLS, DIGNITY, etc. FOR NEEDS D, SECURITY, STUFF, etc. AND WANTS trading WITH currencies: cryptocurrencies TWO GUYS DISCUSSING AT A BAR/RESTAURANT. The fucking money is the problem, man! The Federal Reserve Bank creates money out of thin air. That’s theft! We should back up the money reserve with gold. At least that has tangible value! I think cryptocurrencies are the future. No one owns them. They are decentralized and correct. That’s a true currency, and they have a limit as to how many can be created so we can’t just invent currencies and consume infinitely on a finite planet. Bullshit! :) Hi! Replacing currencies to make the world better, is like changing hats to become smarter. People have complained about the influence of money and the harm it does for a long long time. They are right, but they are also completely wrong. It is true that the monetary system is by far the biggest trade system there is or ever was, but the reality is that money is just one of the many representations of trade, and today more and more companies, governments, or other organizations are moving away from money to other forms of trade. Blaming money will divert your attention from hidden trades that are not represented by money or any other currency. Also, money is seen as the root cause of problems by many nowadays because of the way money is created (like how the Federal Reserve Bank operates by basically creating money out of thin air), and so people think that the solution is to replace money with another currency, like cryptocurrencies. But that’s like replacing McDonald's with Burger King. Therefore we must address the big pink fat and sweaty elephant in the room: the distinction between money and trade. Or better said, the distinction between currency and trade. currency VS trade Let me show you something folks. A new kind of Internet! SafeNetwork is an amazingly great project – it is almost like a puppy who doesn’t poop (just right!). Why is this puppy so great? Because it creates a fully decentralized network and it is free. Basically it is the Internet without a central governance. It is secure and encrypted and theoretically impossible (or very hard) to censor since the data is stored on multiple computers on the network. It is also Open Source and people can contribute to make apps that will run inside of the network in a decentralized way. Overall it seems like a much better alternative to the Internet because today’s Internet is often censored and controlled by a few, like governments or Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Therefore, SafeNetwork being this decentralized Internet seems like the perfect Internet. But even here there is a catch: you have to provide the resources of your computer (hard disk space, processing power, and bandwidth) to the network to get more in return. No one forces you to contribute your computer resources to the network, but it is kind of a must if you want to be able to store data inside the network (basically to use the network for what it is intended). This doesn’t seem like a big deal, after all if I give 100GB of hard drive space to the network and 20% of my CPU and I get back a similar amount of storage and CPU power inside the network, then that’s great because now I have my files on the network, safe - stored online but distributed on many computers like torrent technology works (peer to peer). However, because I have to engage in a trade with the network to get more goodies from them, this gives rise to problems. You’ll see that although this puppy doesn’t poop, it pees quite a lot. For example, the same people behind the network developed a currency called SafeCoin. How can you use it? Well, think about what is being traded in the system: hard disk space, processing power and bandwidth. Easy to see what SafeCoins would be used for: to buy these things. You can use SafeCoins to buy more storage space on the network, for example. And now everything will get ruined because it will be a reflection of our monetary system: a trade game represented by a currency – classic PG (problem generator). What about Same kinds of puppies! Bitcoin, They are al called Ethereum or “cryptocurrencies” or “digital Monero then? currencies”, but they are stil currencies representing trade. You can make more Bitcoins or Monero if you rent your computer’s processing power to their networks (basically enslaving your computer to the network to work for you), and that leads to the emergence of all kinds of profiteers who are now embedding scripts into their websites and when you visit their websites you unknowingly get your computer enslaved by their scripts to work for them to make them more such currencies. Imagine if I implement this script into tromsite.com and when you visit the site the script will use your processor’s power and mine Bitcoins or Monero for me. And you have no clue about that. How unfair is that? That’s what many do nowadays to exploit cryptocurrencies for their own gain. They even embed these scripts into ads and YouTube, and there are over 32.000 websites using these scripts (hard to say which ones use them intentionally, and which were hacked and had this code injected into them). Back to SafeCoin, it too can be traded and exchanged into Bitcoins and perhaps other currencies. It too is the same as any other currency, and it too will give rise to profiteers who will use SafeCoins in similar ways – instead of me enslaving your processor when you visit tromsite.com to make more Bitcoins for myself, I can enslave your hard disk space to the SafeNetwork so that I can get more goodies from the network or make SafeCoins out of that, and then buy 1.000 chewing gums and a baby zebra with the currency that I made :). Ethereum is another very popular cryptocurrency that was hacked in 2016 and 1/3 of their currency was stolen (worth around $70 million at that time), and the entire Ethereum community went through a lot of fights, arguments, splits, and anger, and they are accused of fraud, censorship, and more. (source 1, 2, 3, 4). And Bitconnect, one of 20 most successful cryptocurrencies in 2017, shut down at the beginning of 2018 after swimming through the mud of scam fooling thousands of people and eventually going bankrupt (source). More here about cryptocurrency fraud and scams. BlockChain But let’s understand these crypto/digital currencies because they will pop into existence more and more over the next years so we better have a good idea of how they work. First let’s understand BlockChain, because BlockChain is the foundation of almost all cryptocurrencies. Buckle up! Money, the currency, is managed through centralized systems. If I send $100 from Spain to Romania through my Spanish bank account then I “push” a request to my bank to take $100 from my account and give it to the other account in Romania. My bank basically has to ensure that it removes the $100 from my account and adds that $100 to the other account, else they can take my $100 and put it into another account or not put it anywhere. Similarly, it can forget to take the $100 from my account but still add $100 to the other account , in this case, creating $100 out of thin air. All kinds of errors can happen, but the point is that all of these transactions are between closed doors and between centralized locations (banks or other institutions that keep an eye on these transactions). ME TO BANK BANK TO B BANK UPDATES LEDGER LEDGER LEDG My ledger + $100 - $ If you go to make a deposit to your bank account and give them $183 but they add into the computer $318 by mistake (lucky you!), then you’ll have $318 in your bank account even though you gave them $183 in cash, and that’s because digital money is (of course) a bunch of numbers. These numbers must be kept track of by the bank and so they are added to a “thing” ( a record), like a piece of digital paper. Let’s call this thing a “ledger” . Ledger is like a document that keeps track of your financial operations: how much money you have in your bank account, how much you took from it, how much you received, your transfers and such. It is your balance. Keep this “ledger” word in mind because we will use it a lot. So banks are centralized and they have to talk to other banks to make sure they transfer these imaginary numbers we call money from one to another and do this properly or else they can fuck things up really badly if they don’t put in the proper numbers, addresses, date, whatever. They are basically editing these “ledgers”, these documents, writing imaginary numbers onto them. The ledger is therefore a key factor in transactions because it keeps track of all transactions. BANK BANK TO HIM BANK UPDATES LEDGER GER LEDGER LEDGER - $100 + $100 - $100 His ledger Now BlockChain is so cocky that it says it can solve these issues and also get rid of banks altogether. BlockChain is nothing more than a piece of software with some rules, and these rules are important. But basically BlockChain is all about that frickin’ LEDGER thing. So let’s say we are a group of 5 friends and we want to keep track of our spendings with each other. If Mario gives Tio $700, then Mario can write down on a digital paper (a ledger) for everyone to see: “Mario pays Tio $700” . Anyone can write down these statements on this public ledger. LEDGER ✔ Mario pays Tio $700 ✔ Mario pays Alice $78 ✔ Tio pays Alice $44 ✔ Alice pays Tio $12 ✔ Dan pays Mario $166 ✔ … We now have a ledger with all transactions to keep track of our in-group spendings. The real world is like replacing these 5 people with 300 million Americans for example, and the ledger is what a bank has access to in order to keep track of where money goes (who transferred to who and how much, and when). Now back to our group, we want to make these transactions without a middle man (like a bank), but how can we do that? If anyone from the group can write such statements on the ledger, what stops Mario to randomly write: “Mario pays Tio $700” or whatever!? We need to make sure these statements are correct. A bank can do that because you move money through the bank and it records that, and it can confirm that indeed Mario didn’t pay Tio $700 because there was no such transaction going through the bank, so the ledger with that statement is invalid. “Fuck you Mario! Bad bad Mario.” - signed, Tio :). Now things will get a bit more complex, but bear with me. If “Mario pays Tio $700” then Tio should confirm this as true, else Mario will lie like a bastard and will give Tio nothing. “Sad Tio, sad sad Tio.”. So if this indeed happened, then Tio should sign it as a confirmation. “Mario pays Tio $700 – signed Tio” . He confirms that Mario paid him $700. Now we are better of with Tio having a say in all of this. However, digitally this is not going to work since whatever signature Tio uses, that is digital and replicable, so Mario can sign it himself if he wants to. “Mario pays Tio $700 – signed Mario with Tio’s forged signature” . From now on I will oversimplify how BlockChain works, because the process is very complex, but you need to understand the essence of it and not the details. (for details see this video, read this, and search about it). The signature is important in a transaction to make these transactions valid. So, how can we make it unique and not- replicable? How can we make it so that Tio can sign that statement in a way that we guarantee it was him and only him? We can solve this if we have two sets of keys (bunch of random numbers). Say Tio has two such keys: public (q4erfefevfqvbewqECM) and private (q3vqewraewrfvtrE$VTQ). When Mario sends the message “Mario pays Tio $700” to the ledger, Tio sees it, and if it’s true, he confirms it (signs it) by combining his private key (q3vqewraewrfvtrE$VTQ) with the content of the message, and this results in a unique signature. Remember that a key, a letter, a message, or anything in the digital world is made up of bits of code/information (binary). All the same at their structure. So you can indeed combine a key with a message, a photo of a dog with a song, and so forth. All are 0 and 1 (bits of information - binary). So a signature = private key x message. “q3vqewraewrfvtrE$VTQ” x “Mario pays Tio $700”. OR IN “DIGITAL/BINARY” FORMAT IT MAY LOOK LIKE: 01110001 00110011 01110110 01110001 01100101 01110111 01110010 01100001 01100101 01110111 01110010 01100110 01110110 01110100 01110010 01000101 00100100 01010110 01010100 01010001 X 0100110101100001011100100110100101101111 0010000001110000011000010111100101110011 0010000001010100011010010110111100100000 00100100001101110011000000110000 = SIGNATURE (a bunch of 1s and 0s resulted from the above combination) A mathematical formula combines the two (private key and the message) and it results in a signature. This signature is unique since you used a private key (q3vqewraewrfvtrE$VTQ) and a unique message (“Mario pays Tio $700”). If you were to change the message then the signature will also change, making it invalid. Look at how this message looks like in binary: “Mario pays Tio $700” 0100110101100001011100100110100101101111001000000111000 0011000010111100101110011001000000101010001101001011011 110010000000100100001101110011000000110000 And here how it looks if you change the message to: “Tio pays Mario $700” 0101010001101001011011110010000001110000011000010111100 1011100110010000001001101011000010111001001101001011011 110010000000100100001101110011000000110000 Or “Mario pays Tio $5” 0100110101100001011100100110100101101111001000000111000 0011000010111100101110011001000000101010001101001011011 11001000000010010000110101 If you look closely to the 1s and 0s you’ll see the differences. Therefore, a unique message combined with a unique private key results in a complicated mess of a unique signature. If I want to copy that same signature, I could since everything is digital, but if I attach that signature to another message it won’t work because we can verify that it is not from that message. That unique signature has traces to both the “Mario pays Tio $700” and Tio’s private key. Therefore we just made a unique signature that cannot be copied to another message. We cannot copy this signature of Tio to another message to scam the poor guy, because it won’t work. I will not explain more because it serves no purpose right now and it is quite complicated, but basically this is how a unique signature is produced. And since Tio’s private and public keys are connected, we can use Tio’s public key to verify that, indeed, only he could have signed that message and no one else. But anyone can copy paste that entire message with Tio’s signature a billion times into our public ledger: LEDGER ✔ Mario pays Tio $700 – signed by Tio ✔ Mario pays Tio $700 – signed by Tio ✔ Mario pays Tio $700 – signed by Tio ✔ Mario pays Tio $700 – signed by Tio ✔ Mario pays Tio $700 – signed by Tio ✔ … And people will be like: “Wow, Mario pays Tio so much money...and Tio signed them all so it must be true. Tio got fuckin’ rich”. To fix that, each transaction like “Mario pays Tio $700 – signed by Tio” has a unique ID: LEDGER ✔ #12 Mario pays Tio $700 – signed by Tio ✔ #13 Mario pays Tio $700 – signed by Tio ✔ #14 Mario pays Tio $700 – signed by Tio ✔ #15 Mario pays Tio $700 – signed by Tio ✔ #16 Mario pays Tio $700 – signed by Tio ✔ #17 Mario pays Tio $700 – signed by Tio ✔ … So you can’t just copy paste that transaction to our ledger since every new transaction has a unique ID that requires a new signature from Tio. These IDs are also connected with each other in order: say they all know when a previous entry was created (in reality they know more than that). LEDGER ✔ #12 (I know when transaction #11 was created) Mario pays Tio $700 – signed by Tio ✔ #13 (I know when transaction #12 was created) Mario pays Tio $700 – signed by Tio ✔ #14 (I know when transaction #13 was created) Mario pays Tio $700 – signed by Tio ✔ #15 (I know when transaction #14 was created) Mario pays Tio $700 – signed by Tio ✔ #16 (I know when transaction #15 was created) Mario pays Tio $700 – signed by Tio ✔ #17 (I know when transaction #16 was created) Mario pays Tio $700 – signed by Tio ✔ … The only way the above transactions could happen is if they are all being added one by one and each time signed by Tio. Basically, BlockChain is all about keeping track of such things (call them transactions): how they were created, if they are unique, if they are connected with each other, etc.. This is its backbone and all of the rules I described are to ensure everything stays correct and non- hackable. Bitcoin (or most cryptocurrencies) takes the idea of BlockChain and uses it to create and distribute cryptocurrencies. Instead of $ let’s use TromCoins (TC). We give each of the 5 people in the group 100TC as default to start with (as that’s basically how all such cryptocurrencies start). So it’s like we play the Monopoly game and give each player a starting amount of money. We put these into our ledger: LEDGER ✔ #1 (I know when transaction #0 was created) Mario gets 100TC - signed by Mario ✔ #2 (I know when transaction #1 was created) Alice gets 100TC - signed by Alice ✔ #3 (I know when transaction #2 was created) Tio gets 100TC - signed by Tio ✔ #4 (I know when transaction #3 was created) Dan gets 100TC - signed by Dan ✔ #5 (I know when transaction #4 was created) Karla gets 100TC - signed by Karla ✔ … Now the transactions can start for all kinds of reasons, like maybe Karla wants to send 20TC to Alice because Alice gave her her bike. Mario pays Dan 40TC for Dan’s dancing lessons. Whatever. Keep in mind these TC transactions are possible via a piece of software, since they are digital currencies. And the BlockChain starts: LEDGER ✔ #6 (I know when transaction #5 was created) Karla pays Alice 20TC - signed by Alice ✔ #7 (I know when transaction #6 was created) Mario pays Dan 40TC - signed by Dan ✔ #8 (I know when transaction #7 was created) Alice pays Tio 17TC - signed by Tio ✔ #9 (I know when transaction #8 was created) Mario pays Tio 70TC - signed by Tio Looking at transactions we spotted something: Mario already spent 110TC (40TC to Dan and 70TC to Tio) and he didn’t receive any TC. So he tried to spend more than he had in his last transaction to Tio. Therefore we add a rule to our TromCurrency and say: “We don’t let people spend more than they have.”. So this is where BlockChain is useful for a currency because with all of the above that we discussed, BlockChain can keep track of such transactions in order, and at transaction #9, it identifies that the transaction is invalid since Mario doesn’t have that much TC to spend so it declares it invalid. All of this was possible because of the previous rules to ensure trust, to ensure order, to ensure validity. Imagine now how we can exchange “real” paper money with TC. Tio gives 40 Euros to Karla (physically) and Karla agrees to transfer 1TC to Tio in return, through our BlockChain. That is then registered in the system when Karla “pushes” the transfer to the BlockChain via a piece of software (similar to how you “push” a transaction through a bank): “Karla pays Tio 1TC – signed by Tio”. In our tiny TromCoins world that we’ve created, we could say that 1TC = 40 Euros. No one can guarantee that Tio gave Karla the 40 Euros since that happened offline and is beyond the BlockChain technology. Or that the above happened: that Alice gave her bike to Karla or Dan gave dancing lessons to Mario. THE SYSTEM OF BLOCKCHAIN IS INCUBATED AND IT ONLY CARES ABOUT THOSE DIGITAL TRANSACTIONS. That’s something very important to keep in mind. BlockChain has no connection to what really happens in the world. All of statements/transactions in a ledger managed by BlockChain can be imaginary (not real) and BlockChain won’t give a fuck about that. It only cares for the consistency of transactions in that ledger. For the last part now, in order to understand cryptocurrencies, a bunch of transactions like the above are merged together and put inside a block (think of it as a part of the ledger). Like this: BLOCK 02042382 ✔ #6 (I know when transaction #5 was created) Karla pays Alice 20TC - signed by Alice ✔ #7 (I know when transaction #6 was created) Mario pays Dan 40TC - signed by Dan ✔ #8 (I know when transaction #7 was created) Alice pays Tio 17TC - signed by Tio ✔ #9 (I know when transaction #8 was created) Mario pays Tio 20TC - signed by Tio Any such block is, again, unique. And all blocks are connected with other blocks to keep track of them in order. This is where the name BLOCK + CHAIN comes from. It is a chain of blocks, and blocks contain transactions. And we have the complete BlockChain of the TromCoin: people submit transactions, transactions are signed and connected with other transactions, these transactions are put into blocks, blocks are connected with each other. It’s nothing more than keeping a record of transactions. And we can now use this system to create our own TROM economy. We now have a chain of blocks for the TromCoin, which records all transactions. This is the “real ledger”, the complete one. Instead of a document- like thing, we have a chain of blocks that we call “a ledger”. Since it is only one single chain creating this ledger, we each have a copy of it (the 5 persons in the group) and we together form a network of 5 computers connected to each other. Voilà, we created our own decentralized economy: 5 people with 5 computers, a BlockChain software to allow for transactions to happen, and all of these transactions are added inside the ledger. And we all have access to this ledger. When new transactions happen, they are added into a block, the block to the chain, and all of the TromCoin BlockChain updated on all of our computers. TC TC TC BLO 4 TO C TC TC TRANSACTION TRANSACTION TRANSACT 1 2 3 HAPPENING SIGNED TO BLOC BLOCK 0 #6 (I know when transaction #5 was created) Karla pays Alice 20TC - signed by Alice #7 (I know when transaction #6 was created) Mario pays Dan 40TC - signed by Dan #8 (I know when transaction #7 was created) Alice pays Tio 17TC - signed by Tio #9 (I know when transaction #8 was created) Mario pays Tio 20TC - signed by Tio TC BLOCK 1 #6 (I know when transaction #5 was created) Karla pays Alice 20TC - signed by Alice #7 (I know when transaction #6 was created) Mario pays Dan 40TC - signed by Dan #8 (I know when transaction #7 was created) Alice pays Tio 17TC - signed by Tio #9 (I know when transaction #8 was created) Mario pays Tio 20TC - signed by Tio TC TC BLOCK 2 #6 (I know when transaction #5 was created) TC TC Karla pays Alice 20TC - signed by Alice #7 (I know when transaction #6 was created) Mario pays Dan 40TC - signed by Dan #8 (I know when transaction #7 was created) Alice pays Tio 17TC - signed by Tio #9 (I know when transaction #8 was created) Mario pays Tio 20TC - signed by Tio BLOCK-CHAIN 5 UPDATED ON ALL COMPUTERS BLOCK 3 #6 (I know when transaction #5 was created) Karla pays Alice 20TC - signed by Alice #7 (I know when transaction #6 was created) Mario pays Dan 40TC - signed by Dan #8 (I know when transaction #7 was created) Alice pays Tio 17TC - signed by Tio #9 (I know when transaction #8 was created) This way the system updates in a Mario pays Tio 20TC - signed by Tio decentralized manner and we all have LOCK a copy of these transactions plus we CHAIN can see these transactions in order. BLOCK 4 THEREFORE IT IS #6 (I know when transaction #5 was created) Karla pays Alice 20TC - signed by Alice DECENTRALIZED AND OPEN. #7 (I know when transaction #6 was created) Mario pays Dan 40TC - signed by Dan #8 (I know when transaction #7 was created) Alice pays Tio 17TC - signed by Tio #9 (I know when transaction #8 was created) Mario pays Tio 20TC - signed by Tio TION CK THE VERIFICATION PROCESS NOW. In order to verify the above mess (if a transaction is signed by the right person, if the transactions happen in order, and so forth), we need a lot of computational power to encrypt and decrypt basically, and that is a way to ensure that transactions are correct and blocks are added correctly in order. Again, you don’t have to know the details of this, you only have to remember that the entire premise of reward for most cryptocurrencies is “computational power”. When a transaction happens, it is shared with everyone in the network, and the computer that can verify the validity of the transaction faster (has the beefiest computer) is rewarded by the system. Let’s call these computers who do the work: miners. So, say in our example, the miner who can first check if the new transactions are correct is given 0.001TC as a reward (and with that we add new currency into the game – because we can since they are imaginary). The more people inside our network (and thus computers), the more transactions, the more rewards, the more TC we create. MINER 2 INITIATES TRANSACTION WITH MINER Miner 1 4 AND BROADCASTS IT TO EVERYONE IN THE NETWORK Miner 2 Miner 3 Miner 4 Miner 5 MINER 5 VERIFIES THE TRANSACTION FIRST AND IS REWARDED The more transactions, the more blocks into our system, the messier the mess and the harder to verify this mess. The chain of blocks gets bigger and bigger and harder therefore to verify the validity of it all. Therefore, the more we play this TromCoin game, the more computational power we need. People indeed make more TC now, but to make them they also need better and better computers, so it’s getting harder for people to make TC. If at the beginning, making 0.001TC meant to have a decent laptop, now for the same value you have to have a high end computer. In time you may need to invest a lot into buying a super powerful computer in order to make the same amount of TC as a miner. In essence, since this entire craziness is growing, you will reach a tipping point where the computational power to make more TC becomes so huge it is not worth it to mine more coins anymore. This is why people are saying that such cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are finite. So this is how BlockChain is used to create cryptocurrencies. And BlockChain itself is nothing more than a sophisticated way of keeping track of records. These can be transactions (like a currency), medical records, keeping track of sold goods, or resources consumed, or whatever you may think of. It is a 1992 technology re-branded for cryptocurrencies primarily. BlockChain is a distributed ledger basically. Nothing more than that. Remember that. Sure, it is a smart database which is resistant to alterations, thus ensuring a high degree of reliability. But is nothing more than that. And we will see later on how this too can be manipulated/hacked for profit. On top of that, a BlockChain can be private, can have different rules, and can be centralized or used for all kinds of harmful and profit-based purposes. For instance, banks are adopting the BlockChain technology to simplify their transactions... Imagine that... BlockChain, aimed to remove the need for banks, is now going to help banks make easier and more secure profits. (source) Hey guys, do you make any Bitcoins yourself I invest into cryptocurrencies, man. I buy them, then their value goes up, and I get a profit off of that. But you don’t make any yourself. You still have to use another currency (like money) to buy these cryptocurrencies. Three years after the Bitcoin was born into existence, a very powerful computer (like an 8-core i7 processor over-clocked at 3.4ghz with 8GB of DDR3 and a good Nvidia Graphics card) could barely make any Bitcoins. And that’s because making Bitcoins from home, even with such a powerful computer, was a complete joke. You were trying to compete with companies that were building entire server rooms filled with hundreds or thousands of computers to mine Bitcoins. Today, if you were to mine Bitcoins or any other popular cryptocurrency on a similar computer, you would have to pay a few bucks from your own money, per month, for that. So you would not only make no profit, but you would also have to pay for doing this (electricity bills for the computer running software to mine these cryptocurrencies). If you want to mine from home, you need to invest many thousands of dollars into buying powerful hardware designed for that. (source 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) Nowadays most of the Bitcoins (or other cryptocurrencies) are mined by large servers (computers) that are optimized for doing this exact job of mining. To save on energy costs (since that’s basically the cost they have to pay for mining) some of these companies build these servers in either cold climates like Iceland, or in China where electricity is cheaper. (source) These companies and servers, or what is called as “mining pools”, are so powerful today that mining Bitcoins from your own computer is just ridiculous. Over 81% of these mining pools are in China. VS AND TO PUT SALT ON AN OPEN WOUND, MINING BITCOIN (THE LARGEST CRYPTOCURRENCY TO DATE) IS SUCKING IN MORE ENERGY THAN THESE 159 TRIBES COMBINED. (source) If Bitcoin miners were a country in terms of energy consumption, it would rank 60 on the world scale, consuming more energy per year than tribes like Morocco, Hungary, Serbia, Ireland, or Slovakia. Uruguay, Paraguay and Costa Rica combined do not use as much energy as the Bitcoin network. (source 1, 2) At this phase, it is estimated that the Bitcoin network will consume the total world electricity consumption by February 2020 (source). You can watch this documentary about Bitcoin for more information about the subject. Imagine the stupidity of our species, consuming all of their energy for a worthless currency To understand cryptocurrencies is crucial since they are going to replace the currency “money” more and more. And it is important to understand that these cryptocurrencies are not in any way better than money or any other currency. Crypto/digital currencies are to money, like Facebook is to TV. You know how some people have this argument that they don’t watch the ol’ TV anymore - the old media, fake, biased, controlled by a few... Instead, they use Facebook to get their news and they brag about it. “Dude I’m done with the ol’ biased media. I get my news from FB. From independent journalists!” But they see the same shit on Facebook that they saw on TV. The medium has changed, but not the content. They think that some popular guy or a bunch of people on Facebook who do not belong to any news network is/are more truthful due to their “independence”, yet these creatures are the same hungry-for-views entities that would exaggerate, and lie, and deceive. That’s because both the ol’ media and the new one are part of the Game Of Trade and get influenced by it. That’s the illusion with cryptocurrencies. People think that we have to ditch the “old money” that is controlled by these ‘evil’ entities (like governments), and move to the new cool kid on the block, the crypto-kid (the cryptocurrency). But the “cool kid on the block” is the same creature as the ol’ dude (the money) only better smelling, nicer dressed, younger, and a lot more deceiving. These cryptocurrencies are now slowly adopted by many tribes around the world (source) and this is like a magician fooling an entire crowd of people. “Yeah, bring on the new! Bring on the cryptocurrencies! That’s the future!” - many will be screaming, but they lack the understanding that money wasn’t the problem in the first place. If anything, cryptocurrencies will be even more unfair and tightly controlled than money. Not to mention the Monopolies that will form around these cryptocurrencies, as they already are. There are lots of such cryptocurrencies nowadays and more are popping into existence - 1.4 thousand as of 2018 and growing rapidly (source). Anyone can invent their own currency. But all are hijacked for profit one way or another. There is no way to make a currency fair, regardless of the rules. Cryptocurrencies or just digital currencies, are all the same. Another hat on top of the trade game. Therefore, if you want to change the GOT (Game Of Trade) by replacing the currency “money” with another currency, then you are going to face the same CRAP and the evidence for that is all around you with these new cryptocurrencies that are not improving anything and are creating the same issues we see orbiting the “money” currency. It is like you’re eating shit and feel sick, and your solution is to put different condiments on the shit to eat it again, but you eat the same shit only slightly more spicy. Point is: stop eating shit. No condiment will change the essence of it. First, get the point that money is just one of the many currencies out there and it seems to get out-of-fashion and pushed aside by these other new digital currencies that are sparking into existence like mold in warm, damp, and humid conditions. Games invent their own points and currencies, social networks invent their own ranking system that is converted into their own currencies, and pretty much anyone is able to invent these measurements of trade. Gift cards, vouchers, food stamps, they are all currencies. (here’s a list of all currencies) Second thing, understand that you can trade without currencies. trading WITHOUT currencies: influencer marketing One key thing about this journey is to showcase that trade goes beyond money, even beyond any currency. You can remove money or all other currencies and you’ll still see plenty of issues emerged from trades that involve none of those. Let’s unhide some trades that happen every day, from all around the world, that may not be known to people as being “trades”. GIRLS BROWSING THEIR INSTAGRAM FEED Oh, this dress is so gorgeous. I love Kira’s Instagram! Yes she is such a beautiful Instagram model. I would love to look like her! Girls, this is just an example of how in our world we trade without the need of any currency. And man. .you are so easy to fool….I am sad to see that. Kendall Jenner 92m followers These Instagram models get free clothes from companies, they dress in the clothes, then post on Instagram – it is an advertisement for these companies in return for free clothes. (source) This is a well known form of marketing and it is called “ influencer marketing” . Companies are looking for people who have influence over others and try to sell and promote their products through these creatures. The companies can give them currency (like money) but they are also engaging in direct trades where they give away free products in exchange for advertising. There are many so called “influencer apps” that are making these trades easier. You just need a social account like Instagram and some followers, then you install the app, find some companies to partner with you, and they send you free stuff and you post on your social networks about their stuff. The more likes and shares you have, the more products they’ll send you. When you see these girls recommending those products, ask yourself: are they recommending these products, or are they just “talking mouths” promoting a brand for free stuff in return? Is this Instagram model posing at the beach or is she advertising that bikini? Same thing happens on YouTube where tech companies send their products to “tech reviewers” for free, or send them special invitations to their special events influencing their “review”. If you get laptops and phones for free from the PIMP company it is pretty damn hard to be honest when you review their products. Do a bad job at being a prostitute for the PIMP, and you may not get goodies from them in the future. MKBHD Here’s a part of an interview with the most influential Tech Reviewer on YouTube at the moment (he is from the 6.3m subs US), talking about this issue. He does say that he is not really influenced that much by companies sending him their tech, though of course he cannot admit that so easily and lose credibility (and subscribers, and views, and money), however he admits the huge influence of these tech companies. And here’s yet another huge YouTube Tech Reviewer (biggest from Canada) making an ‘honest’ iPhoneX review after Apple didn’t send him the phone in advance for review like they do for most big Tech Reviewers – so the guy is basically saying: “Here’s how an honest review looks like, not influenced by Apple sending me their stuff for review.”. He too admits companies influence reviewers big time. And lastly, the largest UK Tech Reviewer talking about this as well. And here’s a random YouTube example of a review influenced by direct trades (Influencer Marketing scheme). Supersaf tv Unbox Therapy 1m subs 11m subs This is nothing new though. I remember in the 90s how companies like Avon, who were selling beauty products, came to our town to make businesses with all of the mothers and daughters they could find. It was a “deceive and conquer approach”. Every female creature in my town “partnered” with them to sell their stuff in return for getting free products from Avon. These “talking mouths” were so convincing that you could bet that this new perfume is gonna ‘bring a prince for ya’. And they engaged in these charlatan-like behaviors for free products in return. Take some Avon Avon products are products for yourself, the best, Karen! and then sell our I use them on daily products to others :) basis. Also, 20% off You go girl! for you on any product! Phillips (tech company) went to poor villages in India and searched for “talking mouths” who would want free products in return for advertising. So Phillips started to sell wood stoves to poor people in India via these “influencing people” with whom Phillips engaged in direct trades, eventually making these poor people even poorer by hyping products that were neither that useful nor well made. (source) Hey, we’ll give you a wood stove if you sell more of them to your village friends! This wood stove will change your life! It is going to revolutionize the way you cook! From online makeup tutorials that are sponsored through product placements, to sweets sent to all kinds of popular Internet stars as treats to do food challenges with them, this extends everywhere and is a very “fashionable” thing to do nowadays. It’s hard to tell today if people are genuinely reviewing that brand new laptop or if it is a trade deal with a company. Is this food challenge just a fun video, or are you promoting this brand that makes those sweets? Is this a vlog or a promotion for various fashion companies? Websites lock down their content behind Facebook likes so that you have to like their Facebook page in order to access their content, because that in turn makes them more popular on Facebook, which in turn will provide more benefit for them (exposure) and they will be able to engage into future trades - “Hey, we have 1 million followers on our Facebook page, do you want us to promote your stuff? If so, give us free stuff and we promote your stuff. Deal!”; others ask you to leave a comment on their video for whatever reasons (like to win something from them) because they know that more comments can mean more YouTube exposure for their video - “Is this dude really interested in me leaving a comment with my opinion, or is he trying to make us all leave a comment so that he gets more exposure!?”; and so on and so on. The big problem is that this has blended so much with normality that nowadays you can’t tell which things are ads, which ones are not, what is influenced by companies and brands, and what’s not. But from all I know looking at our society, with all of the knowledge I have, I’ll say most people spend their life watching and admiring an advertisement show. In the ‘ol days you were watching ads in between shows on TV, or via teleshopping programs, and movies slightly injected a Coke into one of their scenes, but nowadays mostly everything is influenced in one way or another by trade deals. And the Internet made it spread like wildfire. I recommend this d ocumentary to see how many people this influencer marketing scheme reaches online, which is staggering. So, you see, the “influencer marketing scheme”, one of the many schemes that engages in direct trades. No currency needed. It’s like a big ad. Add that to mind. trading WITHOUT currencies: data collection and the scam of “fr I love the Internet. So much free free” stuff! YouTube, Facebook, Google! We live in such a remarkable time when knowledge is free. Information is free! To express yourself is… NOT FREE! None of these are free, my friend. None. Yes they might be money free, or bitcoin free, or safecoin free, but not trade free. Be aware of the word “free”! This word is so deceiving that it is scary. Facebook, YouTube, Google, and almost any service you see (offline or online) are not free at all. If I give you a bike and say: “Give me 5 nude photos of you in return!”, would you give me the photos, take the bike, and happily say that you just got a bike for free? Of course not. You had to give me 5 nude photos of you for that bike. You traded your intimacy, comfort, privacy, dignity for that bike. If I give you a phone and say: “Take it, it is free! It’s yours! Oh, one thing, I installed this tracking app that can’t be uninstalled and it will track you: what you write, what you watch, what you read, your contacts, and pretty much everything you do on your phone. But the phone is free! Take it!” - would you, again, take the phone and be happy that you just got a phone for free? No. You allowed me to spy on you and you got a phone for that. Then, what is the difference when you buy a phone that has an operating system that collects your data and sells it to advertisers? When Facebook collects your data in return for you accessing its services, why would you call that free? Why are you saying YouTube is free when it injects ads into your face and collects your data? Or Google that does the same? Therefore Facebook, YouTube, Google and the like are “money free” but not “trade-free”. Keep this in mind, and store it well, because the “free” deception wil make your life a hell. Look at this robot-panda taking care of your grandma! That robot-panda tells your grandma when it is time to take her heart pills, when your grandma should exercise, or when her grandson called in to check on her. Oh, what a wonderful robot. But wait! That robot is a Charlatan. It collects data about your grandma (what pills she takes, what apps she uses to talk to her grandson, how much exercise she does and when) and sells it to various companies like drug companies, or insurance companies, or app makers. You thought the robo-panda was a great friend, but you now realize it is a Charlatan housemaid. For the convenience of the robot panda, your grandma traded her data to the companies that own the little panda. PERHAPS THE BIGGEST TRADE IN THE WORLD AT THE MOMENT IS DATA TRADING. And likely, everyone is engaged into that in one way or another – anything that you see online is likely to mine people’s data for their own profits. User data nowadays has become the new gold. Companies mine it for profits, governments mine it to control, punish, and overall spy on people for various reasons. We even have what is called as “data brokers” today, organizations whose sole purpose is to mine people’s data and sell it to advertisers or make other profits from it. One such company in the US has data from around 10% of the world’s population with about 1.500 pieces of information per consumer (source). And that’s one company from one tribe, imagine all such companies combined. Pfizer, one of the largest pharmaceutical company in the world, spends some $12 million every year to buy health record data from a variety of such companies (source). This is the kind of data that is collected by so many today, and for the specific reasons. They are real data collection points. ELECTIONS: to influence people to vote (or not vote) for a particular candidate/political party. Identifying and Demographic Data: name, gender, weight, race, marital status, occupation Court and Public Record Data: bankruptcies, voting registration, criminal offenses Loyalty Card Data and Geo-location Data Social Media Data: electronics purchases, friends, influencer status Financial Data: credit card user, loans, net worth indicator, estimated income Health Data: aliment/prescription online search propensity, tobacco usage, disability insurance, weight loss/supplements, organic focus, smoker in household, allergy sufferer Home/Neighborhood: home size, value, listing price, numbers of rooms/baths Travel Data: reads books/magazines about travel, preferred airline, date of last travel purchase, vacation property Vehicle Data: brand preferences, boat owner, purchase data, vehicle owned, propensity to purchase vehicle General Interest Data: apparel preferences, pets, sports, participation, gambling, activism Purchase Behavior Data: purchase type, guns, mail-ability score Aristotle, Blue State Digital, Cambridge Analytica, Cosmonauts and Kings, Harris Media, Nationbuilder, Ucampaign, and YouGov are just a handful of big players in this domain of influencing politics (and power) through data mining. Remember the fact that these strategies are often very influential (thus, they work). DATING: companies and governments won’t only be able to influence what you eat and where you shit, but also who you will be dating. Tinder, Grindr, OK Cupid, Eharmony, these are today’s ‘angels’ who are going to find your soul-mate. Eharmony, in order to find your prince or princess, dares to ask you some 258 questions to know more about you. And some of OK Cupid’s questions for instance are: In a certain light, wouldn’t nuclear war be exciting? Would you date someone just for sex? Overall, has capitalism made the world a better place? Generally do you enjoy being drunk? The co-founder of OK Cupid said: “If you use the Internet, you’re the subject of hundreds of experiments at any given time, on every site. That’s how websites work.” And OK Cupid indeed does such experiments or sells data for experiments. Imagine the immensity of personal data that these companies have on people. DATA AND DATING Are you annoyed by people who are super logical? BROWSER HISTORY: you may have never thought about it, but pretty much all of what you do online is through a single “thing”. The browser. At least on desktop. But every time you use the above services, or visit any website, type anything, all of that is recorded. It is your online history and it can be as accurate as predicting when you sleep, when you are at work (maybe even what your job is), what your interests are; it’s pretty much like all of those dating sites and websites combined, since they all happen inside the browser. Internet Service Providers, mobile phone providers, content owners, and others can access this data. BROWSER - + https://www.okcupid.com/ BROWSER - + HISTORY TRACKOGRAPHY: it’s not enough that websites themselves collect data, and that your browser collects data, but some websites collect data from other websites. So say OK Cupid collects data when you use their service, and your Google Chrome (browser) collects your data when you visit OK Cupid using it, but since OK Cupid has a simple Facebook Like button, that button acts like a tracker for Facebook.com. Therefore, visiting and using OK Cupid will spill your data to OK Cupid, your browser, and Facebook (Google, Twitter, or others who have such “like” or “share” features). And it gets worse. After you leave OK Cupid, Facebook keeps on tracking you because it downloads a piece of code inside your browser that will follow you wherever you go and report back to Facebook (or, again, to other similar websites). You can find a wealth of information here about these trackers and if you read through it your head will explode at how much they collect about you. GOOGLE CHROME - + https://www.okcupid.com/ BROWSERS COLLECT DATA WEBSITES COLLECT DATA THIRD PARTIES COLLECT DATA OPEN WIFI: nowadays more and more restaurants, malls, bus stations, subways, airports, and so forth offer open wifi (as in “free” wifi). As you may know the drill already, this is only money free and not trade free. These “money-free” wifi connect to your phone in the background and know a lot about it: the kind of device (phone, tablet, laptop), model, operating system, the name you gave to your phone. Since any device has a unique serial number, they can track your movement between these “money-free” wifi networks. LinkNYC is one such huge project that will connect the entire city of New York through “money-free” wifi, and although they are in the early stages of deployment they are already facing lots of controversies surrounding the collection of data. Needless to say, if you have a SIM card they too collect a ton of data about you (see this impressive video). So if you use an open Wifi, then visit OK Cupid from Chrome Browser using your Android Phone that has a SIM, then a dozen of companies and governments collect a shit ton of data about you. Just that simple act of visiting one website in that situation. But dude, I use encrypted stuff! I use WhatsApp so they can fuck off – they can’t read my messages and shit… Dude.. even when your communication is encrypted they can still scrape a lot of data about you. This is called “metadata”. Not long ago, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger (both owned by the Facebook company) announced that their apps became encrypted in an effort to show their ‘care’ for their customers’ privacy. Happy? Sure. Deceived? You should be. What they did was they implemented an encrypted protocol that was Open Source (leeching on the backs of Open Source projects) in their own way. Yes, WhatsApp, for example, cannot see what you talk about with your friends because conversations are encrypted, but they collect metadata. They collect who you contacted, when, from what device, how much you’ve talked, and everything else. (source) Message: %&B/?Q$·C&·$54eq WhatsApp Sent by: Brian’s phone Sent to: Casey’s phone Calls Chat Contacts Sent at: 11:32:45 pm, 11/06/ Location: 13-9 E Central St Operating System: Android Applications Opened: Play Brian … We should meet tomorrow at 10am Casey Great! Will bring some booze! :) Message: 635b5$/·BrefeqB& Sent by: Casey’s phone Sent to: Brian’s phone Sent at: 11:33:05 pm, 11/06/2018 … Location: 104 Belmont St W Operating System: Android Applications Opened: 8-Ball … They know you rang a phone sex service at 2:24 am and spoke for 18 minutes. But they don’t know what you talked about. They know you called the suicide prevention hotline from the Golden Gate Bridge. But the topic of the call remains a secret. They know you spoke with an HIV testing service, then your doctor, then your health insurance company in the same hour. But they don’t know what was discussed. (source) $54eqw?·”!$94ny56B·%”V WhatsApp 06/2018 Calls Chat Contacts t Worcester, MA 01605 id 8.0 ay Store, Chrome Browser, … Brian We should meet tomorrow at 10am Casey Great! Will bring some booze! :) &W%$N/$)(MW$ 06/2018 Worcester, MA 01605 … d 7.0 all Pool, Spotify,… :) - Got it? You can read what WhatsApp collects about users on their website, and it is a lot, even though they are “secure and encrypted”. Also, watch this video to see how much you can trace about an individual just by using metadata WhatsApp Calls Chat Contacts Brian We should meet tomorrow at 10am Casey Great! Will bring Some booze! :) … INTERNET OF THINGS: perhaps the scariest thing of all is what is going to happen to our own personal and private “offline” spaces (homes, cars, gadgets). Lately, one idea sneaked into our homes: the Internet of Things. What this means is that more and more “things” will become “smart”, and by “smart” I mean “they will collect a lot (A LOT) of data”. Your bed won’t be the dumbass bed that you are sleeping in right now. No! Sir Bed will know when you sleep, how your sleep is, if you sleep alone or not, at what hours, how is your health. And Sir Bed will be owned by a company who wants your data and will use your data for all kinds of purposes. “Smart” toasters, windows, lights, doors, kitchen electronics, oven, furniture, shower, toilet, AC, and whatever else you can imagine will become a reality in the next few years (and many of these are already a reality for so many ‘owners’). Just think about children’s toys that are going to listen, watch and mine data about kids. (source) ELECTRIC GRILL COLLEC FRIDGE COLLECTS DATA: temperature, settings, voice temperature, load, open close door, timer, notifications, user prefer odor detection, grocery list, sync with recipes calendar, video footage,user preferences, text messages,settings MICROWAVE COLLECTS DATA: temperature, settings, recipes, notifications, timer, voice commands, user preferences,video stream, COOKING POT C temperature,user recipes, voice com notifications pressur OVEN COLLECTS DATA: temperature, settings, recipes, notifications, timer, voice commands, user preferences,video stream CTS DATA: WATER FAUCETS COLLECT DATA: e commands, temperature, pressure, water eferences, consumption, notifications, proximity, use, user preferences, settings, voice commands, water quality BLENDER COLLECTS DATA: settings, user preferences, notifications, voice commands, timer, recipes COLLECTS DATA: er preferences, settings, ommands, timer, essure FAUCET CO temperature, notifications, settings, voice WASHING MACHINE COLLECTS DATA: temperature, settings, notifications, timer, voice commands, user preferences, mail and text SHOWER COLLECTS DATA: temperature, settings, notifications, timer, voice commands, user preferences, water usage, proximity, pressure MIRROR COLLECTS DATA: temperature, settings, notifications, voice commands, user preferences, mail, sms, video stream, calendar, face detection, calls, gesture tracking, etc. OLLECTS DATA: ure, pressure, water consumption, ons, proximity, use, user preferences, voice commands, water quality TOILET COLLECTS DATA: temperature, settings, notifications, proximity, er, water consumption, chemical detection, voice commands, odor detection WINDOWS COLLECT DATA: temperature, settings, notifications, timer, voice commands, user preferences LAMP/LIGHTBULBS COLL BED COLLECTS DATA: temperature, settings, notific temperature, settings, notifications, timer, voice commands, user prefer voice commands, user preferences, pressure, proximity, track sleeping patterns VACUUM COLLECTS DATA: settings, notifications, timer, voice commands, user preferences, proximity, IRON COLLECTS DATA map house floor, video and photo, location temperature, settings, not timer, user preferences A/C COLLECTS DATA: temperature, settings, notifications, timer, voice commands, user preferences DOOR COLLECTS DATA: LECT DATA: settings, notifications, voice fications, timer, commands, user preferences, eferences, open close check, fingerprint TOYS COLLECT DATA: TA: settings, notifications, voice commands, , notifications, user preferences, text, face recognition, s video and photo, location This is not only an invasion to our private spaces, but to everything we will interact with: use a taxi, commute with the subway or buses, buying stuff from supermarket, driving on certain roads, using health devices, going to movies, and pretty much everything else a human will do in our technological world, even the simple walk on the streets is captured by CCTV cameras and our data mined. (source 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11) SHOP WIFI: shopping behavior, phone specifications CAMERAS: shopping behavior, face SHOP APP: tracking, gesture tracking shopping behavior, spending, location, name, phone number, email, etc. LOYALTY CARDS: shopping behavior, spending, address, name CREDIT CARDS: name, address, purchasing behavior, spending WIFI: location, phone specifications, metadata CAMERAS: face tracking, gesture tracking, location TICKETS: name, address, traveling locations more about cars collecting data, here a nd here. And here’s why this is even scarier: iPhone X, Google Phones, Echo (Alexa), Amazon store, and 23AndMe. These companies are making collecting data “cool” and acceptable. ~50 MILLION IPHONE X SOLD IN LESS THAN 1 YEAR IPHONE X The new iPhone X has complex sensors to monitor one’s face (as that’s also the phone’s main unlock mechanism), and this will open up another huge pile of data that can be collected by companies or governments to understand people’s emotions and serve ‘better ads’ or whatever they might do with the data for profit. (source) Apple, like WhatsApp, ensures their users that their mighty data (face data) is encrypted and protected on their phone. So don’t worry, no one can access it. Except everyone. Because like in the case of WhatsApp, they are sneaky and brush off the details. Yes, face data is stored on the owner’s phone and encrypted, but developers (those who make apps for their phones) can access enough of this data to read your face and see if you smile, are happy, or whatever your face may express. (source) They know that you watched a video ad about health insurance, and that you spend 80% of the time paying close attention to it, then clicked on the ad and looked interested in it. They know that you don’t pay attention to their in-game purchases notifications, they know your age and your location, and they know what makes you happy whilst you play their game. But don’t worry, no one knows your face ;). 10+ MILLION INSTALLS OF GOOGLE ASSISTANT PIXEL 2 Google’s new phone (Pixel 2) has a feature that listens for songs in the background all the time (when activated), to ‘better serve you with music’. (source). Knowing the way companies behave, this “optional feature” may become default in the near future. Anyways, Google says that none of this information is sent to them, but the feature works with their own Google Music app so it’s kinda easy to see this scenario: “We don’t have access to your recorded background noise (song), but we sure know that you had our app activated and got a notification from it (we still don’t know what sound it picked up); but then you clicked the notification and it sent you to our Google Music store. Perfect. Ed Sheeran – Castle on the Hill, right? And we even see if you bought it or not, and with what credit card. But we have no fucking clue what our listening app listened to.” Google phones have another feature in the name of Google Assistant, a ‘smart’ AI designed to help you with all kinds of tasks: schedule appointments, play music, and stuff like that. It too can listen in the background if activated, and it is a very popular feature of any Android phone (not only Google phones). ECHO AND AMAZON GO (grocery store) Echo is an “in-home-smart...-thing!?” (Smart speaker) owned by Amazon. The voice behind it is Alexa (as you may know ‘her’). A new fad of ‘intelligent’ and multi purpose devices that are listening to you inside your own home, like Google Assistant does for your phone. Alexa can do a wide variety of tasks like reading emails, playing music, telling you about the weather, reading news, and can be connected to a wide variety of apps or appliances (devices). So this thing has a lot of data to gather. (source) Google, Apple, and so many other companies are starting to swim in the same water current and they too build such devices that are becoming a normality in any ‘modern’ home. Mind you, these devices are like that robot-panda, only that they have access to a lot more data. The same Amazon also opened a grocery store where you can walk inside, take your products, put them anywhere you want (like you bag), and walk out. There are no cashiers because the payment will be automatic. That is possible because the grocery store is packed with cameras and sensors, recording every activity. (source) You can see how that yells “collecting data!”. These 4, a phone that can read your emotions (facial expressions), another phone that can listen in the background, these “in-home-smart-all- purpose-gadgets” that make your home not only yours anymore, and grocery stores “of the future” that record any of your moves, are making people used to these invasions of privacy. These 4 are the most popular ‘innovations’ nowadays, coming from the most powerful companies in the world. They invade your home, pocket, friends, habits, likes and dislikes, and pretty much everything else. In the not so distant past, only a few years ago, allowing websites and apps to get your location seemed very intrusive for most users. Nowadays it has become a normal thing and many apps won’t even work well (or at all) if you do not allow them to track your location. Because companies know how to make people accustomed to such intrusive and sometimes necessary “penetrations” of their privacy, people seem not to mind or understand any of this. Apple, Google and Amazon are the biggest players in the field of in-home ‘smart’ gadgets and because they are so “cool, man!”, they will spread this feeling of feeling accustomed to data mining devices. 23ANDME And 23AndMe is doing the exact same thing, but this time it is not about sharing your gadgets’ data, but your body’s data. They provide very cheap DNA analysis tools that provide almost no useful information except who your “ancestors” were (just ask WikiPedia without spitting into a tube) or if you are predisposed to certain diseases and even those fall short of any relevancy (source). This dude, who is a genomicist at the Scripps Research Institute, said: “I’ve likened these lifestyle tests to horoscopes—vague, occasionally informative, sometimes amusing.” (source 1, 2). 23AndMe uses the DNA data to sell to other companies or to research institutions, and although one has to agree with that (in a way), it is easy to see how 23AndMe can make people agree with it by providing discounts to their DNA testing, or ‘free’ testing, and other such marketing tricks in order to make their customers give away their data. And they have been successful at that since 80% of their 2 million users consented for sharing their data for research (source). 23AndMe’s privacy policies say that they can do the following with your data (by default): “monitor and improve existing products or services that we offer or to develop new products and services”- So then what stops 23AndMe to become a company that in the future will sell treatments, pills, therapies, and such based on the huge amount of data that they gather!? Also (they say): “You also consent to your personal information, including sensitive information, being transferred in the event of a business transition such as a merger, acquisition by another company, or other transaction or proceeding. ” - So any other company can buy 23AndMe and use their data in any way that the new company wants. And lastly, the “metadata” craziness: “We may share anonymized and aggregate information with third-parties; anonymized and aggregate information is any information that has been stripped of your name and contact information and aggregated with information of others or anonymized so that you cannot reasonably be identified as an individual. ”. Basically 23AndMe is another data collecting business masked as DNA testing service. And in the future, what stops 23AndMe to change its privacy policies like every company does repeatedly? Millions of people have currently taken the 23AndMe test, and there are many other companies that are offering the same kind of service. 23AndMe advertise their service in a very aggressive manner with perhaps any big science YouTuber being paid to promote the service at one point or another. (source 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) And this is only the beginning of this worldwide madness. 20- 30 years ago, data mining was a ‘nothing thing’ compared to today. They were able to collect data but mainly from the phone, tv, subscriptions to newspapers, credit card, and so on, yet today they have a ton of resources from which they can collect it. However, today, compared to 10 years into the future, there will be the same massive difference in terms of data collecting. We will see an explosion of DNA tests, smart devices, smart cars, “free” wifi, and so forth. If we see these “smart gadgets” for the true value they have today which is “marketing devices”, then we might appreciate the complete fuckery that’s about to come in the next years when these marketing devices will spread like a very bad infection. (source) Think about 2 of the biggest Internet companies that reach billions of people: Google and FaceBook. They collect pretty much every piece of information about people: what you search, what you click, the movement of the mouse pointer, your texts, messages, contacts, scan your images (how they look, when they were taken, with what device, etc.); they know your location, your device information, your family and if you have pets or a job. They collect your credit card information whenever you buy anything through their services and track the ads you’ve clicked. You get the point, they collect pretty much everything that’s possible about their users. Google is now tracking you on 76% of websites, with FaceBook lurking on about 25% of websites (source). You can see what Google collects here and here, and Facebook here and here. And I highly recommend you download your data from Google and FaceBook to get a glimpse at how much information they collect about you (mind you even this data is incomplete). 25% 76% books in search engine messaging apps Now, what many fully realize is, fo these companies the most popula video hosting If you use the Inte use Google and Fa online advertising mobile OS browser Email client s indexing translating software anti spam protection ny people may not , for one, how big nies are. They own ular (in the world): mobile app store social networks ternet then you FaceBook. Period. file storage maps and web analytic service navigation Guess what the main source of revenue for FaceBook or Google is? Community support? No. Donations from elderly? No. Advertising and Data mining? Aha. Second thing to understand is that both of these companies rely entirely on data trading. The above services are, as you may realize, “free” - and that’s only because they collect data from you. For example if FaceBook were to remove its advertising from the website it would have to charge its billions of users ~$7 a month to keep its business afloat (source). Both Google and FaceBook get 80-90% of their revenue from advertising (source 1, 2). Actually, Google and FaceBook get half of the advertising revenue from the entire worldwide Internet. (source) Therefore we must understand how serious data trading is when 2 of the most powerful companies in the world (reaching billions of people) rely entirely on it for survival and thriving. You will see when I’ll present you the Monopolies of our Game Of Trade, how a few companies own the entire Internet and their main businesses is, again, data trade. Microsoft for example bought Linkedin in 2016 and one of the primary reasons is the vast amount of data that Microsoft now has access to, since Linkedin is a place where people post detailed information about themselves, workplace, skills, and a lot more (source). Also watch this video to see what one can do with Linkedin data. Imagine using such a service that may want to respect your privacy and not force you into many trades with them, to then be bought by a large company that won’t give a fuck about this and they will now own your data. These things happen all the time (source). Microsoft already collects a lot of data through their Windows Operating System (biggest Operating System for desktop computers), so it’s not like this is a new thing to them. rldo we th ineunev re gin rtise k v o d o a b e cea lin F n dn e l o a u le e e ta g u e u n n u n e to o e n e v o v e v v f G l re l re reg o ta re ta in e to g to un in e rtis v e rtis v re e d g v a da rtisinevda And it’s problematic because it is hard to escape this. They own the smartphone world, and that world is getting so big that it dominates everything. And people do almost everything through their smartphones: shopping, talking to people, getting news and knowledge, and so forth. Knowing that so much is filtered through a handful of companies that mainly want people’s data, it is troublesome. And think about the fact that A.I. systems, which are going to be the future of tech, primarily rely on data to become “smart”, and who has most of the data? Google, FaceBook, and the like. Therefore, these giants get a huge advantage when it comes to “smart” A.I. systems (and thus creating or managing “smart” devices – Internet of Things) that no one can truly compete with. On top of that they come up with services that have no competitor, sucking in people like flies attracted to light. Google Photos is currently offering ‘free’ lifetime use and unlimited storage for their service. Meaning you can upload unlimited photos and videos to their cloud, forever, and for ‘free’. Come up with a better offer than that! And of course, they will use the data of your photos and videos to train their A.I., or who knows for what. But because they are so powerful, pretty much no one can compete with them. And in the case of A.I., since A.I. relies entirely on huge piles of data, and this is a new trend that is exploding at the moment, it means that companies will be incentivized to collect even more data. It can be difficult to comprehend how massive the data trade is nowadays, so I recommend you go here and install that browser plugin that will mine your FaceBook data use so that in about a week you’ll start to see what FaceBook knows about you in a very interesting and interactive way. (video demo) Mozilla created a “Glass Room” exhibit to showcase the mining of data using all kinds of interesting representations. I recommend you have a look at it here. And here you can visit it in VR. “We're building a dystopia just to make people click on ads” I RECOMMEND THE FOLLOWING DOCUMENTARIES IF YOU WANT TO LEARN EVEN MORE ABOUT THE “DATA TRADE”: And yes, it is true, most of these companies collecting data do so to convert it into monetary gain and therefore some may argue that they don’t actually trade data, they just collect data to make money off of it. However that is besides the point since they could and would convert this data into cryptocurrencies, tokens, or whatever popular currency is at the time. Converting this data into money is just an arbitrary thing of our today’s world. Tomorrow FaceBook will convert the data it collects into FaceBookCoins, or FaceBook tokens, or into direct trades. Or think about when this data will be used by companies to give or remove privileges from you, like it is being used in work surveillance, or when this data is not being kept private, or used to influence opinions, and so forth. (source 1, 2) I hope I got you tired with this big "data trade" explanation. It is so massive that even a summary of it is going to put a toll on most people. Here’s how long it takes to read the Terms of Service for Kindle (Amazon product): The services, the cars, the toys, and the gadgets of tomorrow will become “entirely free”, And that’s not because we will migrate to a new kind of saner society, But because companies and governments will col ect every data about you and me To show us their ads To learn what we like To advertise their brands Or what we dislike To know where we go To know us so wel To see where we show We trade? Who can tell!? That’s the future we are heading towards. trading WITHOUT currencies: social credits and citizenship Hooooney! Look! We are rewarded for good behavior on WeChat by the government! They give us free tickets to the Suckers Water Park. Yay! So awesome! I told you that if we don’t swear or don’t make controversial posts on WeChat we will get rewarded :) Hoooomans! This is really really bad! It is called social credit and it is going to ruin many lives. Don’t be completely naive. SOCIAL CREDITS: 30 pr MANDATORY BY 2020 alread score: very good, good, bad Interestingly, companies are not the only ones who want to mine your data. Governments want that too. In China, an extreme example is underway: the government wants to monitor people to give them a ranking score in order to create a more “sincere” population. Imagine the things Google and FaceBook mine about you now being used to score your behavior by the government. Maybe some scores won’t allow you to get a house or drive a car or leave the tribe. “The possibilities are endless” and this is not a conspiracy theory, this is coming from the Chinese government itself who wants to make it mandatory by 2020. (source) That’s a forced trade with the government. If you read more about the Chinese plan it is truly unbelievable that they even thought about this, but it is not at all surprising considering the trade world we live in. programs 3.000 items of ady in place information ID and face recognition 100 governmental entities There are already over 30 such programs in China run by local governments. Two of these programs are: Honest Shanghai and Sesame Credit. Honest Shanghai is an app developed by the leaders in Shanghai and works like this: you get the app and register with your national ID. Based on this ID and facial recognition, the app collects data from the government (because yes, they already collect tons of data about the population) and 24 hours later you will be given a credit score: very good, good, or bad. They say they will reward citizens who are, in their opinion, good citizens. They mine through 3.000 items of information collected from nearly 100 government entities to determine an individual's public credit score. If you get a good score you might get discounts, and if you get a bad score you might be punished in a variety of ways like not being able to book a plane seat, get a credit, leave the country, or whatever. The app is voluntary at this point, but does that matter!? Alibaba Group + Sesame Credit is a partnership between the Chinese government and someone very powerful. A company. Alibaba. Alibaba, if you’ve never heard of it, is the world’s largest (in terms of sales) and most “valuable” retailer (business that sells goods to the public) which operates in over 200 tribes worldwide. It is also one of the largest Internet companies in the world with its sales surpassing that of all the US retailers including Amazon, Walmart, and eBay combined. Alibaba is bigger than all of the US retailers combined in terms of sales. Which is hard to comprehend. So it is in the top 10 most profitable and largest businesses in the entire fucking world. They have hundreds of millions of users and amongst many services, they own a pay service (Alipay) which is, not surprisingly, the most valuable financial technology company in the world. You get it, Alibaba is fucking boss and Chinese. They use the Sesame Credit system via their Alipay app (and their services) under the governmental supervision to rate Chinese citizens for “loyalty to the Chinese government and loyalty to Chinese brands based on social media interactions and online purchases” ( WikiPedia quote). Based on the score, they again, can reward or punish people. China is like the father you never wanted, who has control over your phone and laptop and is very grumpy. Chinese companies like Tencent (as big as Alibaba) are already implementing a social credit to their own apps, and having almost a billion users sure helps with that. They will score for social connections, consumption behavior, security, wealth, and compliance. (source 1, 2) They too are under the influence of the ‘daddy’ China as most things are in China. Alibaba Group These are trades that people of China are persuaded into or forced to engage in. But although this sounds awful, it is nothing new. All governments are pushing people into trades of all sorts, like when they give you access to healthcare only if you work for the state, or give you benefits (food, shelter, or whatever) if you fit in a certain criteria and maybe do not break the law; or when they allow you (or don’t allow you) to leave the tribe. This is happening everywhere in multiple forms of trade. Interestingly, these trades too are based on data they collect about you (your behavior, your spendings, etc.). China only went one step ahead and made it ‘cool’ - digital. Oh man. .our healthcare system in the US is the worst. We have to pay a ton of money even for the most basic consultation. Look at Spain! Free healthcare for all of their citizens! That’s so… UN-Free! The term “free” is the biggest scam, online or offline, it doesn’t matter. If you go to Spain now, do you think they’ll treat you for free? Of course not. You have to engage into trades with them. You have to be part of their tribe (become a Spanish citizen or resident), you have to work for them, perhaps even know their local language to be able to properly take advantage of the healthcare. You have to wait long periods of time for each consultation and respect their local laws and rules. You trade your comfort, privacy, time, labor, and more to the Spanish tribe for their healthcare system. Therefore Spain’s healthcare system is money-free for some people, but not trade-free for anyone. Do you consider being part of a tribe (country - having a citizenship) as a trade? Think about it: you are born into a tribe and from that moment on you are forced to respect its rules. Maybe you won’t be allowed to leave the tribe, maybe you will be forced to join its army, work for the tribe, give information about you to the tribe (where you go, how much money you spend, who you stay with, what plans you have, etc.). If you are from Romania and want to go into the US tribe you can’t simply do that. The tribe leaders won’t let you. Even if your motive is to visit the Grand Canyon for your own pleasure or curiosity as a human being, a natural place carved by millions of years of erosion, you can’t. US owns that and your tribe and the US tribe won’t let you leave without a special permission that you have to apply for. You, as a human being on this planet, are forced to engage in such trades with the tribes. To behave in certain ways, to work certain jobs, to respect certain rules, to humiliate yourself, apply for permission, or to get help (healthcare, food, accommodation, etc.). All of these are forced trades that you have to engage in. If you don’t want to accept the rules of your tribe, you can work on moving to another tribe and get a new citizenship, and that new citizenship will come along with another set of trades. In China, you may not be allowed to have more than two babies; in Iran, you may not be allowed to ‘marry’ someone with similar genitalia to yours. In the US, you are not allowed to drink alcohol until the age of 21, in the UK you may be arrested for walking in your underwear on the streets, and in Singapore you may not be able to get chewing gum. Tribes have these rules, and once you are a part of them or when you are visiting them, you have to comply with their rules in return for safety, roads, a postal service, access to Internet or other services, or just simple basic access to their land (mountains, rivers, whatever they think they own). Many people see these as “laws” but in essence, if you think about it, they are forced trades masked as “rules and laws”. This is why when you disrespect their rules they take something away from you: currency, possessions, freedom. The most common punishment for crimes (disrespecting a tribe’s rules) is to ban you from accessing what the tribe gave you: ability to walk on their streets, enjoy their products and services, travel, access their knowledge (books, tv, Internet) or any service, and so forth. So they lock you up in some buildings/rooms where they will give you stuff and services in limited quantities. They change the trade with you in a forceful way. All in all, being a citizen implies you forcefully agree with certain trades: you behave a certain way and you are given certain things in return (stuff, services, permissions) from that tribe. trading WITHOUT currencies: other forms of trade Ever been discriminated online and called a bot? No worries, you are not alone. Millions face this discrimination :). Aaaaaa….C’mon man! Let me access the website for fuck sakes! Who’s behind most of it? Google who owns a tool called ReCaptcha to detect “fishy behavior” (SPAM bots) and when it does, it throws you a puzzle that you have to solve in order to show that you are smarter than a coffee machine. What many don’t know is that you involuntary help Google train their A.I. software that is then used to transcribe books, addresses and what not for Google’s own profit. (source) So, if you are not a bot, you are a minion working involuntarily for Google to train their A.I.’s that will later be used to create products and make a profit. You trade your intelligence (and labour) to Google through ReCaptcha. Other forms of trade that involve no currency are sex for rent, where people let you stay in their homes in exchanged for sex or other favors; rent can also be “money free” if, in exchange, you do the housekeeping, take care of the elderly owners, walk their pets, mow the lawn, or do their grocery shopping (source). Hey! You can stay at my place for free for as long as you want. Won’t ask you for anything, except some “favors”… like massages? Sex? Maybe household chores? You know, stuff like that :D Ok… As long as I don’t have to pay for rent, it works for me. :) Maybe if you join a group (a sect, a cult, a religion) you’ll get free accommodation, food, and other stuff in return. There is no shortage of trades that involved no currency. So all of the above examples are purely random, as there are trillions of such scenarios where people trade without any currency. They did that in the past, they do it now, and will do it in the future. Son, join our Christian church and you’ll have a place to live, food on the table, and safety. Come to church on Sundays and spread the word of God. That’s all we ask. Next time you want to blame money for the world’s problems, think about cancer because that’s what you are talking about: cancer, cancer, cancer. And I’m like: “But dude, cancer is one of the many many diseases that kill people and create harm. Why do you focus only on that?”. If you focus on money as the source of most problems, it is like having the entire healthcare field in the world focusing primarily on cancer and not on other diseases. That’s what you are doing. That would be insane! Millions of people would die. So don’t do that! Cancer is bad, but cancer is one disease among so many others. And, remember, cancer is one of the symptoms of aging. HERE’S THE TRADE BUBBLE. GREEN ARE CURRENCIES, BLUE ARE DIRECT TRADES. Say the big green bubble is the currency “money”. Yeah, it’s fucking huge, but what about the other ones? Should we ignore them? Many of the other ones are growing faster and faster, whilst the “money” one may be shrinking. If you choose to only care about that one single green bubble inside the Trade Bubble, then fine for you, but I (TROM Superhero) am about the entire bubble of trade with all of its currencies and direct trades. TROM is all about the big Trade Bubble that contains them all. That’s our enemy! SO: A. Money is one form of currency. B. Currency is just a representation of trade. C. There are lots of currencies. D. There are many trades without currency. = MONEY IS NOT THE PROBLEM. TRADE IS. THE NORMALSON FAMILY OF 5. They are normal. They live inside a tribe. They use technology. They have an Internet connection. They trade on a daily basis with everyone and everything. school Want a “secure” future and to be part of our tribe? Come to us for 12-16 years and respect our rules: dress the way we say, learn what we say, come when we say, stay for as long as we say! Want food, house, medicine? Give us currency! company Want job? Have these s respect our rules (dress way, behave a certain present yourself at certa Want currency? Have a job that we define as a “job”! And give us a % of your currency! e skills and ess a certain ain way, certain hours) government Entertainment Want to see videos, internet websites, and listen t Watch our advertising us all of your dat gadge Want access to the latest apps s, access and features and in general to music? access to technology? Give us ng and give currency and tell us what you data. like, who you are, where you are, what you want, what you do, and give us as much data about gadgets yourself as possible! This is how everyone and everything sucks energy/attention/time out of humans in the name of TRADE, like a vampire who cannot survive without it. UNDERSTAND, ACCEPT, GET READY, FIGHT! Now we understand what the force is! Let’s move on! accept s p a c e e x p l o r a t i o n SpaceX launch is live! So awesome. Wow! They landed the boosters back, and in sync. This is so wonderful. I never saw this before! They even launched a Tesla car into space, man! That’s so fucking rad! Elon Musk is the man, man! He is changing the world right in front of our eyes. Indeed. Not only does he revolutionize space, but with his Tesla electric cars and Solar City (solar panels), he is our savior. I don’t think that’s an exaggeration! Oh, this is a HUUUGE exaggeration! Elon Musk may be a great guy (MAY), but he is the living proof that trade fucks up everything. Think about gravity. Humans do not know exactly what it is but they see its influence (source). We know that objects with mass attract one another (bending the space). The bigger the mass, the stronger the attraction. If you are near our Sun you will ‘fall’ towards it because the massive mass of the Sun “pulls you in”. The closer you are to the Sun, the stronger the force of gravity. The farther you are from the Sun, the weaker the force. You get the point. That’s one way to prove gravity, by observing its increasing or decreasing effect on the matter. We can apply that same way of thinking to prove the existence of the negative effects that are caused by trade.. Here’s how: Let’s replace the Sun with our Trade Bubble. Let’s suppose it has the same mass as the Sun. Here it is, the Trade Bubble in space! Huge. Massive. Ugly. Yikes! GIVE ME MONEY AND I’LL DO THE MISSION vs No N w o l w e l t e ’ t s ’ r s e r m e ai a n i n n s n p s a p c a e f e o f r o a r w a h w i h le l . e L . e L t e ’ t s ’ s s a s y a h y u h m u ans a ns wa w n a t n t t o t g o o t o o t o sp s a p c a e c t e o t o ex e pl p or o e r i e t. Th T e h o e n o l n y l y wa w y a t y o t d o o d i o t i t n t n h t e h G e a G m a e O e f O Tr T a r d a e d i e s v s ia a fu f n u d n i d ng n (c g ur (c r ur e r n e c n i c es e ) s . ) Th T e h r e e r a re r ma in i l n y l t wo w o w a w y a s o f f ge tti tt n i g n g fu f n u d n i d n i g n fo f r r s uch u ch a mi s mi sio i n o : n on o e n i e s t s o t g o et e t th t e h f e un f d un i d ng i ng n a n d a v d a v n a c n e c , e th t e h o e t o h t e h r e w r a w y a is s to t i o nv n e v s e t s t mone o y ne y int n o t t o h t e e mis i s s i s on t o h n t en t e a n t k a e k e th t e h m e on o e n y e b y a b c a k c . k .Th T i h s i s s s NA N SA S vs v s Sp S a p c a eX e , X fo f r o e r x e am a pl p e l . e NA N SA S g A et e s t a s b a u b d u g d et e f t ro r m o th t e h e US U g S ov o e v r e n r m n en e t n t (t ( h t r h o r u o g u h g ta t x a e x s e ) a s nd ) a t nd h t e h y e s y e s n e d n s d p s a p c a e e pr p o r b o e b s e i s nto nt o sp s a p c a e c t e o t d o o d s o c s i c en e c n e c . e Bec Be a c u a s u e s o e f o th t i h s i t s h t e h y e a y r a e r e no n t o u t nd u e nd r e t r h t e h i e nfl n u fl e u n e c n e c o e f o t f r t a r d a e d t e h t a h t a m t uc u h c si s n i c n e t e h t e h y e a y l a r l e r a e d a y d pa p i a d d fo f r o t r h t e e mis i s s i s on i o n a n d a v d an a c n e c s e o s t o h t ey e do d n o ’ n t ’ h t a h v a e v e to t t o h t ink n k of o wa w y a s y t s o t g o et e s t o s m o e e in i v n e v s e t s m t en e t n b t a b c a k f k r f o r m o th t e h m e iss s i s on o . n But Bu t a a co c m o pa p n a y n , s , a s y a S y p S a p c a e c X e , inv n e v s e t s s t s mon o e n y e y firs fir t s , th t e h n e n it i n t e n e e d e s d s to t t o a t k a e k t e h t e h e mone o y ne y ba b c a k c k so s m o eh e o h w o , w if i f t t wa w n a t n s t t s o t s o u s r u vi v ve v i e n t n h t e h t e r t a r d a e d g e am a e. e Or O r el e se s S e pa p c a e c X w e i X w ll l g l o o ba b n a k n r k u r p u t p . So S S o p S a p c a eX e , ,or o w r h w a h t a e t v e e v r e r ot o h t e h r e c r o c m o pa p n a y n , y ne n e e d e s d t s o t t o h t i h nk n a k b a o b ut o ut mar a ke k t e i t ng n sc s h c e h m e es e . s .If t If h t e h y e g y o g i o nt n o t s o p s a p c a e c m e ay a be b t e h t e h y e w y i w ll l s l e s l e l l l th t e h i e r r sc s i c ent e i nt fic di d sc s o c v o e v r e i r es e t s o t s o c s i c en e t n i t st s s t i s ns n t s e t a e d a d of o f mak a i k ng n th t e h m e fr f e r e e l e y l y av a a v i a la l b a l b e l f e o f r o e r v e e v r e yone o l ne ike k e NA N SA S d A o d e o s e ; s may a b y e b t e h t e h y e w y i w ll f l o f c o u c s u m s or o e r e on o n sp s a p c a e c t e o t u o r u is i m s (li (l ke k s e e s n e d n i d ng i r ng i r ch p h e p o e p o l p e l i e nt n o t s o p s a p c a e) t e h ) t a h n a d n o d i o ng ng sc s i c enc e e nc a e n a d n e d x e p x l p o l r o a r t a i t on o ; n ;may a b y e b t e h t ey e wi w ll l se s e e k e f k or o s r e s n e s n a s t a i t on o a n l a i l sm s ov o e v r e s r c s ie i n e c n e. e I’LL INVEST MY OWN MONEY THEN TAKE IT BACK vs An A d n i d f y f o y u o l u oo o k o k at a i t t, th t at a ’ t s ’ t s h t e h r e e r a e l a i l ty t . . Spa p c a e c X p e l X p a l n a s n t s o t s o e s n e d n d tw t o w r o ich c c h re r a e t a u t r u e r s e a s r a o r u o n u d n t d h t e h M e o M o o n o n ve v r e y so s o o n o n to t o ma m k a e k a e a bu b c u k k fo f r o t r h t e h c e o c m o pa p n a y n ( y so s u o r u ce c ). ) Th T e h y e a y l a s l o s p o l p a l n a t n o t p o u p t u t sa s t a e t l e l l it i e t s e i s nto nt o or o bi b t t to t p o r p ov o id i e d In e t In e t r e n r e n t e t t o t t o h t e e pe p o e p o l p e l , e ag a a g i a n a n s a a s a bu b s u i s ne n s e s s p s l p a l n a n (so s u o r u c r e c ). e ). An A d n t d h t a h t a r t o r c o ke k t e l t aun a c un h c h and a t nd h t e h c e ar a … r . … Rec e e c n e t n l t y l t y h t e h y e l y aun a c un h c e h d e a d “ a Bi “ g g Fu F c u ki k ng n Roc o ke k t e ” t (t ” o (t q o u q o u t o e t t e h t e h m e ) t m o ) t t o e t s e t s t th t is i h s e h a e v a y an a d n p d o p w o e w r e f r ul u l th t i h ng n , a , n a d n t d h t e h y e h y a h d a t d o t p o u p t u a t a pa p y a l y o l a o d a o d n o i n t f t o f r o t r h t e h t e e t s e t s . .Al A t l h t o h u o g u h g ap a p p a p r a e r n e t n l t y l y Sp S a p c a e c X a e s X a k s e k d e N d A N SA S i A f t f h t e h y e w y a w n a t n e t d e t d o t p o u p t u s t o s m o et e h t i h ng i o ng n o n th t e h r e o r c o k c e k t e a t s a a s p a a p y a l y o l a o d a a d nd a N nd ASA S A re r f e u f s u e s d e d be b c e a c u a s u e s s e u s c u h p h a p y a l y o l a o d a s d a s r a e r e li l ke k l e y l to t e o x e pl p o l d o e d w e i w th t t h h t e h e e x e pe p r e i r me m n e t n a t l a r l o r c o ke k t e t t h t e h y e w y e w r e e r t e e t s e t s i t n i g n , th t e h e co c m o pa p n a y n d y e d c e i c de d d e t d o t o pu p t u a t n a a n d a o d n o i n t - t a c a a c r a t r h t a h t a i t s s mad a e d b e y b Sp S a p c a eX e ’ X s ’ s si s st s e t r e c r o c m o pa p n a y n , y Te T s e l s a l (al (a s l o s o o w o n w e n d e b d y b E y lo l n o n Mu M s u k s ) k . ) So S M o us M k us d k e d c e i c de d d e t d o t o se s n e d n h d i h s c s a c r a r in i t n o t s o p s a p c a e c b e e b c e a c u a s u e s h e e h s e a s y a s, s “i “ t’ t s ’ a s s a i s l i l l y t y h t i h ng n ” g (t ” o (t q o u q o u t o e t e him i ) m , ) bu b t u t th t i h s a s l a s l o s e o n e d n e d d e u d p u a p s a a s h a u h g u e a e d a v d e v r e t r i t se s m e en e t n t fo f r o h r i h s T s e T s e l s a l a co c m o pa p n a y n . y Pe P r e ha h p a s p t s h t e h b e i b g i ge g s e t s a t d a v d e v r e t r i t se s m e en e t n e t v e e v r e r cr c e r a e t a e t d e . d . Sil i ly l a y d a … d T … h T e h c e ar a fl r o fl a o t a e t d e a d r a o r u o n u d n d th t e e Ea E r a t r h t moni o t ni o t r o ed e b d y b s y e s v e e v r e al a l cam a e m r e as a s s t s r t e r a e m a ing i t ng h t e h v e i v de d o e b o a b c a k c h k o h m o e. e Now o N w A N SA S h A as a t s o t i o nd n e d x e t x h t e o e b o j b ec e t a t s a a s p a o p t o e t n e t n i t al a d l a d n a g n e g r e r (l ( ik i e k e ind n e d x e i x ng n as a t s e t r e o r i o ds d n s e n a e r a Ea E r a t r h t ) a h n ) a d n t d h t e h c e a c r a r is i a s l a s l o s a o n a u n n u n n e n c e es e s s a s r a y y sp s a p c a e d e e d b e r b i r s t s h t at a c t an, a n, al a t l h t o h u o g u h g wi w th t l h i l tt t l t e e ch c a h n a c n es e , s co c l o l l i l de d w e i w th t h an a o n t o h t er e pl p ane a t ne a t n a d n c d o c n o t n a t m a ina n t a e t i e t. (so s u o r u c r e) Ba e s ) Ba i s ca c l a l l y, y i , n 20 n 2 9 0 8 9 8 pe p o e p o l p e l w e i w l i l e l x e p x l p o l r o e r M e a M r a s r a s n a d n t d h t e h y e ’ y l ’ l l b l e b l e ik i e k : e “D “ a D m a n, n w , e w f e o f u o n u d n d li l fe f . e An A d n d it i i t s s s i s mil i a l r r to t t o h t a h t a o t n o E n ar a th t , h ” b ” u b t u t t h t e h y e wo w n o ’ n t r t ea e l a i l ze z i e t i t s s th t e h m e igh g t h y t T y e T s e l s a l a th t at a c t ra r s a h s e h d e i d nt n o t M o a M rs r y s ea e r a s s be b f e o f r o e r a e n a d n d co c n o t n a t m a ina n t a e t d e t d h t e h p e l p a l n a e n t e . S . o S m o e a e r a g r ue u t e h t a h t a t t h t e h r e i r sk s s k s of o f se s n e d n i d ng n g th t i h s c s a c r a i r nt n o t o sp s a p c a e c a e n a d n i d n o n r o b r i b t w t e w r e e r e le l s e s s s im i po p r o t r a t n a t n c t o c m o pa p r a e r d e t d o t o th t e h e e n e t n h t u h s u i s as a m s th t a h t a w t a w s a c s r c ea e t a e t d e d am a on o g n s g t s h t u h m u an a s n b s e b c e a c u a s u e s o e f o f th t i h s e s v e e v n e t n . . Wha h t a p t e p o e p o l p e e se s e e m e to t m o iss s i s s t s h t e e fa f c a t c t t h t a h t a r t i r ch p h e p o e p o l p e l c e a c n a n do d o su s c u h s h t s un t t un s t . s Th T a h t a ’ t s ’ t s h t e e is i s s u s e u , e no n t o t t h t a h t a c t a c r a r it i s t e s l e f, f o , r o M r us M k us , k bu b t u t wh w a h t a t t h t es e e s r e i r ch c cr c e r a e t a ur t e ur s e c s o c u o l u d l d do d n o e n x e t. Th T at a ’ t s ’ t s h t e h i e mpo p r o t r a t nt a nt qu q e u s e t s i t on. o n. El E o l n M o u n M s u k s i k s s s e s e e n e a n s a s a a un u i n qu q e u fig e ur fig e ur e wh w o h w o a w n a t n s t t s o t o he h l e p l p th t e h h e u h m u an a n sp s e p c e i c es e . s .Ma M y a b y e b t e h t i h s i s s t s h t e h c e a c s a e s , e h , ow o e w v e e v r e he h t e o t o o i o s s infl n u fl e u n e c n e c d e b d y b y th t e e fo f r o ce c o e f o tr t a r d a e d . e In 2 In 0 2 1 0 7 1 , 7 Sp S a p c a e c X w e a X w s a f s or o c r ed e t d o t o pa p y a ne y a ne rl r y $ y 4 $ m 4 il i l l io i n o t n o t o th t o h u o s u a s n a d n s d o s f o f th t e h i e r r ow o n w e n m e pl p o l y o e y e e s e s fo f r o be b i e ng t ng r t e r a e t a e t d e u d n u f n a f i a rl r y l . y An A d n a d c a c c o c r o d r i d ng n to t a o 2 a 0 2 1 0 6 1 s 6 u s r u ve v y e : y “S “ p S a p c a e c X e (al (a o l n o g n wi w th t h Te T s e l s a l ) s a t ) s a t n a d n o d u o t u t in t n h t e e te t c e h c h ind i us nd t us r t y a y s a a s m a on o g n th t e e lo l w o e w s e t s -p t a -p y a i y ng n c g o c m o pa p ni a e ni s e t s o t w o o w r o k k fo f r o ”. ” (so s u o r u c r e c ) e “There it is, a Tesla car and the Earth behind it. The future of Space Ads.” Tesla model 3 (their newest model) has all of the hardware for becoming an autonomous car, yet it costs around $5.000 – $8.000 to enable it via software. This is a cheap marketing scheme that only makes sense in our wasteful trade society. Musk is also advertising his cars as “autonomous” - Tesla model 3 has two options: ‘Autopilot’ ($5,000) or ‘Full Self-Driving’ ($8,000) - even though they are far from that. This endangers people’s lives because they put too much trust into these cars because of Tesla’s advertising, and several people have died as a result of this premature trust. (source 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12) DECEIVING ADVERTISING 53RD RICHEST MAN IN THE WORLD Overall, Musk is very close to the Trade Bubble and he is not a superhero, he is just a human influenced by the Bubble and he does (and will continue to do) a lot of harm to others and/or the environment at the expense of his profits or his companies’ profits. On top of that, Musk is criticized for taking advantage of state taxes to grow his businesses, not to mention that he is currently the 53rd richest man in the world. (source 1, 2) As you can see, Musk and his companies are also under the influence of trade. Musk needs to run a business, and even he who seems to want to make this world a better place, is going to become a Charlatan here and there and somewhere. Bac B k ac to t s pac p e, ,othe t r co c mpan mp i an es s li l ke k e Bl B ue u Orig i in i (o ( wn o e wn d by b Am A az m o az n’ n s ’ s boss s ) ) or Vi V rgin gi Gal Ga ac a ti t c i are ar als al o s lo l o o king n at at explo xpl ri r ng n spac pa e with t the t bus bu i s ne n ss s i n n mind n (mi ( ni n n i g ast as e t roi o ds d , ,spac p e to t ur u is i m, m, and an d suc u h) h . Mar Ma s s One n , , is s an an org r an a izat i i zat o i n t h t at at i s s mainl n y l pr p ivat v e at ly l fu f nd n e d d d an a d n want wan s t to t se s nd d peo pe ple pl to t o Mars s by b 2032. . Lo L ts t s of pr es e s s co c v o e v r e age, ,lo l ts t of o mon mo ey pu p mpe u d d int n o t o the t pr p oje j ct, lo l ts t s of pl an pl s an s fo f r r the t o rgani gan zati zat o i n. n Bu t Bu t be b caus au e s it t is i pr p iv i at v e at ly l fun u d n e d d it i t ne n e e ds ds to t fin fi d n way wa s to t get t the t ir r inv n e v st s me t nt n t bac ba k. k. So the t y tho t ug u ht: ht :“Yo Y u kn k o n w o that t hat Bi B g Bro Br the t r r show ho , w ,mate mat !? ! Whe W re the t y clo l se s a a few str t a r n a gers s int n o t a hous u e s and an li l v i e v st s r t eam a the t ir r li l f i e? What W hat if i we do do th t at a t on n Mars! s ? ! ” - “Fu “F c u kin ki g Br B il i li l an i t an t mat m e at !”. ! They real e l al y l hav ha e v suc u h pla pl n a s. s .Imagi I ne n e tha t t ha . . (s ( ou o rc r e) Do D you u thi t n hi k Mar k s s One n wo w ul u d l d care abo u abo t u t huma hu n ma expl xp or o ati at o i n, n or o maki ma ng n some o pro pr fit fi s t ? Scie i nc n e or mi m ndl n e dl ss s en e te t r e ta t i a nme n nt n ? t None n of f th t es e e e pr p iv i at v e at ly l fu f nd n e d d d or o gani gan zati zat o i ns n s an a d n pro pr jec e ts t that t hat I am a aw a ar a e of f want wan t to t explo xpl re e spac p e fo f r the t sak s e ak of explo xpl rat r i at on o n an a d n on o be b half hal of o al a l l human hu s man . s (so s ur u ce c ) Be B caus au e s th t e e tr t ut u h t is s tha t t ha t th t ey e c an’ an t. .It I ’ t s ’ no n t t aff a o ff rdabl d e abl . The h a mazin zi g n g Hu H b u b b l b e l t e t l e es e co c p o e p w a w s pa p id i d fo f r o r i n i n adv d a v nc n e c th r th o r u o gh u gh t a t xe x s b y b y the th U S U S tri tr b i e b a nd n d w a w s a no n t o in i t n e t n e d n e d d e t o t o be b e a “ c “ ur u r r e r nc n y ma ki k n i g n g machi ch n i e n ” e . ” If th t i h s s te t l e e l s e c s o c p o e p w e o w u o l u d l h d a h v a e v e be b e e n e p n r p i r va v t a e t , e we w w e o w ul o d ul d hav a e v s e e s e e n i e t n i s t p s h p o h t o o t g o r g a r p a h p s a s n a d n d d i d sc s o c v o e v r e i r es e s be b i e ng n pr p i r va v t a e t l e y s y o s l o d t d o t o tr t i r be b s e o s r o r to t o o t o h t e h r e c r o c m o pa p ni a e ni s e a s n a d n d res e e s a e r a c r h c e h r e s, s or o t r o t r o ic i h p h e p o e p o l p e l w e h w o w o a w n a t n t t o t m o as a t s u t r u ba b t a e t e ov o e v r e a p a h p o h t o o t o wi w th t A h nd A r nd o r m o ed e a d a ga g l a a l x a y x , i , ns n t s e t a e d a o d f o ha h v a i v ng n g th t e h s e e s e mat a e t r e i r al a s l p s r p o r d o u d c u e c d e f d o f r o f r r f ee e (a e s (a s in t n r t a r d a e d f e r f e r e e ) t e o ) t o ev e e v r e yo y n o e n o e n E o a n E r a t r h t li l ke k t e h t e h y e a y r a e r n e o n w o . w O . v O e v r e 1 r 4 1 , 4 00 0 0 0 0 sc s i c en e t n i t fic p fic a p p a e p r e s s ha h v a e v b e e b e e n e n pub p l ub i l sh s e h d e u d s u i s ng n d g a d t a a t f a ro r m o Hub Hu b b l b e l a e n a d n o d v o e v r e 1 r . 1 3 m 3 ill l i l on o o b n o s b e s r e vat a i t on o s n h s a h v a e v b e e b e e n e n mad a e d . e (so s ur o c ur e c ) ) How Ho m w an a y n o y f o t f h t e h s e e s c e o c ul o d ul d ha h v a e v b e e b e e n e n po p s o s s i s bl b e l i e f Hu f b Hu b b l b e l e wa w s a l s a l u a n u c n he h d e a d s a a s “ a b “ u b s u i s ne n s e s s i s n n sp s a p c a e c ” e ? ” Mo M r o e r t e h t a h n a l n i l ke k l e y l , y no o no n o e n w e o w u o l u d h d av a e v i e nv n e v s e t s e t d e i d nt n o t Hu o b Hu b b l b e l e in t n h t e h fir e s fir t s t pl p a l c a e c b e e b c e a c u a s u e s i e t w t o w ul o d ul h d a h v a e v b e e b e e n e h n a h r a d r t d o t g o e g t e a t p a r p o r fit o fit off o ff of o it. Imagi g n i e n a a mis mi sio i n o n l ik i e k e Vo V y o a y ger. . NASA S A sen e t n t t wo w o s pa p ce c c e ra r fts ts to t o fly fl by b y sev e e v r e a r l l pl p an a e n ts e in i n o ur u r sol o ar a s yste t m m and n d ana n ly l ze z e the th m. T h T e h pr p o r j o e j ct’s ct’ co c s o t wa w s 865 mil mi li l o i n o n do d l o lars r , t o t o o k o k 5 y 5 e y a e rs r t o t o b ui u l i d l , d a nd n d some me 30-40 30- ye y ar a s t o t o ru r n u . n I f f th i th s i wa w s ma de d b y b y a c o c mp o a mp ny n y it i t wo w u o l u d l d ha h v a e v e b ee e n n imp i o mp s o sib i l b e. e W h W a h t c t o c mp o a mp ny n y wo w ul u d d ma ke k a p r p o r je j ct th ct a th t t lasts t e t ns n o f o f ye y a e rs a nd n d ho h w o w w o w u o l u d l d th e th y y ge g t th t e th e mo m ne n y b a b ck? No ? one n w o w u o l u d l d i n i v n e v st i t n i n suc u h h a mi s mi sio i n o . n . Whe h n e n NA N SA S s A e s n e t n t t h t e h V e o V y o a y g a e g r e r sp s a p c a e c c e r c af a ts t , s th t ey e we w r e e r s e o s s o c s i c en e t n i t fic in n th t e h i e r m r iss s i s o i n o t n h t a h t a t it t t o t o o k o k Ca C r a l r Sa S g a a g n a an a d n o d t o h t er e s r a s l a ot o o t f o t f i t m i e t e o t o co c n o v n i v nc n e c e th t e h m e to t o tu t r u n o n n o e n o e f o f th t e e sp s a p c a e c c e r c a r f a t f ’ t s ’ c s am a er e a r a to t w o a w r a d r s d s Ea E r a t r h t an a d n t d a t k a e k e a s a y s m y bo b l o i l c p c h p o h t o o t f o r f om o 6 6 bi b ll l i l on o k n i k lo l m o e m t e e t r e s r a s w a a w y a . T . h T at a t be b c e a c m a e t e h t e h w e e w l e l l kno k w no n w “ n Pa P l a e Bl e u Bl e u D e o D t o ” p ” h p ot o o t . o NA N SA d A o d e o s e n s ’ n t ’ e t v e e v n e car a e r a e b a o b u o t u t t h t e c e am a er e a r s a s on o t n h t e h i e r p r r p o r b o e b s e b s e b c e a c u a s u e s e wh w a h t a t t h t e h y e c y a c r a e r e ab a o b ut o ut ar a e r t e h t e h s e c s i c en e t n i t fic i fic ns n t s r t u r m u en e t n s t – s t – h t e h s e c s i c en e c n e c t e h t a h t a g t e g t e s t s ou o t u o t f o t f h t e h s e e s e miss s i s o i n o s n . s Ano A t no h t e h r e i r nt n e t r e e r s e t s i t ng n g th t i h ng n ab a o b u o t u t t h t is s mis i s s i s on: o o n: t o h t e h r e s r s ha h d a d to t o co c n o v n i v nc n e c e NA N SA S t A o t a o d a d d a d “ a p “ a p y a l y oa o d a ” d f ” o f r o h r um h ani a t ni y t t y o t t o h t e h s e e s t e w t o w o sp s a p c a e c c e r c a r f a t f s t s s i s nc i e nc t e h t e h y e w y o w u o l u d t d r t a r v a e v l e l a l a o l ng o l ng on o g n wa w y a a y n a d n f d o f r o a r l a o l n o g n ti t me, e an a d n w d h w o h k o n k o n w o s w s may a b y e b i e n 3 n m 3 ill l i l on o s n y s e y a e r a s r s s o s m o e a e l a ie i n e s n w s i w ll l fi l nd n d th t e h m e . Al A th t o h u o g u h a h s a w s e w d e i d sc s u c s u s s i s n o n u o r u b r o b o o k o o k n o n Lan La g n ua g g ua e g , i , t w t o w u o l u d b d e b e al a m l os o t s t im i po p s o s s i s bl b e l e fo f r o a r n a y n al a i l en e s n p s e p c e i c es e t s o t un o d un e d r e s r t s a t n a d n o d u o r u hu h m u an a n la l n a g n ua u g a e g (r e e (r g e a g r a d r l d e l s e s s o s f o f wh w e h t e h t e h r e i r t i t s s th t e l e an a g n u g a u g a e g e of o f da d y a t y o t d o a d y a y us u e s , e or o t r h t e h l e a l n a g n ua u g a e g o e f o s f c s i c en e c n e c ). e ). An A y n w y a w y a s, s NA N SA A is i u s s u ua s l ua l l y p y r p a r g a m g at a i t c i bu b t u t it i t ev e e v n e t n u t a u l a l l y l y ac a ce c p e t p e t d e t d h t i h s i s de d a e . a Th T e h p e a p y a l y o l a o d a w d a w s a a s d a i d sc s wh w i h ch c c h o c n o t n a t i a n i e n d e d so s u o n u d n s d s an a d n d im i ag a es e o s f o na f t na u t r u e r a e n a d n d d i d ffe ff r e e r n e t n h t u h m u an a c n ul u t l u t r u e r s e f s r f om o al a l l ov o e v r e th t e h w e o w r o l r d l . d .Se S e e e th t e h d e i d ffe ff r e e r n e c n e w e i w th t S h p S a p c a e c X! e ? X! Th T e h y e di d dn d ’ n t s t e s n e d n a d N a A N SA s A p s e p c e i c fic t fic h t i h ng n , ,bu b t u a t h a u h m u an s a p n s e p c e i c fic th t i h ng n . g Th T e h e di d sc s a c l a s l o s i o nc n l c ud u e d d e a d m a es e s s a s g a e g e fr f o r m o th t e U e . U S. S .pr p e r s e i s de d n e t n J t im i my m y Ca C r a te t r e … r . … .o . h o . h .. . bum b mer e . r Yo Y u s o e u s e e , e I wa I w n a t n t to t p o r p ov o e v t e h t e h d e e d g e re r e e e of o infl n u fl e u n e c n e c e th t a h t a t t h t e h f e o f r o ce c o e f o t f r t a r d a e d h e a h s a , s no n t o t to t m o ak a e k N e A N SA S l A o l o o k o l k ike k e it i i t s s do d i o ng t ng h t e h r e i r gh g t h t t h t i h ng n . N . ASA S A to t o o i o s i s n a n a tr t a r d a e d e ag a r g e r e e m e ent e nt wi w th t t h h t e e US U S tr t i r be b e be b c e a c u a s u e s t e h t e h U e S U tr t ib i e b p e a p y a s y t s h t e h m e an a d n d co c nt o r nt o r l o s l t s h t e h m e . .So S o NA N SA S h A a h s a s to t o do d s o u s c u h c “s “ t s u t nt u s nt ” s a ” s a w s e w l e l. l .In t In h t e h 6 e 0 6 s 0 w s h w e h n e t n h t e e US U S se s n e t n a t m a an a t n o t o th t e h e Moo o n o , n NA N SA S w A a w s a f s or o c r ed e t d o t d o o d t o h t a h t a no t t no f t o f r o a r s a c s ie i n e t n i t fic fic pu p r u po p s o e s , e bu b t u t be b c e a c u a s u e s t e h t e e US U S tr t i r be b w e a w s a i s n a n c a o c m o pe p t e i t ti t on o w n i w t i h t h th t e h R e us u s s i s an t a r n t i r b i e b t e o t o pr p o r v o e v e wh w o h s o e s e di d ck k ro r c o ke k t e t wa w s a b s i b g i ge g r e . r It w It a w s a a s s a i s ll l y l , y st s up t i up d, d a , n a d n d da d n a g n e g r e o r u o s u m s iss s i s on o t n h t a h t a e t v e e v n k e i n k l i l l ed e s d e s v e e v r e a r l a a l s a t s r t on o a n u a t u s t b s e b c e au a s u e s e of o t f h t e h e rus u h s . . (s ( o s u o r u c r e c ) N e A ) N SA S i A s a s l a s l o s e o ng e a ng g a i g ng n int n o t b o u b s u i s ne n s e s s d s e d a e l a s s wi w th t p h r p i r va v t a e t e co c m o pa p ni a e ni s e a s n a d n a d t a t t i t mes e , s th t e h y e m y ay a c y o c l o l l a l b a o b r o a r t a e t e wi w th t t h h t e e ar a m r y m . y (so (s ur o c ur e c e 1, 1 2) 2 This is the difference when it comes to trade. When the force of trade is stronger, the CRAP gets crappier. In the case of space exploration we can see it very clearly. Agencies like NASA or ESA (European Space Agency) are funded through taxes. They get the money to do the missions. They may “ass-kiss” their tribes and leaders here and there with their missions (look at my flag, my nationality), but their missions are mainly scientific and exploratory for the entire human species. They make their discoveries trade-free for everyone and usually they explore space in a collaborative manner and for a human endeavor. At least for now. SpaceX, Mars One, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic are privately funded so they are forced to engage into trades from the get-go. That’s why they will fuck things up, to put it bluntly. They will become Charlatans and exaggerate their tech or discoveries and so forth, and will probably go into space to make more money for their companies. Pay attention: I am not saying they will, but I am saying they are most likely to do that. So, SpaceX orbits much closer to the Trade Bubble than NASA. Much much closer. Therefore, the force of trade is much greater for SpaceX (or any private company), than it is for NASA (or any state funded space science organization), even though NASA (and others) are not immune to the force of trade. What I am trying to prove here is the degree of influence. The force. If people go into space to explore it under a massive influence of trade (like private companies do) then, very likely, the space exploration will become space exploitation: Elon Musk will colonize Mars (because he is obsessed with that planet) and will power it with Tesla batteries – the new Tesla cars will be made on Mars and will cost a premium fee to be sold on Earth. But fuck it! The Tesla Mars Roadster is worth every penny! After he dies the planet will be called Musk. The Musk planet. Bezos (Amazon’s Boss and the richest man alive today) will buy the International Space Station (ISS) in 2024 when the project is going to cease, and he will name it Amazon Space Station (ASS). They will sell “space grown lettuces” via “www.amazon.universe” and send them via Amazon Prime to Earth or Musk Planet (same day delivery!). ASS Amazon will be the first to own an asteroid and mine it, and it will partner with Apple to make the first mobile phones with asteroid materials, again at a premium price. “The iPhone Asteroid Plus: bringing back the keyboard!”. Google will eventually own the Moon and tax everyone who needs to settle there for a brief period of time in their long voyages to other planets. They are going to filter all of the space travel. Rich fucks will get to travel to ASS and eat at a premium price a meal on top of planet Earth, whilst Instagramming themselves with the iPhone Asteroid Plus and planning their holiday trip to the Musk planet. THAT’S THE WORLD THAT I SEE IF WE CONTINUE DOWN THIS PATH. ASS I’ll l l l ea e v a e v e yo y u w o i u w th t h th t i h s p s r p o r m o o v o id i e d o e fr f o r m o th t e h e De D e e p e S p p S a p c a e c Indus Ind t us r t i r es e co c m o pa p n a y n t y o t s o e s e e e ho h w o t w h t e h f e u f t u u t r u e r o e f o s f p s a p c a e c e e x e p x l p o l i o ta t t a i t on o n lo l o o k o s k s li l k i e k . e I . am a m af a r f a r i a d t d h t a h t a u t n u d n e d r e t r h t e e Ga G m a e O e f O T f r T ad a e d , e ,th t i h s v s i v de d o e o wi w ll l l be b c e o c m o e t e h t e h n e o n r o m r in a n b a o b u o t u 5 t 0 0 ye y a e r a s. s A . n A d n d th t i h s o s t o h t e h r e p r r p o r m o ot o i t ona o l na vide d o e o fr f o r m o Uni U t ni e t d e A d r A a r b a E b m E ira r t a e t s e S s p S a p c a e c A e g A enc e y (U ( A U E A ) E ) – a – n a A n r A a r b a b “N “ ASA S ” A l ” i l ke k e e n e t n i t ty t y – i – s s th t e o e t o h t e h r e s r i s de d o e f o t f h t e h c e o c i o n o i f n o t f r t a r d a e d e sh s o h w o c w as a i s ng n g ho h w o t w h t e h f e u f t u u t r u e r “ e s “ t s a t t a e t -r e u -r n u ” n s ” p s a p c a e c e ag a en e c n i c es e s ar a e r e so s m o et e h t i h ng n li l ke k N e ASA S w A a w s a i s n t n h t e h 6 e 0 6 s 0 , s ,tr t a r d a e d e bo b u o n u d n e d d e w d i w th t t h h t e h s e t s a t t a e t e an a d n p d r p o r m o o m t o i t ng n t g h t e h i e r fl r a fl g a b g a b s a i s cal a ly l . y If A If m A er e i r ca c n a s n w s e w nt e nt in i t n o t s o p s a p c a e c e an a d n s d t s a t b a b b e b d e t d h t e h M e o M o o n o n wi w th t t h h t e h i e r i fla fl g a , ,wh w y h c y an a ’ n t ’ A t r A a r b a s b g s o t o o t M o a M r a s r s an a d n d d o d o th t e h s e a s m a e? e A A sh s ow o -o w ff -o , ff bu b t u a t l a s l o s a o s a e s a e r a c r h c h fo f r o p r e p r e ha h p a s p n s e n w e w op o p p o p r o t r u t n u i n ti t es e f s o f r o U r A U E A w E h w i h ch c h may a no y t no b t e b a e b a l b e l t e o t m o ak a e k i e ts t b s i b ll l io i n o s n s fro r m o oi o l f l or o r lo l n o g n er e , r s , o s s o p s a p c a e e re r s e o s u o r u c r es e s ma m y a b y e b t e e t m e pt p i t ng n . . Therefore pay attention to what I am trying to prove here: the stronger the force of trade, the more dangerous and harmful and awful and wasteful things will become. Both SpaceX and NASA are trade bounded, but SpaceX is more prone to do shitty things because the force of trade is greater for them. This is not about state vs private, but about the influence of trade itself. accept k n o w l e d g e I think WikiPedia should stop begging for donations and should become a proper business with investors and actually pay its editors! Their business model is broken! Actually their “business” model is better! Keeping profits out of WikiPedia is an excellent decision. Else, WikiPedia will become a clickbait tabloid. GIVE ME MONEY AND I’LL PROVIDE KNOWLEDGE WITHOUT ANY TRADE INVOLVED vs Have you noticed that every time an organization wants to become more honest, it transforms its funding strategy into “non-for-profit” or donation-based? WikiPedia is anything but state run, yet it too adopts a similar funding method that NASA has: it asks for money from the people (like a voluntary tax - donations) to run WikiPedia. They get the funding, and they run the project with the funding that they have. They too want to remove the force of trade as much as possible, to not be influenced by it. (source) If WikiPedia were to invest their own money into the project, then they would have to make money out of that project somehow in order to become sustainable: maybe adding ads on WikiPedia, restricting access, or collecting user data and selling it. But since they get the funding in advance, they don’t have to engage into trades with anyone to keep the project alive, or at least not as much. However, if WikiPedia were to rely too much on a big donor and that donor put pressure on WikiPedia to write more articles about penguins, then WikiPedia editors or managers might be influenced by that. But considering the financial model of WikiPedia and the fact that it relies on volunteers to write for it, this is a very unlikely scenario. It too relies on donations from people to run the project, so they are also engaged into a trade with the people. However, I would say that WikiPedia orbits further from the Trade Bubble than NASA does. Noticeably further. I’LL INVEST MY OWN MONEY THEN TAKE IT FROM YOU BY COLLECTING DATA, SHOWING ADVERTISING, AND SO FORTH vs Everipedia is exactly the WikiPedia that gets close to the Trade Bubble. They are a private (for-profit) creature who sparked in 2014 to “replicate” WikiPedia but made it into a business. And, of course, their revenue model is to add advertisements to the website. On top of that, they are using BlockChain and are working to create their own currency that will be used to reward people who create and edit articles. “The site frequently focuses on trending topics. The site has been criticized for initially presenting false information in wiki pages on breaking news topics. The site allows for a significantly larger range of articles than in the English WikiPedia because its inclusion criteria for notability are lower. For instance, a very large number of pages describe pornographic performers.” (source 1, 2) And Everipedia can change its business tactics in a heartbeat, providing paid access, or who knows what limitations that can only be unlocked with currency (maybe their own) or other trades. So, two examples of encyclopedias, one is close to the Trade Bubble and it has worse content and overall a worse outcome, and the other stays far away and is doing pretty well both in terms of content and access. And if you read about not-for-profit organizations you’ll see that their biggest weakness is where the funding comes from or if the funding is ever coming. In other words, when not-for-profit organizations get close to the Trade Bubble, they too will ACT. accept O p e n s o u r c e Open Source is the best! I love it! Linux, Ubuntu, Android, it has spread like wildfire and that’s so…. Troubling in the Game Of Trade! If you put the Open Source idea close to the Trade Bubble, you will ruin it, just like you would ruin WikiPedia! Here’s what happens when you take an idea like Open Source and put it close to the Trade Bubble: Take Linux. Amazing. Open Source, Super useful. However, although it is a “non-for-profit” organization, Linux has a board of members who decide the future of this organization. To make more money for the foundation they made a sort of a business out of this membership. For example, if you pay lots of money (like $500.000 a year) you become a Platinum Member. A $100.000 yearly investment gets you a Gold Membership. And so forth. Platinum Members have a lot more to say about the future for the Linux Foundation than the other members. (source) Microsoft (the anti-matter of Linux and Open Source) recently became a Platinum Member. LINUX AT&T SAMSUNG IBM INT You make the connections. Amongst other members you can find Google, AT&T, Samsung, FaceBook, Intel, or IBM. (source) Regardless if these members have a big influence on the Linux Foundation or not, what is certain is that they have an influence – that’s the idea of being a member after all. It’s like if WikiPedia had large investors like NYTimes, CNN or Washington Post, and they were on an advisory board. And recently Microsoft announced that it had acquired GitHub, the “leading software development platform” with over 28 million developers. For those who are not familiar with GitHub, it is the “Mecca” of Open Source Software where pretty much everyone posts and hosts their Open Source code. Now Microsoft will control that as well. (source) NUX GOOGLE MICROSOFT FACEBOOK NTEL Folks come work for me, let’s develop software for my business! I pay well! The Open Source community itself is influenced by trade too, and that’s because they have to seek funding. Say I am SOFT, a company that makes laptops. Instead of paying a license for the Windows Operating System for all of my laptops to come pre-installed with, I can simply invest into Linux or any derivative of Linux (say an operating system based on it) and make the people there (developers) focus more on creating an operating system that works best with my SOFT laptops. Thus, I am pushing the focus of the Open Source development towards my own products so that I can sell more laptops and make more profits for my company. We can’t sell our open source software so we sell services on the back of this software. Actually, since Open Source projects cannot sell their code, like Microsoft sells its Windows Operating System, they have to sell services. Ubuntu or Red Hat, the most well known Linux derivatives , make money out of selling services - “I am Ubuntu, I make Operating Systems and also software for servers. Have a server and a product that needs help with our software? Then pay us to do it for you with Open Source software – we are the experts on this after all so you need our services.” - and so that’s what they do. They sell services and make Open Source software for various companies. They are forced in a way to take the profit motive out of their Open Source software itself and focus it on services instead. But it is not as black and white and they also get polluted by the Trade Bubble. Ubuntu, at one point, added Amazon to their operating system’s search – so that you could search on Amazon directly from Ubuntu, and Ubuntu would get a share of that from Amazon. This was a very invasive move influenced by their position close to the Trade Bubble. Ubuntu needs currency to stay in the game with their products, and if they can’t make enough from their server- side services, they’ll do such stunts. They made that option as default, so many users didn’t even notice that their searches could be shared with Amazon. It took them several years and a lot of criticism to make this option “opt in” (so you have to select it to be active). (source) Recently, Ubuntu announced that with new versions of their operating system, they will collect data about the user’s machine in order “to improve Ubuntu”, and this will be a default option (same as it was with Amazon). Sure, they may want to improve Ubuntu, but they are also a company and data is damn important in our trade based world. THE ANDROID MONSTER Take the Android Operating System, a product of Google, which is based on Linux. They don’t ask for any money for it (because they cannot, being partially Open Source) but they use the Android Operating System to sell their phones and their Google products. Actually Google was fined by EU because of that, since they promote Google’s services and phones via this Open Source operating system in a forceful way. Basically Android is used by most phones but Google inserts its services into that. And on top of it all, the “partially Open Source” Android collects data through those Google services or other services. Not to mention that they can add proprietary code on top of the Open Source one. (source 1, 2) It is a mix of proprietary and open source code designed to sell Google stuff, collect data, make profits, or serve advertising. So basically, they created a monster out of an Open Source software, and that’s because Google was too close to the Trade Bubble. WordPress is another massive Open Source project that powers 30% of all the websites in the world (it is their backbone) and they too make money off of services. One part of WordPress websites that is essential are plugins – they are pieces of code that can allow for greater functionality of a WordPress website. For example, on tromsite.com (which is built on WordPress), our Curated News section is basically a plugin that we bought (and customized). Same goes for most parts of tromsite.com. Now, the Open Source “law” says that if you use another piece of Open Source software, modify it and build upon it, then anything you do/add to it should also be Open Source. So then, how come we have to pay for those Open Source plugins if they are built on Open Source code? Because the Charlatans of our world are very inventive. They put a price on those plugins but the price is not for the software (and almost no one is aware of that), the price is for the support and updates. That’s what you are paying for. (source) In theory, that premium plugin that a Charlatan “sells” is a piece of software that should be freely available/sharable to everyone, yet they are still able to sell it under this mask of “selling support and updates”. In theory, again, any plugin that we bought for tromsite, we can make public and share with anyone, but in practice this may cause a lot of problems with the ones who are selling those plugins. If you go to WordPress.com to search for a plugin, all of those over there are free (so no one sells anything), yet as I’ve noticed for the past years, the Charlatans upload free versions of their plugins that have very little functionality, and then advertise their “premium” versions on the same page. For instance you are very likely to read this book on tromsite.com and the viewer that allows you to do that is based on a paid plugin. That plugin is also available as a free version on WordPress.com here, but it is very limited in functionality. It is a way of using a bait on WordPress.com to make people buy premium plugins that should, in theory, be free. Same goes for WordPress themes. And that’s how small and big businesses or private individuals rape the WordPress Open Source platform for profit. Because, you already know, they were too close to the Trade Bubble. You can very well make an app or a game as “Open Source” but sell “in game stuff” like customizations, add- ons, functionalities, whatever. You can read more here on the topic of “business out of Open Source” . In contrast to these, there are many community driven Open Source Operating Systems that never engaged in such behaviors, and that's because they stay far away from the Trade Bubble. They didn’t make a business out of their operating systems, and some of them either rely on donations or do their work as volunteers. (source) When Open Source gets close to the Trade Bubble, it means trouble! And speaking of software, pretty much all software has bugs and some people use these bugs (security leaks) inside the software for profit motives like spying, data mining, some can use these security leaks to infiltrate inside computers, encrypt computer files, then ask the owner for currency. This happened on a global scale in 2017 when such a security leak was exploited by some anonymous individuals who infiltrated into many computers around the world, encrypting files, then asking for cryptocurrency in return of decrypting those files. (source) What could you do if they encrypt all of your files? You can’t decrypt yourself, so you are forced to pay them (money, cryptocurrencies, whatever). And here’s where the Trade Bubble has its massive influence: around the world there are hackers whose sole job is to discover these security leaks (bugs). These hackers are super useful for spotting these bugs, but since they are in need for trade like everyone in this system, they are selling the bugs they find to the highest bidder. If I am a hacker, and discover a bug, why would I give it away for free if I could make a fortune selling it to whoever is interested in paying for it? Interestingly, hacking to spot bugs in software was a hobby not long ago, with hackers sharing these security leaks for free, but for the past years it has transformed into an ugly business. (source) Hackers close to the Trade Bubble, means more trouble! I could report this security bug that I found to Microsoft...but I can also sell it to others for lots of money. What should I do? NO TROUBLE TROUBLE accept S c i e n c e r e s e a r c h What would you trust more: a drug research funded by the state, or a drug research funded by a drug company? Think about it. State healthcare is underfunded and wants to avoid costs so they may treat you poorly and delay tests and treatments. Private healthcare wants to rip you off. Both are bad, but the private might be worse because they are more incentivised to do bad stuff for a profit. In Australia, they did a study between private healthcare and state healthcare. What they found was that the private healthcare sent people to do unnecessary tests and treatments way more often than the state healthcare, but also that doctors in private hospitals charge a lot more money than they should (taking advantage of sick people), showcasing how the private is under a bigger influence of trade and wants more profit. (source 1, 2, 3) Not surprisingly, the same thing happens in the UK (and perhaps everywhere around the world) (source 1, 2, 3). Even donating blood is a messed up situation when that “donation” activity sits close to the Trade Bubble (source). You need a CT scan, blood work, and maybe surgery in the near future. Just to make sure you are ok. . Recently it was uncovered how Coca-Cola paid scientists to basically lie about the bad health effects of sugar and to shift the attention towards exercise. Basically, they were like: “Mate, you know how the tobacco industries lied about the bad effects of smoking and it worked for many years like a charm? Well, let’s do the same with sugary drinks!” They made immense efforts to change the public opinion and that of governments in this regard, so much that they invested into a network called “Global Energy Balance Network” , an organization whose sole purpose was to pretend to do obesity studies and to ‘show’ the link between obesity and exercise, and not between obesity and sugar. After a lot of criticism, the Global Energy Balance Network felt forced to close down and several of their scientists had to leave their universities’ positions. Coca-Cola also gave money to 94 public health services to promote their nonsense. Thinking that the Coca-Cola scenario is the exception rather than the rule can be a very naive move. (source) The tobacco industry is notorious for paying scientists to conduct misleading science in their favor (source). No. Sugar is not bad for health. There is research showcasing that. Obesity is due to the lack of physical exercise! The astonishing fact is that “60% of research and development in scientific and technical fields” is done/funded by companies. That’s globally. Universities fund 20% and governments fund 10%. And the conflict of interest is detectable. (source) Think about science journals where science is published: if a science journal is for profit (engaged in trades) then it means that the ones publishing are paying for their research to be published, and the one who reviews these papers will make more money if he/she accepts more articles. Thus, it is easy to see how poor scientific papers are accepted due to the profit involved. Why wouldn’t I accept more scientific papers if that means more advantages (like currency) for me? (source) Another awful thing that happens to scientific research is patents. Recently an amazing new technology was discovered that can edit DNA strings in a way that looks magic. It is called CRISPR. It could help cure diseases that we only dreamed we could cure only a few years ago. But instead of having the scientific community focus on the way we can use this amazing tool to cure incurable diseases, they have been fighting over patents for the past few years. They want to make a huge profit out of CRISPR so that’s what they are doing right now. (source) The entire science field understands the effects of trade. No scientific study can be trusted when it is funded by a private organization (company), or at times when it is funded by a “shady” government. (source) This is something understood worldwide. TROM only goes one step further to blame the trade and not just one of the thousands of its baby-monsters, money. COMPANIES UNIVERSITIES GOVERNMENTS 10% 20% 60% SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT accept S c i e n c e m e d i a Netflix is so fucking great! You can find so much stuff. And the subscription is so cheap. I pay 10 bucks a month and I have access to a ton of stuff on any device. Netflix is a Charlatan too, my friend. It wil serve you anything that you want as long as you keep your subscription going. It wil scratch your back, massage your feet, and brush your hair, as long as you remain their customer. It may sound great to some, but they are again fooled into thinking that this is something good. GIVE ME MONEY AND I’LL PROVIDE GOOD SCIENCE PROGRAMS vs I am curating documentaries for many years now (see VideoNeat) and what is so obvious from the past years of doing this, is that the state funded science (and investigative journalistic) documentaries are far better quality than the privately funded ones. That’s mainly because state funded science (and investigative journalistic) documentaries are already funded so they won’t have to sell these documentaries further to make a profit since they are usually broadcasted on their national TV station for free. This is a similar situation to SpaceX vs NASA. Examples of such state funded TV stations that create good science (and investigative journalistic) based documentaries are PBS, BBC, ABC Four Corners, VPRO, Al Jazeera. On the other hand companies like National Geographic, Discovery, Animal Planet, History Channel, TLC, Netflix and the like, use their own money to create their documentaries (or buy documentaries) and then they have to sell them to get their money back, plus make a profit on top of that. Now, in order to sell their documentaries, they have to do tons of marketing to persuade TV stations to broadcast them and/or for people to watch them. They are the “clickbait” and deceiving side of the story. Discovery can advertise a documentary in which the fastest swimmer in the world would compete with a great white shark, to then showcase a race between the man and a CGI (Computer Generated Image) shark disappointing everyone - but hey, that reveal was at the end of the documentary so they’ve got what they wanted (people's attention, serving them ads) (source). I’LL INVEST MY OWN MONEY THEN I’LL MAKE CLICKBAIT SCIENCE PROGRAMS TO TAKE MY MONEY BACK vs That’s one example of marketing deception. The same Discovery hyped a documentary about a guy who was wearing a special protective suit and would presumably be eaten alive by an Anaconda (recording the entire event in the process), to then be ‘discovered’ at the end of the documentary that, of course, won’t be the case. But, again, they made some money from advertising this shocking story and that’s all that matters for their business. Discovery is notorious for such stunts (more here). NatGeo seems a bit more decent, but still hypes the shit out of everything. The other channels became totally “reality show” focused, and less or no science-focus. “TLC” originally stood for “The Learning Channel”, and was one of the best science channels prior to the 90s. With modest ratings, it was acquired by Discovery in 1990 and since then it went downhill, presenting less and less science and more reality shows. Today, the “learning” channel is mostly about reality-based drama or interests such as home design, emergency room or medical dramas, extreme weather, law enforcement, dating, personal stories, and human interest programs. (source) This is a classic example of what happens when you orbit close to the Trade Bubble. You’ll get sucked in a bit more every day. Look at Netflix. Netflix is in the business of buying documentaries (licenses) to sell on their network via a subscription, so they won’t give much of a damn about the quality of these documentaries. What they want is more documentaries to keep their subscribers subscribed and non-subscribers tempted to subscribe. That’s why you’ll see all kinds of crappy science documentaries on Netflix. Not to mention the many controversies Netflix found itself emerged into over the years, where it behaved like a Charlatan. (source) National Geographic, Discovery, Animal Planet, The History Channel, TLC, and Netflix all orbit very close to the Trade Bubble, same distance that SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic and the others orbit, but the science or journalistic investigation programs of PBS, BBC, Al Jazeera, or ABC Four Corners orbit around at the same distance from the Trade Bubble as NASA does. Again, keep in mind, what I am saying is that some are under the influence of trade more than others. NatGeo can and is producing many great quality science programs, but it is so much under the influence of trade that it will be pushed towards creating more and more crappy stuff in time. I remember when Discovery was a decent science channel, but then, because it orbits so close to the Trade Bubble, the force of trade got so big that it ruined them. (source) Discovery moved from making decent science programs, to making low budget high revenue programs. Same goes for Animal Planet, who was a decent TV station at one point in time. (source) I predict the same is going to happen to NatGeo. But state funded TV stations can become biased towards the big daddy state, like NASA was in the 60s with their “putting a man on the Moon” mentality. Russia Today (RT) is a television channel funded by the Russian government and it may be one of the most criticized TV channel in the world for their biased news that aim to put Russia in a better light whilst making other tribes look bad. (source 1, 2). As you see, this is not all about direct monetary profits, it is about a fight over power under the influence of trade. The Russian government wants to keep its status (with its resources, social statuses, laws, and overall differential advantages) so it will do anything for that: lie, deceive, exaggerate. Needless to say, all of the above state televisions can be and are biased in one way or another towards their parent state when it comes to politics and the like. But RT in this case stands out, or let’s say “stands closer” to the Trade Bubble. Jimmy Whales, the founder of WikiPedia, about the influence of trade in news: To produce news (articles, videos) or content in general, is a big business today. You can pay a company and they will create the content for you. Such a company in China has the following prices for all kinds of articles: SITE IN BAIDU NEWS FEED NATIONAL NEWS $116 $116 FASHION/ REAL ESTATE ENTERTAINMENT $116 $174 FINANCE HEALTHCARE BUSINESS $189 $131 PROVINCIAL NEWS IT NEWS $72 $174 Another company in China claims to be monitoring over 3.000 websites and forums, and can influence opinions by posting as many as 100 posts per minute. This is happening all over the world and in so many ways. You can buy likes, followers, influence, whatever you want. On the Internet, you can create your own news media and focus only on making money by buying content and influence, then putting ads on your content. You can read more here about the staggering reality of creating news and articles for the sake of making profits, ruining the entire journalistic world. News agencies recognize this issue and some try to change their revenue model (to push themselves further away from the Trade Bubble) so they started to accept donations or create a paid subscription model. It is well understood that if you rely on selling ads, you are so close to the Trade Bubble that you will clickbait like crazy, and the “journalistic” endeavor is going to perish. Having curated news for our TROM News for the past 3 years, I can confirm that the most reliable news information comes from not-for-profit institutions or from those who rely on donations or are state funded. Think about TV shows like Dr. Oz or The Doctors, two of the most popular TV shows that give medical advice to people. They consist of doctors and celebrities who discuss treatments, medicine, and anything health related. But because it is a show and they rely on a rating, thus they are in a trade-situation (they need more viewers to make more money to keep the show going and thriving), they exaggerate claims. A research team analyzed these shows and they found that “About 78% of statements made on the Dr. Oz show did not align with evidence-based medical guidelines, society recommendations, or authority statements. For The Doctors, this was about 80%.” More than that, these shows include paid promotions (advertising). More than half of these shows had advertising related to the products they were talking about – in other words, they were talking about paid promotions or tried to make a buck on the backs of medical advice. (source) One study found that advertising medicine/treatments is, not surprising at all, pretty misleading. And another study found that popular health news are often exaggerated. And if you follow HealthNewsReview.org (a big team of journalists and healthcare professionals who are supported through donations and universities) you will see how the entire world of news and journalism that regards health is full of CRAP. Articles that mislead the population, that exaggerate claims, or some that are simply paid promotions for various companies. The state of healthcare news is a total disaster. What is sad and yet predictable, is that such a news organization that doesn’t seek to engage into trades to raise their profits, is on the brink of bankruptcy and it recently announced that it will close in a few months time due to lack of funding. (source) Hopefully someone with money will save them, but such stories are too common nowadays where journalism cannot exist anymore unless it prostitutes over views, clicks, and ads, which in turn transforms the “journalism” into “tabloid”. So, the influence of the force of trade is clear when it comes to science media (documentaries, journalistic investigative programs or news): if they are funded in advance and have no “profit model” attached to them, they are far better quality because they don’t have to sell documentaries or news stories and hype them up. But if they are privately funded and/or “for profit” then these programs are going to be exaggerated, deceiving and will present poor quality material because the focus will be on what sells best. Look at Johnny. He is a good good boy. Good boy, Johnny! :) He loves science and wants to make science videos. To explain how the Universe works, what is gravity, the Sun, the birds, the water, the me and the you. Johnny uses his smartphone to record the first episode. It is about relativity. Tough subject. Takes him several weeks to finish. Uploads on MyTube (the most well known video streaming service in the Universe). Gets some tens of views. He is happy that some people watched his video. He is so passionate. He makes more videos. The views increase, but not by much. One day he decides to make a video about the “Top 10 unsolved mysteries in the Universe”. It is an easy video compared to the others because he mainly lists the mysteries that he learned from a website. To T p 10 unsolved ved mysteries in the e Universe He posts the video and gets 45.000 views. Wow! From hundreds to thousands in one video. He feels great. MyTube also has a reward system. They make currency from displaying ads on the videos that people upload, so to encourage more people to upload videos they give them a share of that. MyTube cares about views and time spent watching, because that means more and better targeted ads, and therefore more currency for MyTube. To T p 10 10 unsolved ved mysteries in the Universe Johnny's video made him 37 cicero-coins, the currency of MyTube. The views, the likes, the shares, and the coins that Johnny gained from this video is going to influence him a lot. He focuses on making more of his original science-heavy videos but they get very few views and it takes a lot of time to make them. Johnny has to go to college and needs currency. He knows that his “Top 10 mysteries” videos brought him some coins, so he decides to make another “Top 10 mysteries”, this time “Top 10 Chemistry Mysteries”, then “Top 10 Mysteries that BAFFLE scientists”, “Top 5 SHOCKING discoveries of 2018”. He gets the point: clickbait titles and poorly made videos (not a lot of effort put into making them) give him the highest rewards. Top 10 Chemistry Mysteries Coins, likes, shares, comments. His videos are poorly researched and badly made, but very popular. He doesn’t spread science anymore, but misinformation. He now makes thousands of views per video, and thus lots of cicero-coins. His material life is good, his conscience raped. He became a prostitute and a Charlatan. Johnny was too close to the Trade Bubble. He had to engage into trades with the society he lives under, and through a system like MyTube that is also under the influence of the same society. Both entities needed food, shelter, access to needs and services, comfort and security, so they had to trade for that. Trade with the state, trade between themselves, trade with others. That let Johnny to put profits on top of anything. He needed cicero-coins, because he needed access to food, shelter, to a life in this society. In our “real” society, the most popular video platform, YouTube, is exactly the same. It doesn’t care much about anything other than profit, and for them, profit means having people spend more time on their site to watch advertisements. And so, if YouTube’s algorithm detects that someone is interested in “flat Earth” conspiracies, then YouTube will recommend “better” videos to that guy/girl, reinforcing his/her primitive beliefs at the expense of more time spent on YouTube’s platform. And YouTube knows very well what “flat Earth” videos to serve to this person based on engagement from other users. In YouTube’s world, it doesn’t matter if these videos make people stupid, primitive, or dangerous due to their beliefs, the only thing that matters is that this works for their business, to make more profit. YouTube users got this idea and are now making more and more clickbait videos to make more profits since YouTube splits the advertising revenue with them. One way creators Charlatans do this is by exploiting children. Parents spend most of their day at work and kids spend most of their day at school (because both have to trade). When parents come home they are tired, so what’s better to do than to give their children their phone or tablet and let them search stuff on YouTube. Maybe the parents are selecting a few good videos for their children to watch, but YouTube has an autoplay-next video feature (again, another trick to get people to spend more time on their site) so they can easily trap children in this never ending loop of clickbait videos. And users, being profiteers on their own, found a way to exploit that. They started to make crappy, weird, and moronic videos specifically for children. Because, you see, children are great for ad revenue since they watch a lot of content and for a long time. Adults may get bored easily, but children can watch for hours, this is why the profiteers are targeting them. One such channel, called “Toy Freaks” , was created in 2012 by a single dad and his two young daughters. They uploaded anything onto this channel that would make them more bucks: children eating sweets in a weird way, their daughters pretending to pee themselves, impersonating cartoon characters in a very freaky way, and anything that was shocking and clickbaity. They accumulated over 8.5 million subscribers to their main channel and a few million to other similar channels that they had. To give you a taste of it, their most viewed video had 622 million views and it was titled “Bad Baby Real Food Fight Victoria vs Annabelle & Freak Daddy Toy Freaks Family” and you can watch it here. OVER 7 BILLION VIEWS $1.5 MILLION PER YEAR In total, they accumulated 7.263.410.223 total video views and were ranked the 68th most-viewed channel on YouTube in 2017. According to some sources, YouTube may pay around $1 per 1.000 views. If we calculate their total views, they made around $7.3 million from that channel in only 5 years. Or $1.5 million a year. To put it in perspective, the average household (family) in the US makes around $60.000 a year. So these people, making dumbed down videos for children, earned 25 times more than the average US family, from 2012 to 2017. Also consider that they had other channels so the amount of money they made could be much higher. 8.5 MILLION SUBS You can find their videos on DailyMotion (or other online places) to see what they were all about, because in 2017, YouTube removed their channel since they found it to be “unsuitable for children”. (source) This is not new or an exception. Despite YouTube banning this channel, tons of new channels are making the same weird videos for profiting on the backs of children (or for that matter on the backs of anyone). More examples here: You can watch this and this documentary to see how YouTube is a huge business that pretty much only cares about its profits. And you can watch this other documentary to see how this is not only a problem with YouTube, since even in China (where they have their own YouTube alternative), people prostitute themselves online for views and currency. Being close to the Trade Bubble is also the reason why you start to see more and more movie remakes and sequels (and less original movies) nowadays: it is safer, cheaper to make, and more profitable. (source 1, 2, 3) Therefore, the quality of any media (not only science): news, videos, movies, articles, etc., sharply declines when the media entities (companies, individuals or states) are close to the Trade Bubble. If I, the TROM Superhero, would not be financially supported by people like you, then how would I survive? Post ads on the website making you trade your attention for our work? Post paid-for articles to fool you into thinking they are “unbiased” articles? Lock down the content and ask you for currency to unlock it? Or FaceBook likes? We keep this project relevant and alive because we are financially supported in advance. This is the reason why TROM doesn’t engage into trades. If we were to give custom TROM T-Shirts to those who donate to our project, or signed paper books, or give early access to new content, and so forth, we would be influenced by that and maybe focus more on making merchandise or coming up with more marketing schemes that bring us more currency, and focus less on the content. If we were to make more currency from videos, then our tendency could be to make more videos, even if the books were more relevant for our project. You get the point. Right now, TROM orbits far far away from the Trade Bubble, somewhere close to WikiPedia because we too rely on donations from people to keep this project going. But that’s a great place to be in our Game Of Trade. accept b r e a k i n g p r o m i s e s Look TROM dude, we get it. You showed us a lot of examples of how companies, individuals, or states can fuck this up when they are close to the Trade Bubble. Ok, we get that, you’re right. But things are getting better, companies are becoming more responsible and we have to push for them to become more transparent and care about their customers. Wild dream my friends. Wild indeed. Look at this interview from 2009 with the guy behind FaceBook. When asked who is owning the information on FaceBook, he replied, “The person who’s putting the content on FaceBook always owns the information, and that’s why this is such an important thing.” Now, years later, this couldn’t be further from the truth (read in detail here). FaceBook is always dribbling around with such things, since its inception (source 1, 2). Recently, it was uncovered through a series of private messages that FaceBook top “chiefs” care more about making profits than their users (what a shock!) (source). Interestingly, although FaceBook collects pretty much everything about its users, the founder paid over £30 million to buy the four houses that surrounded his own £7.3-million- home in Palo Alto, California. He also asked construction workers and interior designers working on the house to sign non-disclosure agreements before starting renovations. (source) So he cares about his own privacy…. When Google started, they had a motto saying, “Don’t be evil” as a message towards or because of their competitors who they believed “exploited their users” (to quote them). Needless to say, today, Google is perhaps the biggest data collecting machine on Earth, invading people’s privacy like no one else (source). Related to this motto, one of Google’s bosses said, in 2004 that “Our search results are the best we know how to produce. They are unbiased and objective, and we do not accept payment for them or for inclusion or more frequent updating.” yet in 2017, Google was fined $2.7 billion because they tweaked their search results for their own profit, to promote their own services. And recently it was discovered that Google is helping the military with its AI capabilities to detect objects (source). In other words, Google will help the army identify targets better. What’s the meaning of “Don’t do evil” for Google now, I wonder… And Microsoft was waving a well known saying since their inception: "Embrace, extend, and extinguish." - they seem to be the only ones who didn’t break their promises ;). Embrace: Development of software substantially compatible with a competing product, or implementing a public standard. Extend: Addition and promotion of features not supported by the competing product or part of the standard, creating interoperability problems for customers who try to use the 'simple' standard. Extinguish: When extensions become a de facto standard because of their dominant market share, they marginalize competitors that do not or cannot support the new extensions. They have a history of doing shady things in that regard. (source) So when you see them investing into Linux, or developing a Linux based operating system for the “Internet of Things”, you have all the reasons to doubt that there are ‘good’ intentions there. And maybe a company like Instagram, WhatsApp, or Linkedin are honest for a while, but then FaceBook or Microsoft buys them and that honest attitude quickly changes. So you must wonder: say SpaceX or Virgin Galactic and the others are awesome and great. Good guys. Good good guys! But even if that’s the case, which may not even be, you have to wonder how long are they going to be like that when every single example of companies and projects coming too close to the Trade Bubble became sucked in by it? SpaceX is already ‘serving’ the military by deploying spying satellites, so you must think about this. SpaceX is likely to become the taxi of space, satisfying any client who pays enough. I think it is fair to say that anyone or anything that gets close to the Trade Bubble is going to fuck things up regardless of their statements or terms and conditions, or previous behaviours and acts. SUMMARY THUS FAR We first understood what this force is, then we accepted that the force creates the problems. “Follow the money to see where the problems are,” some say, but I’ll slightly rephrase that and say: “Follow the trade to see where the problems are.” The slope towards the Trade Bubble is very slippery, folks….very. Smoking tobacco greatly increases your risks of developing a plethora of cancers. But if you smoke tobacco it doesn’t mean you’ll get cancer. You’re just more likely to. Staying close to the Trade Bubble doesn’t mean that you will automatically become a Charlatan, Abuser, or a Thief, but it increases the chances for you to become that. By a lot! The same way that someone can smoke tobacco and live to be 100 without developing cancer, a billionaire or a company (or someone close to the Trade Bubble) can create an honest and scientific project that will help humanity. But both scenarios are rare. Very much so. UNDERSTAND, ACCEPT, GET READY, FIGHT! Now that we understand what the game is all about, and we accept that the game creates the problems, we are going get ready for the fight. For that we need to understand the players of this game. Get ready A c t a n d c r a p Why are you so frustrated, superhero? The world humans live in is shitty as hell. So fucking shitty. People are dying, bad products are made, people are lied to, it is awful! I see. That’s what frustrates you? Not at all! I am angry that these things happen. But I am frustrated because I don’t think I can explain to you or to anyone how awful they are and how many they are. How can I present to you, Alien, how far in deep shit humans are!? I just don’t know how and I am frustrated! Well, give me some examples. That’s the frustrating part….what examples? Because there are trillions of them. If I present 20 examples then that’s too little for you to understand the vastness of the problems. If I present 1.000 that’s too much for you to take in and even so it’s too few to get an idea about the vastness of these issues. That’s what frustrates me no end. The fact that on one hand, people need to understand the vastness of the CRAP that is produced in our world so that they can get the point that it is really bad and we must change something, but on the other hand, people may be sick of hearing about the many problems in this world and presenting even more of the CRAP and the ‘bad’ actors (ACT) to them is like beating a dead horse (meaning it will have little to no effect towards their “awakening” due to saturation). So you, dear reader, are the Alien to me. I want you to understand the severity of the problem and to get ready for what we will have to face if we want to change this world. I read about the CRAP and the ACT every day. Today I’ve read about how the American government can search through your stuff (including devices – phone, laptop) at their border without proper authorization. I’ve read about cryptocurrency miners (the malicious ones) and how much of a mess they have become - to quote MIT: “Software that hijacks your computer to mine has become the most popular malware on the planet.” I’ve read how scammers use fake versions of popular apps like Signal or WhatsApp to trick people into believing these are real apps, while in fact these are apps that are spying on you. I’ve read yet another story about how big journalistic Institutions or TV Channels like Washington Post, TIME, or USA Today, are exaggerating healthcare research for the sake of profit (views, clickbait). I’ve read how Discovery is yet again doing shitty and exaggerated science documentaries. I’ve read how companies try to punish those who link from their websites to “illegal” content (not host it, but link to it, imagine that). I’ve read how the main international airport in the Netherlands is tracking every single individual via wifi and bluetooth for commercial purposes, and how these practices are quite common today. The same article also explains how people are tracked if they use credit cards or cash. And that article is part of a series of many articles looking at similar shady practices. Mind you, these are the news I’ve read in the last 24 hours. Here’s the proof. Imagine combining all of these negative news for a period of a month and from more sources. What about a period of a year and even more sources? 10 years and more sources? Insane. You can’t keep up with these. I also know the following, for a fact (and sourcing documentaries): slavery in fruits and vegetable industry, slavery in Britain, slavery again in Britain, countries and companies sell weapons to fuel wars, big store chains enslave people, councils are dickheads, USA accepts having a lot of poor children, there are people whose sole job is to make us consumers, even terrorists kidnap people for profit, slavery in USA; even puppies are big business, charlatans have been selling vitamins for ages even though they are useless, some can kill wild animals for fun (hunting) if they pay a lot of money, young girls are scammed and abused into modeling, car manufacturers lie about the safety of their cars, car manufacturers also tried to kill the electric car, people in Japan are overworked; child beggars in Britain, dentists are charlatans, Amazon overworks its workers to exhaustion, tribes fight over the ocean’s floor for profits, poor people are exploited in Canada, in India girls are sold as brides, charlatans are making money out of climate change, all politicians are for sale, slavery at embassies, sex slavery, and even sport is ruined for profit. And a lot more. So, how can I explain to you, dear Alien reader, the severity of the CRAP and the immense power of the ACT? Maybe my emotional breakdown was enough for you to understand it...maybe you are already familiar with this. But let me try something different. Think about your favorite teacher. Imagine you’re in school and there’s this teacher of yours that you think is cool, and smart, and slightly funny. The way he presents the subjects in class is so entertaining. He organizes school trips, listens to your problems, and overall he’s a good sport. You used to say good things about him and enjoy his lessons. He is a bit like a role model for you. But his daughter thinks differently about him. She knows him more personally than you do. She sees him every time he comes home drunk and talks dirty, and becomes violent. She saw him beating her mother occasionally. She sees him talking badly about his students (including you), and how he complains that his job sucks but he has to do it for the money. Often she is afraid of him because he acts inappropriately around her and she feels abused. But you see, because you only know this guy from your classroom (as a teacher), you don’t have the insight into who he really is. You only see his teacher- mask, but not what’s beneath it. Only the people who know this guy personally, like his daughter, know the “real” man behind the profession. She will get angry if she hears that you look up to this man. To this monster. This is the sentiment one feels towards entities like Google, Netflix, Microsoft, Apple, USA, China, Romania, FaceBook, Coca-Cola, Amazon, and so forth, once one spends ‘intimate’ time with these entities, knowing them up close, behind their masks. To know the players of the trade game from behind their deceiving curtain is a must in order for the population to understand what it faces. Of course, the players of this world are not limited to these big players, every one of us taking part in the Game Of Trade gets to ACT according to the game. The entire TROM project is about showcasing these players at work (corrupt and violent, deceptive and destructive), and so far in this book you understood these players even better. However there’s something very interesting about the biggest players of this world that has to be showcased in order for you or anyone else to get a grasp of who they are and what they are capable of. So, dear you, if we were to look at the world from the outside (from the Alien perspective), then this trade game that we play has two big, fat, tall, smelly players: state and private. The government and the companies. The Abuser and the Charlatan. They rule the game, and since the game is to acquire, their primary (or sole) purpose is to milk the population in one way or another. Therefore, they are also Thieves. Meaning, both engage into trades with the population. All of those types of trade we’ve talked about (cryptocurrencies, data, influencer marketing, etc.), are under the control of these two entities. Let’s see how much power they have over our species and in the end, how we can go about destroying them. privatopus statopus Go G o o g o le l , e ,Fa F c a eBo e o Bo k o , k 2 , 3A 3 n A d n M d e M , e Ch C i h na n , a US U A, Mi M cr c o r s o o s f o t f , Spa p c a e c X e , NA N SA, Di D sc s o c v o e v r e y, y a , n a d n s d o s f o o f r o t r h t ar a e r n e o n t o i t mpo p r o ta t n a t n t at a a t l a l l . l Th T e h y e a y r a e r j e us u t s t t h t e h f e a f r a t r s t s of o t f h t e h s e e s o e c o to t p o us p e us s e . s Sm S el e l l y l an a d n p d o p w o e w r e f r u f l u , l bu b t u p t e p r e i r sh s a h b a l b e : e ). : Co C m o pa p n a i n es e s co c m o e a e n a d n d co c m o pa p ni a e ni s e g s o g . o Co C un o t un r t i r es e c s o c m o e a e n a d n c d o c un o t un r t ie i s e g s o. o An A d n d th t e h e ba b d a d st s u t ff u t ff h t at a t t h t e h y e d y o d c o h c a h n a g n es e s al a l t l h t e h t e i t me. e . Th T e h r e r al a d e d al l a re r th e th s e e t wo w o o cto ct pu p s u es. . Bec Be au a s u e s t e h t ey e ar a e r e fa f r a m r or o e r e e t e e t r e na r l na . S . o w o e w n e e n e e d e d to t f o o f c o u c s u o s n o t n h t e h s e e s e tw t o w b o i b g a g n a d n d po p w o e w r e fu f l u l oc o t c o t p o u p s u e s s e t s h t at a h t a h v a e v r e u r l u e l d e t d h t e h w e o w r o l r d l p d e p r e ha h p a s p s s i s nc n e c e th t e h i e nc n e c p e t p i t on o o n f o o f u o r u s r p s e p c e ies e . s Th T e h s e e s o e c o t c o t p o u p s u e s s e h s a h v a e v t e h t ei e r te t n e t n a t c a l c e l s e s s p s r p e r a e d a t d i t gh g t h a t r a o r u o n u d n t d h t e e tr t a r d a e d b e ub b b ub l b e l . e .Th T a h t a ’ t s s wh w a h t a t th t e h y e f y e f e e d e o d ff o , ff th t a h t a ’ t s s wh w a h t a t t h t e h y e w y a w nt a , t , h t a h t a ’ t s ’ w s h w at a t t h t e h y e a y r a e r a e l a l l l ab a o b u o t u . Th T e h s e e s a e r a e r t e h t e h t e r t ue r ue pl p a l y a e y r e s r o s f o o f u o r u g r am a e m . e STATOPUS: “Ok fuckers, you work, you make money, we take a percentage of that money. You have no choice but to comply. With the money we take from you we build stuff for you, little piglets. Like roads, healthcare, stadiums, create events, shit like that. It’s true that we are getting filthy rich on your back and the services we provide might be shitty, but you have no choice. It’s true that we pretend to care about you while our main purpose is to shift the power from you to a handful few (cough’: politicians), but what can you do!? We also have tons of rules that you cannot break and you need to give us as much information about yourself as possible so that we can control you. We want to know how many of you fuckers are out there, what you do, what you want, if you respect our rules or not. If you dare not to comply we will fuck you up because we have police and armies and such goodies. Money, cryptocurrencies, other trades, we want them all, and will control them all. So shut’up and roll’.” PRIVATOPUS: “You tiny squishy little and powerful wonderful beautiful creatures of all colors and races and genders, we don’t force you to do anything. We are so neutral. We are here, and only if you want, you can come to us. We invest our own money and efforts to create stuff for you like smartphones, clothes, houses, gadgets, medicine and so many other sweet sweet things. We make you offers that are hard to refuse, and we will take advantage of poor people to maximize our profits. But no one forces you to be a slave to us. We are so not guilty. You see, we ask you for nothing, even though in most cases you either have no choice but to come to us, or we successfully persuade you to come to us. We invest first and need to take our investment back from you. So we will do whatever is possible to get our investments back from you, plus a huge profit, and lots more than that, so we lie and exaggerate claims about our products and services, we are the masters of language and confuse you with our terms and conditions, we sell you stuff that you don’t need and services that you don’t use. We are experts in persuasion. But we don’t force it on anyone. Thank you very much and have a great weekend.” The Statopus is the Abuser so it doesn’t care: “Yeah we spy on you but so what!? Fuck off!”, and in contrast the Privatopus is a Charlatan: “No no no, we never spy on you, we only collect data to protect you!” That’s their main difference. Now let’s look at both individually. bless you, trade with me fuck you, trade with me statopus 20 farts tribes account for 70% of the world population. This means that only 20 tribe leaders have tremendous influence over 5.3 billion human beings. (source) China, India, and USA together (3 tribes) have control and influence to over 3 billion people. Can you imagine that!? Complete hegemony. Countries (tribes) are Statopuse’s farts (remember!). We will look at 6 of the Statopus’ tentacles: ABUSE WAR CORRUPTION SURVEILLANCE CONTROL PROPAGANDA Statopus: surveillance and control America is the land of free! And the land of surveillance and control! The Statopus loves to spy on its citizens and control them. The National Security Agency (NSA) is the “security part” of the USA tribe. The US has some 300+ million members. But in 2013, it was finally proven that NSA spied on millions of its members and the members of many other tribes. In total, it spied on millions and millions of people for many years. (source 1, 2, 3, 4) They did all of the spying behind everyone’s back and partially with the help of companies who provided “back doors” for the state. RUSSIA CHINA Just imagine this: we now know the massive amount of data companies are collecting about people, but think about the fact that the servers of these companies are physically somewhere and they are subject to the local laws. The Internet cables are also physical and they pass through different regions owned by different tribes. USA Thus, maybe you are from Europe and FaceBook has its servers in the US, therefore the data FaceBook collects about you is subject to US laws. Therefore, an agency like NSA will have access to your data too. So in this manner they extend the tentacles of surveillance everywhere. The NSA had access to data from 9 huge companies: FaceBook, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, PalTalk.com, YouTube, Skype, Apple, and AOL. NSA went to these companies in the US and was like: “You fuckers, you give us access to call-detail records and Internet data. Right here, right now! No complaints allowed.” And so NSA had (and still has) access to customers' names, street addresses, other personal information, detailed records of calls they made—across town or across the country—to family members, coworkers, business contacts and others. They wanted to create (and I quote): “a database of every call ever made within the nation's borders.” The same companies allowed NSA to install special surveillance equipment in secret rooms at key telecommunications facilities around the tribe. This gave them access to a large stream of “domestic and international communications” in real time - what amounted to at least 1.7 billion emails a day. In total they collected 10 types of information: e-mail, instant messages, videos, photos, stored data, voice chats, file transfers, video-conferences, log-in times, social network profile details. Simply put: when you send an email, a pic of your dick, or make a call to your oversea pal, all of what you do on the Internet or over the phone goes physically through some cables. These cables are owned by big telecommunication companies, like the ones who worked with NSA. NSA basically cuts those cables and lets all of the information go to them as well. Cut the pipe to feed the monster. One copy to them, the other copy went to the initial destination. So your pic with your dick reached the destination you wanted (you pervert), but it also reached NSA (oops!). And all of this was done “without a warrant or any judicial oversight”. Meaning they did it on their own without any approval. Not to mention that NSA had/has the guts to create special pieces of software that can hack your computer or phone and spy on you “on demand” - no need for a 3rd party. COLLECTED: - E-MAIL - INSTANT MESSAGES - VIDEOS - PHOTOS - STORED DATA - VOICE CHATS - FILE TRANSFERS - VIDEO-CONFERENCES - LOG-IN TIMES - SOCIAL NETWORK PROFILE DETAILS On top of this, an agency like NSA has access to CCTV cameras, data from all kinds of companies, utilities, and other agencies (taxi, subway, banks, whatever you can imagine). And NSA are so inventive and sophisticated that they have these “Wide Area Motion Imaging” cameras that can be put on anything that flies (airplanes, drones, helicopters, mosquitoes!? - maybe in the future) and they have such high resolution that they can monitor (at once) an area as large as a city with so much accuracy that they can track cars and people for months at a time. By 2020, about 30.000 unmanned drones are expected to be deployed in the USA for the purpose of surveillance and law enforcement. This whole spying thing is not new, of course. NSA had a similar program in 1945 (among other such programs over its history) “that involved the accumulation of all telegraphic data entering into or exiting from the United States.” At times “150,000 messages a month were printed and analyzed by NSA personnel”. (source) And as a ‘bonus’, your physical mail (yes, it still exist) is all photographed (scanned) by your mail provider and NSA had/has access to this as well (it can collect data about who you send mail to and when, what mail you receive, who you bank with, and so forth). (source) I think except monitoring people’s heart rates, NSA monitored (and is still monitoring) everything people did or do (inside or outside their tribe). On 12 August 2013, former NSA Director admitted that "We [the NSA] steal secrets. We're number one in it". One very scary thing to consider is that although this mass surveillance was continuously being uncovered since 2005, it wasn’t until 2013 that someone who worked for NSA leaked a shit ton of documents revealing all of this ‘beauty’. There are two things to learn from this: one is that Statopus can be sneaky as fuck and hard to detect, and second, that it takes years and years to “prove” such things because of how well they are hidden and often insiders have to take the matter into their own hands and risk their lives exposing these Abusers. But there’s also the fact that the people who expose these Abusers are getting abused by the Abuser, as if they were the Thieves. Statopus collects data about its own citizens in a shameless manner, then it gets exposed doing that, and Statopus (the Abuser) has the nerve to go after the one(s) who exposed it to punish them. As if Statopus has no shame at all. NSA called the 2013 guy who exposed them, the biggest Thief in US history, because of course, they are not Thieves for stealing so much personal information from their citizens, but this guy totally is (Shame! Shame! You prick!). The guy faces up to 10 years in prison and he is now a ‘fugitive’ and lives in the Russian tribe to avoid getting punished by the USA tribe. (source - also watch these 3 documentaries to learn more about this scary situation: 1, 2, 3) We steal secrets. We’re number one in it. You see, the Statopus makes the rules, it gets to decide who is a Thief or not, who gets punished or not. The Abusive Statopus may argue that it spied on its own citizens to find the bad guys, but whatever its reason, Statopus took the decision itself to do that without the permission of its citizens. Democracy, anyone!? The thing is, the mass surveillance that the US engaged into was mind-bogglingly complex and no one knew about it for a long time. But for one, this is happening anywhere in the world and in any tribe or any time (source), and second, there are no consequences for these acts of abuse because who can punish the biggest Abuser there is!? (source) The US is like the nosy mother that everyone hates, but she owns the fucking world so no one can really stand up to her, even though you really want to punch her in the face. Speaking of mother USA, remember China, the father no one wants? China is basically monitoring and controlling all of its tribe’s Internet and has no shame in admitting that. If mommy USA has around 290 million of its children connected to the Internet (89% of the population), big daddy China has over 700 million connected to the Internet (just over 52% of the population, so this number will grow significantly). I control 290 million people online China has this “Great Firewall of China” that is basically filtering everything and blocks everything it doesn’t like: like pornography and obscenity, defamation of China, most blogs and encrypted traffic, and so forth. Over 6 million websites are actively blocked by the firewall. They include Google, FaceBook, YouTube, Yahoo, Chinese WikiPedia, Twitter, Instagram, The New York Times, Vimeo, Dropbox, Archive.org, Reuters, and lots more. (source) Of course, any tribe does this sort of thing, banning the Internet as they prefer, and for all kinds of reasons. I control 700 million people online THIS IS A MAP OF INTERNET CENSORSHIP AROUND THE WORLD Pervasive censorship and/or surveillance Substantial censorship and/or surveillance Selective censorship and/or surveillance Little or no censorship and/or surveillance Not classified / No data For the sake of it, let’s take 3 examples from the “green” area, the “Little or no censorship and/or surveillance”. Let’s focus on censorship. In Australia, “over 90% of Australians using Internet Services are going to have a web filter” and Australia can block any website that “facilitate copyright infringement”. For example, 5 huge websites of this kind (The Pirate Bay, Torrentz, TorrentHound, IsoHunt and SolarMovie) were banned in 2016 in Australia. In 2009, a leaked list of banned website was published online and more than half of the banned websites were “online poker sites, YouTube links, regular gay and straight porn sites, WikiPedia entries, euthanasia sites, websites of fringe religions such as satanic sites, fetish sites, Christian sites, the website of a tour operator and even a Queensland dentist.” In 2006, Australia banned websites that discussed methods of suicide and their official statement is that they block websites that are about “real depictions of actual sexual activity, child pornography, depictions of bestiality, material containing excessive violence or sexual violence, detailed instruction in crime, violence or drug use, and/or material that advocates the doing of a terrorist act”. And recently, Australia wants to be able to read encrypted traffic (source), and block satire (plus also punish it with jail time). over 90% of Australians using Internet Services are going to have a web filter In Spain, “persons who provoke discrimination, hatred, or violence against groups or associations for racist; anti-semitic; or other references to ideology, religion or belief, family status, membership within an ethnic group or race, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, illness, or disability may be punished with imprisonment for one to three years. “ Here are a few concrete examples of how Spain surveils and controls its members: • On 13 April 2012, neo-Nazi Marc Mora Garcia was sentenced to two years in jail for spreading ideas and doctrines justifying genocide and promoting discrimination, hate, and violence through a web page. • On 20 April 2012, Madrid-based Radio SER journalist Pilar Velasco was charged with violating confidentiality after posting a secretly-recorded video of a politician online and with refusing to reveal how she came by the video. • In 2014, newspaper El País reported that El Agitador, a satirical blog from Lanzarote, had been ordered to pay €50,000 in three separate proceedings related to satirical cartoons which complained about widespread corruption in the region. • In 2017, the government blocked several websites and apps that were connected to the Catalonia Referendum. persons who provoke discrimination, hatred, or violence may be punished with imprisonment for one to three years And Norway, which is said to be one of the most “censorship free” tribes, has laws to ban websites that are “threatening or insulting anyone, or inciting hatred or repression of or contempt for anyone because of his or her: a) skin color or national or ethnic origin, b) religion or life stance, or c) homosexuality, lifestyle, or orientation.” And this can be punished with 3 years jail time. Recently (2015), Norway started to also block websites that are sharing files that the Norwegian government thinks are not ’legal’. And of course, all of the above “good” tribes block child pornography like a bad plague that needs to be extinguished from the face of this planet. Right or wrong, it is still censorship and can mutate in ways that will affect more than just “child pornography”. In the same year (2009), a list of 3.500 banned websites by the Norwegian tribe leaked online. More such lists here, for almost any tribe. And you can read a detailed report on Internet censorship here. Just think about WikiPedia which is an educational website, trade free and community driven, but still it is completely or partially blocked in China, France, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, United Kingdom and Uzbekistan (source). And here’s an interactive map showcasing censorship and control of journalists around the world, because ordinary members (citizens) are not the only ones facing these issues. Therefore, if that’s how a tribe who does “little or no censorship” looks like, then it is beyond worrying. Back to China (who ranks very high on that map, as “pervasive censorship and/or surveillance”), they are really proud of their status and they send messages to people saying that they have 10 days to install surveillance apps from the government on their own phones, and if they refuse to do so they will get 10 days of imprisonment (source): “The main function is to block pornographic websites, online scams, trojan horses, and phishing sites; to alert users of how much time they spend online; and to enable remote control of one’s home network. The tool is intended to help kids develop a healthy lifestyle by building a safe web filter for the minors.” When a bunch of people want to decide for 1.3 billion others how “to help kids develop a healthy lifestyle”, then the alarm should ring louder than the thunder. And of course, the tentacles of Statopus extent everywhere, not only online. China has stored data of 95% of its population (that’s some 1.3 billion people). (source) Social scores anyone!? Also, China tracks down and punishes Chinese activists who speak against the government, even when they are not even living in China anymore (source). When most people think of India, they may imagine chaotic traffic, but although India may not be good at filtering the automotive traffic, it is getting damn good at filtering the digital one. They use Artificial Intelligence to monitor and filter “Internet traffic, emails, web-browsing, Skype and any other Internet activity of Indian users” and they are proud that their system could detect selective words like “bomb”, “blast”, “attack” or “kill” within seconds from emails, instant messages, status updates and tweets. And on Skype or Google Talk, they can detect a “suspicious voice”. I The Indian uncle has nearly full control over the telecommunication inside their tribe and although they ‘only’ have 460 million members connected to the Internet (34% of their population – imagine how rapid this number will increase over the next few years), they have over 1 billion of their members owning a phone. (source) So they have a ton of data about (at least) 1 billion people, and a lot of reasons to surveil and control them. I control 460 million people online The 3 of us control 40% of the world’s population So there you go, if you only take China, USA, and India, then billions of people (40% of the world’s population) are under 24h surveillance by the Statopus (proven as a fact), and controlled by it. Statopus knows every move of everyone, everything they do, when they do it, and with whom. It wants to control the trade world by keeping an eye on everything that moves. You sneaky Statopus! You can also watch this and this documentary to see how large populations of people are being surveilled and how this has transformed into a business because of the Trade Bubble. And as I explained with the Internet of Things, that will allow for a greater mining of data and as a result, greater power to companies or states; here too it is scary to think that the ‘advancement’ of technology will give a greater power to Statopus to surveil people. How long until people of the world will be forced to provide their biometric data? The DNA, iris, detailed 3D face scan, updated fingerprint. How long until you can only get a home if you ‘identify’ with your biometrics? Go to a shopping center but can’t enter until you provide your facial fingerprint? Use a car but only after you are registered with your DNA print? Also, no online accounts without at least 3 biometric data. Want a life insurance? Let us see your in- house activities and patterns. Want food? Let us see your hobbies. Want health care access? Let us see what you eat and drink. Biometrics, in house gadgets, the outside world that’s full of cameras, sensors, police, and so forth; your ‘smart’ clothing, car, or phone, who do you think will keep an eye on them all? Statopus: abuse and corruption I think that our government does a good thing monitoring the citizens. After all, if you have something to hide. .you are doing something bad! Our government cares about our safety and protects us. So I disagree with you entirely! Well.. not so fast cowboy! Is the Statopus really an Abuser? Sure, it collects so much data and controls its members, but is that really a bad thing? Maybe Statopus only wants to protect its tribe members. It’s hard to argue that this is the case when you see the moronic, dangerous and primitive laws that are all around the world, which hurt or kill people, and the actions of Statopus who imposes what it thinks is “right or wrong” for billions of people. That alone is extremely problematic. Let’s look at something truly awful, an abuse that many may not be aware of: the abuse of psychology by the Statopus. I explained in our book on psychology why this field is so problematic because it is riddled with assumptions and a bad practice of science, and that explains how Statopus can take advantage of the poorly defined “so-called-mental- illnesses”. You have no parents so you are mentally ill! In Canada (Quebec more exactly), 20.000 children were wrongly hospitalized as having a ‘mental illness’ in the 40s and 50s. The Statopus in Quebec was very much Christian, and most of those children were orphans, but not any kind of orphans. Their parents were not married and the children were abandoned, something the mighty Christian faith considered as unacceptable (for a child to be born out of non-marriage). Therefore Quebec made it so that these children were diagnosed with a ‘mental illness’ and locked them up for about 10-20 years, and on top of that, these children were sexually, physically, and mentally abused by those who should have been taking care of them. So we can experiment on them?! They were also used as guinea pigs: drugs were tested on them, and some medical experiments were done on them. Back then in Canada, a human who was considered “insane” could have been forcefully locked and ‘treated’ to (and I quote): “maintain social order in public and private life” - something so subjective that could have been used (and it was) to create a lot of harm. In 1999 Quebec admitted its fault and paid a modest amount of money to the survivors. But even this awful situation is a direct cause of the Trade Bubble. You see, people pay taxes and politicians (Statopus’ babies) spend the money in various ways. And to make this simple for you to understand, for Canada, having “a school and children” is not as profitable as having “a mental hospital and patients”, in terms of spending that tax money. Canada can make huge profits by re-labeling “several schools and students”, into “several mental hospitals and patients”, and that’s exactly what they did making many millions of dollars in profit (corruption). It was a combination of being close to the Trade Bubble (the profit motive) and primitive education (religion). (source) Abusive and corrupted. China, as you might expect, also has a bad history of doing such awful acts of abuse incarcerating activists, people complaining against injustices by local authorities, human rights workers, those who may engage into (and quoting) "political harm to society", or the "political maniacs", and so forth, on the same basis of ‘mental illnesses’. China seems to be continuing these practices to the present. You political maniac!!! Thi impo The uncle India who manages the second largest population continues to be a dick. He seems to be new at this game and barely starting. In 2012, the Indian government contacted a very well known mental health institution from their own tribe and asked them to assist and crush anti-nuclear protests that were happening against building a certain nuclear power plant. And they did so and sent several psychiatrists there to “help the protesters learn the importance of the plant”. And they did more such stunts. Such is the case in Russia, Norway, Cuba, USA (more here), and perhaps any tribe. It is easy to see how well can such an opaque field like psychiatry and psychology be used to abuse by the Statopus. This nuclear plant is portant! Understand? Understand! Sad because you can’t afford shit in this world? Well, you might be depressed and need some “assistance”! Angry because you have to work from 9 to 5 every single day? Here- some drugs for you to calm your tits down, and maybe we will lock you up for “your safety”. Are you confused and don’t know how the fuck to navigate this retarded society? Oh, you might be bipolar. The immensity of abuse that can be done through the misuse of psychiatry and psychology is tremendous. And of course, the abuse of psychology is just one single example, as there are endless examples from all around the world and in all kinds of flavors. Amnesty International, International Federation of Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, World Organisation Against Torture, Freedom House, and International Freedom of Expression Exchange are the world’s most well- known watch dogs of governmental abuse and they showcase the Statopus at work all around the globe. Statopus uses its powers to abuse its own members so that it keeps control over the trade world. And Statopus is also a corrupt bastard, for the love of power and profit (powfit!?). Statopus: war and propaganda The Syrian government is mass-kil ing Syrian people with the support of Russia! This is outrageous! America should intervene! Bollocks! Americans are making up stories to invade Syria! Guys, you are both wrong and right. All states lie. It is their most well known quality ;). The biggest form of abuse from the Statopus is war. War is “go and kill”. That’s it. For the past 2.500 years an average of (or around) 380 million human beings have died because of war. The number might be a lot higher than that though. Year 0 Year 1000 00 Population 4 4 0 3 3 80 80 m miilllliio o k kiilllled i ed i n n 1.000 years ago the entire population of human beings was about 400 million individuals. This means that the wars of the past 2.500 years could have easily wiped out the entire human species 1.000 years ago. That’s how big this numbers is. Take all of the present day Americans and Germans, and kill them. Wipe all of them out right now, and that’s how many people wars have killed for the past 2.000 years. Insane! 120 20 million people killed in wars in the Year 2500 past 100 years 4 4 00 million ll liio o n n p p eo eo ppllee d i ed i n n w w a a r r s s For the past 100 years alone, 120 million people, out of the 380 million, were killed in wars. In just 100 years humans got so good at killing their own kind that they have killed 120 million of their own. If your grand grand grand father would live today and would be 118 years old (which is scientifically possible), in his lifetime 120 million people were killed by the human species in wars. 120 million unique minds. Needless to say, wars are very much (if not entirely) because of trade. Tribes want land, resources, power, so they conquer. The only reason we may not see a World War today is because the trade agreements are kinda ‘working’ between the big tribes for their own interest (like Russia, China, or USA). If Russia would be cornered by the others and would have little resources for their own people, then Russia will take military actions to regain access to resources. If the US would stop trading with China, then China would stop trading with the US, they will hurt each other and may reach a point of military action (war). That’s why everything is about trade, even wars. That’s why modern day wars are mainly “trade wars”. You often hear how the US goes on a trade war with China, or Russia is punished by cutting its trade capabilities with other tribes, or North Korea is not allowed to import or export certain resources/materials/stuff. Today these tribes are very much locked in all kinds of trades so it is easier to go at war in this manner, whilst in the past it would have been easier to just invade. If I am Germany and you are Poland and I want stuff from you, and we are not friends and engage into trades, then I (Germany) want to punish you and take stuff from you, but since we are not friends and I cannot impose sanctions on you, then I’ll invade you. Simple. But today such sanctions can be used, and are used, instead of military interventions. Even when some tribes attack others and may not necessarily want something from them, they do want to gain power in the world and that will increase their status in the Game Of Trade. Then they can be like: “Look how powerful we are so don’t fuck with us! Trade nicely with us or else...”. Not to mention that war is a profit making machine. Many tribes and companies profit on the backs of war (from selling weapons and equipment, to stealing resources and land from the ones they conquer, and so forth) (source). I’ll tax your exports If you piss me to US, and I’ll tax off I’ll bring Russia too! the guns! I’ll tax your exports too, you mother- yaker! CPI CPI CPI CPI Speaking of war, another way for the Statopus to keep its status in this trade world is by lying. In a big big way. It is called “propaganda” . And wars are perhaps what sparked propaganda. Statopus is going to lie to its members to justify going to war. In World War 1 the USA created an organization called “The Committee on Public Information” (CPI) that was responsible for, basically, creating propaganda materials. Producing films, commissioning posters, publishing numerous books and pamphlets, purchasing advertisements in major newspapers, and the recruitment of businessmen, preachers and professors to serve as public speakers in charge of altering public opinion at the communal level. They recruited 75.000 volunteers who would give speeches about war at social events. They were called “Four Minute Man” because their presentations were 4 minutes long since the CPI understood the short attention span of the population. This was the social media propaganda of the 1900. In just one year they had given over 7.5 million speeches in about 5.200 communities, reaching 314 million people. Viral marketing indeed. Like really good viral marketing. You won’t reach that on FaceBook very easily :D. 75.000 VOLUNTEERS GIVEN OVER 7.5 MILLION SPEECHES REACHED 314 MILLION PEOPLE Historians said about this massive campaign that: “Every item of war news they saw—in the country weekly, in magazines, or in the city daily picked up occasionally in the general store—was not merely officially approved information but precisely the same kind that millions of their fellow citizens were getting at the same moment. Every war story had been censored somewhere along the line— at the source, in transit, or in the newspaper offices in accordance with ‘voluntary’ rules established by the CPI.” But all of the other tribes involved in World War 1 did the same with their own members. They controlled all of the media and presented the side of story they wanted to present. It was a complete fakery from all sides. All wars are filled with propaganda: they make movies, cartoons, comic books, radio shows, music, and so on, just to influence the population the way the Statopus wants to. You can watch this documentary to see more about propaganda in the US. If you have a lot of time to spare, you can read about the history of propaganda. Just imagine how much propaganda there is today, when governments can target any message so specifically to every individual based on the huge amount of data they gather. Today, it’s kinda pointless to even talk about propaganda because it may be everywhere. That’s why it’s hard to trust anyone nowadays. AND SO THAT’S STATOPUS WHICH NEEDS ONLY A HANDFUL OF TENTACLES TO RULE OVER BILLIONS OF PEOPLE. SURVEILLING THEM, ABUSING THEM, CONTROLLING THEM, LYING TO THEM, STEALING FROM THEM, KILLING THEM. privatopus Since we understand that the “private” part of our world sits very close to the Trade Bubble, it is beyond any reason to showcase their “wrong-doings” once again. Therefore what I will showcase to you mainly is how they rule the world in pretty much any domain, and how a handful of companies get to be the “Masters of The Game”. The Monopolies. The Cartels. CLOTHES/WEARABLES/FURNITURE HEALTHCARE GROCERY-PRODUCTS MEDIA INTERNET/DIGITAL TRANSPORTATION How can we calculate who’s a Monopoly and a Cartel and who’s not? Take airline companies: there are top companies by revenue, but also top companies by passengers transported, and it is not necessarily that the company who makes the most profits also transports the most passengers because they may have higher prices or their market strategy may differ from the others. Also, there’s this thing called “Market Share” (MS) – take Apple, who is the 9th richest company in the world in terms of revenue (how much profit it makes), and Samsung (its competitor in terms of smartphones), who is 15th richest. However, Samsung has a bigger smartphone market share (MS – 20,5%) vs Apple (MS – 14,4%) (source). This means (to put it simply): Apple makes more profits, but Samsung makes more phones. Who’s the Monopoly in this case? Both, but in different ways. So we can look at these two factors: the Market Share, but also how rich a company is (in terms of revenue or how much it is valued at). Usually the MS is one of the biggest factors to determine a Monopoly but I will try to find a mix of variables to best determine these Cartels for each domain. Let’s do it! For the following showcasing Privatopus “at work”, we rely on statistics from 2016-2018. privatopus: internet/digital I understand that companies are really bad and they put profit on top of everything, but at least we have a choice. Don’t like a service? Well, use another! Simple! So if you don’t like FaceBook or YouTube what will you choose? Instagram for example. That’s also owned by FaceBook. Look, 12 mass the Internet entirely. O networks, ins engines, cloud video plat browsers, systems, ap hardware pro world to funct th ssive farts companies own et and the Digital world ely. Only 12. Maps, social instant messaging, search cloud computing or storage, latforms, online stores, s, navigation, operating , apps, games, and the production to enable this ction. Let’s have a look at them in detail. There are basically 3 search engines, maps and GPS navigation, A.I. systems, video hosting services, self driving cars, and advertising platforms USA CHINA RUSSIA Android OS: Google Ventures: HTC: >2 billion active users investing owns 50% – smartphones, Google Fiber: laptops, VR gear (Internet provider with >450.000 customers Image America Chrom Image-America: Google Cloud Platform: ReCAPTCHA: two times mo aerial photography cloud computing most popular anti-spam Linux on bots protection for websites CapitalG: investing YouTube: ~1.5 billion monthly users, Google Search: and the 2nd most popular most popular search engine website in the world Perhaps the large in the entire w ChromeBook: Gmail: 60% of the schools use it most popular email client FeedBurner: with 1.4 billion users perhaps the most popular RSS reader MOST WELL SERVICES/PRODU - full list here DocVerse: DoubleClick/AdSense/AdWords: one of the most biggest online ad platforms popular office suite Waze: one of the most popular GPS navigation app Google Wallet: Nest: home automation DeepMind: Calico: perhaps the most well known Chrome Browser: biotech company Pixel Phones: and “smart” A.I. - AlphaGo most popular web smartphones and AlphaZero browser - 52% MS ChromeCast: Google Maps: Google Analytics: one of the most popular video by far the most most widely used web streaming hardware popular Maps service analytics - tracks and reports website traffic Google Books rome OS: ore popular than on desktops Google X : semi-secret research- Play Store: and-development facility most popular app store with >3.5 million apps Google Home: smart speakers Google Newsstand Google Drive: file hosting with >800 million active users Blogger argest company world. Period. Google Plus: social network with ~111 million users Google Translate: ELL KNOWN most popular translator Google Hangouts: UCTS THEY OWN: video conference app re and here - Google Flights: flights booking app Google Shopping Verily Life Sciences: research organization Google News: platform with ~500 Google Movies million visits per month Waymo: autonomous cars Google Photos: 500 million users with 1.2 billion Project Fi: photos uploaded every day Google Music phone, messaging and Google Finance data services) Yandex.Direct: Yandex advertising, similar to AdWords Yandex Search Engine: 4th largest search engine Alisa: A.I. assistant The Google of Russia biggest technology co largest search engin course, the biggest Yandex Browser Yandex Disk: MOST WEL cloud storage SERVICES/PRODU - full list Yandex Maps: 20 million monthly users and it is the most popular cartographic service in Russia Yandex.Money: Russia’s largest electronic payment service Foodfox ex.Translate Foodfox: food delivery service Auto.ru: automobile website - sales ssia, Yandex is Russia’s company and the 4th KinoPoisk: ine worldwide and of biggest Russian movie search gest one in Russia. engine Doc+: (Invested in) telemedicine ELL KNOWN DUCTS THEY OWN: list here - Agnitum: Yandex.Taxi: Internet security company Russia’s largest online taxi booking services Baidu.com: 2nd largest search Baidu Browser engine in the world Baidu music DU Ad Platform: mobile advertising platform with >800 million monthly active users Baidu- Baidu News: similar to Google News Hexun It is one of the largest A.I. in the world. 4th we Baidu-Hexun: Finance worldwide. Across its se active users worldwide largest search engine MOST WEL Baidu Tongji: web analytics SERVICES/PRODU - full list Baidu Anti-Virus Baidu Youa: online store Baidu Internet TV q Baidu Library: Baidu Maps: documents sharing >348 million monthly du Music: active users sic service Baidu Waimai: food delivery service .I. and Internet companies website in popularity, services it has >2 billion Baidu Wangpan: de. It also owns the 2nd cloud service ne only behind Google. Baidu Tieba: ELL KNOWN China’s largest forum DUCTS THEY OWN: Baidu Baike: list here - largest Chinese online encyclopedia by users and views iQiyi: one of the largest online video sites in the world, with nearly 6 billion hours spent on its service each month, Baidu Knows: and over 500 million monthly active users questions and answers If you are going to ever use any A.I. assistants, maps, search engines, translating software, mobile operating systems and apps, forums or blogs, email, cloud storage, will use an autonomous car in the future, or use an advertising platform to make profits online, then statistically (worldwide) you are going to use one of these 3 companies. Baidu- Hexun Foodfox There are basically 3 platforms for social networks, instant messaging, and gaming USA CHINA RUSSIA FaceBook: social network with ~2.2 billion active users Perhaps the most in the world, managin around 2-3 billion 60-70% of all Facebook Messenger: ~1.3 billion users MOST WEL SERVICES/PRODU - full list Instagram: social network with ~800 million users WhatsApp: instant messenger with ~1.5 billion users t influential company in aging the ‘social lives’ of billion people, or around all Internet users. Oculus VR: virtual reality hardware and ELL KNOWN software DUCTS THEY OWN: list here - Miniclip: Riot Games: who makes most of the makes League of Legends (LOL) that Activision Blizzard: online and mobile games has >100 million players each (owns 5%) with titles like like 8 Ball Pool, Gravity Guy, month – as a side note, they Call of Duty, World of Bloons Tower Defense, reinvented the game industry with Warcraft, StarCraft, Plague Inc, Agar.io, Diep.io; this game by creating a world wide Diablo, Crush Saga, Farm championship (esports) that is Heroes Saga; watched by >60 million people (for example the massively popular Super Bowl in the US is watched by around 120 million people); Epic Games: It’s the world’s largest and most v Supercell: (owns 40%) with titles like company. It has services like socia (owns 84%) with titles like Fortnite, Unreal, Gears of War, commerce, mobile games, Inter Hay Day, Clash of Clans, Infinity Blade; smartphones, and multiplayer on Boom Beach, or Clash Royale; the world's biggest and most categories. It also owns the major more than 700 million active subscribers, the world's largest perspective, Tencent is larger th comes to so CJ Games: Pocket Gems: (owns 28%) (owns 38%) MOST WEL Garena: SERVICES/PRODUC ( owns 30%) - full list Netmarble Games: (owns 22%) Ubisoft: Glu Mobile: (owns 5%) with titles like (owns 21.5%) Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Just Dance, Prince of Persia, Bluehole Inc.: Rayman, Raving Rabbids. (owns 11.5%) Shanda Games: QQ Coin: (invested in) has 460 million their own digital registered accounts publishing QQ: currency , games like AION, MapleStory, The instant messaging World of Legend, The Age, Magical with ~783 million Land, Ragnarok Online, Dungeons active accounts & Dragons Online, Crazy Arcade Tencent Weibo: microblogging Qzone: Pengyou: social network with social network with >563 million users >200 million users st valuable gaming and social media cial networks, music, web portals, e- ternet services, payment systems, Tencent Weiyun: online games, which are all among cloud storage st successful in their respective jority of China's music services, with ive users and 120 million paying Pidgin: st and most profitable. To put it in instant messaging than FaceBook by revenue when it QQ Live: social media. live video streaming with 3 million visits per day ELL KNOWN Sogou: TenPay: DUCTS THEY OWN: (owns 42%) search similar to PayPal engine accounting Tencent Video: list here - for over 16% of one of the largest video searches on mobile platforms in China with >500 in China million monthly users Tencent Pictures: film production company with titles WeChat: like Roco Kingdom 4, Warcraft, multi-purpose messaging, Kong: Skull Island, Wonder Woman. social media and mobile payment app with ~1 billion active users Delivery Club: ridesharing Youla: location-based marketplace with >20 million monthly active users Mail.ru: email service with 100 million users Owns (amongst ot social networks in Russi of the websites it own the Russian Vkontakte: social network: it is the most popular website in Russia with ~477 million users and 9th most popular website in the world MOST WEL SERVICES/PRODU - full list here OK.ru: social network service with ~200 million users – it is second most popular in Russia My World@Mail.Ru: 3rd most popular social network in Russia ICQ: instant messenger with 11 million monthly users t others) the top 3 largest n Russia and the entire fleet owns reaches some 86% of ssian Internet users. My.com: games and Internet- based services Am.ru: ELL KNOWN one of the biggest DUCTS THEY OWN: Russian websites for buying and selling cars here and here - BeepCar: ridesharing Want to game, communicate, or be social online? Statistically (worldwide) you will use one of these 3 companies. There are bas online shops in USA CHINA basically 2 in the world Amazon: It is the world’s largest online retailer by revenue by Rin a huge margin. security co Whole Foods Market: supermarket chain Goodreads: perhaps the largest database of books Echo: smart speakers – Alexa A9.com: product search, cloud search, advertising technology and community question answering Alexa Internet: provides web traffic data, global rankings, and other It is the world’s information on 30 million retailer by reve websites Amazon Books: marg chain of retail bookstores AbeBooks: MOST WEL e-commerce global SERVICES/PRODU online marketplace Amazon Lab126: - full list developing Amazon's Kindle line of e-readers Amazon Game Studios and tablets Amazon Kindle: buy, download, read ebooks – has >6 million Amazon Robotics: books in its library automation Souq.com: ing: the Amazon of the Middle East y company - It is the largest e-commerce IMDb and Box Office Mojo: platform in the Arab world largest databases of movies with IMDb having ~ 83 million registered users Twitch.tv: it is a live streaming service, very popular amongst gamers – >100 million users a month Digital Photography Review: comprehensive reviews of digital cameras, lenses and accessories, buying guides, user reviews – it is the top 2,000 most visited website ’s largest online venue by a huge argin. Body Labs and Graphiq: Artificial Intelligence Amazon Video: LL KNOWN video on demand UCTS THEY OWN: ist here - Amazon Web Services: the most powerful cloud computing, owning 34% of all the cloud, more than Google, Microsoft and IBM combined Audible: Amazon Studios: world’s largest film production studio with titles like You audiobook store Were Never Really Here, Last Flag Flying, Wonderstruck, Brad's Status, Landline, City of Ghosts, The Big Sick Alibaba.com: Tmall: world's largest online 500 million active business-to-business users trading platform Taobao: 580 million active users 3 of the world’s largest online shopping stores Alipay: world's largest mobile payment platform Alibaba Cloud: cloud computing – largest in China Fliggy Corporate: online travel platform If Amazon is the world’s lar then Alibaba is the world’s and most “valuable” retai goods to the public) whic tribes worldwide. It is al AliGenie: Internet compani A.I. assistant Tmall Genie: MOST WEL smart speaker SERVICES/PRODU AliOS: - full list operating system for mobile phones and smart devices AliMusic Youku Tudou: one of the largest video services in China with >500 million users a month Aliwangwang: AliSports: 50 million users – television instant messaging AliExpress AliHealth: online pharmaceutical shop AutoNavi: one of China’s top maps and navigation apps largest in terms of revenue, d’s largest in terms of sales Alimail: Sina Weibo: mail service etailer (business that sells (owns 32%) one of the most popular social hich operates in over 200 media sites in China s also one of the largest panies in the world. UCWeb Inc: mobile Internet company that offers products and services - one of its products, UC Browser, is the most popular mobile browser in China and India, LL KNOWN top 2 of the largest populations on Earth, and has UCTS THEY OWN: >500 million users around the globe ist here - Alibaba Pictures: South China Morning Post: film company with titles like Mission: Impossible – one of the largest newspapers in Rogue Nation / investor /, Little Door Gods / China distributor /, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows / investor /, Star Trek Beyond / investor /, Once Upon a Time / production / If you want to shop online or sell products, then you basically have 2 choices. Again, statistically worldwide. There are bas personal comp the wor USA Apple USA asically 2 mputers in orld Bing: Windows: 3rd largest search G the most popular engine in the world one of the l desktop operating developm system DirectX: collection of application programming interfaces for Xbox: handling tasks related to popular video multimedia game console It is the largest so the world b Linkedin: perhaps the most popular professional networking with 500 million users OneDrive: MOST WEL cloud storage SERVICES/PRODU - full list Windows Server Microsoft Office: most popular office suite Outlook: used by >1 billion people one of the most well known mail clients GitHub: Microsoft Visual Studio e largest software pment platforms Microsoft Azure: cloud computing Microsoft Surface: tablets and laptops Microsoft Store: offline and online software company in ld by revenue. Skype: one of the most popular voice HoloLens: and chat application with 300 LL KNOWN mixed reality million monthly users UCTS THEY OWN: smartglasses ist here - Mojang: Edge: game developer – popular default Windows browser game Minecraft Apple Pay: Macintosh: one of the most pop one of the most popular HomePod: mobile payment ser personal computers smart speaker iPhone: 2nd largest phone manufacturer App Store: 2nd largest app store iPad: most popular tablet A It is the world's technology company world's 2nd largest Apple Watch: manufacturer one of the most popular smart-watches iOS: 2nd most popular mobile operating system MOST WEL SERVICES/PRODU - full list here, her MacOS: 2nd most popular operating system iTunes: Apple TV largest music vendor/shop – 575 million active user accounts : Apple Music: Beats 1: opular music streaming radio station ervices service with >40 iCloud: million subscribers cloud storage – 782 million users Beats Electronics: audio products Siri: Apple A.I. assistant 's largest information Shazam: pany by revenue and the software that can identify argest mobile phone music, movies, advertising, er after Samsung. and television shows – has Texture: >100 million active users digital magazine app monthly LL KNOWN UCTS THEY OWN: , here and here - FaceTime: instant messaging – one of the most Safari: popular 2nd largest browser in the world Final Cut Pro: popular video editor Have a desktop computer or a laptop? Well, you are using Microsoft or Apple products. Statistically, worldwide. Apple And finally there are basically 2 manufacturers of the electronics that allow this digital world to happen: MULTINATIONAL KOREA MOST WELL KNOWN SERVICES/PRODUCTS THEY OWN: Sharp: Smart Technolo produces electronics and it is the technology and s 10th largest television manufacturer by market share FIH Mobile: MOST WELL KNOWN manufactures new ELECTRONICS THEY PRODUCE: Nokia devices It is the world's large manufacturer and the 4 iPad technology compan factories are responsi BlackBerry >40% of all electron Imagi iPhone - full iPod Kindle Wii Nintendo BlackBerry Nokia PlayStation MOST WELL KNOWN CUSTOMERS: ologies: Cisco software Amazon Apple Acer : Dell Google rgest contract electronics the 4th largest information any by revenue. Foxconn onsible for manufacturing tronics sold worldwide. Huawei agine that. ull list here - Microsoft Motorola Sony Toshiba Xiaomi Vizio IT MOST WELL KNOWN SERVICES/PRODUCTS THEY OWN: Samsung Engineering: it provides a full range of engineering services like construction or design – it is the world's 13th largest construction company Samsung Heavy Industries: one of the largest Cheil Worldwide: shipbuilders in the major advertising and world marketing company Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance Samsung C&T Corporation: It is the world's 2nd l global engineering and construction projects, technology company by trade and investment, fashion and resorts – it is Apple) and it produce the world's 36th largest construction company goods and Samsung Life Insurance: - full list here the largest insurance company in South Korea Samsung SDS: information technology services – investing into BlockChain, IOT, A.I., and more Harman International Industries: Samsung Galaxy: designs and engineers connected most popular smartphone line, products for automakers and 2nd most popular tablets memory chips IT IS THE WORLD’S manufacturer LARGEST: (49.6% MS) manufacturer of mobile information phones and technology smartphones (34% MS) company television manufacturer semiconductor chip maker flash memory (42.6% MS) OLED screens (40% MS) d largest information by revenue (only behind oduces a wide variety of d services. AMOLED screens (98% MS) here, and here - PRODUCES COMPONENTS SUCH AS LITHIUM- ION BATTERIES, SEMICONDUCTORS, CHIPS, FLASH MEMORY AND HARD DRIVE DEVICES Apple FOR CLIENTS SUCH AS: e, Sony HTC Nokia Verizon AT&T s Foodfox Baidu- Hexun So, 12 big farts companies own the Internet and the entire digital space in general, both in terms of profits and in terms of the people that they reach or the amount of stuff they produce. Apple But I want to better put this into perspective to see them at work and how they “monopolize” the digital space. The general concern with these companies is that they only (or primarily) care about profits and they managed to own a space that should be abundant. This is not really a showcasing of their wrong-doings but a showcasing of how they plan to own the digital space. The “digital” is a current invention. We may be very used to it now, but it is an odd thing. Explain to someone from the near past that we spend most of our time playing with or getting played by some screens and machines that at their core have a weird algorithm that moves tiny bits (transistors, light bulbs, mechanical parts) in a way that almost no one fully understands. Factories, laptops, satellites, hospitals, phones, management of resources, cars, houses, science, everything is digitized. Remove the digital space and the world will collapse in a second. Before digitization, if you were to discover something, you would write it down on a piece of paper, draw, explain verbally, and share physically. If I would create a new kind of windmill to produce energy, then only I knew how to build it and in order for others to build it too, I would have to explain it to them by word of mouth or by drawing and writing down the instructions. How one should cut the wood, what bolts they should use, where such a windmill would be more efficient to build, how to operate the machine. This information flow was extremely inefficient and hardly scalable. Today, however, if I make a windmill I can explain the process, materials, and how to be operated in the digital space that’s instantly sharable everywhere around the world where there is an Internet connection. I can also get instant feedback from around the world and improve my design. More than that, I can share the exact 3D designs of the windmill and others can simply print the necessary parts. And on top of it all, we can share the details of the structure and how it needs to be built, with machines directly. So then machines will know how to build and operate this windmill. No (or less) humans needed for that. It is magic! This is a tremendous advancement that would have seemed science fiction even 100 years ago. And because the digital space is only information (so nothing physical), it can be shared infinitely and with anyone, making it naturally abundant. Despite the fact that this looks like a technology that Aliens would send to us to create Heaven on Earth, the digital space is already owned by the two octopuses you‘ve already met. But I want to draw attention to one thing the Privatopus is doing right now, because this is a direct attack to the abundant nature of the digital space that anyone should be aware of. It is called: DRM - Digital Rights Management. If I have a USB Drive Stick, I can copy a video file to it and give it to you. It is fast, it costs nothing, and doesn’t damage the file itself. I just created a copy of that video for you. Now we have 2 copies of that video file. Same happens if I send it to you via the Internet. This allows us to create an abundance of anything that’s digital without any effort or resources consumed. But companies have pushed something that’s truly ‘evil’ in the form of DRM. Basically that video file is restricted to be copied to you or anyone, and if it is copied, that copy cannot be seen unless you have permission to do so. The way they do it is to encrypt that video file (scramble the bits of it), and it can only be decrypted (de-scramble the bits of it) through the one who owns the video (a company). When Amazon sells digital books it does the same thing, applies a DRM encryption to all of them, and these books can only be read with the Amazon software for reading books. If you buy such a digital book, you cannot (or may not be able to) download it, and for sure you’re not allowed to make copies of it or share it. In the old days, if you bought a book, you could give it to a friend, rip its pages apart or write on them (adding bookmarks, highlight text, whatever you wanted), and store it anywhere you want to. Full control over the book. The irony is that a book in digital format can be shared and copied as many times as you want, yet in our Game Of Trade it is far more restrictive than a physical book. Pretty much all of the “legal” online content (movies and Netflix, music and Spotify, books and Amazon, expensive shit and Apple) are under a DRM encryption. You buy a game, only you can play it on your own machine made by a certain company and having a certain account. That’s the idea. Unnecessary and idiotic way of making an abundant world, a scarce and closed one. And trying to unscramble these digital materials is a “felony” that can get you jail time or a huge fine. WANT TO READ A BOOK? YOU CAN ONLY READ IT WITH OUR KINDLE! WANT TO LISTEN TO MUSIC, WATCH MOVIES, DO STUFF? YOU CAN ONLY DO IT WITH OUR DEVICE AND/OR OUR APP. With that in mind let’s think about the mighty Internet that we all use. Over 4 billion of us. But how does it work? I sit here inside my home, reading some news from the EFF website. I am in Spain, but the content of EFF was made in the USA and may be on a server in the UK. The fact that I am able to freely read (technologically wise) those news is taken for granted, but it is something that is changing in many ways. BROWSING THE WEBSITE FROM SPAIN WEBSITE MADE IN USA WEBSITE SERVED FROM UK I have a computer, on my computer there is an Operating System that controls my computer (the fan, processes, my interaction with the installed programs, etc.). I connect to the Internet through my Operating System and access it via a “browser” . Aha! The browser! Ever wondered why you can’t access the Internet without a browser? It is because a browser is a program that decodes a bunch of code from a server (HTML) and displays on your computer. It’s like a translator. No browser, no web pages. EFF makes their website on their computers in the HTML language, uploads to servers that they have access to, and I can access their website from those servers via a browser. The cool, great, and useful part of this is that I have control over that website via this browser, similar to having control of a physical book if I have it in my hands. As soon as that website ‘lands’ on my computer (through the browser) then the control is in my hands for my own use. I can remove parts of it, block others, download images from it or videos, and so forth. If you ever used an Ad Blocking extension for your browser then that’s what it does, it blocks parts of the websites that it detects as ads. Other extensions allow you to mute websites by default, block scripts that may track you, and so forth. Basically, whatever is served to you as a “web page”, you have control over it on your own computer. Imagine if you were to visit tromsite.com and the website would access your microphone by default and you can’t stop that, or play a loud song that you cannot mute, or show you short clips with mule porn that you cannot pause :). This seems trivial but let’s see why it isn’t. WEBPAGE BROWSER OPERATING SYSTEM The Charlatan Privatopus first attack on the Internet as a whole is the attack on the browser. More specifically to the language browsers use, the HTML. Privatopus wants this HTML to allow for DRM content by default, so that they can make websites that you cannot control for your own use anymore. And browsers which do not comply with it, can fuck off! Same way that you cannot play that video game unless you have a Playstation or an Xbox, you will not be able to access say Netflix unless you use Netflix’s browser, or a specific browser for that matter. And you have 0 control over what Netflix shows you. Imagine such an Internet where you cannot block any ads, trackers, have no control over them for your own use. Netflix browser www.netflix.com x This is like you buying a box of ice creams but you can only eat them by licking and not biting, melting, or doing anything to them other than licking. That’s how ridiculous it is. And Privatopus achieved just that at the end of 2017. (source) Not surprising that Charlatan-farts (charts!?) like Netflix pushed for this implementation. This is the first time in the Internet’s history that such a drastic decision has taken place, and this will put a lot of power in the hands of Privatopus. firefox browser www.netflix.com x Sorry, the page cannot be displayed. The website only works with the Netflix Browser and Chrome. And here’s something more that you may not know. The rise of smartphones makes the Privatopus even stronger. On smartphones, the main way that people access the Internet content is not through browsers anymore, it is the mighty “app”. A piece of software that can use DRM by default. So big companies are already using apps and say: “Fuck off Internet browsers, we don’t need you!”. This was also a reason for browsers and the people behind the Internet and HTML to comply to this new trend because they were left behind and soon you couldn’t access Netflix or FaceBook if those companies didn’t want that. So for example, Netflix can only be accessed via their own encrypted app and the app can only work if installed on a certified Google phone (source) or iPhone. If you have no such phone, or the Netflix official app, then fuck off you cheap bastard! Next step is for the Netflix website to not work on desktop if you don’t have a certain operating system (like Windows or MacOS with a license), or a certain browser. That’s where we are heading. Actually this is already happening since you cannot access Netflix from a Linux operating system unless you install specific software for that. Apps and mobile phones are getting owned by these giant companies. If on a computer, you can easily install Linux or other operating systems, and have control over them (websites, programs, etc.), especially if they are Open Source, on a phone nowadays, you cannot do many of these things unless you kinda hack your device. But then you’ll get into lots of issues with apps not working on that hacked device or the device not performing properly or not getting updates and so forth. Basically, mobile phones are the heaven for Privatopus who is gaining control over what people do, where, and how. (more here and here) And they want to do that with computers too, via the “mighty browser”. So Privatopus is going to lock down the Internet and have control over it. And with the Internet of Things combined with DRM, we can safely see a future in which your toaster can only toast bread from a certain company (crazy, but maybe not so crazy), your 3D printer will only print with their own printing materials (which is already happening), your car can only be allowed on certain roads, and all of those things that you ‘own’ are ‘illegal’ to hack for your own personal use. Actually, this is happening. Cars already have DRM software and they can only be repaired by certain companies. You own the car, but you really don’t. You are not allowed to fix it yourself. You naive It’s so fucking awesome that with my mobile Internet plan I get free data on WhatsApp and FaceBook! I mostly (or only) use those so that’s so aaaawesooome! And the other attempt of the Privatopus to own the Internet is to own the cables. Because indeed I may have an Operating System and a browser, but to see a website, the server where the website is hosted and my computer need to connect. And they do so through cables. Up until now, you could access any website equally to any other (if they were not blocked by tribes or companies), but this is very counterintuitive to the Game Of Trade and Privatopus wants to ‘fix that’. In the US tribe they thought: “Why not have some websites load faster than others. Why not make the Internet like the TV, so that people can buy subscriptions to websites, so that they can only access those websites instead of the entire Internet.” And they passed a law allowing for that to happen. (source) Basically you will buy a subscription to access YouTube and FaceBook and a bunch of other websites, but not have access to the entire Internet. Just like the Cable TV. But this is already happening all around the world when it comes to the dumbsmartphones – I told you, smartphones are the sweet and tasty snacks of Privatopus. Many mobile Internet providers are already offering packages that include access only to a restricted number of websites, or on the other hand, you get offers that give you unlimited data access to popular services and apps like WhatsApp or FaceBook, making these giants even bigger. ve being…. Locking down the Internet by default, controlling the pipes, censoring the web, the Privatopus does them all. And on top of that, Privatopus (exactly like Statopus), has its own rules when it comes to the digital stuff. The 12 big farts we’ve talked about all ban words, content, comments, and whatever they want, in whatever ways they feel. They have a complete distaste for sex or nudity, ‘bad’ words, anything that they think incites violence, and so forth. But what they won’t admit, is that they are doing this for trade-based reasons. It’s not like YouTube gives a shit about people’s safety or it is a moral dad for any Internet orphan. YouTube primarily gives a shit about the advertisers and its profits. And if advertisers do not want their ads on what they consider as ‘distasteful’ content, then YouTube will comply and will remove the ads from those videos. YouTube will go as far as changing its rules, hurting millions of users, just to satisfy the advertisers. It’s that simple. If YouTube would care about its users, it could easily give them the options (and power) to control the content they want to see. Don’t want to see nudity? No problem, enable our nudity filter that will only filter nudity for you. See how simple this could be? WE MAKE YOU WATCH AN AD WE MAKE YOU BEFORE EACH VIDEO AND VIDEOS WHILE Y WHILE YOU WATCH IT CURRENT AD VIDEO VIDEO VIDE AD WE MAKE YOU CLICK THE NEXT VIDEO Recently YouTube decided to ‘care’ about their users and here’s what they did: when you see a channel that you like, you subscribe to it; in return you expect to see its videos in your YouTube subscription tab. But YouTube decided that, looking at statistics, people were not engaged that much and didn’t click many of these videos that ended up in their subscription tab, so now when you subscribe to a channel you’ll only see the videos the YouTube algorithm thinks you may want to watch. They are saying it with their own mouths. What is obvious though, is that YouTube cared not at all about users, but about engagement, because engagement sells ads better. Actually they admitted that this is the focus of YouTube (advertising and engagement). Why do you think they have the “next video” button in-between the play/pause and volume buttons? Or why do you think that when you pause a video you’ll see a big “recommended videos tab” that many will click by mistake? The same reason why stores put sweets for kids at the checkout, so when parents wait in line, kids can persuade them to buy them sweets. It’s all about being a Charlatan and making profits. OU CLICK OTHER WE MAKE YOU CLICK OTHER YOU PAUSE THE VIDEOS AFTER YOU WATCH ENT ONE THE CURRENT ONE VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO IDEO VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO HOME TRENDING OR HOW TO GET YOU HOOKE SUBSCRIPTION VIDEO AD A VID V CHANNEL ON SUBSCRIPTI THE RISE CHANNE POPULAR VIDEO THE RI ING SUBSCRIPTIONS OOKED FROM THE FRONT PAGE VID V EO E POPULAR VIDEO TION VIDEO AD VIDEO NNEL ON AD VIDEO E RISE HOME TRENDING OR HOW TO PROMOTE CELEBR CLIP FR MOVIE TRAILER AD VID TV SH MUSIC VIDEO NEWS VID DUMB AND YOUTUBE POPULAR VIDEO ING SUBSCRIPTIONS EBRITIES AND DUMB CONTENT IP FROM VIDEO YOUTUBE SHOW SHOW DUMB AND S VIDEO POPULAR VIDEO CLIP FROM BE SHOW TV SHOW HOME TRENDING OR HOW TO WATCH WHAT W SUBSCRIPTION VIDEO SUBSCRIPTI WE THINK YOU WE THIN MAY WATCH MAY W SUBSCRIPTION VIDEO SUBSCRIPTI WE THINK YOU WE THIN MAY WATCH MAY W SUBSCRIPTION VIDEO SUBSCRIPTI WE THINK YOU WE THIN MAY WATCH MAY W ING SUBSCRIPTIONS T WE WANT YOU TO WATCH TION VIDEO SUBSCRIPTION VIDEO INK YOU WE THINK YOU WATCH MAY WATCH TION VIDEO SUBSCRIPTION VIDEO INK YOU WE THINK YOU WATCH MAY WATCH TION VIDEO SUBSCRIPTION VIDEO INK YOU WE THINK YOU WATCH MAY WATCH SO YOU SEE, PRIVATOPUS IS GOING TO LOCK DOWN THE DIGITAL SPACE. OWN, CENSOR, BLOCK, LOCK. HEGEMONY! You can listen to this podcast to learn more bout the Monopolies that have been created in the digital space. privatopus: clothes/wearables and furniture Our basic necessities like clothes, that are meant to protect our bodies and make us comfortable, have become anything but that. They are luxury items, and what many may not realize is that a few companies own the production and distribution of them. This is what I love about our society: variety! I can choose any glasses I want, any color, shape, or brand. Chanel, Prada, Giorgio Armani, Burberry, Versace, Dolce and Gabbana, Miu Miu, DKNY. Wow, so many options! Again, wrong. They are all owned or made by a single company. One! It is like I make ice cream cones, and I name them differently, and you think all of those names are “brands” that are independent from each other. So, all of those brands are owned or made by Luxottica. The biggest eyewear company in the world (14% MS). Want to know what’s the second largest? Essilor, with 13% MS. But guess what? In 2018, the two merged together. Their next ‘competitor’ is Johnson & Johnson with 3.9% MS. Johnson & Johnson is also one of the biggest companies in the world that produces “medical devices, pharmaceutical and consumer packaged goods manufacturing”. This may not seem much at first sight, but the top company having a 27% share of the entire world-wide market, and their next competitor having a 3.9% share, is definitely making Luxottica+Essilor a Monopoly. And considering they have contracts with the largest retailers in the world, it means that when you want to buy glasses you are very likely to buy them from the big dog Luxottica+Essilor + THE REST OF THE MARKET YKK is a Japanese company that produces zippers, among other stuff, and is perhaps the biggest one in that niche – just look at your zipper and you’ll probably see the YKK logo. In 2007, the company was fined €150.3 million by the European Commission for running worldwide price-fixing cartels and sharing markets with two other companies (one from Britain and one from Germany). The other two companies were also fined. This showcases something very concerning about our trade based game: it’s not necessary to have a Monopoly in a certain domain to dominate that domain. Smaller companies can also get together and do these shameless tricks like “price-fixing” to dominate that market. Maybe alone you’re not a Monopoly, but together we will be. They agree, behind closed doors, how to run their companies in a way that will not allow for competition and will keep their status, plus raise their profits. Price Fixing examples: Between 1995 and 2000, music companies conspired to raise the prices for CDs and it is estimated that they overcharged people over $500 million (source). In 2005, the huge Korean company, Samsung, was fined $300 million for doing the same kind of tricks together with other manufacturers for inflating the price of DRAM (Dynamic random access memory) chips. Samsung admitted it. (source) Same happened in 2018 when the European Commission fined 8 companies for doing the same with capacitors. In 2006, 13 perfume companies were fined for similar stunts; in 2008 and 2010, huge companies like LG pleaded guilty for LCD (displays) price fixing; and between 2005 and 2013, it was estimated that 60 massive airline companies were doing the same stunts (34 of them were charged). (source) It’s not hard to see that big clothing companies (or any other company) may engage in such schemes right now, but are not caught yet. Bershka Zara Pull and Bear Inditex is the big group in the MOST WEL SERVICES/PRODU Massimo Dutti Stradivarius Oysho biggest “fashion the world”. Zara Home LL KNOWN UCTS THEY OWN: Uterqüe COS & Other Stories H&M is the second largest in the world”. Go into very unlikely to not companies dominating MOST WEL SERVICES/PRODU ARKET Cheap Monday Monki largest “fashion group nto any mall and it is not see these two ting the retail space. LL KNOWN UCTS THEY OWN: Weekday Air Yeezy Nike Considered Nik Air Force (shoe) Converse Nike and Adidas compl market of sports equipment is the biggest in the w Hurley Europe, and Adidas is firs Nike – surprise Nike Mercurial Vapor MOST WEL SERVICES/PRODU Nike Blazers Nike CTR360 Maestri Nike Hypervenom Nike Shox Nike Air Max ike Ordem Nike+ Nike Tiempo pletely dominate the Nike Total 90 pment and clothing. Nike he world and second in irst in Europe (second is se surprise!). NikeID LL KNOWN Air Jordan UCTS THEY OWN: Nike Vision Nike Skateboarding Adidas Predator Adidas footballs Reebok Nike and Adidas compl market of sports equipment is the biggest in the w Europe, and Adidas is firs Ashworth Nike – surprise MOST WEL SERVICES/PRODU CCM Adidas Originals Adidas Samba or Adidas Stan Smith pletely dominate the pment and clothing. Nike he world and second in irst in Europe (second is se surprise!). TaylorMade LL KNOWN UCTS THEY OWN: Adidas Superstar 415 stores And IKEA is the large house decoration) fart 2008. IKEA owns and op 49 countries. In one ye 2016), they had over 2 their websites where th stuff from – they have MOST WEL SERVICES/PRODU operates in 49 countries >2 billion online visitors a year rgest furniture (and in art in the world since operates 415 stores in e year (from 2015 to r 2.1 billion visitors on they sell most of their e over 12.000 items. LL KNOWN UCTS THEY OWN: over 12.000 items Whether you buy glasses, furniture, you will most them from ~6 huge com es, clothes or t likely buy + companies: privatopus: grocery-products Food, sweets, beverages, seeds, livestock, products for personal care or household, you name it. Grocery-stores have them all. What I am going to show you right now is how only 25 companies own pretty much everything you see in any grocery-store anywhere in the world. I won’t call them farts for this section because we are talking about food and stuff. Thank me later. See if you can recognize the brands: NaturNes Chocapic Cini Minis Nestum Fel Cookie Crisp Nestlé Pure Life Fitness Nesquik Aero Crunch It is the largest food company in t and other metrics, since 2014. N food, medical food, bottled wate tea, confectionery, dairy produc foods, and snacks. Nestlé has 194 countries, and employs a Nescafé one of the main shareholder KitKat world's largest cos Nespresso MOST WELL Hot Pockets SERVICES/PRODU Sjora Buitoni - full list here Lean Cuisine L’Oreal (biggest owner of it) Maggi Gourmet Dog Chow Nestlé Ice Cream Purina Bakers Complete Alpo Coffee-Mate Häagen-Dazs S.Pellegrino Stouffer's elix Orion Fancy Feast Thomy Cailler Gerber n the world, measured by revenues . Nestlé's products include baby Perrier ter, breakfast cereals, coffee and ucts, ice cream, frozen food, pet Cerelac has 447 factories, operates in s around 339,000 people. It is Poland Spring ders (owners) of L'Oreal, the osmetics company. Nido Minor’s ELL KNOWN UCTS THEY OWN: Estrelitas re and here - Milo Nutren Junior La Laitière Friskies Boost Smarties Cat Chow Chef Nestea Oscar Mayer Ore-Ida Macaroni and Cheese ABC Capri Sun The world's fifth-lar beverage company, and in the United Watties’s Kool-Aid MOST WELL SERVICES/PRODU - full list here, Weight Watchers Jell-O Golden Circle Philadelphia Grey Poupon Smart Ones Classico Velveeta Planters Lunchables -largest food and and the third-largest Pudliszki Maxwell House ted States. LL KNOWN UCTS THEY OWN: Honig Plasmon here, and here - Master Quero Complan Barni Cardbuty Wheat Thins belVita Chips Ahoy! Côte d'Or Ta TUC Dirol LU Honey Maid Produces some of known brands of cho gum, confectionery, beverag Newtons Milka Marabou MOST WEL SERVICES/PRODU Prince - full list here Oreo Nutter Butter Royal Trident Sottilette Triscuit Tiger Toblerone Trakinas Sour Patch Sour Stride Patch 5 star Bubbaloo Tang Ritz Club Social Dentyne Enjoy Life Foods of the most well Halls hocolate, cookies, ry, and powdered Hollywood rages. Kinh Do LL KNOWN Lacta UCTS THEY OWN: Nabisco here and here - Mikado Nilla Clight Premium Freia Tate's Bake Shop Alpen Gold Stimorol Betty Crocker Knack & Back Pillsbury Bisquick Jus-Rol Yoki Immacu La Salteña Cheerios Chex Fiber One It is a boss in No producing most Trix brands t Kix MOST WEL SERVICES/PRODU - full list Cascadian Farm Monsters Cinnamon Toast Crunch Annie's Latina Wheaties Helper Green Giant Food Should Taste Epic Good Mountain High Muir Glen ulate Baking Lucky Charms Lärabar Blue Buffalo Totino’s / Jeno’s Bugles Gardetto's North-America Nature Valley ost of the top ds there. Progresso LL KNOWN UCTS THEY OWN: st here - Parampara Liberté Old El Paso Yoplait Wanchai Ferry 3 Musketeers Life Savers Celebrations Bounty CocoaVia Combos Dove Dolmio Ebly Global manufacturer FLAVIA Ethel M pet food, and other fo provider of animal ca ranked as the 6th larg company in the United Galaxy Munch MOST WEL M&M's SERVICES/PRODU Snickers - full list Mars Milky Way Minstrels Revels Seeds of Maltesers Freedent Doublemint Whiskas Royal Canin Pedigree Skittles Orbit er of confectionery, food products and a care services and is Juicy Fruit rgest privately held ed States by Forbes. Topic Bubble Tape LL KNOWN UCTS THEY OWN: st here - Airwaves 5 (gum) Uncle Ben's Rice Twix of Change Hubba Bubba Froot Loops Kello Eggo Krave Nutri-Grain Pops It too produces som recognized brands of cookies or crackers. Kell Pop Tarts manufactured in 18 coun in over 180 co Rice Krispies MOST WEL Start Smart SERVICES/PRODU - full list Mini Wheats Frosted Flakes Bear Nak Moe’s Cracklin’ Oat Bran® Mueslix Crispix ellogg’s Limited Edition Crunch Mania Crunch Mania Special K some of the most of cereals, sweets, Pringles ellogg's products are untries and marketed countries. Apple Jacks All-Bran LL KNOWN UCTS THEY OWN: st here - Corn Flakes Cinnabon Kashi aked Mother's Cookies Cheez-It Danone Prostokvashino Activia Oikos International Delight In 2014 was the worl Silk fresh dairy products an largest sellers of ea products and bottled wa be a huge player in the Danonino Alpro MOST WEL SERVICES/PRODU - full list here Actimel Evian Mizone Aqua Volvic Bonafont Zywiec orld’s largest seller of s and among the world’s Font Vella early life nutrition waters. It continues to the market. (source) Villavicencio LL KNOWN UCTS THEY OWN: here and here - Villa del Sur Salus Hayat Oltan Group Nutella the largest hazelnut Giotto supplier in the world Ferrero Rocher Pocket Coffee It is the third biggest ch and confectionery com Mon Chéri MOST WELL SERVICES/PRODU - full list Confetteria Raffaello Thorntons Kinder Tic T Fannie May Gran Soleil Ferrara Candy t chocolate producer Company ompany in the world. Nerds LL KNOWN Butterfinger UCTS THEY OWN: st here - Hanuta Baby Ruth Tac So these 8 companies own the cereals, yogurts, even drinks complete the list of beverage that a few companies own industry of beverages is own assets value – all the food market (sweets, foods, ks). But the next 5 companies ges and add to the list of foods n. So, let’s see next how the wned by 5 companies (top 5 by ll of what they own). Pepsi Tropicana Walkers Mountain Dew Tee Lay’s Gatorade 7 Up Doritos Lipton Quaker PepsiCo is the second large business in the world in ter North America, PepsiCo is Ruffles beverage business by net rev Cheetos distributed across more t Mirinda MOST WEL Aquafina SERVICES/PRODU Tostitos - full list here Fritos Naked Juice Brisk Schweppes Concordia Shani Kas Bubly Sting Energy Drink Kevita eem Sunbites Mist Twst SoBe Life WTR Stacy’s Sabra rgest food and beverage Alvalle erms of revenue. Within is the largest food and H2OH! revenue. Its products are re than 200 countries. Yedigun Propel LL KNOWN UCTS THEY OWN: here and here - Fritolay Smart Food Pure Leaf Duyvis Kurkure Munchies Rold Gold Pretzels SunChips Coca-Cola Coke Diet Dasani Fanta Lim Minute Maid Sprite Del Valle PowerAde Fresca Simply Beverages In 2015 Coca-Cola was th valuable brand, after Appl Coke products were sold i worldwide, with consumers Mello Yello billion company beverag Smart Water Vitamin Water MOST WEL Fuze SERVICES/PRODU Honest Tea Odwalla - full list Cappy Aquarius Barq's Lift Fioravanti Frutonic Fruitopia Ciel Maaza Tum-E Yummies Swerve imca Tanora Urge Vault Full Throttle Lemon & Paeroa s the world's third most ple and Google. In 2013, Nordic Mist ld in over 200 countries rs drinking more than 1.8 age servings each day. Gold Spot Quatro LL KNOWN UCTS THEY OWN: st here - OK Soda Qoo Tab Thums Up Mezzo Mix Inca Kola Vio Appletiser Budweiser Stella Artois Leffe Corona Hoegaarden Beck’s Grupo Alexander Keith's Bass Busch Brahma One of the largest pa beverages companies responsible for 28% of a in the world. Has appr Elysian Brewing brands in over 1 Dommelsch Company Camden Town Brewery MOST WEL SERVICES/PRODU - full list Diebels Goose Island Kokanee beer Brewery Four Peaks Brewer Labatt Brewing Company Guaraná Antarctica Devils Backbone Spaten Harbin Brewery Brewing Company Löwenbräu Brewery Cerveza Quilmes Presidente Skol Tripel Karmeliet po Modelo Natural Light AstikA Boddingtons Borsodi Jupiler packaged foods and ies in the world. It is Antarctica of all the beers sales proximately 500 beer Mill Street Brewery r 100 countries. LL KNOWN Bosteels Brewery UCTS THEY OWN: Kamenitza st here - Zagrebačka pivovara Tolstiak St. Pauli Girl ery Noroc Sibirskaya Korona Pivara Trebjesa Mousel Pilsen Pilsener Heineken Birra Gösser Dark Buckler Despe Athenian Brewery Affligem Brewery Kaiser Caledonian Brewery Bochkarev Owns 170 beer brand breweries in more th Central de Cervejas brewery Cruzcampo Sagres MOST WEL SERVICES/PRODU El León - full list Fürstenberg De Ridder Brewery Brewery Krušovice Brewery B Murphy's Brewery Edelweiss Adelscott Fischer Królewskie Żywiec Stella perados Sakara Birell Fayrouz Almaza Windhoek ands and over 125 than 70 countries. Smirnoff LL KNOWN DB Breweries Tui Brewery UCTS THEY OWN: st here - Starobrno Brewery Monteith's Zagorka Brewery Brasserie Pelforth Zlatý Bažant Brewery Asia Pacific Breweries Meister Export Amstel Brewery Guinness Kaliber Zacapa Tusker Kilkenny Smithwick's My Cacique Johnnie Walker Buchanan's Cardhu It is the world's largest It sells its products in o and owns several w selling” vodkas Black & White Bell's Justerini & Brooks MOST WEL SERVICES/PRODU - full list Caol Ila Vat 69 Jeremiah Weed Cragganmore Dalwhinnie Talisker Lagavulin Glen Ord Godiva Pimm's Clynelish Moët Hennessy Owns 37% Crown Royal Bulleit George Dickel Don Julio Myers's I. W. Harper Seagram's Seven Crown Casamigos Rumple Minze Captain Morgan est distiller company. in over 180 countries Pampero l worldwide “best kas/liqueurs. Bundaberg LL KNOWN Booth's UCTS THEY OWN: Tanqueray st here - Gordon's Baileys Cîroc Royal Lochnagar The Dimple Pinch Glen Elgin Smirnoff Haig Knockando These are al of the companies that basicall the world of foods and beverages in terms availability and popularity. If you ever go in supermarket, look at the label of any food or at random, and you’ll see how the vast majo them are owned by these 13 monsters. ally rule ms of into a or drink jority of rs. The “raw” foods and beverages (the ingredients, the animals, the processing) are made primarily by 5 other companies. JBS S.A. is the largest (by sales) meat processing company in the world, producing factory processed beef, chicken and pork, and also selling by-products from the processing of these meats. So it is the world's biggest meat producer. The second biggest in the domain is Tyson Foods – they also own major food brands like Jimmy Dean, Hillshire Farm, Sara Lee, Ball Park, Wright Brand, Aidells, and State Fair. WH Group makes “hog raising, consumer meat products, flavoring products, and logistics” and it is the largest pork producer in the world and the largest meat producer in China (remember that China has the largest population of humans). This company slaughters more than 15 million pigs a year. The 4th is BRF S.A. Its products are sold in over 150 countries, in all five continents. And the last one, Fonterra, is responsible for approximately 30% of the world's dairy exports (milk, yogurt, cheese, and butter). They also own a lot of known dairy brands. POULTRY (CHICKEN, TURKEYS, EGGS) These are the top 10 poultry production companies. As you can see the top 3 are JBS, Tyson and BFR, taking over 60% of the top 10 production companies. (source) JBS S.A. Tyson Foods BFR Wen's Food Group New Hope Group CP Group Perdue Foods (broiler) Koch Foods Inc. Industrias Bachoco ACOLID PORK Again, top 10 pork producing companies. WH Group and BFR take over 36% of the total production. WH Group alone takes 27% of the production in this group. (source) WH Group BRF CP Group Wen’s Food Group Triumph Foods NongHyup Agribusiness Cooperl Arc Atlantique The Maschhoffs Seaboard Corp Vall Companys Grupo DAIRY EXPORTS Milk, yogurt, cheese, and butter from cows or goats, but also from buffaloes, sheep, horses, or camels. 30% of production is owned by Fonterra. Fonterra Rest of the World A very scary and concerning thing when it comes to food is the owning of nature. Now companies genetically modify seeds and those seeds belong to them. They also own pesticides and fertilizers. In 2016, only 6 such companies owned over half the seeds, pesticides, and fertilizers around the world: Bayer, BASF, Dow, DuPont, Monsanto, and Syngenta. (source) In 2015, Monsanto was the biggest supplier of seeds, controlling 26% of the global seeds market. Du Pont was its competitor, controlling 21%. (source) That’s 2 companies controlling 47% of the global seeds market, and at the same time, “owning nature”, through their pursuit of patenting and privatizing these miraculous things we call “seeds”. Just stop and think for a moment: if a company owns a bunch of seeds, and they are the most used seeds around the world, and through these seeds a variety of plants and vegetables or fruits are growing (from corn to tomatoes to trees) then we are fucked, to put it more directly, since these companies control nature. No longer will we be able to grow food or plants unless we borrow them from these powerful companies. Think about that. OWNING OVER 50% OF THE SEEDS, PESTICIDES AND FERTILIZERS IN THE WORLD CONTROLLING 47% OF THE SEEDS WORLDWIDE Monsanto tried to acquire one of the big 6 companies, Syngenta, but failed. Though another giant of the 6 (Bayer) managed to buy Monsanto in 2018 in return. Now they are as powerful as 2 of the 6. What’s more is that ChemChina, a big state owned company, managed to buy Syngenta in 2017 and they are in the talks of acquiring another company described as: “China’s biggest agricultural input company (fertilizer, seed and agrochemicals) and China’s leading chemical service company”, Sinochem. These two acquisitions will make ChemChina the most powerful chemical company in the world overtaking BASF who is currently the largest chemical producer in the world. And in 2017, Dow united its forces with DuPont to create a single company DowDuPont. So, in 2016 we had 6 big farts (well, I said it!) and now they combined with each other to become 4 or so: Bayer+Monsanto, Dow+DuPont, ChemChina will merge with Syngenta and Sinochem, and BASF is still a fucking giant on its own. Therefore, these 9 companies are control ing the production of food: from seeds, to animals, to meats, and everything else. re d: ts, Before we close this topic I have to mention 3 other companies that own the market of household/personal care products, and one of them also owns a lot of the foods/drinks market as well. No grocery-store/supermarket will be complete without those products. So, these 3 are going to close this chapter in a “beautiful” and “complete” manner. Axe/Lynx Heartbrand Arisco Dermalogica Ala Dove Cif Clear Domestos It is the world's largest cons measured by 2012 revenue an ice cream manufacturer. And seventh most valuable comp Hellmann’s available in around 190 cou brands. It owns so much it is Knorr MOST WEL LifeBuoy SERVICES/PRODU - full list here Lipton Magnum Lux Rexona Omo Sunsilk Surf Unox Brilhante Ben&Jerry’s BRU Instant Brut Bio tex Blueair Comfort Carte D’Or Continental onsumer goods company e and the world's biggest Coral And currently it is Europe’s ompany. Its products are Cremissimo ountries with over 400 t is a complete monster. Cup a Soup LL KNOWN Cornetto UCTS THEY OWN: here and here - Eskinol Persil Noxzema Klondike Popsicle Viss Suave Timotei VO5 Always Ariel S Puffs ambipur Bold 2in1 Bounty Braun Procter & Gambl most well known Charmin Crest household/personal Dawn MOST WEL SERVICES/PRODU - full list here Febreze Downy Gain Herbal Essences Gillette Head & Shoulders Joy Aussie Scoope Vicks Tide Tampax SK-II amble owns the Swiffer n products for personal care. Safeguard LL KNOWN UCTS THEY OWN: Pantene Pro V here and here - Rejoice Oral-B Olay Luvs Pampers Old Spice Ajax Meridol Palmolive Colgate Sanex Protex It is another household and SoftSoap care product MOST WEL Hills Gard SERVICES/PRODU - full list Sorriso Brite Speed Stick Murphy Suavitel Tom’s Irish Spring Tahiti Afta Softlan Cuddly her giant of and personal oducts. Fleecy LL KNOWN UCTS THEY OWN: Pinho Sol st here - Tender Care Axion Elmex Fluffy Soupline Sta-Soft Fabuloso One small side note: Unilever and Procter & Gamble created a cartel in 2011 for “price-fixing” practices. They were caught. They admitted it. They were fined. They continue to be the biggest players in their domain. (source) Same story with Colgate-Palmolive which was caught in 2016 for doing the same. (source) There you have it: 25 big damn farts of t Privatopus that together are taking over a grocery-store/supermarket in the world. From products that you see on the selves (bevera sweets, cereals, packaged foods, household/pe care products, etc.) to the meats, livestock da the seeds that enabled the production of th they are mainly (almost entirely) owned by companies. Shitty situation indeed. f the er any om the erages, personal dairy or these, y these . privatopus: media Although the Internet is a dominating fo channels and movies are still a big part o people spent around 725 minutes per da fashioned” media). In the same year, tele medium with the highest daily consump smartphone, radio and emails. (source) S worldwide? Let’s look at their financial v Alphabet Inc. is the papa of Google and i Alphabet is basically Google under a diff has Google News, YouTube TV, and othe media company by revenue in the world and focus on the old and traditional one Interestingly we only have 6 major comp force nowadays, newspapers, TV t of people’s lives. In 2016, in the US, day consuming major media (this “old elevision (broadcast/cable) was the ption per capita in the U.S., followed by ) So who owns the “major media” l value and overall popularity. d it owns a lot of other companies as well. ifferent name, and remember that Google her such media entities. It is the largest ld. But let’s leave this modern fart behind nes. panies that overtook the media industry. TV CHANNELS MOVIES Disney abc ESPN A+E Networks HULU Fox Channels owns 60% Disney acquired Fox recently merge in 2019. Combined they cartoons and movies and s National Geographic popular TV cha Sky owns 40% - it is Europe's biggest and leading media company and largest pay- TV broadcaster. They recently announced to buy Sky completely and are in the process of doing just that. MOST WEL SERVICES/PRODU CARTOONS - full list here tly and they will finally hey own the most iconic d some of the most hannels. LL KNOWN UCTS THEY OWN: here and here - TV CHANNELS CNN The CW Warner Bros TV HULU owns 10% TruTV The world's largest telecomm Turner also the second largest provid TBS services and the largest prov services in the United States biggest names in the Cartoon Network MOST WEL SERVICES/PRODU TNT - full list here Boomerang NBA TV glitz* CO Adult Swim HBO Tooncast MOVIES munications company and vider of mobile telephone rovider of fixed telephone es merged with one of the he movie industry. LL KNOWN UCTS THEY OWN: here and here - OMIC BOOKS Allrecipes 25 Beautiful Homes American Baby American Patchwork & Quilting Better Homes and Gardens Family Circle As of 2018, they are th Every Day with company in t Rachael Ray MOST WEL SERVICES/PRODU FamilyFun - full list Midwest Living Parents Traditional Home Money Shape Siempre Mujer Time People Fortune Sports Illustrated InStyle Golf Magazine Southern Living Travel + Leisure the largest magazine n the world Essence Life Real Simple Entertainment LL KNOWN Weekly UCTS THEY OWN: st here - Diabetic Living Do-It-Yourself Eat This, Not That Food & Wine Country Life Wood EatingWell MOV TV CHANNELS CNBC NBC Telemundo MSNBC Bravo The largest broadca television company in the E! MOST WEL Syfy SERVICES/PRODU USA Today - full list here Olympic Channel DreamWorks Channel Carnival Films Hulu owns 30% VIES casting and cable the world by revenue. LL KNOWN UCTS THEY OWN: here and here - TV CHANNELS & INTERNET Canal+ Cstar C8 CNews Canal Play CanalSat Mediaset owns 28% with channels like Italia 1, Italia 2, Canale 5 The company has ac Telecom Italia television, film, v owns 24.6% - the largest telecommunications, Italian ISP hosting se MOVIES MOST WEL SERVICES/PRODU - full list Vevo owns 31% - it makes the most well known/watched music Dailymotion videos like "Look What You Made Me Do" Taylor Swift, "Hello" Adele, "Anaconda" Nicki Minaj, "Wrecking Ball" Miley Cyrus, owns 90% - video hosting "Boyfriend" Justin Bieber, "Where Have You Been" Rihanna. with > 300 million unique monthly users. it makes games like Asphalt, Brothers in Arms, Brain Challenge, Captain America, Chessmaster, Despicable Me: Minion Rush, Desperate Housewives: The Game, The Dark Knight Rises, Dragon Mania Legends, Ferrari GT: Evolution, Gangstar, Ice Age, Iron Man, Midnight Pool 3D, Modern Combat, My Little Pony, NFL, Prince of Persia, Rayman, Real Football, Shrek, Sonic, Tom Gameloft Clancy's, etc. activities in music, , video games, s, tickets and video service. MUSIC LL KNOWN UCTS THEY OWN: st here - MOVIES Sony P Ent home vi It is hard to know where to fi produces everything from electronics or games. The largest music entertainmen MOST WEL SERVICES/PRODU - full list y Pictures Home ntertainment Sony Mobile Sony Interactive Entertainment video distribution producing phones like Xperia or Ericsson video game production – they make PlayStation, which is one of the most popular video consoles, and games like Gran Turismo, Uncharted, God of War, Twisted Metal, or LittleBigPlanet to fit this giant because it m big budget movies to Sony Music The company owns the 2nd biggest record label ent business in the world. LL KNOWN UCTS THEY OWN: st here - Pretty much any movie you see, TV cha watch, music you listen to, is owned b these 6 powerful farts. And looking at broader picture, 8 out of 10 leading companies in the world are U.S.-ba companies. (source) Considering how ‘g US Statopus is at spying on people manipulating them, the power of Priva the US is not going unnoticed by the S hannel you ed by one of at a more g media based ‘good’ the ple and vatopus in Statopus. privatopus: transportation Man I love motor showrooms. Audi, Bentley, Porsche. Wow, Lamborghini and Bugatti. What would you like, a Lamborghini or a Bugatti if you were rich? They are rivals, aren’t they!? Both fast, both slick, both jaw dropping. But to me the Lamborghini brand is still better. Same brand! Volkswagen makes Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, SEAT, Škoda, and even Ducati. You may think they are different brands under a different company-umbrella, but they are not. Worldwide there are some ~95 million motor vehicles produced each year. Now think about the following: Top 6 companies are responsible for 55% of all motor vehicles produced. Over half. Add the next 4, and now top 10 companies are responsible for 72% of all motor vehicles produced. Top 15 companies are responsible for 83% of all motor vehicles produced. And only 30 top car companies produce 97% of all motor vehicles in the world. Imagine that, only 30 companies basically producing all the of motor vehicles in the world. Meaning passenger cars, light commercial vehicles, minibuses, trucks, buses and coaches. (source) 6 FARTS OTHERS 10 FARTS OTHERS 15 FARTS OTHERS 30 FARTS OTHERS But let’s only focus on the top 10 since they are responsible for 72% of all the production, which means complete takeover by a handful of companies over the motor vehicles production. D Lexus Hino Motors MOST WELL BRANDS TH Ranz Daihatsu Isuzu owns 5.9% Subaru owns 16.66% LL KNOWN THEY OWN: Toyota Models Audi B Bentley Lamborghini MOST WELL BRANDS TH Porsche Bugatti SEAT Škoda LL KNOWN THEY OWN: Ducati Volkswagen Models A Alpine this is another kind of wha Dacia huge companies merging or s to dominate the game. Mits shipbuilding company i MOST WELL BRANDS TH Renault Samsung Motors AvtoVAZ Renault Models hat we’ve seen so far with or simply uniting their forces itsubishi is also the largest Nissan Models y in the world (source). LL KNOWN THEY OWN: Mitsubishi Models Buick GMC Cadillac MOST WELL BRANDS TH Holden HSV Wuling Baojun LL KNOWN THEY OWN: Jie Fang Ravon Abarth Alfa Romeo Chrysler MOST WELL BRANDS TH Dodge Jeep Lancia Maserati LL KNOWN THEY OWN: Ram Trucks Fiat Models Kia (owns 33.88%), Hyundai models. It is also the 2nd largest shipbuilding company in the world. (source) Suzuki M Honda models. Honda has been the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959 as well as the world's largest manufacturer of internal combustion engines measured by volume. Ford Models, Edsel, Lincoln, Mercury. ki Models. Peugeot Models, Citroën Models, Opel Models When it comes to airplanes we can see the exact same approach with companies collaborating with each other to create tiny monsters (alliances) that are going to dominate that market. Here we have only 3 such Alliances that are responsible for over 61% of all the world wide air traffic. (source) 3 FARTS 20 members in 178 tribes with over 4.400 aircrafts. 27 members with over 4.600 aircraft operating in 192 tribes. 13 members in 158 tribes with over 3.400 aircrafts. 10 motor vehicles com airplane companies own transportation worldwide, mpanies and 3 wn most of the ide, land or air. privatopus: healthcare Top 10 pharmaceutical companies own ~40% of the market. ‘nough said! (source 1, 2) These companies make the essentials of healthcare: drugs, develop treatments, vaccines, antibiotics, medical 10 FART technology, and so forth. OTHERS RTS RS 43% OF ALL PRESCRIBED DRUGS 10 FARTS OTHERS The same companies prescribe 43% of al drugs worldwide. (source) And when it comes to vaccines, only 4 of them account for over 90% of the market share (MS). Basical y the entire market of vaccines is owned by 4 companies. (source) 4 FARTS OTHERS 90% OF ALL VACCINES Could these companies engage in price fixing or think about merging together to become more powerful? Why not, it seems that that’s the trend. There we have it my friends. Privatopus with its 6 tentacles spread around the world, controlling it, manipulating it, owning it. But I can’t just leave it like that. No no no! In our world we have many domains like toy production, resource management, boats and books, porn and home appliances, and so forth. In order to understand that Monopolies can be found in pretty much any domain, I made a list of charts to showcase their value in their respective market. It is calculated in terms of “assets”. Assets are basically all that a company owns and is worth. The numbers represent the billions of dollars owned in assets. Observe a trend: how the first and second place are dominating in almost all domains. That’s what a Monopoly looks like. Also, keep in mind that these are the 5 top companies in each domain. Imagine how much smaller other companies are compared to these ones, like say position 23 or 50 compared to position 1 or 2. They are minuscule. If there were no Monopolies in our society, you would see a gradual difference between these companies and not what you’ll observe below. If these were stairs you would break 3 legs and 2 necks. The stats are from Forbes 2017. (see/download all charts from here) D Hewlett Pac Microsoft 224.6 Oracle 125.4 SOFTWARE SAP 46.7 Symantec 19.1 Salesforce.com 17.6 0 50 100 150 200 250 Sony 151.7 Panasonic 52.7 CONSUMER LG Electronics 31.3 ELECTRONICS Fujifilm Holdings 26.8 TCL Group 21.3 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 Apple 331.1 Dell Technologies 118.2 COMPUTER ackard Enterprise 76.7 HARDWARE Legend Holding 46.4 HP 28.2 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 Second thing that I did was to create a mega search engine comprised of around 200 of the biggest companies out there, to showcase their complete domination of our world. There are hundreds of thousands of items (if not millions) in the database so feel free to search any product you want, movie, artist, company or brand. See who owns them. The engine is a work in progress and we may add more companies on the fly, if needed, to cover even more ground. SEE THE TBF SEARCH ENGINE HERE SO THERE THEY ARE, THE TWO GIANT OCTOPUSES: STATOPUS AND PRIVATOPUS. THEY OWN THE WORLD. These Charlatans want to appear like what they are not, so they put on a tie, a jacket, or some hat. But the Abusers don’t need any of that. . They want to pretend that they represent the rest of the creatures, and so they need no clothes to hide behind, they teach us. But the reality is that both of these monsters, are nothing more than a bunch of mean gangsters But what’s unique about octopuses is that they can change color and shape. One octopus can become identical to another. Sometimes it is hard to differentiate them. And that’s what’s happening with Statopus and Privatopus, as they are (many times) the same creature. They look, smell, and feel the same. Who tells the state (Abuser) – Statopus - to spend money on a football stadium instead of a hospital? Hosting the Olympic Games vs restructuring the transportation system? Events over practicality? Well, the Abuser is also a profiteer (Charlatan). They too want more for themselves and less for everybody else. Also, think about the Privatopus (the Charlatan): banks are private yet you cannot do without them. You can’t pay for lots of stuff if you don’t have a bank account so you are abused into making a deal with them and open a bank account. Then they will rape you too with rules that they change all the time and will force you to give them more and more money (some examples). Therefore, the Abuser is also a Charlatan and the Charlatan can become Abusive. They work hand in hand most of the time. Imagine a cable company that provides television for people. For it to be successful it needs to stand out from the rest of the cable companies. How does it do that? It starts with a big investment in building the infrastructure and bribing politicians to allow them to implement the infrastructure: laying down cables, maybe renting frequency channels for transmission via satellite, and whateverthefuck they need, and the state has to allow them to do that. So they bribe the politicians and build the infrastructure. Now they provide cable TV to millions of people in that tribe. They invested a lot of money and now they can create a Monopoly by removing any competition. As soon as they are in this position, they can control it. They can use their power and the already-built infrastructure to also provide Internet for people. They can easily lay down cables to people’s homes and make them package offers for both TV and Internet. They have a database of users already so it is easy for them to market their new business. Now they expanded and provide both cable TV and Internet to millions of people. Say another company wants to come and offer better Internet to people. They too will try to bribe politicians but now they will also have to fight with the big boss company that’s already in place. With the Monopoly. And this is not an easy fight to fight. The big boss company can easily block them by either bribing the politicians (again) to stop the new company from laying down cables (let’s say), or by offering cheaper Internet subscriptions to their existing users - so cheap that the new company won't be able to compete with them. Remember that the new company must start as brand new and invest in infrastructure, which can be a massive investment, and they will also have to make a profit from all of this. But the big boss company (the Monopoly) can drop prices so low that it is not worth the investment for the new company. The big boss company can raise prices again once the competition is gone. Actually that’s the real story of what happened in the US for the past years: But the story doesn’t end here. Now the state can take advantage of this big boss cable and Internet company. How? It knocks on their door and tells them to hand over data/information about their users (the citizens). The state can also dictate what people can or cannot access via this company - like blocking certain websites or TV shows. Companies bribe politicians to make decisions for their own benefit, and the state forces companies into trades for the state’s interest. So I have the company X and I sell guns. Now, because I want more people to buy my guns I want less strict laws in regards to people buying guns. But some worry that too many guns results in more deaths, so they say: “We want for people to first get permission to buy a gun and not own more than one gun.” Maybe statistics show that too: more guns equal more deaths, but because I have so much money, I can pay some talking mouths called “lobbyists” to basically go and influence politicians to not adopt strict rules in regards to buying guns. As simple as that. I, as a company, make the rules by influencing politicians to adopt new laws, change them, remove them, or whatever. No statistics or group of people will stay in my way. And the worrying thing is that this is 100% legal and it is working like a charm (source 1, 2). Here are a few examples of the Statopus and Privatopus, the Abuser and the Charlatan, transforming into each other and collaborating together for their own gain, and from pretty much any tribe out there – and keep in mind that the following are the so called “illegal” collaborations between the two (bribes and corruption), not the “legal” lobbying that has become a normality in our society: SIEMENS (GERMANY $16 million in Venezuela for urban rail lines $12.7 million in payments in Nigeria $40 million in bribes in Argentina to win a $1 billion contract to make national identity cards ENS ANY) $14 million In China for medical equipment $20 million in Israel for a contract to build power plants $5 million in Bangladesh for mobile phones $1.7 million in Iraq to Saddam Hussein and others ALCATEL-LUCENT (FRANCE) bribed officials $4 million to win telecommunications contracts in Costa Rica, Honduras, Taiwan, Malaysia and other countries. SNAMPROGETTI (NETHERLANDS) bribed Nigerian officials to win construction contracts. JGC CORP. (JAPAN) bribed Nigerian officials to win construction contracts. PANALPINA WORLD TRANSPO paid thousands of bribes totaling foreign officials in at least seven Angola, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Kazak and Turkmenistan. (so PORT (SWITZERLAND) ng at least $27 million to en countries, including akhstan, Nigeria, Russia (source 1, 2) DAIMLER AG (GERMANY made illegal payments to foreign offi million in at least 22 countries includi Turkey, Hungary, Greece, Latvia, Serbia Egypt and Nigeria, among other pla ANY) fficials worth $56 ding China, Russia, ia and Montenegro, places. (source). JOHNSON & JOHNSON (US) KBR/HALLIBUR bribed government-paid doctors and bribed Nigerian officials health officials to promote sales of dollars to win constructio medical devices in Greece, Poland and Romania. (source) BAE SYSTEMS (US) paid $2 billion in bribes to Saudi Arabian ambassador Bandar bin Sultan in a multi-billion-dollar arms deal (source), amongst other bribes. URTON (US) als tens of millions of tion contracts (source). You can start your investigation here to see more examples of Statopus and Privatopus becoming one. BOTTOM LINE These two big entities - do not only own the entire game, but are interchangeable in their behavior (moving from Abusers, to Charlatans, then Thieves, and the other way around). You trade with both the state and the private - one forces you, one deceives you, and many times over, they do both. Both seek trades with you. The state wants to keep its position of a state and it forces you into trades that you can’t really refuse, and the private has to keep its profits raising or else it will cease to exist, so it will do anything it can to engage you in trades and deceive you. They are the big players. If you look around the world people are fighting over which one is better: the Abuser or the Charlatan, the left or the right. Some say we need more government control or else the private Charlatans will only seek for profit and will ruin our world, some say the abusive state is ruining things by being so nosy. Problem is, both are wrong, because as you can see the Abuser and the Charlatan are the same entity influenced by the trade world. And man they are experienced Thieves as well. Whatever these two, the state and the private do, it is all a trade-related poo. And they fart companies, businesses and profiteers, countries and politicians. Every human who is forced to or engages willingly in this Game Of Trade, is one of their farts in the end (pun intended), because everyone will become a gamer. Just like in the Monopoly board game where everyone ACTs according to the game. So never forget that this is not about these big players, this is about every player. At any level. If firefighters would make a profit out of putting out fires, they would start the fires themselves. A 2018 published report by Oxfam (not-for-profit organization) describes very well the state of our game: big players get bigger and bigger, and small players are getting fucked. There are currently a bit over 2.000 billionaires (in US dollars). 82% of all global wealth in 2017 went to the 1% of the richest players, whilst the bottom 50% saw none of that. This increase of their wealth (not their huge amount of money, but only that increase in 2017) can eradicate poverty 7 times over. Try to really understand this fact: 1% of the humans on planet Earth, of the players of the Game Of Trade, are richer than the remaining 99% of the humans (the players) combined. Two thirds of the wealth of billionaires is either inherited or created through Monopolies - they came to the game, and inherited their wealth; or created Monopolies and had 0 competition, like all of the examples I showcased. What more can you say than that to prove that the Game Of Trade is the most unjust game we humans will ever play!? I hope you are now aware of who these players are, and you won’t look at your favorite teacher with the same eyes as you did before ;). Now you know him (or them, the players) more intimately. You now know what hides behind the mask of companies, states, businesses and profiteers. Thinking back to the Monopoly board game, I think I’ve showcased to you that we are in fact, playing it on a daily basis, and our own Monopoly game (GOT – Game Of Trade) is a billion times more unfair and creates a trillion more problems. I showed you the GOT (Game Of Trade), I showed you the ACT (Abusers, Charlatans, Thieves), and I showed you the CRAP (Common, Recurring, Amplifying Problems). We can replace these players, and the game will remain the same. That’s the reality my friends, supported by facts and examples. It is sad, but important because it will allow us to find a solution for this. The first stage is understanding, then acceptance, and now that we have gotten ready by knowing what players we will face, we are ready to fight! In the following parts we will focus on solutions. We will start the fight! UNDERSTAND, ACCEPT, GET READY, FIGHT! The world is fine, we need no Ok TROM superhero, whatever you presented thus far is true (factual), and let’s say that the CRAP you showcased is indeed the result of TRADE, BUT despite that the world is getting better, slowly but surely, and I’ll prove it to you with facts. Steven not intervene Wars: 30 years ago there were 23 wars and 60.000 nuclear weapons, today there are only 12 wars and 10.000 nuclear weapons. 30 years ago Today 30 years ago Today 200 y Poverty: 200 years ago 90% of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty. 30 years ago, only 37% of the population. Today? Only 10% of humans live in extreme poverty. See? Progress! years ago 30 years ago Today Even crime is dropping down: 30 years ago, in the US there were 8.600/100.000 homicides, and today around 5.300/100.000 homicides. Americans are emitting 21m tons of Particular Matter and 4m tons of SO2 today, but 30 years ago it was 35m tons of Particular Matter and 20m tons of SO2. 30 years ago Today 250 years ago Today Even health improved: 250 years ago life expectancy was around 30, and now it's 70. Democracies are on the rise – today 2/3 of all people live in democracies. Autocracies: 85 autocracies 30 years ago, and only 60 today. Literacy is also rising with 90% of the world’s population bellow the age of 25 being able to read and write. You know what else? In Europe and the US people worked more than 60 hours per week in the not-so- far-away past, but today they work fewer than 40 hours. Even house chores are less of a burden today due to washing machines, vacuum cleaners, and so on – they dropped from 60 hours a week to less than 15 hours. And overall happiness has increased in 86% of all countries in the last decades. Is that enough for you Mr. TROM? I have two answers for you: first, you are wrong; second, you are right. You are wrong, Steven. Statistics may be very misleading. Less wars and less weapons today does not mean less destructive power at all. Today, weapons are way more sophisticated than 30 years ago (from more accurately targeting all kinds of places, to better spying satellites, to drones that can kill autonomously, to the improved ability to use chemical and biological weapons in wars, and a lot more). As for wars, today they are played at a different level, with trade wars being the preferred ones where sanctions are imposed on countries, slowly impoverishing their population. But Steven, if you want better statistics in terms of wars why choose the past 30 years? Let’s look at the past 600 years, from 1400 to 2000: As you can see total death rates in wars increased a lot from 1600 to 1900, then started to drop (it is true) and yet it is not lower than it was in 1400. Actually the total number of conflicts increased quite a lot from 1800 onwards. (source) For sure, it is true that today there are a lot more people alive and thus relative to the population there are far less people being killed in wars, however we are not doing better in terms of the overall number of humans being killed. Also, a “proper” (with guns, not trade) war in Iraq has led to the growth of terrorism because of the hatred it created together with the poor and crippled people it left behind who decided to join terrorist groups. Now, let’s assume that we have data which shows that less people are dying because of terrorism today than X years ago. This may seem relevant, however in today’s worldwide news media coverage, 3 terrorists who go to Paris and randomly shoot people killing only 10 or so, are going to have global consequences: from new laws that will invade everyone’s privacy, to the fear that such acts imprint on people for a long period of time (a fear greatly megaphoned by that worldwide media that wants shock and terror for clicks and views). A terrorist in the 70s had almost no impact compared to a terrorist of 2019. That’s why statistics are not that black and white. Interestingly, and sadly, the terrorist attacks worldwide have increased over the past 40 years dramatically: 174 deaths in 1970, and 26.445 in 2017. That is a mind-blowing 15.098% increase in deaths. And in terms of injuries resulting from terrorist attacks there is a staggering 491.500% increase, from 1 in 1970 to 4.916 in 2017. (source) Not only that, but terrorist attacks have spread around the world (source 1, 2) Terrorist attacks 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Say we noticed that crime decreased over time, but is it because people have more access to stuff, or is it because it is more difficult to steal nowadays with so many security measures in place? These two scenarios portray a very different picture of “progress”. Like you say, 200 years ago 90% of the global population lived in poverty, and now only 10% - but say 200 years ago humans had no means to feed most of their people, but today they throw away 30-50% of all edible food when millions are dying of starvation every year + today we have so many empty homes and such stuff of all kinds. Which situation is worse? On top of that when they are trying to measure poverty, it is usually measured in how many dollars per day a person makes. Right now the threshold is at $1.90/day. There are many types of criticism for this kind of measurement. Like what about those who earn $1.91/day? How can we draw such arbitrary lines to define extreme poverty? As an example, by other measures, 90% of Ethiopia’s population is in poverty, but by today’s official standard of $1.90/day that would only be 39%. That is a massive difference. On top of this, how many people live with 10 times more money than that but are in debt? How many live with a lot more than $1.90/day in tribes where prices are so high that even $10/day amounts to nothing? How many homeless people are not recorded as “homeless”? How many have phones but unable to have a medical insurance? How many can barely pay their rent and take care of their kids? There are too many factors to take into account when you measure poverty or being happy. So many people have a phone, fridge, health insurance, a house and a car, yet they feel very poor and depressed because of living in a competitive society that teaches them they never have enough and makes them compare their situation to others’ who have more. You know, even the rich are poorer than the richest, and in our society that seems to matter a lot to people’s mental health – this constant comparison of wealth. So many empty homes yet I barely survive on the streets. . Look at suicides for the top 20 most populous tribes (source): It is true that in most tribes suicide rates are dropping, yet in some it is rising, while in several we see not so much difference over the past 60 years. It still begs the question: why in a society that has more stuff than we can ever need or want, millions still decide to give up for good and kill themselves…maybe because that stuff and those goods are not available to everyone, but only the few? And when asked if they agree with this statement “Most people can be trusted.”, this is what people from all around the world responded (again, top 20 most populous tribes in the world) (source): So, interestingly, in China (the highest score) ~63% of people agree with the statement. In the US only ~38%, and in the Philippines only ~3% agree with the statement. Quite telling. It seems that people do not trust other people. And in Europe, only in 4 tribes had more than 50% of people agreeing with “Most people can be trusted.” statement, the remaining 26 countries on the list are well below 50%. Back to health, we see another issue nowadays emerging from this trade-based society: obesity. Companies produce poor quality food and consumers are made to consume it. With little time in the life of a worker, fast-food and poor quality (cheaply priced) food is their best choice. Obesity rose from 5% in 1975 to 12.8% in 2014. 2% increase every 10 years. Thus, in 50 years we’ll see 22.8% of the world population being obese. That’s a lot. What about meat consumption? We know that meat consumption is associated with a plethora of health issues, environmental issues, and “ethical” issues by killing so many animals. Meat consumption is rising, which leads to increases in meat production and animal slaughters as well, and as a result of all that environmental destruction is getting worse. In 1961 the production of meat was at ~71 million tonnes. In 2017 it was at ~317 million tonnes. That is a meteoric rise. In 1961 humans killed 376 million pigs, and in 2017 1.47 billion pigs. Of course there is an increase in the number of animals killed across the many “types of meat”. Autocracies, democracies and whatever “cracies” are just a verbal masturbation that is not even worth my time. I mean, where in the world is this “democracy” where people vote and have choices? If you mean they have like 3-4 name choices for political parties that are all the same as they’re influenced by big businesses, then sure, call that a “choice”. But that’s all it is. Politicians have been chewing the same gum for the past hundreds of years. It has become tasteless. And here’s a map of people who paid bribes in the last 12 months. (2013) The ones in gray are not accounted for (no data reported) but with the rest you can see that in every tribe people bribe left and right. The US 7%, India over 50%, Romania 17%. I suspect the reality is way worse than a questionnaire based on what people report though. Literacy or “education” in today’s society probably means that these “literate and educated” humans are better at becoming charlatans and thieves. It’s like being happy that more and more people can talk, but what matters is what they are talking about. Pretty much all rich people, lawyers, and politicians are “literate and educated” with diplomas. Is that what we want? And people spend less time at work and doing house chores? Well, that’s perhaps because pretty much any media (from online to offline) is responsible for that free time “occupation”, incarcerating people’s attention to make a profit. Oh, and you know, traffic… I am sure today people spend a lot more time in traffic than they did in the past. And Steven, let’s not brush aside the fact that in today’s society where we can pretty much replace all jobs with machines, people are still working 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, just to trade for the abundant stuff that we produce. And let’s not talk about pollution because the fact that (perhaps) pollution has decreased in America is irrelevant when climate change is going to rape us all into extinction, despite having so many technological solutions to it that are not being implemented, due to our trade- based society that holds people’s initiatives in limbo. Stats, stats, stats Steven. They can say a lot, and a lot less. The world is not so simple. But hey, sure, maybe you are right overall. Maybe indeed the world is getting better. I’ll give you that. Thanks! But it is pointless. The amount of CRAP that I presented so far is just a tiny bit of it all, and even if you are right we still have trillions of problems on our hands. If the world is improving as you say, then it is too slow to save us. Regardless if you are wrong or right Steven, TRADE is still creating a lot of misery and in a lot of ways that those statistics do not care to take into account: from data trade to social credits, from dumbing down information and locking down the abundant digital world, to the rising inequality, planned obsolescence and so much more. But I want to focus just a tiny bit on the “Illusion of Progress”. Look at iPhone X again - yet another ‘revolutionary’ phone that’s basically identical to the one the year before it, and the year before that, like all smartphones are. Firstly, what’s to be taken into account is the ‘perfectionism’ of these companies to sell the same products all over again through marketing. Mobile phones are a great example of this. In their first years the brick- style, flip-phone style, polyphonic sounds, or weird shapes were the “features” that marketers relied upon to sell the same “calling and SMS” devices. At one point a phone’s specs like the camera, RAM memory, or the processor were closer to a “truer” marketing of better products, yet this lasted for a very brief period of time and after that ended, they got back again to sell the package rather than the product. A 200 Euro phone today has pretty much the same camera and power as the 1.000 Euro one (camera example). Phone manufacturers remove useful buttons just for the sake of coming up with a new design in order to sell more phones. Today’s phones are dual-screens, bezel-less, button-less, width-less, and breakable – shiny when you buy them, and a fingerprint magnet after a few seconds of use, coupled with scratches and cracked screens after a while. A jewelry. A very breakable jewelry. One that you “must!” renew. Almost like you would buy a car made out of glass that has no door handles. The perfect product that looks great in showrooms and gets “bad” really quickly. There are ~2.6 billion smartphone users in the world (2016 statistics). On average (in the US) people spend over 90% of screen-time using apps, and only the rest browsing the Internet. 8 out of 10 most used apps in the US are owned by Google and Facebook (no surprise). Also the vast majority of these apps are a combination of social networks, messaging apps, shopping, video or photo platforms. Basically people use their smartphone MAINLY to text, call, watch and upload videos and photos, and buy stuff. Super light tasks that do not require a very powerful smartphone. Browser Other Sports News and Weather Productivity Lifestyle and Shopping Utilities Gaming Facebook 5 hou Snapchat Messaging/Social Youtube Entertainment Even the tiny use of 11% for games seems to be dropping, but regardless, if you look at the top 10 most downloaded games on mobiles it is ridiculous to see that they are the least resource hungry games out there. (source 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) You could play more “hardware intensive games” in 2000 on old Pentium One computers. Also, the videos people watch are a variation of HD or Full HD, that do not require a 2k or 4k screen (2 to 4 times the Full HD resolution), and the photos people take are optimized for the web when they upload on social networks (something people do in abundance) and filters are added through and by these services. Basically it makes no difference if you have a 200 Euro smartphone or a 1.200 Euro one. ours a day The smartphone has become a social status symbol. Nothing more than that. So Apple with their iPhone X, like all the phone A manufacturers today, are pushing the limits with the craze in order to be able to release a new phone every year. Lately they “shocked” the public by showcasing a “brand new and revolutionary technology”: Face ID. Something used for many years now, but re-branded by Apple as “new” (source). Regardless, this Face ID thing is marketed in a very aggressive way, even though all that it does currently is unlock your phone with your face and animate some emojis in a very poor manner with its front facing camera (not even using their face 3D scan) (this old 2012 webcam and software does a much more superior job - plus more). As if people were lacking a good ‘revolutionary’ method to unlock their phones for a premium price. Also, Google recently announced another ‘revolutionary’ phone with ‘revolutionary’ features: The Google Pixel 2 XL. It has a pair of headphones that can help you translate in over 40 languages directly, in a face to face conversation they say. They ‘only’ cost $160 a pair, and are marketed all over the internet as an amazing tech that can help you talk to people in other languages. In fact, the headphones do nothing on their own, they are like so many Bluetooth headphones that can communicate with Google Assistant (that’s on every Android phone) and use Google Translate (that we all have access to on any device). That’s all it does. You already have this feature on your phone. And after analyzing language in detail, I can only laugh at their claims of translating in over 40 languages. Give Google Translate a try to see how ‘good’ it is at live translations. Fuckin’ love Goooogle!! Apple is the best, man! Their products are Quality products! changing the world doode! Innovation! These are the perfect examples of what “innovation” and progress means today: bezel-less screens, animated emoji, and super expensive ‘features’ that do pretty much nothing. “Even people in Africa, the poor ones, have a smartphone today” (some brag about) but they fail to see that those poor people don’t have proper food to eat, a health insurance, security, comfort, and pretty much lack everything. Having a phone is one of the cheapest ways to create consumers. Those poor people in Africa may not be able to pay for Netflix, buy clothes from H&M or go to the cinema, but they can watch advertising, trading their attention, and so marketers may even provide “free” phones for them to suck their attention through, to get something from them. So Steven, you see, the society is indeed in a very very bad shape, and even if it seems to be getting better it is either an illusion or a very slow process. Neither is a solution. I have a phone and nothing to eat…. and no medical insurance or access to. But I have a phone…. The world is not fine, we ne In our society there is an idea that is as strange as it is perhaps undetected. The idea of laws and rules. If you think long about it, then you may realize how odd it is for humans to come up with such concepts that only aim at stopping a pattern of behavior(s) by “attacking” the behaviors themselves and not what creates them. Let’s explore. DO NOT! need to intervene T! When I was in school we had no gates, no gatekeepers, and the fences were absent. I remember walking up to my school, talking to my classmates that I would meet on my way there, and not even realize when we had entered the school “perimeter”. There was no real boundary that separated the school from the rest of the world. Because school was most of the time very boring and meaningless (also mandatory – like a prison), kids used to flock out of the classes and go somewhere else: usually to bars to avoid going home because that would have gotten them into trouble with their parents. Parents’ rules were for the kids to go to school and only come home when the school was over, and that rule made the kids go to bars to avoid a conflict at home. Imagine that. As a result of this “situation” the school thought they should “grow” fences and put a proper gate at the main entrance. And so they did. But it was no match for those of us who decided to leave classes and go out. Fences can be jumped-over easily. And so we did! As a result the school thought: let’s make the fences bigger. And so they did! Surely, no fence is a roadblock for a kid who wants to flee classes, but why bother jumping over them when you can make holes in those fences. And so we did! As a result the school thought: we need to make the fences out of stronger materials and put a few guards to guard the entrance and the rest of the perimeter. And so they did! Sure, now it was harder to make “holes” in the fences (though not impossible); sure now it was harder to jump over them because the guards were patrolling, but bribing the guards with money or a pack of cigarettes gave us a free pass to flee the school. And so we did! The school understood that guards could be bribed, so they decided to install video cameras. And so they did! We thought: “Shit, what now!?”. We found out that if we went to the school’s medical “facility” and got a medical paper to “prove” that we are sick (even though we weren’t), then they were legally obliged to let us go home. And so we did by faking colds and other medical needs! The school decided to change the rules for its medical facility and asked the doctors not to give any medical papers to students UNLESS there is a REAL need for that. And so they did! We realized that we can fake these papers ourselves. And so we did! The school was pissed off. “We have big and solid fences, guards patrolling, video cameras, and tough medical center rules, and kids are still fleeing school! What can we do!?” They thought they should “attack” children directly and punish each absentee drastically: from lowering the “behavioral” grade that could be detrimental for those kids who wanted to become lawyers or police officers, to calling the absentees’ names every month in front of the entire school to humiliate them. And so they did! We realized that none of us really wanted to become lawyers or police officers, and that those humiliating calls became “celebrity calls” for absentees that were now seen as the “cool” kids in school, getting cheers and applause from their classmates whenever their names were called out. And so we did! “What now?” the school asked. Maybe let’s punish absentees by making them repeat a school year. That was very drastic. And so they did! We then learned that the absentees’ “scores” were kept on a special piece of paper that only the teachers had access to, and that they can be “nulled-out” (or rested) if you would simply circle each of them with a pen – who knew that some teachers are easily bribable with money or even coffee, or that there are ways for some students to get a hold of that piece of paper by making (even bullying) teachers to reset them!? And so we did! The school was furious and impotent. It was never able to stop kids from fleeing classes, regardless of the rules they put into place. This mindset became so ridiculous that when the day of “national” school exams came (nation-wide), in order to stop students from cheating, the school employed military officers that were armed and patrolled the school to scare everyone from cheating. The school made it so that the kids would enter the school perimeter hours in advance before this exam, and they didn’t let any student have any bag or anything of the sort with them. On top of that they employed teachers from other locations to assist every single class to keep an eye on the students, and planted video cameras everywhere, even in the classrooms. It was almost like deploying the army to make sure children do not cheat this ‘important’ exam. Pointless! Kids had so many ingenious methods to cheat these exams (examples here). Those ‘new’ teachers were bribed and they closed their eyes when kids cheated, some even went so far as to help the children cheat by telling them the answers to the exam (even those parents who insisted their kids stay in school and learn, were “in on the game” by bribing teachers); video cameras can be shut down or the one managing the footage can be bribed. And the armed guards? “Some poor buffoons that did not scare anyone.”, the kids were saying. The school came up with sophisticated “rules” and implementations to keep the kids from cheating, and the kids did the same to cheat the school. This example with the school vs students proves how even kids can break sophisticated and tough rules if they are motivated to do so. The school should have asked why kids are fleeing classes in the first place and not try to stop them from doing that. If school was a great place to go to and there was no competition that drives kids to only care about the grades, then kids would come to school even when you put fences to not let them in ;). But to be sure that we do this properly, let’s have a look at 5 types of ‘students’ that are fooling the “teachers” and “rulers” of the world in a massive way: T h e H a c T h e M a f i a : They break They do another kind of front of the politics through brute force. they break t You don’t fuck with the Mafia, the Mafia fucks with you. T h e T e r r o r i s t : T h e C h e a t e They can kill, threaten and kidnap They bend the ru everywhere and everyone. Guns, holes in every la police, laws, none of that scares them. from art to steal T h e S m u g g l e r : They are the ones who move stuff and people around the globe, without giving a fuck a c k e r : about borders and laws. ak any rule you put in hem. You build walls, k through them! t e r : These are the “bad he rules and find the loop- students” of our ry law. From sports to finances, world. tealing, they are winning. THE MAFIA This Mafia guy is so powerful that is present everywhere in the world. He has millions of members, launders some $1.6 trillion every year (if we could create a country out of the laundered money, it would rank as the 11th richest country in the world, richer than Spain, Russia, Mexico, or Australia); has more munition than many tribes, and has corrupted pretty much every government or law officials out there. He uses submarines, tunnels, tanks, missiles, and is a leader in the illegal trafficking of drugs or people. He has survived hundreds of years or regimes, laws, religions or geography. And not only that he does not fear laws or law enforcement agencies, he actually kills them and owns them in many tribes around the world. In order to highlight the immense impact that Mafia has around the world, meet MOM…. No, this M.O.M. Map of Mafia Go here, click any countries in red, and explore. This is an original investigation by TROM. Note: People refer to drugs in many ways, be it opioid for some, narcotics for most of them, and so forth. If you are curious head over here t o see in simple terms the difference/similarity between these types of drugs. The United Nations war on drugs for example was a complete failure for the past 10 years. The UN’s member tribes are basically all tribes of the world, so we can call this a World War on Drugs. The Statopus said that it will eliminate the drug market by 2019. The results? “drug-related deaths have increased by 145% over the last decade, with more than 71.000 overdose deaths in the United States in 2017 alone. At least 3.940 people were executed for drug offenses around the world over the last 10 years, while drug crackdowns in the Philippines resulted in around 27.000 extrajudicial killings.” “In 2017, Mexico, for example, recorded its most murderous year on record due to soaring levels of drug-related violence.” and “the Mexican National Institute of Statistics and Geography revealed that there were 31.174 homicides over the course of the year -- an increase of 27% over 2016” “In addition to fueling violence, the existing policy of criminalizing drug use has also resulted in mass incarceration” and “ One in five prisoners are currently imprisoned for drug offenses, many on charges related to possession for personal use.” “Since governments started collecting data on drugs in the 1990s, the cultivation, consumption and illegal trafficking of drugs have reached record levels” "Moreover, current drug policies are a serious obstacle to other social and economic objectives and the 'war on drugs' has resulted in millions of people murdered, disappeared, or internally displaced." You can read more here, and the detailed report here. Let me also mention some of the biggest robberies in the world – and some are the biggest in their own tribe: • Australia: Brenden Abbott (born 1962), stole and hid millions of dollars. • Bank of France, 1986 - $11.4 million. • Bank of France, 1992 - $38.67 million • Caisse d'Espargne bank 1980 - $11.5 million • Japan: Fukutoku Bank Kobe branch 1994 - $4.9 million • Japan: Tachikawa, Tokyo 2011 - $5.4 million • Lebanon: The British Bank of the Middle East 1976 - $129 million • Netherlands: Almelo 1944 - $328 million • Norway: NOKAS 2004 - $10 million • Pakistan: ABL Karachi 2009 - $4.4 million • Poland: National Bank of Poland 1962 - $4.7 million • Ireland: Bank of Ireland robbery - 2009, $9 million • Slovenia: SKB Bank 2005 - $36 million • UK: Bank of America 1975 - $10 million • UK.: Brinks-Mat Gold 1983 - $34 million • UK: Midland Bank Clearing Centre 1995 - $8.5 million • UK: Northern Bank, 2004 - $41 million • US: Manhattan Savings Institution 1878 - $64.9 million Only these few robberies amount to some $14 billion. I cannot imagine how much value is stolen every year or for the past 400 years. Think about that… • US: Lincoln National Bank, 1930 - $40 million • US: Great Brink's Robbery 1950 - $29 million • US: United California Bank robbery 1972 - $54 million • US: First National Bank of Arizona 1981 - $9 million • Brazil: Banco Central 2005 - $43 million • UK: Securitas depot 2006 - $83 million • Iraq: Central Bank 2003 - $1 billion • Philippines: The president (from 1978 to 1981) - $10 billion • UK: Knightsbridge Security Deposit 1987 - $98 million • Iraq: Dar Es Salaam Bank 2007 - $282 million • US: Dunbar Armored 1997 - $29.5 million • Belgium: Antwerp 2003 - $100 million • France: Harry Winston Diamonds 2008, $105 million • Netherlands: Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam 2005 $72 million • US: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum 1990 $500 million • Bangladesh Bank 2016 $101 million • Global Bank Hack in 2015, &300-$900 million Here’s how a chart with the few robberies from the list that are over $100 million looks like. As you can see these massive robberies are increasing over the years. 2040 2020 2000 1980 1960 1940 1920 1900 And here’s a chart of all those big robberies over the years. Again, their number and intensity grows over the years. Laws don’t seem to stop them. 2010 1990 1970 1950 1930 1910 1890 1870 1850 Keep in mind that these are robberies, not frauds for example. And not laundered money. Only robberies – direct attack on banks or other institutions. DOCUMENTARIES ABOUT MAFIA: Overall the Mafia (with flavors such as gangs, organized crimes, thieves, etc.) are a massive deal breaking every imaginable law. They kill, steal, corrupt, get rich, control and manipulate. Street gangs, prison gangs, drug rings...everywhere. The Terrorist And what about our Terrorist classmate? He is barely distinguishable from the Mafia one, so there is little to say about him that is new. But let me give you some brief examples of how the Terrorist pretty much gives no fucks about laws and rules, and avoids them pretty much every time. Before that, keep in mind that it is almost impossible to define the “terrorists” or the “mafia” or “cartels”. Like, isn’t or wasn’t the Ku Klux Klan a terrorist organization killing black people? Isn’t the United States a cartel when it controls the movement of goods and services across the world and imposes taxes as it wishes because it has the military power to do that? But, here I will address the “legally- bounded” terrorist organizations. Firstly, what are the biggest terrorist groups in the world? In 2016 70% of all terrorism killings were done by only 3 terrorist groups: ISIS, the Taliban, and Al-Qaeda. These 3 are also the wealthiest terrorist groups alongside Hizballah or Hamas. They make money much in the same way that criminal cartels (Mafia) operate: drug trafficking, smuggling of tobacco or even humans, bank robberies or collecting money in the name of ‘protection’, some even go as far as kidnapping people for ransom. Some forge currencies, some scam people on Paypal and eBay, some use Bitcoin, some sell pirated movies and music, or counterfeit tickets to concerts. They use encrypted technologies and decentralized systems to operate more effectively. They are smart, they know the game. And the bigger these trades that they engage in are, the more power they have to buy weapons and kill more people and grow larger. (source) Here are the top 10 terrorist organizations by wealth (their yearly ‘funding’ in millions of dollars): Hezbollah The Taliban Hamas Al-Qaeda ISIS PKK Kata’ib Hizballah Palestinian Islamic Jihad Lashkar-e-Taiba The Real IRA 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 To put it in perspective, the 'Ndrangheta’ Mafia makes some $30-40 billion in profit every year. 13 times more than all of these 10 terrorist groups’ funding combined. And that’s just one Mafia family. In total there are around 150.000 terrorist members spread across multiple groups. Only 4 of them have more than 10.000 members. (source) To put it in perspective again, the Russian Mafia has double the number of members than all of the terrorist members in the world combined. The big difference here between the Mafia and the Terrorist, is that the Terrorist is bloody well armed and very very dangerous. For example Hezbollah from Lebanon (1985 – present) has (some say) 65.000 fighters (although some are not that well trained, and some are volunteers). However they have more army power than Lebanon. They are believed to be the strongest terrorist organization in terms of military power, and to have more missiles and rockets than most tribes in the world. They have tens of thousands of “long and short-range rockets, drones, advanced computer encryption capabilities, as well as advanced defense capabilities like the SA-6 anti-aircraft missile system.” A group like ISIS, with some 30.000 fighters is able to conquer vast areas of millions of people, and a bunch of individuals can hijack some planes and kill thousands of people at once by smashing airplanes into the biggest buildings in the world. Even individual terrorists can use a car as a weapon and kill tens of people, or a bomb and maybe kill hundreds at once. And terrorist attacks also happen in Somalia, Russia, Sri Lanka, Iraq, or Congo. Therefore this is a world-wide issue. They can use weapons to attack. You ban weapons, they hijack airplanes and use them as missiles. You make it harder for them to hijack airplanes and they will use home-made bombs, or use cars as weapons. Or simply knifes or bare hands. Rules do not stop terrorists, they only change their method of attacking. Let’s take the September 11 attacks in the USA. Only 19 Al-Qaeda terrorists were able to hijack four airplanes, bypassing every kind of US (tough) security. They simply used pepper spray and small knives that were not detected by the airport security. Either five or four hijackers per plane were able to put up with 60-80 other people in that plane using only these ‘weapons’. Then they managed to fly these airplanes into a few key buildings, even the Pentagon (perhaps the most secure building in the world). What damages did they cause? The greatest terrorist attack of all time: They “killed 2.996 people, injured over 6.000 others, and caused at least $10 billion in infrastructure and property damage. Additional people died of 9/11-related cancer and respiratory diseases in the months and years following the attacks.” Isn’t it ironic that the greatest terrorist attack happened against the tribe that has the greatest military and security power in the world, by far? And only done by a small amount of people? The bigger irony is that the terrorists were pretty much apart of the European- American culture, some from Germany from where they planned out the attacks. Some of them took flying lessons in the US, and most of them spoke English quite well and were very well “educated”. Some of the terrorists entered the US legally and some with fake passports. Interestingly, the FBI and CIA were monitoring some of these “suspects” and one time they pointed out that (and I quote): “strange things had been going on at flight schools in the United States”. Some FBI agents had so much information about the sketchy stuff going on behind the scene with Al-Qaeda that they realized some big terrorist attacks will happen in the US and that the terrorists are likely going to use airplanes. So, the USA with all of its great army, security and intelligence, could not stop a bunch of guys from killing thousands of their own, on their own territory, despite monitoring these suspects. After this massive attack, the US Statopus got very very angry and decided to declare “war on terror” and go after these “bad people”. In 2001 the USA together with 40 other tribes jumped into the second longest war the US has engaged into, in Afghanistan this time, a tribe where the Al-Qaeda is located. The mission? Destroy Al-Qaeda and the Taliban groups. This war still continues today and despite them sending over 140.000 troops and killing Osama Bin Laden (the leader of Al- Qaeda and the one who organized the US attacks), and despite tens of thousands of dead people from all sides, Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are the biggest, most ruthless, and richest terrorist organizations in the world currently. (source) Isn’t it beyond ridiculous, sad, and scary that as a result of some 19 people killing some 3.000 others, the retaliation led to 106.000– 170.000 dead civilians in Afghanistan? More than that, this “war on terror” destabilized the attacked tribes and gave rise to new terrorist organizations like ISIS that actually started to form out of detained people by the US forces. Basically the US used these “arresting camps” when they went to war, locking down thousands and thousands of “prisoners”, and inside these “camps” terrorist organizations like ISIS have formed. Under their nose! This “war on terror” has continued in multiple other tribes over the past 18 years or so: from Syria to Iraq, from the Philippines to Yemen, from Trans-Sahara to Libya. In Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan alone they estimate that around half a million to more than a million people have been killed. Probably, counting all the other tribes, the “war on terror” killed several million people over the past 20 or so years. (source) Remember that the total amount of people killed in terrorist attacks for the past 40+ years is around 400.000. So, let’s emphasize: ~400.000 people are killed by terrorists for the past 40 years. Statopus gets very angry and wants to create justice, so it retaliates and kills a few million people over the past 2 decades alone, most of whom were civilians. Do the math! And on top of that they gave rise to more and more terrorist groups. Look at the chart, from 2011 onward (after the capture of Bin Laden) the terrorist attacks and killings have risen tremendously: The Americans lost over 56.000 soldiers in these “wars on terror”, some 20 times more people than they lost in the September 11 attacks that started this “war on terror” in the first place. And they barely killed more terrorists, at about 65.000 to 88.000. The rest, remember, were civilians that died because of all the parties involved in the war. (source) Interestingly there are far more Americans killed by Americans than there are Americans killed by “terrorists” in the past 16+ years. (source) Based on all that, Americans are a much bigger threat to America than terrorists are. I recommend the following documentaries to see how pretty much all terrorists that created havoc in Europe and the USA were tracked by the law to the point of listening to their mobile phones or spying on them directly (physically), and yet they pretty much were never able to stop any terrorist attack. You will also get to see how these terrorist organizations emerged out of conflict, and organized themselves in US or European prisons, and how even citizens from the US or Europe became terrorists under the nose of their own tribes: The Smuggler The Smuggler is often times the same creature as the Mafia or the Terrorist, so let’s look at the state of smuggling around the world, in terms of “objects”. Before that, note that smuggling was a real “problem” for authorities since 1200. So, this is nothing new. Currently some 1 million people are trafficked across borders, every single year, by a 2003 statistics. 10 years, 10 million people. Do the math and realize: how can some “smugglers” bypass so much security from the Statopus? They find hidden passes or create fake ID’s. They bribe or simply find loops in the laws. And they can do it on a massive scale every year. 50% of the humans smuggled are children from poor areas, sometimes with the consent of their parents. Over the past years more and more tribes applied tougher laws to stop the trafficking. Even the Pope and the world’s “spiritual” leaders signed a “shared commitment against modern-day slavery” - to end slavery by 2020. That was in 2014. Today, despite laws and “the spirit of the 7 faiths”, human trafficking is one of the fastest growing businesses. (source) If the 2003 study found around 1 million people being trafficked each year, a 2010 study found 1.2 million children (not people of all ages, but limited to children) being trafficked annually. Therefore, as you can see, the trafficking increased dramatically. Millions of people are smuggled/trafficked every year around the world. In terms of arms it is estimated that 10-20% of all “small arms” are illegally smuggled around the world. (source) Cigarettes, although regulated so much today, are one of the most smuggled goods in the world, growing every single year. “UK Border Agency averages more than 1 million counterfeit cigarette seizures per day”; in South Africa “the incidence of illicit cigarettes has doubled in the past 3 years, accounting for 25% of the total market in 2012”; in Malaysia 45% of all cigarettes are sold illegally, in Hong Kong it is 35%, in Pakistan 26.7%, and in Australia it is 14.3%. In Brunei they applied a massive tax to cigarettes (339%) and that led to an explosion of the black market making 89.8% of the cigarettes consumed in Brunei illegal. If people find it expensive, others will “satisfy” these clients, and thus a black market will be created in every sector. Laws only push things underground. In Ireland 25% of smoked cigarettes are illegally obtained and the smugglers earn some €350 million a year from this trade. (source) The methods of smuggling range from bizarre to ingenious. They include hiding cocaine in pineapples or in concrete, drones being used to drop illegal stuff into prisons for inmates, putting guns inside car engines or concealing drugs in food cans. I mean, only 3% of shipping containers worldwide are scanned for illegal stuff. There is no way to control this. Even as recent as February 2019 the largest US drug bust happened in LA, where they seized $1.29 billion worth of drugs, proving how despite the millions of harmed and killed people in the war of drugs, drug smuggling/trading is still happening on a massive scale today. (source) I recommend these documentaries to see more about this subject: The cheater The cheater bends the rules: from sports to counterfeit goods or finding loopholes in laws. In Australia, Privatopus was giving loans to people and required less to no documents, making it so easy. The catch? Privatopus was ‘enslaving’ people into debt because its interest rates were extremely high. The Statopus was like: “You fucker, you are not allowed to ask for more than a 2- 3% interest rate!”. And Privatopus complied but then asked its clients to buy some “mandatory” finance guides (like DVDs, and a book and stuff like that) that were super expensive, thus covering for their profit loss. Basically if you wanted a loan from the Privatopus you had to buy its “guiding” materials. A simple way to trick the Statopus. (source) That’s how the Cheater cheats the system. In terms of counterfeit stuff, 50% of the counterfeit “objects” are apparel and accessories (based on US seizures). Globally counterfeit goods account for some 7-10% of World Trade. It is estimated that annually counterfeit goods are at about $1.77 trillion (2015) and it is growing year by year. To put it in perspective this is some 6 times more than the entire US apparel (clothing) market. Thus, if we were to assume that globally 50% of all counterfeit objects are “apparel and accessories”, that would mean some $900 billion, then there would be 3 times more clothes that are counterfeit than clothes sold in the US each year, and the US is perhaps the strongest market overall in the world. US s sold clothes World counterfeit clothes What is truly mind-blowing is that this counterfeit industry (from food, beverages, apparel, accessories and footwear to pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, electronics, auto parts, toys, and currency) has grown over 10.000% in the past 20 years. 10.000% means that if a small and poor tribe like Moldova (population 3.3 million) would increase its economy in the next 20 years by that amount, it would become the 16th strongest economy in the world, above Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the Netherlands or Indonesia. That’s how much a 10.000% increase means. SR EA Y0 ST 2 E PA TH SE IN EARC IN %00.001 20 years ago today Pharmaceuticals: “Over 30% of pharmaceuticals in developing countries are fake. Globally, more than half of counterfeit pharmaceuticals sold are for life- threatening conditions, such as malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and cancer.” Regarding the drugs bought online, however, 90% are found to come from a country different to the one the website claims. Online: for online sales it is estimated that in 2017 alone counterfeit products amounted to $1.7 trillion, and it is estimated to grow to $4 trillion by 2020. In the US military alone, between 2009 and 2010, 1.800 cases of counterfeit “goods” were found. So, the military can and many times is using counterfeit parts: from electronics to rocket launcher parts, to ammunition and so forth. Fashion: 10% of fashion products sold worldwide are counterfeits. Counterfeit electronics alone were estimated at $460 billion in 2011. 1 in 5 phones in the Media (CDs, DVDs, c world are counterfeit with the In the UK in 2014, ne numbers growing. In some was knowingly or unk African tribes up to 60% of form of piracy. That i smartphones are counterfeit. ‘criminals’ in the UK Toys: an estimated 10% to 12% of toys sold in the UK in 2017 were counterfeit. Art: according to this knowledgeable guy in the industry, 99.99% of what you see in the market of the “art world” is fake. This is indeed staggering. , computer software and such): (source) n 2014, nearly 30% of the population unknowingly involved in some hat is some 19 million K alone. And so on…. To understand how laws make no dent in this growing ‘illegality’, in the US despite huge efforts in stopping this, between 2012 and 2016 there was a 38% increase in seized counterfeits and “In a test survey by the GAO of various items purchased online of major brands, all of which stated they were certified by Underwriters Laboratories, the GAO found that 43% were nonetheless fakes.” (source 1, 2, 3, 4) I am an expert but still have no clue which one of these is fake. . To me there are 3 examples that perfectly describe why laws do not stop crimes (and “bad behaviors” overall). In the documentary Icarus they show something really interesting: in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia, the Russian team was doping and got away with that. But the way that it got away is embarrassing for some and clever for others. You see, in order to test athletes they need urine samples, right before the competition begins. And to avoid cheating the organizers of the Olympic Games created an “unbreakable” urine bottle. A very well know Swiss company designed a bottle that could only be opened once after it was closed. So basically if you peed in the bottle and closed the lid, you could only open it if you would break the lid, trying to prevent anyone from swapping urine samples. Thing is, the Russians managed to break into this bottle in seconds/minutes time and swap the urine samples like it was no big deal. (source) Thus, a top-notch technical barrier was completely hacked in a few minutes time. Unique 7-digit code Spring pushes the metal ring against the glass teeth. Metal ring with teeth prevents bottle from being opened. Glass teeth lock against the metal teeth. Unique 7-digit code The second example is that of a well known natural reservation park where they are trying to save rhinos from being killed for their tusks. They have many guards (soldiers), fences and all kinds of security measures in place. In the documentary The Traffickers the journalist investigating this black market was called when a rhino was killed at one of these big natural reservations. There she saw the guards, the doctor, the one responsible for the security of the park, and the authorities. The journalist asks the man in charge of the park: “Who do you think did it?” and he said “It could have been anyone: the guard, the doctor, me, the police….anyone. The black market pays so well that it is easy to bribe anyone.” - this example proves that no matter the security measures you put in place, humans will always be the weakest link because they can be bribed in our trade- based society. The last example is this one, of brute force. Where people cross the border in a style that looks like a zombie movie These three prove how technology, trust, or protection DO NOT WORK in our trade- based society. In sports perha He was the b the most wel suspected of He was helpe increase his r the competit ‘donation’ to money to the was the most years yet he m and right. (wa cheated the w Now I will take my machine gun and riffle-shot at random a bunch of other law-cheating and breaking methods and events from our society. perhaps the best example is Lance Armstrong. best in cycling, by far, winning multiple times ell known cycling competition. He later was of doping but it took a long time to be proven. lped by doctors, he had blood transfusions to his red blood cells to give him an advantage in tition, he paid some $1.5 million as a to his doctor for such favors and gave lots of the guys who policed the competition. The guy ost famous cyclist in the world for many many he managed to win by cheating: bribing left watch this documentary about how this guy the world of sports) In Australia they have some of the toughest laws regarding the possession or distribution of firearms, yet there are over 10.000 firearms on the black market, bypassing all Australian laws. (source) $1 trillion is lost in scams worldwide Money laundering, which is somewhat similar to robberies or frauds, accounted for “$200 billion in the US in 2017 alone, with over $6 billion of these sales involving illicit goods or services, sold by nearly 335.000 unregistered merchants.” (source) And this is also on the rise and the methods for money laundering are endless. (source) What about selling babies? That should definitely be illegal, and it is. However, they are selling babies online from Malaysia: A Chinese baby costs between $7.000 and $5.000 and an Indonesian one between $1.800 to $2.500. ( Malaysia Babies for Sale) In the documentary “Spy Merchants” you can see how top security companies are selling spying devices illegally to powerful countries despite it being illegal to do so. Money talks... As revealed in the massive scandal “Panama and Paradise Paper rich are hiding at least $7.6 trillion from tax authorities. One suc helping rich people evade taxes was called Mossack Fonseca (cl created by a German lawyer – imagine that – and this company w biggest in the world in this game. Take Apple, a US company. Or i In the US such companies need to pay 35% in taxes and yet App pay only 1.9% in taxes. Massive difference. How does it do that? multiple offices in different parts of the world and manages to ‘l through them, avoiding in a way to officially be a US company. P big company is doing this. Google, Amazon, Starbucks and so on $21-23 trillion to such “tax haven” places. In reality Apple or Go that different from the Italian Mafia or the Mexican drug cartels. Apple and the like know how to much better paint themselves a guys” and they may even indirectly kill people (impoverishment o their life away by transforming them into consumers), however the sure building their empires by avoiding laws, through corruption laundering. (source) I recommend this great website to visually e world of avoiding taxes. Kids are selling drugs on Instagram and Snapchat. ers”, the super- uch company (closed in 2018), ny was one of the . Or is it? pple manages to that? It has ‘launder’ money . Pretty much any on move some Google are not ls. It’s just that s as the “good nt or sucking r they are for ption and money y explore the Experts say that if a product is popular then for sure it is counterfeited. Ivory Trade: this is a weird one. People from all around the world want the ivory tusks of the hippopotamus, walrus, narwhal, mammoth, and the African and Asian elephants for pseudo-medicine, fame, or other purposes. This fueled a huge industry: both legal and illegal. The fight to stop the illegal trade of ivory tusks that endangers several species of animals was always a battle with the wind. They claim victory here, and then a new black market opens there. China, by far the largest player in the ivory trade, enforced a ban on the ivory trade in 2017. The effect? “Meh” at best. It is estimated that only 8% of China’s population is even aware of the ban. (source 1, 2, 3). You can watch this documentary to see the massive black market of this kind of trade. In order to avoid paying taxes for their e-waste companies from the Netherlands send their trash as ‘donations’ to poor countries; 50% of all antiques sold at auctions are fake Kids on YouTube are doing ASMR videos but are in fact masked as semi-pornographic for the sake of getting more views bypassing Youtube filters – others do them in different, more weird ways; According to this source, the top fraud scandals stole some $214 billion. And even this is nothing compared to one single financial company that managed to launder some $378 billion from 2004 to 2007 for Mexican and Colombian drug cartels. This is insane! Not only are Facebook and Google inefficient in removing spam content, but spammers are using their platforms to spread their BS for clicks and views (pirates too); In 2016 alone spam robocallers “blasted Americans with 26.3 billion spam calls”; Russia, laws ag is failin (more he Lately Europe enforced a law (GDPR) to force every website to disclose what data they collect about users – needless to say it does not seem to have any effect in any regards (more here); Kidnappings still happeni today; Companies are using “dark pattern designs” to bypass laws put in by governments to prevent data mining (more here); ia, despite its tough against online piracy, ling to prevent it e here and here); Crowdfunding websites are used for fraud but are masked as genuine campaigns; ngs are pening Despite being one of the richest companies in the world, Facebook cannot fix all the fake news spreading across its platform – not only that but there are almost as many fake Facebook accounts (bypassing Facebook’s security) as there are people in the US – on the same Facebook, despite it having a ton of filters, grotesque, violent, pornographic or illegal videos and content are readily available (source 1, 2, 3); Even the Big and Airplanes can s Massive Firewall of hijacked with China is bypassed by “allowed” ob so many people. Even the uncheatable BlockChain is pretty cheatable and hackable (more here). People continue to cheat YouTube’s algorithm by pretending to make educational content while in fact it is pornographic content. an still be ith objects This guy cheated TripAdvisor to get his fake restaurant to be no.1 in their listings In the UK making weed illegal created an underground market, and the same happened when they forbid owning a pitbull. People started to sell this race of dogs underground and came up with so many unique ways to avoid the law, one of which was to breed this dog with another dog in a way so that the puppies didn’t fit the official description of a pitbull even though they looked like one (watch this documentary). The Windows store is full of pirate streaming apps and Android’s play store is not going to stop harmful apps on its platform either; plus Google Drive is still used to store ‘illegal’ movies by so many people (more here) – not even Google Maps is exempt from pirate links. In this docum even in Iran w toughest law religious trib consumption breaking the In the documentary “The Virtual wall of Europe” you will get to see that with all of this advancement in tech, so many are bypassing Europe’s “wall”. cumentary you can see that an where there are some of the laws because they are a tribe and even forbid the tion of alcohol, teenagers are the laws on a constant basis. A funny thing happened in 2017 when YouTube announced that in order to crack down fake and unwanted videos from its platforms they would try to cut the revenue from small channels. They realized that people were making new channels and uploaded “unwanted by YouTube” content making a quick buck before being caught by YouTube and closed down. They said “Starting today we’re changing the eligibility requirement for monetization to 4.000 hours of watchtime within the past 12 months and 1.000 subscribers. “ - in an attempt to prove that such channels are legitimate. The irony is that on the same blog post (on their website) where they announced that, people found a ‘solution’ and were posting it in the comments that sounded like: “Hey, please subscribe to my channel and watch my videos and I’ll do the same for you!” - and so thousands did that, making YouTube’s rule obsolete from the moment it was introduced. (source - proof) In Indonesia they have some of the toughest laws in regards to drug trafficking so much so that they have the death penalty for drug dealers. Interestingly, in Indonesian prisons, drug trading is booming and it is more spread than toothpaste. (source) Also, have you heard of Astroturfing? … and if you want to see the scumbag behavior that companies engage into in t in order to make more profits, check this. s ing 1.000 and me Even Muslims or Christians are breaking laws and their religion by not obeying any of them. Most of them are profiteers and many are corrupt, some even kill, and many break the laws. Modern piracy, counterfeit money and coins, illegal immigration, counterfeit medication, copyright infringement... RECOMMENDED DOCUMENTARIES TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CHEATERS: Oh we forgot about the Hacker! Or did I? Here’s the thing, I won’t introduce you to the Hacker. No no no. That’s enough for me! You do the work dear reader if you want even more proof that laws do not work. You analyze the hacker (start here) and see what it is capable of. The bad tribe And now, to put it all in perspective, if the Mafia, the Terrorist, the Cheater, and the Smuggler were one “group” of people, how big and powerful would it be? Let’s create the BAD Tribe. The number of members is nearly impossible to estimate, but we already know that there are officially some 150.000 terrorists out there. In terms of “Mafia” we need to include everything that has a flavor of “organized gangs”, or “organized crime”, “drug cartels”, etc.. Big organizations that do illegal stuff (part of them is the “Smuggler” too): they traffic, kidnap, kill, steal, counterfeit, and so forth. There doesn’t seem to be a world-wide statistic of these criminals, but we have one number: in the US there are 1.4 million gang members (2011 statistics) – that includes Mafia and all of what we basically need for our imaginary tribe. That is 0.42% of the entire US population. But the USA, although representing a large number of people (over 300 million) is not representative of the “average” tribe in the world. The USA ranks 22 out of 180 on the corruption level (smaller number, less corrupt), and 143 out of 230 in the homicide chart (bigger number means more homicides). So, after we adjust for all that we get 120 million gang members worldwide. Which is a crazy number and it could in fact be close to the real one. Therefore, our BAD Tribe has +120 million members. In terms of weapons they would have thousands upon thousands of them. Maybe not more sophisticated than the US Army for example, but on par with the top world armies. They would have trillions of dollars at their disposal (in ‘funding’), ranking in the top 10 richest countries for sure, and their economy (looking only at counterfeit objects) would be the biggest by far amongst any tribe. If we realize that those +120 million members are ‘soldiers’ (people who are used to kill) + people who are used to steal and cheat, then their military (in numbers) will far surpass that of any tribe. In fact there are some 20 million soldiers on this planet and with those +120 million BAD people we could perhaps have an even bigger army than all of the armies in the world combined. All in all, this BAD Tribe would be really powerful, so powerful that no one could put up with it. Think about the fact that the US army was not able to put up with a few terrorist groups over the past decades, let alone they couldn’t with such a massive BAD tribe. Now I hope everyone understands that these “bad students” that are cheating the world, are many, are powerful, and are growing. And no laws, no borders, no religion or book of morals, is going to stop them. When the Statopus and Privatopus are trying to stop the “bad students” of the world, they fail miserably because like in the case of the school, they did not address what causes those people to break their rules in the first place. The reason Mexico and Colombia are the lands of drugs and drug cartels, is because their neighbor, the USA, is the biggest market in the world. If drugs were free in the US, no drug cartel could sell them to US citizens. Most “drug lords” come from poor backgrounds and areas of conflict, and that makes them what they become. The same goes with terrorists who are pretty much all the time given birth to as the result of conflict zones. In more than one sense the US Statopus is responsible for both the American drug cartels and the “Middle-Eastern” terrorist organizations. For the so called “war on terror” the US has spent around $6 trillion since 2001. If they were to invest this money in the countries they attacked they could have saved millions of lives and lifted up millions from poverty, thus creating conditions that would minimize terrorist organizations arising. And for the “war on drugs” the US spent some $2 trillion, enough to lift those who became drug dealers in the first place from poverty and to save millions of lives in the process. And now think about how much money other tribes invest into these two ‘wars’... And laws are usually for “good people”. No Mafia members or Terrorists are scared of a fine, prison time, or even the death penalty. No thief who is starving will give a damn about a few days/months or even years in prison (maybe that’s even an advantage for some). Due to “terrorism” many kinds of laws were put into effect around the world making normal people uncomfortable, or getting them into troubles. I cannot hijack planes to commit terrorist attacks? No worries I will use cars! The airport has become a kind of jail in terms of security checkups, making every traveling creature feel small, powerless, and suspicious, while at the same time the “dudes” who want to hijack planes or do harm will do it with no regard for such things. And even when you feel like your laws are working, you (at best) push the problem from your backyard to somewhere else. Daddy, I am scared. . The “one size fits all” is the approach that laws are giving rise to. When online platforms try to remove “hateful” or “inappropriate” content for ‘maybe’ good reasons, they will for sure create more collateral damage like the war on terrorism has created, and in much the same manner it will have no overall effect in reaching its goal. (example 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16) Youtube is Facilitating the Sexual Exploitation of Children Like, take online piracy, and you’ll see that because of these laws trying to prevent this “event”, legitimate websites are suffering. For instance Russia banned some 4.000 “pirate websites”from 2013 to 2017, but they also indirectly blocked some 41.000 legitimate websites (source). These numbers look catastrophic. (more examples 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) And yet the ones the laws are trying to “affect” and destroy, are doing just fine. Some websites put the “padlock” to show the connection is secure, yet “Half of all Phishing Sites Now Have the Padlock”. That’s the thing! This whole thing with laws being applied to fix problems is like using surgery to kill cancer. Sure, you will remove some pockets of cancerous cells, but you only need a few of them to remain “un-surged” and the cancer will come back. Surgery is a primitive way of trying to deal with cancer, the same way that laws are a primitive attempt to put a stop to ‘bad behavior’. TODAY’S APPROACH IS TO BAN ROPES TO TRY AND AVOID SUICIDES. The only way to deal with problems is to fix them. Want less crime? Make things available for free or cheap for most people! Want less violence? Make sure people have lots of free time to explore and educate themselves and have access to abundant scientific information! Want no terrorism? Don’t go to war and fuck up tribes leaving them in poverty! Want no Mafia? Make sure your society is equal enough and does not rely on trades for people to survive and thrive! Want kids to learn? Make education relevant, fun and not mandatory! And so forth! The world needs an enemy Hey again! What a surprise dear Reader. .sorry, Kid :D! TROM Superhero I am now fully aware of the problems in this world and what triggers them. Like overly-fully-aware! And I want to move past this. I want to change this world! I want to “fight”! What can we do from here on TROM Superhero? So happy to hear that from you. I have a plan! Look at all of what we discovered in terms of the “bad” in this world: Statopus and Privatopus are on top of the Trade Bubble farting tribes and companies that mainly revolve around the same Trade Bubble. Beside them we have the “bad students” of our world that are breaking their rules whenever they want. And in most cases you cannot tell who is the bad student, who is Statopus, who is Privatopus or who is the ACT (Abuser, Charlatan, Thief). It is a soup of bad stuff and they are all emerging from the Trade Bubble. Therefore, the simple plan is: burst the Trade Bubble! But how? The world needs an enemy 1. Focusing on a problem will force solutions We need a problem, not a solution! A mysterious thing happened since the existence of humans (and not only). Something in the air, it seems, ‘attacked’ humans making them sick. You could not see it, sense it or hear it. A monster-ghost! A mighty-monster-ghost that has killed billions of humans for the past thousands of years. 2000 years ago it eradicated some 30% of Europe’s, Western Asia’s and Northern Africa’s population. 1500 years ago it killed 40% of Europe, Egypt and West Asia. 700 years ago it killed almost half of the population of Europe, Asia and North Africa. 400-500 years ago it almost eradicated the Mexican population killing 80% of them. A few years later, it came back to Mexico killing another 50% of the remaining humans. 300 years ago in Persia it killed 2 million people in one single year. 150 years ago it claimed 1 million deaths in Russia and 100 years ago 75 million lives worldwide, in just 2 years. 10 years ago 50 years ago 60 years ago In the past years deaths have declined dramatically in proportion to the population: only 1-2% deaths worldwide 60 years ago, 0.03% 50 years ago, and 0.0002% of the world’s population some 10 years ago. This monster-ghost killed almost the entire human population in the past 2000 years yet it almost made no dent in the past 100 years. Why and who is the monster? 2500 years ago some humans realized something: when some people got sick, others around them got sick as well. They didn’t know what the cause was, but they put those two facts together. Some theorized that there are some “seeds” (they called them) in the air and these “seeds” get inhaled by people and they make people sick. They also thought that these “seeds” lurk inside some people and they can activate again after a while. One ‘doctor’ that lived in that era said (real quote): “Precautions must also be taken in the neighborhood of swamps […] because there are bred certain minute creatures which cannot be seen by the eyes, which float in the air and enter the body through the mouth and nose and there cause serious diseases." More than 2000 years had passed and people were still theorizing about these “seeds” that made people very sick and killed billions of their own. They progressed slowly if at all in taming the monster-ghost. They understood that certain places are more prone to infect you with these “seeds”, and that these “seeds” can transfer from one person to another. Some concluded that these “seeds” are self-generated, as though they sparked out of rotten meat. But not much was done to avoid its deadly powers. They didn’t know what it is, so they could not fight it or run away from it. But one guy decided to do an experiment to try and “touch” the monster-ghost: he used 3 jars and put a slice of meat and an egg in each. He was about to bait the ghost. “Reveal!” he might have screamed! “I want to see you!” he might have thought! One jar was sealed, one had a piece of cloth on top if it, and one was open. He waited and waited. The bait was in place, where is the monster-ghost? After a few days he observed something that would change humanity forever: the monster-ghost took the bait! He saw that the opened jar was infested with maggots, the one with the cloth on top only had maggots on the piece of cloth, and the sealed one had no maggots. “Aha!” he realized! The monster-ghost is not self generated, it comes from somewhere and it gets “attracted” to the rotten food! It was the first time they proved that this monster-ghost is more than just a theory, it is real. But still, who is it? CLOSED LID: NO MAGGOTS CLOTH ON TOP: MAGGOTS ONLY ON THE CLOTH NO LID: MAGGOTS INSIDE Microscopes! 100 years later the power of magnification allowed humans to directly touch the monster-ghost for the first time. Around 1700 a new world was revealed beneath magnifying lenses! It wasn’t a monster-ghost, there were indeed some kind of “seeds”. But alive. They moved! They were diverse! More experiments followed and humans realized that these tiny organisms were responsible for the deaths of billions of their own. They realized that if you boil water and thus kill them, you almost eradicate certain infections. If you wash your hands with some special substances before surgery or delivering babies, you drop mortality from infectious diseases by a staggering amount. In the late 1800’s they had it! The “Germ Theory of Disease” - infectious diseases were no longer a mystery, they were understood now. Sanitation, prevention and vaccines made the “monster-ghost” almost disappear for the past 100 years. The Germ Theory of Disease Thousands of years of mystery, billions of people dead. But now, because they understood the problem, they could apply hundreds of solutions to tackle this problem. And this is the crucial thing everyone has to understand: there is no solution without a problem! The only reason humans were able to defeat the “monster-ghost” was because they recognized there is a problem: people got sick in a particular manner (diseases spreading from swamps or from people to other people and so forth). Thousands of years of dealing with this problem pushed humanity to finally find a solution, or multiple solutions, and the explosion of real solutions only came about 100 years ago when they better understood the “monster-ghost”. If they had no clue that there are tiny organisms that spread and create diseases and later deaths, they could not apply any highly-impactful solution. Now we find some solutions like boiling water or cooking food before drinking/eating as a “no brainer”, yet if you would not know about the fact that these tiny organisms are alive and can be killed at high temperatures, then you could not come with this simple solution. They also realized that these tiny organisms are so varied and what works to defeat some, won’t work to defeat others. And this is the second most important thing to remember: problems are solved with solutionS and not A solution. For every problem we face in the world, there will always be multiple solutions and not a single one. PROBLEM SOLUTION SOLUTION And the third most important thing to understand: problems are usually never solved, only remediated. Even today, after such a detailed understanding of the “monster-ghost” we see people dying because of “it”, and that’s usually because we can never fully solve a problem. It is a continuous battle. What matters is the degree to which you can “remediate” a problem. We can call infectious diseases “eradicated” worldwide despite 17% of all deaths worldwide still being due to infectious diseases (these are mainly happening not because we lack resources or knowledge but because of our unequal society where very poor areas of the world don’t even have access to basic sanitation). Therefore we do not have a 100% efficient solution to eradicate infectious diseases – we don’t know how to tame some of them (we have no solution for them) and for some the solution we have is either not that efficient or is starting to not have the initial effect due to these little organisms mutating. (source 1, 2, 3) Something very big is happening today with “aging” as already explained to you. People are identifying problems such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer, and so forth, that are the leading cause of death today much like infectious diseases were in the past. And now they are starting to understand that aging seems to be the cause of them all. Perhaps this is the new “monster-ghost”. As soon as they can properly identify this “monster-ghost” they will be able to invent solutions to “destroy” it. Not for good, but to tame it in a way so that it can be called “eradicated”. Maybe the solution(s) will be so “doh!” - simple and “no brainer”, but since we don’t know it, it is unimaginable to us. Remember that it took humans hundreds of years of scientific research and theories to be able to finally agree and accept that tiny organisms are the cause of infectious diseases. Then after many years of trying solutions, humans are still coming up with new solutions today for this problem. The “aging” research is only decades old and it is already exciting. The most exciting aspect is to understand the problem, because you know that this will force people to invent solutions! Cancer will be cured, cardiovascular disease will be cured, Alzheimer will be cured, aging itself will be cured. Entirely? Probably not. When? We don’t know. How? We don’t know. But very likely there will be multiple and evolving solutions, and a continuous fight, and we will never reach a “perfect” cure for any of them. But if only 5% of the population will die in the future from such diseases that are ravaging the population today, then that’s a success story! That’s how the world works, not in absolutes, but in percentages. Take another domain: transportation. The only reason we have cars, airplanes or trains is because of a problem: how to get human(s) from point A to point B. And this is why we have so many kinds of transportation systems because these solutions always evolve: first humans used animals like horses, then invented the wheel, then carriages, cars, airplanes, bicycles, and who knows what other flying and driving things. SOLUTION SOLUTIO SOLUTION SOLUTION PROB In the years to come we will invent hyperloops, flying drones, and other transportation means that we can’t even imagine today. A problem. Multiple solutions. A continuous adventure. SOLUTION TION TION SOLUTION SOLUTION OBLEM Open Source is nothing more than a solution for the “proprietary software” problem. That’s why this movement sparked into existence, and that’s why it is still alive today. When “proprietary software” would cease to be a problem, the “open source” movement will cease to exist and software will be called whatever it will be called. If we had no such concept of “proprietary software” and somehow all the software in the world would have been open for all to see and edit/share, then no “open source” movement would have ever been invented. Our need or want to explore space will push us to invent better spacecraft, better telescopes, better communicational technologies and better science. The fact that we cannot see the far away objects in the outer space too sharply, is a problem that will push for solutions. We first made bigger telescopes on Earth, then improved the technique of capturing light and then sent a telescope into space so that our atmosphere here on Earth won’t interfere with the image quality. Again, another endless set of solutions for one or more problems. YOU GET THE POINT: THERE ARE NO SOLUTIONS UNLESS THERE IS A PROBLEM. AND A PROBLEM IS A PROBLEM UNTIL IT IS FIXED, BUT IT IS NEVER “FULLY” FIXED (AT LEAST IN MOST CASES), ONLY REMEDIATED. Therefore let’s get back to our mission! Our problem is TRADE. And TRADE must be our “enemy” and we must fight to push this force away from human societies in order to immensely improve our way of living. Be careful! If the problem is ill defined then the solutions to it will also be lacking. The war on terror recognized “terrorism” as the problem yet it could not find a solution for it because the problem was ill defined and it was in fact a symptom of another problem, therefore they could never find a solution for it. Hence, the reason why this journey that we started was so long, was because I had to define the problem in a robust manner, else our solutions would have been inefficient and vastly pointless. And now we have a very solid understanding of our problem: trade, trade-off, and the need for trade. Hey! What if I fix computers Is it a trade i and that makes me feel good, is of shoes that that a trade? I have one th and we ex ade if you have a pair at fit me better, and What if someone gives me a gift that fit you better, and I feel like I should give a gift exchange them? back, is that a trade? Woof! Hold on creatures! A trade is simple to understand with the following: you do something only if you get something else in return from the other part. It is a “transaction” between two parties. If you repair computers but ask the other humans to say “thank you” else you won’t repair them, then yes that’s a trade. But if you don’t ask them for anything and you just feel good doing it, then that’s not a trade. At least not what I am talking about because, you see, when you put the microscope on any idea it becomes bizarre, much in the same way reality becomes bizarre when you look deeper. How long is a meter? No one really knows because if you were to measure the two most outer atoms from a meter of anything, then those two atoms have electrons orbiting around them at positions that you cannot determine, and thus this meter is nothing exact when you go to the “microscopic” level. (source) But we use meters to build buildings and stuff like that, so for us it is extremely useful. For our “macroscopic” world. We don’t need to define it perfectly. Put the microscope on the Open Source idea and you’ll see that you cannot define it well at all. Actually there are so many Open Source licenses out there especially because the more you dig into them the more weird things you’ll find out. For instance is this Open Source app that allows me to communicate in an encrypted way with other people, truly Open Source since no one can see the encryption keys or encrypted messages? One such case of confusion is with the program VeraCrypt – the get-go program to encrypt files and folders on Linux. The application’s developers say something like: our application’s code is Open Source; anyone can use, share and edit it; but you are not allowed to sell it because we want it to be truly “free”. But the Free and Open Source movement says that you must allow people to sell these Open Source pieces of software as well, so the only contradiction here is that the people from VeraCrypt don’t want their piece of software to be put behind any paywall. In a sense, the VeraCrypt license is more “Free and Open Source” than what the “Free and Open Source Software Foundation” is talking about. And when this community says “You can do whatever you want with this piece of software (because you are free)”, are they ok with it being used for terrorist attacks? Some are, some are not. So, you see, put the microscope on Open Source and you’ll see a lot of misunderstandings, debates, conflicts, and tons of licenses. But for our macroscopic world, Open Source is understood as “code that is open and you can edit, share and use it”. And that’s what we need to concern ourselves with when it comes to “trade”. The MACRO, not the MICRO. Macro-Trades! If you go to pee, and that relieves you and makes you feel emptily-great, is that a trade because you peed to feel good? That’s some nonsense that no one should care about. If someone gives you a gift and you feel obliged to give back then that’s your problem! And if you exchanged shoes voluntarily then that’s sharing. It is easy to see where the macro-trades really are: You want food? Then work 8h a day, else you don’t get food. Want clothes, security, etc.? Again, work work work and follow our rules, else you get none of that! Want healthcare? Give us your data, else you get none! And so forth! Simple! We are talking about trades at the macroscopic level, not the microscopic one. Macro-Trades! Don’t lose your focus! The Open Source movement’s weak points are when they forget what the problem is (proprietary software) and so nowadays you’ll see many Open Source projects that are very much ok with accepting parts of their software to be proprietary. For example Operating Systems that proclaim to be Open Source yet they come pre-installed with all kinds of proprietary software, make the Open Source movement weak and in time will transform it into something very different, like Android has become. And this failure is on the rise in Open Source communities, transforming them from caterpillars to butterflies, and back again to caterpillars. This is why movements like Free and Open Source Software have emerged and its mission is exactly fighting the “enemy” (the problem), and because their mission will always be to “get rid of proprietary software” they cannot fail or mutate over time since the problem remains the same and it will be a problem, …. Until the problem gets remediated! And so that’s why my mission is to “get rid of trade or the need for trade”, and anyone who has this mission in mind is working with me, even if we don’t work directly or know each other. If 1.000 research teams work to solve aging, and 3 teams come up with a “solution” to “fix aging”, then this is a victory for all the other teams, and more likely the solution was built on the backs of the other teams’ research as well. If another superhero other than me, will come up with solutions to make trade obsolete, then that is as much of a victory for that superhero as it is for me! A COMMON ENEMY UNITES PEOPLE! If an asteroid will approach Earth, then even rival tribes will collaborate with each other to deflect the asteroid if this asteroid poses equal danger to everyone. A global outbreak of a disease will unite researchers around the world to find a solution. Climate change is already uniting multiple tribes to fight it. If an alien species will come to Earth to kill us, we will all fight them: Chinese and Americans, KKK supporters and ISIS, Europeans and Russians, the Mafia and the Charlatans, Statopus and Privatopus will all be in this fight to protect ourselves. IF TRADE IS OUR GLOBAL THREAT, UNDERSTOOD AND RECOGNIZED BY MOST PEOPLE, THEN IT WILL GET REMEDIATED! The world needs an enemy 2. Societies are not invented, they evolve Something that those who want to change the world should understand is that societies never popped into existence. Big changes are never so dramatic as (say) movies portray. If we want to create a new kind of society it is very unlikely that we could somehow build this society alongside the one we currently live in. It’s just like imagining that we create a new world on one continent while the old trade-based society is still in existence. Humans didn’t suddenly go from hunter gatherer societies to the agricultural revolution. It was done in small steps, here and there, in multiple ways. This, in time, pushed these societies to spend more time in one place and build more settlements in those places, and that pushed for a larger population of these pockets of humanity. The industrial revolution (machines doing human labor) was, again, a step by step process that got infiltrated in societies around the world. The Internet didn't suddenly come into being: it was a process of discoveries and knowledge that led to that and its implementation had the same scent. The idea here is that you couldn’t have created a new digital society when the Internet was “invented” - this tool (the Internet) gets pushed through the same society and in turn will change it (from the way we govern, to our values – from the way we access stuff, to how we communicate). In essence two things change societies: technology and ideas. And they are married to each other. Science is a bunch of ideas that gives rise to technology (microwaves, electricity, AC, artificial hearts, whatever). And these technologies change ideas in turn: because of the advancement in science (technology) we changed the way we see “death” for example - someone is not declared dead anymore if they do not breath or his/her heart stops (they could be resuscitated today within a timeframe). The Internet had a huge impact on the way people live - if you asked people 100 years ago if they would be ok with keeping in touch with other humans from other parts of the world that they didn’t meet physically, probably most people would not be comfortable with that thought. But today this is normality. Writing with our fingers on a small screen and rapidly communicating with strangers from every part of the world, is a normality today brought by technology. The fact that humans feel comfortable getting into a metal box to travel for hours, is a state of mind created by technology itself which pushed our society to become what it is today. If I would tell you that you should get into a capsule, become unconscious for 10 minutes, then arrive at any destination on planet Earth, you would probably feel very uncomfortable with the thought – however, if in the future the transportation system would work like that then no one would feel uncomfortable with this. They would find it to be such a great and safe transportation system that can get you to any place on Earth in minutes. Come in. You’ll only get unconscious for 10 min. Hell It’s simple. nooooo!! And this state of being comfortable with a particular way of living/thinking is pushed by ideas and technology. When more and more jobs get automated that pushes our society to rethink the labor-for-income idea. And this in turn the idea that humans perhaps should not work in order to get what they need and want, thus possibly changing the society. In the past only kings decided the fate of a society, but then humans had an idea to fix this problem and they called it “democracy” - let the majority decide. Although not an efficient idea (think science – democracy would make no sense there), and although never implemented in this manner, the idea itself has spread like a wildfire for the past 100 years with so many tribes adopting it as their main governing body. Yes, it is ironic that still a few modern-kings (politicians and corporations) decide for the masses, but that idea of democracy spread and got adopted. PROBLEMS INDEED PUSH FOR SOLUTIONS, AND THESE SOLUTIONS COME IN THE FORM OF TECHNOLOGY AND IDEAS. PROBLEMS Infectious Diseases That’s how it works. This is how societies change: their structure of governing, their values, their habits. Ideas and Technology germ Theory of Disease and Microscopes We are in a very fortunate position with our TRADE enemy because of several reasons: OUR ENEMY IS EASY TO DEFINE Our enemy is easy to define and it creates the vast majority of the world’s problems. Forget about market systems, capitalism, free markets, other isms, federal reserve banks, or other complicated economical gibberish. They are all the babies of TRADE, and trade is very easy to get your head around. We can touch this monster-ghost! We know who it is! Anyone can see it very clearly! OUR ENEMY IS EASY TO DEFINE Basically if you look at other attempts to change the society (ideas) they tried to push a way of living onto humanity: we should all own the means of production, we should not have leaders, we should declare the Earth’s resources as common heritage, we should invent certain laws about what people are allowed or not to do, we should do this or not do that. They rarely if ever worked because they tried to superimpose a value system onto humans. When I say that we need to get rid of trade, I do not say how we should do things, I only point out what will probably create issues in our society. OUR ENEMY IS EASY OUR ENEMY IS ONLY TO DEFINE A RED FLAG And it is up to people if they accept living with this problem or not. Much like a doctor will point out that cancer is killing humans, but does not force a treatment onto humans. I do not say games should be less competitive, movies should be less dumb, books should be more scientific, and kids should not spend so much time in from of computers. I do not impose anything onto anyone. I am just pointing out that in the Game of Trade, games become competitive and harmful, movies become dumb for the sake of making profits in an easy way, books are poorly written for the same reasons, and kids are mined for their attention and data by big companies. NLY Now, if people understand this and they still want to continue living in this manner, then it is up to them. Therefore, focusing on TRADE as our enemy is merely a showcase of what creates problems – it is not superimposing any way of living onto anyone. This approach is as good as the Open Source approach where they do not invade people’s way of living. They merely point to a problem (proprietary software) and they do not ask people to create a particular type of Open Source software. It’s up to people what and whether they create. Let’s be honest, the world does not need holding hands and daddying. Thing is, we have the knowledge and capabilities to feed everyone on Earth, to provide healthcare for all, to build amazing and self-sustainable buildings or transportation systems. OUR ENEMY IS EASY OUR ENEMY IS ONLY TO DEFINE A RED FLAG Doctors know how to fix people, engineers know how to build efficient buildings, programmers know how to create secure and complex software, and so forth. NASA knows very well how to handle science missions to other planets, Doctors Without Borders know how to manage disease outbreaks and Linux knows how to create a stable operating system. We already live in an extremely knowledgeable and capable society, but this infectious disease called “trade” fucks things up. That’s why our mission should be to take trade away form this society if we wish to greatly improve it, and not try to re-organize our society from the ground up. So, making people aware of the problem called “trade”, is what I do. NLY OUR ENEMY IS EASY OUR ENEMY IS ONLY TO DEFINE A RED FLAG NLY In TROM documentary I pointed to a solution called a Resource Based Economy described by The Venus Project. Although a very interesting set of ideas, it leaves us with uncharted territory ahead. What should I, the one knowing about such a solution do? The Venus Project proposes a big/massive undertaking by planning to build a test city to showcase their solution – this may or may not be possible to accomplish, but even if it may be a good idea (or not) it leaves everyone in limbo waiting for the “big city”, the big plan to be put into effect. It is an “all eggs in one basket” approach. Maybe it will work, maybe it won’t. But if we want realistic solutions then we have to go back to Open Source. They didn’t plan a new kind of society where all the software would be Open Source and then plan to build a huge project to showcase that. No! They started to reshape our current society by building Non-Proprietary software. OUR ENEMY IS EASY OUR ENEMY IS ONLY TO DEFINE A RED FLAG And that’s what our enemy opens the doors towards: anyone can, right now, start to fight against trade by creating trade-free stuff. From blogs to music, from providing food to providing help, from clothes to furniture, from this to that. Start to change the society right here, and right now! No need to wait for anyone, no need to be part of a particular organization, no need for any of that. And that leads us to the last advantage of having “trade as the enemy”. NLY OUR ENEMY OPENS THE DOORS FOR REALISTIC SOLUTIONS As mentioned before, if we fight the same enemy then a solution to it is a solution for all of us involved in the fight. Organizations die, ideas survive. If our idea is to get rid of trade, then that will transcend organizations and eras, regimes and values, leaders and projects. You don’t need me! Anyone can fight this from any corner of the world! OUR ENEMY IS EASY OUR ENEMY IS ONLY TO DEFINE A RED FLAG NLY OUR ENEMY OPENS OUR ENEMY ALLOWS THE DOORS FOR FOR DECENTRALIZED REALISTIC SOLUTIONS SOLUTIONS I said that we have to burst the Trade Bubble in order to get rid of it. Truth is you can’t. You can only try to stay as far away from it as possible (or in a sense push it away from societies). To do that we need to first recognize that trade is the source of most problems, so we have a common enemy in sight. Once that is done, technology and ideas will push humans away from the Trade Bubble through multiple solutions, through many years and through many attempts. And we will never reach a “perfect” trade-free society, only one where trades are mostly a thing of the past, much like infectious diseases are today. Therefore we need technology (trade-free goods and services) and ideas from al of you! I, TROM Superhero, am already doing this using all of my powers. I create trade-free services (technology), and spread ideas about “trade as the origin of most problems” (and what solutions there are to it). Ok I think I got it! I was expecting a step by step solution from you but now I realize this is not the way forward. We cannot rely on one single source to come up with solutions. We, the people, have to come up with solutions! Yes! Indeed! I sure will! When this sinks in on you, this idea that trade creates most of the world’s problems, it’s hard not to react to it and try to find a solution(s) for it. Ok Kid, good luck and see you soon! We are teammates now! For sure! :) …..5 months into Hi! :) the future Oh, hi! How are you? Great! I am fighting this trade every day! I made my own blog that’s trade-free (I add no ads, no trackers, nothing of the sort to it) – and I recommend documentaries on my blog and books to people. All, trade-free. I talk to people about this enemy and I try to create some trade-free services (as much as I can)! I’m spreading the word, TROM! How are you? This is so great to hear! Honestly! :) As for me, I am great! Fighting the same fight! I am trying to create trade-free solutions and also educate the world about “trade as the origin of most problems”, at the same time. Here’s how: I have two tools for you. You should take them with you and use them to detect trades and push for the removal of them by making them obsolete. They are like the nose of a dog that can detect something that for humans has no smell! Or better, they are like the invention of the microscope that helped “put into light” those little monsters that created those awful diseases. With these tools that I’ll give you, we can detect both where trades are, and also create trade-free goods and services – almost like a tool for sanitation :). I will give you a question mark and an exclamation mark. So that we don’t create confusion in what we are looking for in terms of trades. I think for now the focus should be on goods and services as those are the most important ones. We want to make trade-free goods and services. W.A.I.T I. . WHAT AM I TRADING Every time you are facing the world of goods and services, every time someone comes to you and says “Hey, take this” or “Hey, use that”, you should W.A.I.T. - Ask yourself a simply question: What Am I Trading? ;) Let’s see it in action in 6 important domains: 1. Healthcare 2. Food Production/Distribution 3. Education 4. Transportation 5. Research 6. Internet Free Healthcare care Free-Healthcare: Hi, I can fix your health problems! TROM: W.A.I.T. - What Am I Trading? Free-Healthcare: Unsure...we don’t ask any money…and we want nothing from you. TROM: Really? Think well about it! Do you require me to be from this X tribe in order to get this “Healthcare-Free” service? Free-Healthcare: Ah, yes, we only provide for Danish people! TROM: That’s it! So I have to trade. I have to become a Danish citizen to get this free healthcare service. Free-Healthcare: Well but I don’t consider that a trade. TROM: It is! You either say you provide trade-free healthcare for Danish citizens or you are lying. And even then, are these Danish citizens required to be Christians, or white, or to give you their data in order to use your service? This is how, if you W.A.I.T. ( :) ), you inquire about any service or good out there, so that you don’t let any trade slip through. Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières - MSF) provide a trade-free healthcare/medical service in the sense that they do not want anything in return. They go to certain areas that need medical help, and they help people there. They do not care if these people are Muslims, Christians, black, white, voted for a particular party or not. They do not make a business out of people's data, they don’t care what country you are from, they do not want your attention, cryptocurrency, and so forth. Thus, they provide a trade-free service. Here’s their official mission: “We offer assistance to people based on need. It doesn’t matter which country they are from, which religion they belong to, or what their political affiliations are. We give priority to those in the most serious and immediate danger. “ “Our decision to offer assistance is based on our evaluation of medical needs, independent of political, economic or religious interests. Our independence is rooted in our funding; over 90 per cent comes from individual private donors giving small amounts. We strive to freely evaluate needs, access populations without restriction, and to directly deliver the aid we provide. “ “We do not take sides in armed conflicts nor support the agendas of warring parties. Sometimes we are not present on all sides to the conflict; this may be because access is denied to us, or due to insecurity, or because the main needs of the population are already covered. “ “We take responsibility of accounting for our actions to our patients and donors, and being transparent on the choices we make. Evaluations, critical reviews and debate on our field practices, our public positioning and on wider humanitarian issues, are necessary to improve what we do. “ The MSF is so big right now that it operates globally taking care of more than 10 million patients. (source 1, 2) I know this may sound “wrong” to some, but the only way to provide proper medical help is to help everyone: criminals, terrorists, politicians, poor people, religious or not, and so forth. If Hitler had a heart attack then doctors should try and save him. As soon as doctors engage into trades like only accepting patients that are “good humans” and would say: “Oh, he is Hitler, he deserves to die so we won’t help him!” then they will ride a very slippery slope. Today they would deny medical assistance to Hitler, tomorrow they would deny it to who they think are terrorists, and soon to “political activists” or “immigrants”. This is why MSF and others like them, cannot afford to engage in such trades because they too understand the dangers of that. White Helmets is another such organization of volunteers that help people in very dangerous conflict zones in Syria. They save people from bombing sites provide assistance and help to victims, and so forth. And they too are impartial and help everyone involved in these conflicts, from any sides. In fact most emergency services in “civilized” tribes will intervene without any regard of a person’s nationality, religion, gender, political views, and so forth. If a human being is having a severe health issue and needs emergency assistance, then the doctors will quickly provide the care for the patient without getting into a trade-war with them, like “Where are you from? Do you have money? Do you agree to give us your data?”. This attitude would be unacceptable. And we all agree, I think, that this kind of healthcare where doctors “fix people” without any trades involved, is the best healthcare we can provide and the only healthcare that can survive, thrive, and truly help people. TRADE-Free Healthcare And so, a trade-free healthcare system is one similar to what humanitarian organizations provide nowadays, like the MSF or White Helmets and the like. Imagine if this would be the approach worldwide for all people of this planet. You get sick, and you get help without anyone concerned about your worldviews or asking for anything back. Trade-Free-Healthcare! Free F Free F OOD Free-Food: Here, you can eat! TROM: W.A.I.T. - What Am I Trading? Free-Food: I guess nothing… TROM: Do you want anything from me? Like can I get food from you if I am an atheist or if I come there naked? Free-Food: Well...we indeed help Christians but sure, you too are welcome to feast. We do ask you to please wear clothes when you come here to eat...it is a basic decency thing… TROM: Although I appreciate what you are doing, you too are starting to climb the slippery slope of trades. If you are trying to provide food mainly to Christians then you will slip down the path of trades and will forbid food to other religions or non- religious people. You may not do it now, but you probably will do it in the future. Also, I understand that you might be bothered if someone comes here naked to get food, but that too is a dangerous view to hold onto. A stable, calm, and educated mind would never care about such things, like what one wears or if they wear anything at all. Free-Food: But TROM what if you’re riding a dangerous horse of ideas? What stops you from saying that I should also allow criminals here, or people who are violent, and so forth? Maybe if someone comes here holding a dead decaying animal and asks for food, you may say that it is wrong for us to refuse our service because we should accept everyone. Free F Free F OOD TROM: I empathize with your concern! It is true that the line between trades or no trades can be blurry, but remember we are talking about macro-trades here. Someone being non- Christian and being refused a food service is a macro-trade, meaning it is a very obvious trade. So it also is when someone simply does not want to wear clothes but they need/want food and they are refused access to it. A decaying animal smells bad and it is a danger for other people’s health, same as with violent people that pose a danger for others. But you brought up a very important point and something we need to explain: the most important thing here is to W.A.I.T. - to ask that important question which can lead to discussions. If you do not accept naked people to make use of your service, then the ones who want to walk naked will put “WEIGHT on the W.A.I.T.” and will spark a discussion around this as it’s a trade for them. Your “no naked humans allowed” rule may have 0 impact on 99% of people (who normally wear clothes), so your service can be seen as trade-free by the vast majority, however no such trade-free service is perfect and it should be subject to criticism from those who feel like they have to trade. Trade Free FOOD trade-free-food-for- ee-food-for- englis englis h-speaking-people What I mean is this: if I offer a trade- free-food service and everyone is satisfied because I ask nothing in return (I even accept naked people!), but one day a Spanish guy comes along and he cannot take advantage of my service because he does not speak English like we do (the ones offering it), then this guy will W.A.I.T. and point out that our service is not trade-free since he has to know English in order to take full advantage of our service. This will push us (who provide the service) to cater for this human being too, or to admit this trade and call our service “trade-free- food-for-english-speaking-people”. You see, it is a way of catering for everyone and W.A.I.T. (this question mark that I am asking you to take with you) will provide a mean through which you can detect where there are trades and what trades there are, in order to improve a good or a service. This pushes a world of abundance for all because it demands it! It demands goods and services for all: all languages, all nationalities, all ages, all cultures, all beliefs, everyone! At times things will get into micro- trades and become hard to deal with, like maybe we cannot accept unvaccinated people to come and get food from us since that poses a danger for other people here, or if someone smells really bad that can pose a discomfort to others. But these are rare (micro-trades) and they will be dealt with from case to case, and some of these we can rightfully call non-trades, we can simply call them scientific rules for the safety of our health (like in the case of unvaccinated people). And so, a trade-free-food service should provide food for everyone out there and should not care about what people believe, how they dress, how they talk, and so on. Free education Free-Eduaction: Tiny people of the Earth, we are educating you for free! TROM: W.A.I.T. Free-Education: NOTHING! It is for everyone! Every corner of the world! Every language! TROM: Wow that’s awesome! Let me check it...hm...so I have to finish this one course before accessing the other one? Free-Education: Yes! This way we make sure that you learn the basics of this course before you learn the other parts! TROM: I see...and what is the reasoning behind this? Free-Education: Well if kids do not understand the basics of this course they will struggle with the other parts of the course. TROM: Aham...but why not let them figure this out on their own or make them aware of that? If you put this limitation you may inadvertently stop those who know the basics of this course from accessing the other more advanced parts of the course. I find this being a trade-off. You, in more than one way, lock courses behind achievements: I have to finish this course to get to the other one. If this would be something I can change, or would be an optional thing, then I would not consider it as a trade off. Look at this video - it is a disturbing and mind-boggling video showing how a family in the Netherlands decided to basically picnic in a safari park, in a cheetahs’ enclosure (source). And they did that knowing this fact very well (they saw the cheetahs and even took photos of them). It is beyond any “logic” why they decided to do this stupid move and luckily for them they got out alive and unharmed even though the cheetahs were (at one point) trying to hunt them down. Safari accidents are quite rare and despite the high danger safari parks may pose (driving amongst “beasts”), they have very loose rules for such parks. You go there with your car and it is up to you to keep your doors locked, windows up, and never get out of the car. There are no immense fees if you don’t respect these “rules” as they are more about making you aware of the dangers and telling you how to protect yourself rather than being actual “laws” that are punishable if not respected. So, this is perhaps the best way to create a kind of trade-free service in terms of “rules” - make people aware of the consequences instead of putting barriers in front of them. If someone decides to get out of their car in a lion enclosure and he/she gets eaten by the lion, then that’s their problem. They made a “wrong” decision for their own health and survival. After all there are no laws against killing yourself (probably), yet anyone can hang themselves or jump from the 4th floor. I would only make those who want to jump from the 4th floor aware of the dangers and that they can kill other people in the process, which is not a good thing. You prevent suicides through a proper environment that doesn’t lead to such a way of thinking, or provide a safe way for people to commit suicides. Sure, this may sound like an awful idea, but I feel like it is more awful when you forbid people to do whatever they want to do with their own lives. People should do whatever they want to do, and you as a society should make their environment in such a way that people are educated, relaxed, smart, and do not engage into trades (or many thereof). A safari park that puts immense fines if anyone leaves their car will have little to no impact on the outcome – meaning it is not like those who get out of cars won’t do it because of the big fines, since that would be a minute issue compared to getting eaten by lions. Education seems to work much better in such situations. The same it is with an educational service: if you want to offer a trade-free educational system the preferred method is to not put barriers in front of people. If one wants to learn then you should make him/her aware of the best way you think this can be achieved instead of forcing your way. Free Free transportat at ion TROM: Let me guess Free-Transportation, you offer free transport for people, but maybe you shove ads into their faces for that? Free-Transportation: That’s the only way to make it free for people! TROM: Yeah, so it is not trade-free. A trade-free transportation system should never want anything from their passengers. It should not even know who travels. How many? Sure, for the purpose of optimizing the transport. But who? Never, unless people choose that! Make autonomous cars, trains, airplanes, and make them trade-free in a way so that people, with the use of a simple trade- free app, can summon them or simply see when the next train/flight is, embark, go to the destination, and that’s it! Data transfer should be encrypted and anonymized and collected for the sake of improving the transportation system itself not to make a profit off of it. This is a perfect example of “trading” without “trading” - what I mean is that a transportation system has to take into account how many passengers use the system and where they go, in order to optimize the traffic. So, in a sense, you may say that people have to trade their data for this to happen. However, for one if this data collection is for the purpose of improving the system then that’s hardly a trade (it’s a must for the system to work), and for another if this data is encrypted and anonymized then no one knows anything about your identity. Free research TROM: It is like you dear Free-Research, if you want to conduct trade-free research and need data from people: you either collect it with consent (on a volunteer basis), or if it is a must do it anonymously. Free-Research: What if I need anonymized data for profit purposes? Say I collect anonymous data not solely for the purpose of improving my research but I also do that because I need it to make my business more profitable? Being anonymized, is that trade-free? TROM: Good point! And again notice how this simple “W.A.I.T.” is sparking very important discussions. In this particular case I would personally say it is a trade because you want people’s data to make a profit out of it, instead of wanting people’s data to make that trade-free system better for the people, and more efficient. ;) Free Internet TROM: And here’s our mighty Free-Internet. Hi! Free-Internet: Hi there! TROM: I will go ahead and “W.A.I.T.” :D Free-Internet: Hardly anything. You connect to our Internet and browse it. We don’t censor the Internet, don’t slow down speeds, don’t spy your traffic. TROM: So you really don’t need anything from me? Free-Internet: Nothing man! If you have any device that can connect to the Internet, any app on it that allows you to browse it, you can do it. No need to ask us for permission, just connect. We have no idea who you are, what you visit, from where. TROM: Wow that’s awesome. You might truly be a “Trade-Free-Internet”! Hearing sounds: ring ring! TROM: I’ll get back to you, let me see who's at the door. FaceBook: Hi, I am FaceBook. Here’s our social platform. You can use it, post photos, make posts, talk to friends, read news and so much cool stuff! TROM: W.A.I.T. - What Am I Trading? FaceBook: What’ch’mean? TROM: Simple, what am I trading here? Do you want anything from me in order to use your service? FaceBook: Well… TROM: Do I have to login in order to use it? Do you want my data? Do you want my attention? Do you want my currencies? FaceBook: Well, it’s not like I want these from you…. TROM: But can I use FaceBook without an account on your servers, without sharing any data with you, without having ads shoved into my face? Do you have this option? FaceBook: Hm, you cannot stop all data collection or remove the advertising but it’s for your own interest…also, of course you need an account... TROM: Dear FaceBook, give me a break with your charlatan moves, it is a simple question, can I use FaceBook without trading something to you like the above stated? FaceBook: I guess not… TROM: See? That’s what I’m talking about! TROM: Here’s our neighbour Mastodon. Hi Mastodon! Mastodon: Oh, hi! TROM: Tell’em Mastodon what service do you provide! Mastodon: Here’s our social platform, you can use it if you like to. Here too you can post images, videos, share, create posts, talk to friends, and all that. TROM: W.A.I.T. - What am I trading? Mastodon: I guess nothing. We want nothing from you. We don’t collect your data, we don’t want your attention, we don’t force you to make an account on our server. Actually you can take all of our code and install Mastodon on your own server and be completely in charge! TROM: See? That’s a service that is “trade- free”! See dear FaceBook!? Sorry dear Free-Internet, now that everyone knows that you are here the entire neighborhood is coming to my door with offers! The Googles, The FaceBooks, The YouToubes, they want trades from me. So you see Kid, taking this “?” with you will empower you to not get scammed in this world and keep trades at bay. However, at times it can be difficult to know what questions to ask. The Free-Internet really seems free until you ask a more advanced question like: “Do you block the BitTorrent traffic?” or “Do you block certain ports?” - if the Free-Internet chooses to block certain ports or the BitTorrent traffic then they will limit your Internet access and if you don’t have the right knowledge to ask relevant questions then you won’t even know if you are “trading”. If you are using this Free-Internet and everything seems alright to you, but they are blocking certain ports that will block the BitTorrent network or other networks, then it may go undetected by you and many others. The BitTorrent network is the one that allows people to send/receive files in a decentralized manner and without it censorship of the Internet becomes easier, and the Internet overall will become a very centralized and controlled place. Oh, that’s a very important point! How can we know if we engage into trades or not if we don’t even know the proper questions to ask? The question mark (W.A.I.T.) is a simple and super efficient (overall) tool to detect trades and it will work pretty well most of the time. However you also need the exclamation mark! If we look at our planet, the Earth, there is one layer of it that is the most important layer for everyone and everything. Most of the Earth’s composition is the mantle (basically molten rock), but one very thin layer is the one that gives rise to life, buildings, food, materials, and everything else. It is called “vadose” (the vadose zone). This is the area that contains the soil that has the nutrients to grow food, this is where plants start to grow, we extract minerals from, we build buildings within, dig holes or use the soil and materials to build our world, or where water is being filtered. The health of the vadose zone will make the difference between life and death on planet Earth. Now, think about the fact that if the ingredients of the vadose zone are proper (for our human use) we can grow better and more food, build stronger buildings, have better and more abundant drinkable water, have access to better and more construction materials, and so forth. Thus, keep in mind that the only way to make a better world for humans, from the Earth’s perspective, is to have a healthy vadose zone. The “base” needs to be healthy in order to grow stuff from it, build stuff within it, or extract stuff from it. Why am I telling you this? Because that’s what we have to create in our society, a healthy vadose zone, that will not give rise to trades (to the bad stuff). The he vado ad se ose zone zone V.A.D.O.S.E. The exclamation mark introduces a proper way to check any good or service in terms of its potential trades, because the less trades the better such a good or service. Here’s our vadose zone: V – Volunteering Vitality A – Automated Autonomy D – Digitized Decentralization O – Openly Operated S – Self Sustainability E – Educational Ethos These are the 6 degrees of healthiness. The 6 health-check points to see if something is trade- based or not. The 6 rules, if you wish, to create trade-free goods and services! Let’s take them one by one and explain why they are crucial for our vadose societal zone. . Our Mission wants to creat healthcare se people of th on: The world eate a trade-free e service for the e of the world. V – VOLUNTEERING VITALITY Let’s check if this organization relies on volunteers or not. If yes, then it means people work without being forced to do so, and that’s the first positive thing. If not then we should ask ourselves why these people are forced/coerced? Because the truth is that if an organization does not rely on volunteers, and has to pay (for example) people to work, then those people are engaging in trades (I need to work for this organization to get money to buy food), and this also means the organization itself has to get the money from somewhere to pay these employees, and it is very likely that they will have to engage in trades to obtain the money. Meaning: if I create a healthcare service and I have to pay my employees, then I also have to make a profit to be able to pay them, or at least rely on donations (financial support) to do so. And this forces me to be very likely to engage in trades and perhaps my healthcare system will start charging money from patients in order to keep the system alive in a trade-based society. Therefore if we detect that an organization does not rely on volunteers but on paid (coerced) people, then this is the first RED FLAG for our V.A.D.O.S.E. zone! Of course it may happen that an organization like this is not fully relying on either volunteers or paid workers, so it is a mix of both. This is why measuring every such health-point in our scheme is not a matter of yes or no, but a matter of degree. If this healthcare service relies 80% on volunteers then we can represent it as such (with blue marking the health of the organization in terms of volunteers). A – AUTOMATED AUTONOMY Our healthcare service relies a lot on volunteers which is a good sign. Now our question should be if this system is automated and autonomous. Automation is crucial for any service in the world because it requires less to no humans to operate. It frees people from labor and creates systems of production and distribution that are far more efficient and resilient (working nonstop). A volunteer could get in trouble if it needs stuff like food, shelter and comfort that he/she cannot get and will make their involvement as volunteers, crippling. A machine does not have health problems, experience emotional distress, or require a break. In terms of healthcare we would preferably need the medical checkups, the research, the distribution of medicine and the like to be as automated as possible. So, if you are doing research for a particular vaccine but rely on volunteers to do the experiments, research, interpret the results, and so forth, then your likelihood of engaging in trades increases simply because you rely on humans (or more thereof). But if these processes are more autonomous through automation, then you need less to no humans and your system is less likely to push you into trades. In other words: if you have an A.I. that can diagnose people as good as a general practitioner, then you can replace millions of human doctors with one single A.I. that will make the consultation process autonomous and automated, and you as an organization will have far less worries to worry about (one single A.I. vs millions of doctors that you may have to feed, take care of, or hope that they’ll show up for work). Therefore after we analyze the state of volunteers for an organization, we should analyze the state of autonomy/automation. Say, in our case, after doing an inventory we realize some 60% of its services are automated/autonomous: D – DIGITIZED DECENTRALIZATION If this healthcare system relies mostly on volunteers and is more than 60% automated, we are on the right track. But if this system is centralized and uses papers then the likelihood to ask for trades rises highly. What I mean is that any centralized system, due to its centralized nature, is prone to take control of whatever it is doing and in time (due to this power) can ask the population for stuff (data, money, attention, etc.). That is a RED FLAG! To get rid of this potential danger we have to first digitize our service as much as possible. A vaccine recipe that’s digitized can be accessed and shared with everyone around the world. A clinical research that’s digitized can be shared with any other organization working on the same kind of research. Say you are in one part of the world where you go for medical checkups (or do them with the use of an A.I.) - but you also go for medical tests in that part of the world (say abdominal echography, lactose intolerance tests, and endoscopy). Now, you move to another part of the world. If these records are digitized they can be transferred from one institution to another and you can continue your health investigations from anywhere, unlike asking people and organizations to please print your data so you can take it with you, and the like. That’s inefficient and centralized. Digitization is the first step of decentralization! Your 20 year old medical records should be digitized to be easily available to be transferred to another part of the world, or institution, if needed. Think of billions of such records that are useful for both patients directly, and for research. But you can have organizations that are digitized yet not decentralized! And so we can analyze our healthcare service to see if they keep their records digitized (and thus shareable with the world – from a technological perspective), and if this organization is decentralized. Nowadays many “things” (services) are already digitized, but not many are decentralized. Say our healthcare system is pretty much entirely digitized but it is not decentralized. We could further investigate the level of digitized-decentralization and we may come up with the following (maybe it is 95% digitized but 0% decentralized, operating only from certain parts of the world) and so we get: O – OPENLY OPERATED Even if our healthcare service relies entirely on volunteers, is automated and autonomous, and digitized and decentralized, but it keeps its records and the way it operates a secret, then it will hold on to a tremendous power and will become prone to take advantage of this power at one point or another – this is similar to the issue of centralization and perhaps an effect of centralization. This is to make the point that decentralization can be a closed environment as well, so we have to add another health-check layer to make sure that an organization is open. Imagine if this healthcare system is based on volunteers that operates worldwide. It relies on sophisticated machines that automate the process of discovery, treatments, medical visits, research and the like in a way so that they require less and less humans (volunteers). Now also imagine they are very digitized and decentralized but they do not share their work. They have multiple organizations around the world, similar to MSF (thus we can call them decentralized), but still their new vaccine recipe is not shared with the entire world. Even if they provide a trade-free healthcare service for the people of the world, the fact that they operate in a closed manner gives them too much power and hinders medical progress. Yes, they may offer that vaccine as trade-free for the people of the world, but keeping its recipe secret will give them (in time) so much power over others, and we know where such great power leads to... In the future, because they held onto this power, they may say: “We only offer you this vaccine if you do X!”. Being decentralized this may not happen since others from within the same organization will say “No worries, we will give you this vaccine trade-free”, but it is a good idea to also check a project for their openness. In order to remove this danger we must make sure this organization is “Openly Operated” - its research, its practices, its mission and its technology that it uses must be open for all to see and use. Our own worldwide healthcare service, as mentioned above, is digitized and centralized. If it would be “Openly Operated” then that would allow for decentralization. So, let’s say that our volunteer based, pretty automated and autonomous, and digitized (but centralized) healthcare service is 90% openly operated. As you realize, although not decentralized, being Openly Operated will push this healthcare system into decentralization over time with others being able to copy their approach/system. S – SELF SUSTAINABILITY Self Sustainable: Ok, we are making progress! We love that it relies on volunteers so much, we are ok with the level of automation (though it could be better), we appreciate that it is digitized yet it sucks that it is still centralized; however it gives us a lot of hope because it is openly operated and others can take what this organization does and replicate it in other parts of the world! But is this organization self-sustainable? Like, can we see this organization work in the long run? This conclusion will be based on the previous health points and more. Relying on volunteers could be more sustainable than relying on paid workers, since you have to take care of paid workers (the responsibility is on you) + the economy could change pushing you into all kinds of financial problems forcing lower wages for example. Being automated and autonomous surely makes it more sustainable, but we only scored 60% on that scale. Having its records digitized and open allows for other organizations to build upon the work and create multiple similar decentralized healthcare services around the world. But the centralized nature of our own organization will not make it, self sustainable, in the long run. In any case, based upon those we should also think: Do they create waste? Do they use renewable energies? Do they recycle? Do they dispose hazardous chemicals properly? And so forth! This is a basic analysis of self-sustainability from a technological standpoint and not only! If our organization still relies on money/donations to pay for its facilities and research, then that is not sustainable in the long run since money is just a trade-based system that changes with time – thus it is unstable. A proper self-sustainable healthcare system would not rely on external support – it would self-operate mostly in an autonomous and automated manner and with the use of very few people, having its operations open and decentralized. So, what about our own? Let’s suppose it still relies on finances from donors and only uses 70% renewable energies, but it does a great job at not impacting and destroying the environment! This will be a very arbitrary number since for each organization this health-check point in our V.A.D.O.S.E. investigation must be thoughtfully checked – so, let's say our healthcare system has a 70% self-sustainability rating overall. E – EDUCATIONAL ETHOS What is this you may ask? This health-check questions the educational motive behind a good or a service. What do you want to achieve with your service/good? The more scientific, the better. The more community oriented, the better. What if we mark perfectly on all of the above health-points but then our healthcare system is based on pseudoscience? Say we have a worldwide healthcare system that scores very high in terms of volunteers, automation, digitization and decentralization, openness and sustainability, but it promotes homeopathy, alternative medicine, and so forth. This can be a 100% trade-free system but in order to make sure this system is sane we have to check its educational- ethos. Ethos means “the disposition, character, or fundamental values”. This last point engages a discussion upon this factor. And let’s suppose our worldwide healthcare system is indeed 100% scientific. There we have it, our worldwide healthcare system: What is important here is to understand that V.A.D.O.S.E. is a set of “instructions” to check any service or good produced for trades, because the higher it ranks on all of these 6 “scales”, the less likely it will be that this system is engaging in trades. Like think about, if a system ranks perfect on those scales, how can it trade anything when it’s based on volunteers, automated, decentralized and digitized, openly operated and self sustainable? It either needs nothing to run as a service or if it requires anything, being open and decentralized, it’s very likely that other similar services will pop-up that will be trade- free. Let me exemplify. Let’s imagine an Operating System that ranks high on all of the above. Let’s call it “Trade-Based Operating System” (TBOS). TBOS relies on volunteers, it’s updating process and security checks and stuff of the sort that are quite automated; it is of course digitized and quite decentralized with its copies being distributed around the world. TBOS is also openly operated so you can see the source code and even how they organize themselves. Maybe it is also self- sustainable not even requiring donations for its maintenance and distribution – and their servers run on renewable energy. It’s Educational Ethos seems to be neutral: “We simply offer an operating system for the masses.” they say. Although it is hard to see any reason why they would ask for any trades considering the above, even if they ask for trades like $4 per download of the operating system, or collection of data from users, the fact that it is decentralized and open will push others to naturally and eventually create a TBOS that is voided of trades. And TBOS will become TFOS (Trade-Free Operating System). The 6 health-check-points are forcing an organization to become trade-free if they rank high on all 6. TBOS => TFOS Think about a human being and some other measuring factors such as: house and food, free-of- debt, security, leisure and scientific-education. If a human being ranks high on all of them, meaning it has a house and access to food, doesn’t have much debt, lives in a secure society, has free time and a scientific mind, then this human is less likely (a lot less) to commit crimes or become violent. Criminals or violent people overall are those that are stressed out by the society they live in and/or are lacking access to their needs and/or wants. Therefore we can say for certain that a human who ranks high on those health-check-points is less likely to become a criminal or violent. And that is true for our measuring system, V.A.D.O.S.E. - it is a way of predicting. It cannot be perfect – for sure some humans ranking high on those factors could also steal or become violent but the degree of that happening is very low. Any good or service that ranks high on the V.A.D.O.S.E. scale is less likely to engage in trades – it either has no reasons to do so or it allows for other trade-free replacements of the same service or good to emerge. Let’s see it in action in several other cases (and keep in mind that the estimation is hard to do for me, even though I am a Superhero :) and at times my guess is random, but the important aspect here is to emphasize the method, not the result.): V – VOLUNTEERING VITALITY FaceBook does not have volunteers, it pays humans to work for them. Thus FaceBook is forced to make money (engage in trades) to pay these creatures. A – AUTOMATED AUTONOMY Let’s suppose that FaceBook is pretty automated: automated post filtering, processing of photos and content, server synchronizations, etc.. Basically if all workers in this company would disappear tomorrow, would FaceBook work? Probably, for a while. D – DIGITIZED DECENTRALIZATION It sure is digitized and it sure is not decentralized. O – OPENLY OPERATED FaceBook does have some of their code/parts of their service as Open Source. Hard to calculate how much but let’s assume 20%. It is definitely a closed environment/service. S – SELF SUSTAINABLE FaceBook is as self sustainable as its richness and at this point it’s a very rich company that will surely survive in this trade game for a while. However being centralized, closed in its operations, and dependent on paid workers, makes it not self- sustainable. Let’s assume a 50-50 just because FaceBook is so rich. E – EDUCATIONAL ETHOS FaceBook is no doubt trying to make a profit, and that’s its primary goal. Maybe they do want to also “connect the world” but based on what I know about FaceBook (from data collection to lies and manipulation strategies) I would give a slight 10% in educational ethos. A lot of RED flags there! Looking at V.A.D.O.S.E. and not knowing that service/good we are talking about, we could clearly deduce that this is a trade- based service/good. How does it compare with Mastodon, the other social network? V – VOLUNTEERING VITALITY Although Mastodon seems to have been created out of a volunteer basis, they do provide certain trades in return for monetary support such as access to their Discord to peek into their latest workflow or they provide mentions on their website for bigger donations (the bigger the donation the bigger the mention). (source) Although this does not prove that they do not rely on volunteers, it is a small RED FLAG that showcases how they provide benefits for those who donate money to them. Maybe in the distant future they will offer early access to the newest code for the donors, making the entire Mastodon a little trade-based for normal users with them having to trade- off the fact that they can’t access the early code like those with more money who decided to support Mastodon. This is a slippery slope indeed. Regardless, in general volunteers contribute to Mastodon. (source) A – AUTOMATED AUTONOMY Mastodon will probably work just like FaceBook in terms of “what happens if all humans working on it would disappear overnight”. D – DIGITIZED DECENTRALIZATION Here without a doubt Mastodon ranks as high as possible. Anyone can contribute to the code, anyone can copy the code and edit it and run their own version of Mastodon. O – OPENLY OPERATED And here as well! Everything Mastodon developers do is openly available for all to see. S – SELF SUSTAINABLE Mastodon relies on donations but it perhaps relies way more on volunteers to keep this project afloat, and thus it may rank somewhere around 80% on this chart. E – EDUCATIONAL ETHOS They do not seem to push any agenda. They simply want a decentralized social network for all! Now see these two services side by side: On one hand we can clearly deduce which one is more likely to be trade-free, on the other hand we can spot what the possible problems are with a trade-free service like Mastodon. Namely we see that it is not entirely volunteer based and maybe needs to be more automatized. But we also see a slightly significant RED FLAG in the self-sustainable area and that’s because this project still has to rely on monetary support. And this is problematic in the long run. MSF - Médecins Sans Frontières As I said it is extremely difficult to properly measure all of these health-check-points exactly, but that’s not important for what I am trying to showcase here. We need to see an overall overview of such organizations. For example MSF, due to its nature of relying on doctors or nurses to go to devastated places to help people, cannot be that automated. In a more “perfect” scenario we would have robots doing these tasks. But because they rely on volunteers so much (and not paid humans), it still makes this organization sustainable. In terms of decentralization, although they have a few chapters that operate independently, they are still limited to a few that manage the rest of them. Still, great! Looking at V.A.D.O.S.E., one way we could improve this organization is to make it more automated and autonomous with the use of technology like drones for delivering medicine, or on-site robot-doctors (like A.I. systems that can quickly provide medical assistance to a lot more people at once) – and if possible to make the assistance remote, and so forth. Plus if it would not rely on money anymore it would be a lot more self- sustainable. Will you guess this one? Let’s play the “Is it trade-free, or not?” game, based on V.A.D.O.S.E. - again some estimations could be wild. IS THIS TRADE-FREE? YES NO YES NO YES NO YES NO YES NO Now, to combine the “?” with “!” - you go out there into the world with these two tools on you. Go ahead, meet the world Kid! Test them! Ok, let’s do it! Framasoft Framasoft: Hi there! I offer you free software: video conference apps, document viewers, editors, file transfers, and so much more! Kid: W.A.I.T. - What Am I Trading? Framasoft: Nothing! Kid: Let me check...so it seems like you collect no data from me, you don’t want my attention, nor my money. That’s awesome. I do see that some of your services are only in French...this makes it a bit tricky for me since I only know English… Framasoft: Ah, yes, we are from France and we are trying to include more languages for everyone to be able to take advantage of our services. Sorry…. Kid: Ok, hearing that, I don’t see this as a trade, personally. If you let others get involved and translate it into their own languages and if you are saying that you do not have too many languages available because you lack resources, then I understand you! There doesn’t seem to be a “strange” motivation behind it, like not wanting to offer your service to foreigners. W.A.I.T. - No Trade! Now I am curious to apply V.A.D.O.S.E.! Let’s analyze! That’s what my brief research could find about Framasoft. They rely almost entirely on volunteers, they are fully open and others can contribute to the project and in that sense it makes them decentralized (as we’re talking about software). They still rely on donations (as it is the case with most projects in today’s Game of Trade) but the donations are from multiple contributors. They do sell stuff/merchandise but it seems to me that they do not rely on that for funding. And their Educational Ethos is to provide free software for people, which is awesome! Thus this is my way of confronting our enemy, TRADE. I take with me these 2 tools to both detect the trades (the monster- ghost :) ) but also to help improve these goods or services or see exactly where they fail to be trade-free. My shield and my sword! Kid: Are you TRADE free TROM Superhero? TROM: Heh, that’s a very interesting question. As I said, when it comes to trades I believe it’s best to focus on goods and services and not projects. But let’s think of me, TROM, as a service for people offering educational material to them. In that sense, I am providing a trade-free services. I ask nothing in return. No data, no currency, nothing. TROM relies on volunteers only, but it is not as automated because humans are still writing those books, making those videos, and so forth. But in terms of keeping tromsite.com alive the process is mostly automated. We are fully digitized and almost entirely decentralized in terms of our materials being available on all platforms, everywhere, for everyone. We are definitely fully Openly Operated and anyone has access to our stuff to share, edit and publish. In terms of sustainability, being underfunded makes us not that self- sustainable, but being so open and decentralized in regards to what we produce, our materials will never disappear and anyone can build upon them! Keep in mind though that we primarily care about trades. So, say a piece of software is closed source, but trade-free, then that is a much better alternative than Open Source and not trade-free. However, a piece of software that is trade-free is likely to also be Open Source, and in most cases it is a must in order to make sure it is trade-free. The opposite may not be true: a FOSS, Free and Open Source Software, can be free in terms of money (or not), can also collect data (or not), but has to be Open Source (that’s their main rule). This recipe is not helpful for us. If anything we would need TFOSS, Trade-Free Open Source Software. If a piece of software that monitors people’s hearts is FOSS, it can also cost money or data, or other trades, even though it is Open Source, but if it is TFOSS then we are sure that it is not a coercing piece of software. Also, if a particular organization offers trade-free food but has paid employees and is closely operated and centralized, then for us it should be ok since it is providing a trade-free service. Sure, it is not ideal and the V.A.D.O.S.E. in this case is on the RED, but in essence we should mainly care about trades or no- trades, regardless of how they are managed/obtained. That should be our priority. The rest, the details, are just the details to make sure that we push our society in the right direction and we have a healthy V.A.D.O.S.E. zone ;). My software is Free and Open Source, but I display ads into your face and collect your data. My software is closed source or not licensed, but I want no trade from you. We provide very cheap food and we are a Not-For Profit organization! We provide trade- free food and we are a company. My plan is to apply W.A.I.T. and V.A.D.O.S.E. to bring to light the trades of our world and make sure that people know where the problems are with a trade-free good or service, or why a good or a service is not trade-free and how we can transform it into one. I am working tirelessly to push this kind of thinking and these services (ideas and technology). Because the digital world is one that we can do something about more easily and with less resources, and it is a world that has everyday implications for anyone (as it’s where people learn, communicate, collaborate, create), then I, TROM Superhero, am starting to build the TROM-Land. The digital land that has implications in every “land”. Visit it. Enjoy it. Share it. Help with it. TROMLAND Let me turn on the lights for my last words that I want to address to you. Let me remind you for the last time: This idea of getting rid of trade by making it obsolete is brilliant because it does not promote a fixed system or one that tells people how they should behave, what they should do, and so forth. You cannot force a system upon people. You should not tell people that we need less violent games, or competitive sports, or that we should collaborate more and be more kind. These things never worked. Even the Open Source community does not deal (generally) with what the purpose of the Open Source software should be. An Open Source software that teaches you how to rape chickens is still Open Source. But due to its open nature, Open Source software grows collaborative communities that mostly create useful software. See, it’s that V.A.D.O.S.E. thing. You create a good soil mixture and good and healthy plants grow from them. Same with creating trade-free goods and services. Yes you could see a trade-free app that is pointless or damaging, but mostly you will see a spark of collaboration, openness, and useful goods and services emerging from this V.A.D.O.S.E. zone. Much like with Open Source. How can we create a better healthcare system? Eliminate trades! How can we create better movies? Eliminate trades! How can we create better food? Eliminate trades! How can we create a better transportation? Eliminate trades! How can we create a better Internet? Eliminate trades! How can we create better books? Eliminate trades! How can we create better software? Eliminate trades! ……… And that’s what TROM is trying to create! TROM is an antidote for Trade, like PureOS is for Proprietary-Software. Look at how many Linux flavors are out there They mutate, they evolve, they become something different, they die, others are born. As long as they keep the same aim at destroying the same enemy, they wil eventually achieve that or continue endlessly with the same goal ;) TROM is there somewhere in that infinite list, if there is such a list for combating trade, and that’s where my place should be! I am powerless alone, but strong together. People don’t have to follow me. They can create their own “Linux flavor”, meaning TROM-flavor, and spark new ideas in dealing with this enemy. To all superheroes out there who are fighting TRADE: People and organizations die, ideas survive. The better the idea, the better the chances for it to survive. The more scientific and realistic the idea, the more chances for it to have a real impact in the world. You might be alone and misunderstood, hungry and afraid, but if you fight it, you are a Superhero. The world may never know your name, nor should you seek for recognition I’d say, but your little actions may spark the essence of seed creation inside the minds of those who listen. And so, some may grow, if the nutrients are right. And so they may spread, if they become like you. Humanity is a long journey of many heads with many brains, and fixing our society will mean planting seeds in many of those brained-heads. TROM Superhero will die, but the idea behind it will survive. Through you, through them, through ages and regimes, if enough heads will carry it further. And to hope that the idea of me will cease to exist at the expense of a trade-free world, can only make me smile and feel like my journey on this planet was worth the ride. And if I shall not get to feel a trade-free world, then others might, and I’m alright! Pu Putting tting every everything into We started this journey a long time ago, so thing into per p spective erspective , so let’s see what we have learned. WE UNDERSTOOD: - We understood that the world is just a game. Ownership, money, coins, documents, social statuses, they are all human inventions. This alone should empower us to realize that change is possible, since it is a matter of neurons synchronizing with other neurons. - We understood therefore that our society is like a Monopoly game. Imaginary and unfair. And no rule can change the nature of the game, because it is the game itself that is at fault. We realized that the structure of this game, at its core, is TRADE. That’s all it boils down to! We called it GOT – Game of Trade. And this GOT environment makes people behave badly. - We understood in detail the GOT and we realized that it comes in many flavors: currencies or direct trades, data trade, influencer marketing, cryptocurrencies, social credits, and so forth. There are so many that it has become like an infectious disease. We created the Trade Bubble. We understood its force! Now, our enemy had a shape, a scent, a hiss. It was there. We could feel it. WE ACCEPTED: - We accepted that the closer someone is to the Trade Bubble (engaging in trades) the more CRAP (Common, Recurring, and Amplifying Problems) it will create. From organizations to space missions, from education to ideas, everything gets polluted when it gets closer to the Trade Bubble. Nothing escapes. - We accepted that promises made by those who get close, that they won’t fuck things up, are not holding true. They never work, the force is too strong! WE GOT READY: - We got ready for the fight when we understood the ACT – Abusers, Charlatans and Thieves. Many, but we know them now! - We got ready facing the two main creatures that emerge from the Trade Bubble: The Statopus and The Privatopus. With only a few tentacles they control the world. And they fart tribes and companies. Around 5 tribes and 175 companies control the entire world: from production to distribution. Entertainment, food, computers, software, gadgets, clothes, medicine, nature, everything! WE STARTED TO FIGHT: - We started to fight by understanding how not to fight. Laws and rules never solve problems. They will cripple and harm those who are harmless, and have almost no impact on those that they want to impact. The “bad” students of our world like the Mafia, Terrorist, Hacker, Cheater, and the like are bypassing any law out there because they are pushed by the same force of trade. No Statopus or Privatopus with their farts can stop them. - We started to fight a common enemy and understood that the only way to fight is to focus on the enemy. One enemy, multiple solutions! TROM’s plan is to equip people with a question mark and an exclamation mark. People have to detect the trades through them and create trade-free goods and services wherever possible, to both detect the enemy and make it obsolete. Our focus is on Macro-Trades and TROM is just one set of solutions amongst (hopefully) a lot of others who will fight with us to push for the metamorphosis of our Trade- Based Society into a TRADE-FREE SOCIETY. The GOT create and it creates t We need to move so no one acts lik tes the ACT, the CRAP. ove from GOT, s like that! W.A.I.T. for V r V.A.D.O.S.E. WWW.TROMSITE.COM support us

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