Adam Crowe

The Onion -- Mytron The Fifth, Illuminati Ruler And Secret Overlord Of All Humanity, Dead At 112

adamcrowe — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:54:18 PST

'Mytron the Fifth, Illuminati ruler and secret mastermind of the entire human race since the year 8449 on the world's true calendar, died yesterday in his subterranean bedchamber. He was 112. Mytron, who assumed clandestine dominion of the planet upon the sudden withering of Hemmonphanes the Ancient, was perhaps best known for engineering more than 200 wars, economic catastrophes, and famines, and for having psychokinetic control over the inner thoughts of every man, woman, and child on earth.'

Telegraph -- Hundreds more town hall staff to get police-style powers

adamcrowe — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:53:27 PST

'Almost 1,700 people, also including car park attendants and dog wardens, already have powers to hand out a string of fines and even take photographs of low level offenders under the Community Safety Accreditation Scheme. But the Government has quietly announced it plans to review the scheme with chief police officers to see how it can be expanded further. Under CSAS, a chief constable can give employees of local authorities or ###private companies### limited powers such as the right to hand out on-the-spot fines for offences including disorder, truancy and littering; stopping vehicles for roadside tests and confiscating alcohol. They have their own uniform and badge and can demand names and addresses as well as take photographs of offenders.' -- Under whose authority and under what law?

YouTube -- The Beast File: Google (HUNGRY BEAST)

adamcrowe — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:43:27 PST

'Meet Google. The noun that became a verb. The world's favourite search engine, and the company whose motto is "Don't be evil."'

Mises Institute -- The Scandinavian-Welfare Myth Revisited by Markus Bergstrom

adamcrowe — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:39:30 PST

'...no welfare-state debate is complete without bringing up the Scandinavian countries as the perfect example of massive statism bringing prosperity. Scandinavian countries are among the top 10 and 20 "most liberalized" economies in the world, even despite their massive welfare states. While the Scandinavian countries do tend to have higher taxes and government spending than most other European states, the other states tend to have more regulation and less efficient and transparent legal systems, which cancel out the positive effects of the lower taxes. This puts the Scandinavian countries on a level playing field with other developed countries and helps explain why they are able to have equal or higher living standards. The misconception that the other Western countries are a lot more free-market oriented than Scandinavia is very unfortunate; it feeds the notion that more government expansion would bring joy and happiness to all, when in fact it would make things worse.'

Telegraph Blogs -- Green pressure groups get €66 million from the EU

adamcrowe — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 06:36:38 PST

'Have you ever wondered why the eco-lobby is so pro-EU? Now you have your answer. Green pressure groups are becoming financially dependent on Brussels. Ten years ago, they received €2,337,924 from the European Commission; last year, it was €8,749,940. A study by the International Policy Network reveals the extent to which Green lobbyists look to the EU for their income: Climate Action Network, Friends of the Earth, WWF, they’re all at it. Much of this money, the paper shows, is then recycled into lobbying the EU. You see how the system works? The EU pays eco-lobbyists to tell it what it wants to hear. Its clients, naturally enough, tell it that the EU ought to increase its powers. A similar racket goes on between Brussels and the mega-charities.'

The Onion -- Global Warming Skeptics Growing In Numbers

adamcrowe — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 06:34:40 PST

'Since 2008, the number of people who don't believe in global warming has doubled to 16 percent. What do you think? -- Brian Fouts, Bid Assessor: "Probably most guys could just use another week or so to reconcile the inconsistencies of recent individual findings with the broader scientific consensus."'

YouTube -- Alex Jones TV: Max Keiser Details The Banking Cartels Financial Criminality in Pillaging Europe 4/5

adamcrowe — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 06:09:35 PST

Max: "The way Obama attacks healthcare is he looks at healthcare stocks and if they're going up he thinks he's doing a good job, and if they're going down, he thinks he's doing a bad job. Obama is a day trader. He looks at all the policies in front of him and he trades them. He's just nickel and diming trying to end the day with a few more bucks than he started with." -- CHANGE!!!

YouTube -- RussiaToday: Keiser Report #23: Markets! Finance! Scandal!

adamcrowe — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 06:06:13 PST

'Keiser speaks to investigative journalist, Greg Palast, about the RICO case against US bankers and politicians and about vulture funds preying on the Third and First world economies.' -- Palast: "It's a perfect racketeering case, but who's going to bring it? Are they going to bust themselves?"

Invoke – An ARG to Save The World Bank

adamcrowe — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:15:40 PST

‘Beware of white women who come bearing Nigerian proverbs.' – Nigerian proverb. -- To play, post a comment explaining your Nobel-Prize-winning idea for how the World Bank can successfully whitewash its international public image. Note: All of your ideas are valid, except any solution that suggests that the World Bank make online propaganda in the form of a game. They already did that – it’s called EVOKE! -- Our game INVOKES the guise of progressive social activism and community organising to promote pro-capitalist ideology. Its implicit message is that the problems of the world – including hunger, poverty, environmental destruction, injustice and disease – can and must be solved within the logic of the free market system.' -- Well it could, if it were actually free. +9000 internets for the parody and righteous anti-debt campaigning, -10000 burned-out braincells for the lack of economic understanding – which is precisely what enables these parasitic institutions to take hold.

Christy's Corner of the Universe -- Parody and Design

adamcrowe — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:13:11 PST

Righteous parody is righteous (Are we not yet sick of McGonigal's endless fixings of the world? Can has 'research' monies in return for *youth recruitment*, plox? Yes, Ms McGonigal, you rankle every possible suspicion when you're being funded by global government.) -- As many of you would be aware, the World Bank is behind a new online game called Evoke. A parody has been created. Invoke is described as an “ARG to save the World Bank”. The parody is a critique of the World Bank, capitalism, branded entertainment, ARGs, Jane McGonigal’s online games [and] the rhetoric of ‘games saving or changing the world’. This is something that Jane has been championing for years. The Invoke attack on branded entertainment is somewhat specific to the World Bank being behind this project.' -- The World Bank is not a 'brand', it's a non-voluntary, global government institution, specifically mandated with 'shock therapy' debt predation.

Mssv -- Can a Game Save the World?

adamcrowe — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:41:22 PST

'If we develop games that make people rely more and more on external recognition – on achievements and rewards and points – they will not be prepared for when things go badly. Every leader board has the worst player as well as a top player. The way to cope with reverses in life is by developing resilience against the caprices of the world; to determine and internally maintain a steady direction and sense of worth, and to remember past successes and recognition. Yet I fear that the games we are designing, focused on real-time things that other people have decided to measure and reward – will undermine rather than build that resilience. You can design a game that encourages resilience, although it wouldn’t work for everyone, and books and movies might work better for some people. But can you design a game that will save the world? No. The question is meaningless. It is people who save the world, each in their own way, through perspiration as well as inspiration. It is not always fun.'

The Last Psychiatrist -- Can Narcissism Be Cured?

adamcrowe — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:09:18 PST

'Of course you feel nothing. Why would you?—it's not your loss. What's wrong isn't your lack of feeling, but that you think you have to feel something, that you have to tell this woman, remind this woman, how horrible is her loss. You think the only way to connect with people is to have their emotions. You forget that she has a life that doesn't have you in it. What you should say is, "I'm very sorry to hear that. Is there anything I can do?" and that's it. But that feels insufficient. You think this because you think that there is something you can do, that the sadness is not real for you so it must not be real for her and you thus have the power to change it. She's not looking for you to be sad, she's not looking to you for anything, her loss is bigger than you. If she needs anything from you, it's sympathy, not empathy. But no one taught you this. So you fall back on the character "man helping grieving widow." Action!'

The Daily Bell -- Iceland to Europe: Drop Dead

adamcrowe — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:39:23 PST

'...we wish the citizens of Iceland would go further than voting against taking responsibility for British and Dutch debts. We would love to see Iceland's voters address the core of the problem. What's that? It is not free-banking but an obscenely irresponsible fiat-money system linked to a mercantilist private/public international banking cartel/network that enriches a handful of "controllers" while impoverishing hundreds of millions and even billions. Iceland would soon discover that they really didn't need the government for much if anything - not second rate schools, not roads that are built but not kept up, not health care that degrades, not misguided energy investments, certainly not overlarge policing and "security" forces or even a public court system and the resultant gulags it inevitably spawns. ...stripped of its current leftist government, stripped of any government at all, Iceland would be free to be the West's first true entrepreneurial state.' -- Do it!

Cracked.com -- 5 Creepy Ways Video Games Are Trying to Get You Addicted

adamcrowe — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:07:48 PST

'#3. Making You Press the Lever: The Chinese MMO ZT Online has the most devious implementation of [variable ratio rewards] I've ever seen. The game is full of these treasure chests that may or may not contain a random item and to open them, you need a key. How do you get the keys? Why, you buy them with real-world money, of course. Like coins in a slot machine. Wait, that's not the best part. ZT Online does something even the casinos never dreamed up: They award a special item at the end of the day to the player who opens the most chests. And that's hardly the most ridiculous aspect of the game. Now, in addition to the gambling element, you have thousands of players in competition with each other, to see who can be the most obsessive about opening the chests. One woman tells of how she spent her entire evening opening chests--over a thousand--to try to win the daily prize. She didn't. There was always someone else more obsessed. -- #2. Eliminating Stopping Points.'

Global Guerrillas -- NEW WAYS TO INCENTIVIZE WORK AND INNOVATION

adamcrowe — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 09:54:56 PST

Comment: tim302: 'Internally, there are a couple of issues [with MMOs]: #1. Drawbacks of tribal/fictive kinship relationships #2. Getting buy-in to tribal/fictive kinship relationships by typical western consumerist people. -- ...the level of invasiveness [in kinship societies] can be high since everyone is in your business. The running mental balance sheet [of grudges and obligations] is the thing that people in kinship/fictive kinship organizations use to know where they stand in relationship to others. The drawback is that the complexity of these relationships can become so great that people are afraid to do anything for fear of incurring a debt to someone else that can never be repaid. Any MMO based tribe is going to have to have a filtering system to filter out those who aren't interested in developing fictive-kinship relationships. More importantly, it should have a system to train your typical [consumerist] to understand and value the fictive-kinship based obligation system.'