Surveillance State: Stanford Researchers Use AI To Determine Neighborhood"s Bias By Its Cars

A team of researchers at Stanford University have trained artificial intelligence algorithms to observe and study millions of images on Google Street View to determine how people vote by the make of their car. The algorithms were trained to recognize the make, model, and year of every car produced since 1990, in more than 50 million Google Street View images across 200 American cities.

The data on car types and location were then compared against the most comprehensive demographic database in use today, the American Community Survey, and against presidential election voting data to estimate demographic factors such as race, education, income and voter preferences, the Stanford News reported.

Fei-Fei Li, an associate professor of computer science at Stanford and director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab, led the team of researchers who published the study on Tuesday in the official journal of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and found a “simple linear relationship” between cars, demographics and political persuasion.

Li is an expert in computer vision and deep learning, a form of artificial intelligence in which she teaches algorithms to “recognize three-dimensional objects in two-dimensional images”. The algorithms were trained, but more importantly, they became self-aware combing through millions of images on Google Street View in identifying the political preference of a citizen through the car they owned.

“Using easily obtainable visual data, we can learn so much about our communities, on par with some information that takes billions of dollars to obtain via census surveys. More importantly, this research opens up more possibilities of virtually continuous study of our society using sometimes cheaply available visual data,” Li said.

According to the study: "If the number of sedans in a neighborhood is greater than the number of pickups, there is an 88 percent chance that the precinct will vote Democratic. Transpose those numbers to have more pickups than sedans and there is an 82 percent chance a precinct will vote Republican.  

The algorithms worked day and night for two weeks and were able to probe through 50 million images creating 2,657 categories by make, model, and year. Standford News said that “a human working at a relatively high rate of six images a minute would need 15 years to complete the same task”.

Researchers believe their algorithm could be an inexpensive real time solution to the more costly demographic surveys. For example, the American Community Survey costs the U.S. more than $250 million per year a lag time between data collection and publication that could span 2-years. Li’s algorithm is a hopeful to replace the current surveys.

Not so fast, however said Timnit Gebru, first author of the paper and formerly a member of Li’s lab, who does not “see something like this replacing the American Community Survey, but as a supplement to keep the data up to date.” Gebru has high hopes for the technology of extracting critical information in the world around us on inexpensive platforms such as Google Street View.

“If you walk around a neighborhood looking at cars, the density of traffic sometimes tells you things as valuable as the types of cars you see on the streets. We can use all this information in our algorithms,” Gebru said. Li agreed, counterting that “It can help us understand how our society works, the things people need and how we can improve lives,” Li said. “There is great potential to use computer vision technology in a constructive and benevolent way.”

And while AI algos at an elite academic institution are mapping out the political preferences of each American by location, with what one hopes are ultimately benign intentions, one wonders what would happen if the data fell into the wrong hands, or if - gasp - the "election manipulating" Russians were to do a similar analysis using entirely publicly available data? Would America"s next president be an organgutan?

Why Superintelligent AI Could Be The Last Human Invention

Via ValueWalk.com,

When we create something more intelligent than we could ever be, what happens after that? We have to teach it.

MAX TEGMARK: Hollywood movies make people worry about the wrong things in terms of super intelligence. What we should really worry about is not malice but competence, where we have machines that are smarter than us whose goals just aren’t aligned with ours. For example, I don’t hate ants, I don’t go out of my way to stomp an ant if I see one on the sidewalk, but if I’m in charge of this hydroelectric dam construction and just as I’m going to flood this valley with water I see an ant hill there, tough luck for the ants. Their goals weren’t aligned with mine and because I’m smarter it’s going to be my goals, not the ant’s goals, that get fulfilled. We never want to put humanity in the role of those ants.

On the other hand it doesn’t have to be bad if you solve the goal alignment problem. Little babies tend to be in a household surrounded by human level intelligence as they’re smarter than the babies, namely their parents. And that works out fine because the goals of the parents are wonderfully aligned with the goals of the child’s so it’s all good. And this is one vision that a lot of AI researchers have, the friendly AI vision that we will succeed in not just making machines that are smarter than us, but also machines that then learn, adopt and retain our goals as they get ever smarter.

It might sound easy to get machines to learn, adopt and retain our goals, but these are all very tough problems. First of all, if you take a self-driving taxi and tell it in the future to take you to the airport as fast as possible and then you get there covered in vomit and chased by helicopters and you say, “No, no, no! That’s not what I wanted!” and it replies, “That is exactly what you asked for,” then you’ve appreciated how hard it is to get a machine to understand your goals, your actual goals.

A human cabdriver would have realized that you also had other goals that were unstated because she was also a human and has all this shared reference frame, but a machine doesn’t have that unless we explicitly teach it that. And then once the machine understands our goals there’s a separate problem of getting them to adopt the goals. Anyone who has had kids knows how big the difference is between making the kids understand what you want and actually adopt your goals to do what you want.

And finally, even if you can get your kids to adopt your goals that doesn’t mean they’re going to retain them for life. My kids are a lot less excited about Lego now than they were when they were little, and we don’t want machines as they get ever-smarter to gradually change their goals away from being excited about protecting us and thinking of this thing about taking care of humanity as this little childhood thing (like Legos) that they get bored with eventually.

If we can solve all three of these challenges, getting machines to understand our goals, adopt them and retain them then we can create an awesome future. Because everything I love about civilization is a product of intelligence. Then if we can use machines to amplify our intelligence then we have this potential to solve all the problems that are stumping us today and create a better future than we even dare to dream of.

If machines ever surpass us and can outsmart us at all tasks that’s going to be a really big deal because intelligence is power.

The reason that we humans have more power on this planet than tigers is not because we have larger muscles or sharper claws, it’s because we’re smarter than the tigers. And in the exact same way if machines are smarter than us it becomes perfectly plausible for them to control us and become the rulers of this planet and beyond.

When I. J. Good made this famous analysis of how you could get an intelligence explosion, or intelligence just kept creating greater and greater intelligence leaving us far behind, he also mentioned that this super intelligence would be the last invention that man need ever make. And what he meant by that, of course, was that so far the most intelligent being on this planet that’s been doing all the inventing - it’s been us.

But once we make machines that are better than us at inventing, all future technology that we ever need can be created by those machines if we can make sure that they do things for us that we want and help us create an awesome future where humanity can flourish like never before.

The Future Of Artificial Intelligence (According To Pop Culture)

The unpredictable nature of super-intelligent, self-improving machines lends itself quite nicely to the dramatic storylines of movies and books.

It’s a science fiction writer’s dream - as Visual Capitalist"s Jeff Desjardins warns: if AI becomes smart enough to create more advanced versions of itself, pretty much every outcome is on the table. Machines could empower humanity to become enlightened and virtuous. On the less optimistic side? Machines could instead ruthlessly enslave all of humankind to tickle their own warped sense of satisfaction.

POP CULTURE PERSPECTIVES

From the plot of movies like The Terminator to The Matrix, pop culture offers up innumerable examples of what could happen from the rise of the machines – and most of them, as you can imagine, steer towards the less optimistic side of the spectrum.

Today’s infographic from BBC Future provides an entertaining take on these scenarios, organized by potential likelihood.

Some experts see AI having a $15.7 trillion impact on our economy, but pop culture offers up a slightly different perspective of what the future may hold.

FUTURE AI SCENARIOS

Here are just some of the scenarios offered up in mainstream movies, books, and television shows. Some are apocalyptic and dystopian, and some seem just plain bizarre:

Seductive Siris: In 2013’s Her, Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with an intelligent operating system named Samantha.

Self-Replicating AI: In 1995’s Screamers, scientists create a self-replicating weapon with one purpose: to destroy all life.

The Singularity: AI vies to take over the world in 1982’s classic Tron.

Rampaging Robots: In 1973’s Westworld, recently re-envisioned as a different TV series by HBO, murderous androids go on a killing spree in a futuristic Disney-style theme park.

Feeling Machines: In the 1999 movie Bicentennial Man, a household robot experiences emotions, creative thoughts, and eventually develops sentience.

Androids Among Us: Artificial beings infiltrate society undetected in TV series Battlestar Galactica.

Human Enslavement: In the 1999 movie The Matrix, all life on Earth is an elaborate facade. The robots are really the ones in command, but you wouldn’t know it until you take the “red pill”.

Mind Upload: Digitized humans gain immortality and then wreak havoc, such as in 2014’s Transcendence.

ONE CERTAINTY

While some of these ideas seem far-fetched, it’s worth noting that not all future scenarios are as distant as they may seem.

With computing power increasing exponentially, the tail end of the hockey stick could happen sooner than we may think.

SkyNet is Sentient and Will Destroy Your Investments and Pension

SkyNet is Sentient and Will Destroy Your Investments and Pension

By

Cognitive Dissonance

https://www.patreon.com/CognitiveDissonance

http://twoicefloes.com/

Do you really want to know about how SkyNet controls your investments and pension via the various financial markets? I ask with all sincerity because the subject is not pleasant and may even be frightening to those who have followed a strict diet of financial ignorance.

Once you know, it is nearly impossible to un-know. And just as there is never only one weed in the garden, knowing this inevitably leads to a critical juncture where one must then decide if they wish to know more or simply curl up in the fetal position on the bathroom floor.  

You see, when “We the Mindless Minions” (desperately) wish to avoid responsibility for knowing, while the specific tactics used may vary greatly, the theme remains pretty consistent. I call it the Sgt. Schultz defense.

“I know nothing, I see nothing and I was never here.”

A variation of the theme, usually employed when among others, thus we cannot claim total ignorance about the uncomfortable subject presently being discussed, is brilliant in its ability to disavow responsibility while passing the buck to someone (anyone) at a higher pay grade.

“They would never let that happen/do that,” or the always reassuring “I’m sure someone’s looking into that as we speak.” Now how about those (fill in this blank with any sport, celebrity, politician, TV show or viral cat video).

Disavowing knowledge or responsibility, passing the buck and then changing the subject is the time tested way to live in blissful ignorance. Or as I have grown fond of saying, unconscious incompetence with a heaping side order of willful ignorance. 

By the way, if you have never come across that phrase, let me give you the crib notes with a little Donald Rumsfeld thrown in for good measure. There is unconscious incompetence. I do not know that I do not know. There is conscious incompetence. I know I do not know and I’m trying like hell to get up to speed and improve.

Then there is conscious competence, where I have fully embodied my incompetence and have turned it around by mindfulness and constant personal work. Finally there is unconscious competence, where I have reached a point where it all just comes naturally, with little thought given to actually doing what by now is simply a natural part of my self.

It should be noted with great emphasis these four steps are speaking to spiritual growth and evolution, not scientific, political or mathematical knowledge. Though it should also be noted those of us firmly enmeshed within the Imperial culture dwell strictly at the first level of unconscious incompetence. Any accidental glimpse of our actual ‘self’ is quickly suppressed and forgotten. Beware, for there be dragons.

Viral cat videos, conversing with your lover next to you in bed via text and narcissistic selfies are just a few examples of unconscious incompetence. Let your imagination be your guide while compiling your own personal list.

So, with this information firmly in hand, do you really wish to know how SkyNet is controlling your investments and pension?

Below this piece are links to two articles written by Doug Kass, a financial professional MANY pay grades above me. He explains in reasonably plain English what this potential problem is about.

Just in case your ADHD has suddenly flared up, or your hands are shaking at  the thought of reading his (shorter than mine) missives, let me give you the down and dirty. While the financial mainstream media likes to promote the illusion actual humans are in charge as they control the financial markets, helped along with images of human traders shouting into phones or scribbling on a pad of paper, reality is quite different.

These days over 60% of actual ‘trading’, meaning buying and selling of stocks, bonds and derivatives, is executed by (thinking) machines aka computers. And no, I’m not talking about that sleek looking desktop box or fancy laptop you bought from Dell last year.

This means less than 40% of all trading is actually done by thinking humans using real world judgment and expertise. And that percentage is rapidly diminishing on a daily basis. I suspect in a few years it will be down to less than 20%.

The thing about computers is they are fast and efficient. And the ultimate in unconscious incompetence, since they have (at least for now) no spiritual presence, let alone common sense or fear of high places from which they could fall. Such as an extremely overbought stock and bond market at all time highs; markets which have completely divorced themselves from fundamental financial logic and reason.

Greed runs riot in the towers of Wall Street. Or to be more accurate, in mainframe computers tucked away in nondescript industrial parks in New Jersey, Chicago, Texas or wherever.

But the computers are not the problem here, or at least not the primary problem. That’s because computers are essentially expensive boat anchors unless instructed on what and how to do something. This requires an operating system and software, similar to the operating system and programs on your Windows, Linux or Apple computer.

Ok, somewhat similar. Maybe! Well, actually not. But we’re getting to that.

Software is (usually) dumb as a rock and entirely dependent upon the genius of the creator(s) of that software. While a computer may be millions of times faster than a human, it is only as smart as the human who programs it.

Unless………

It"s not just a science fiction movie anymore.

Popular media introduced us to the concept of Artificial Intelligence (AI) decades ago via science fiction in book and movie form. Everyone over a certain age remembers HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey, where HAL the AI computer begins making ‘mistakes’ and decisions that are at times contrary to the wellbeing of the humans on board the spaceship. The Terminator series of movies is another example of AI run riot; in this case the AI was a group of networked computers called SkyNet.

While the concept was/is always quickly dismissed as highly improbable, if not outright impossible, it no longer is impossible, at least when it comes to trading the financial markets.

In an effort to increase the efficiency of trading computers (read that as make them more PROFITABLE) computer scientists and programmers have infused the computers with increasingly sophisticated AI software. Meaning these computers can now learn very quickly on their own.

Most people are not aware that professional human traders using extremely sophisticated trading strategies and tools (aka financial derivatives) can make a boat load of money regardless of whether the market is going up or down. While you are encouraged to stay in the market regardless of what’s happening, the professionals are leveraging your passive position into money in their bank. So be it. That is the confidence game the markets have always been.

Now here’s the kicker.

The individuals and institutions with financial dogs in this fight, along with a (very LARGE) paycheck to maintain, will assure all who ask if these trading programs are safe. “Yup, no problem, we can turn HAL off anytime we want. See, here is the panic button right here. And if all else fails, here are some grenades and a flame thrower.”

However, frank discussions with actual computer scientists who create AI software for a living reveal a slightly (ok, very) different assurance.

Popular myth informs us ALL computers are simply fast humans. Whatever a human can do, a computer can do much faster. And that may be the case for 99.9999% of the computers out there. But this is NOT the case with AI computers.

Once the AI computer is turned on and the software begins to ‘learn’, no one knows exactly what it is doing or why. And the longer it learns, the more it can and will deviate from its own original programming.

Anyone who says otherwise is either lying directly to your face or demonstrating their glaringly obvious unconscious incompetent.

Or both.

The AI trading software has one prime directive. Make money, lots of money. Or as my lovely bride likes to say, a crap ton of money. It does this mostly by making tiny (profitable) trades tens of thousands of times per second.

That is not a typo. I said per ‘second’.

All the financial markets are currently awash in oceans of liquidity. Meaning nearly free money is handed by the Federal Reserve (and other central banks) to all those warm and cuddly too-big-to-fail banks and their partner institutions and companies to do with as they please. They in turn got their friends in Congress to OK rigging the market with their AI computers so they can’t lose.

There are banks and trading institutions out there that have not had a single losing day trading the market in years.

Y E A R S!

If you never lose money when trading the markets, obviously the markets are rigged in your favor. But it’s all ‘legal’ so what’s the problem. Heads they win, tails you lose. It just doesn’t get any better than this.

The easiest way for the machines to make money is to push the market up. But when the tide turns, and it always eventually turns, the machines will shift to making money on the way down with the same speed and zeal they apply to the ‘up’ market.

Only ‘down’ markets tend to breed panic in the humans. When selling really ramps up, market conditions move very rapidly and markets can drop many percentage points in seconds, especially when you have machines making tens of thousands of trades a second and you have thousands of machines all doing this at the same time.

Can you say “Express elevator to the basement?”

The somewhat uncomfortable euphemism coined for this phenomenon by market participants down in the pits and up in the peanut gallery is “Flash Crash”. You may even remember the 2010 Flash Crash, where markets dropped like a rock (“collapsed” is the technical term) then quickly rebounded to regain most (but not all) of the loss, all in under 40 minutes.  

While this hiccup was eventually blamed on one individual, a so-called rogue trader, we must fully understand the markets are a con game, a Ponzi scheme. And the only way they can continue to bleed the suckers dry is to maintain confidence in the game. Thus those who ‘regulate’ the game will not destroy confidence in the game by telling the truth.

It simply won’t happen!

Supposedly this ‘problem’ was fixed shortly after the crash and all was right in the world again. But over the ensuing years mini flash crashes have been showing up first in small illiquid stocks, then larger blue chip stocks and recently in the US Treasury market, the largest, most liquid and stable market in the world.

And while the people who own these (rip off) machines claim all is well, those who appear to being channeling a bit of their conscious incompetence (meaning they are breaking from their Imperial conditioning) are sounding the alarm bells.

Loudly, as in air horns at 2 paces.

My mother imbued in me some wisdom, life lessons I eventually embraced after resisting them for as long as I could. The really good ones were always short and sweet.  Just because everyone else is doing something doesn’t mean you should. And if something is good, more is not always gooder…or better as the case may be. In fact it rarely is.

These were tough pills to swallow for an impatient young boy with a severely underdeveloped impulse control. But it’s one thing for a seven year old to become violently sick from excessive indulgence in candy bars (10 to be exact) and another for a relatively few men and women to set loose ‘thinking machines’ they do not actually control upon markets that are already long overdue for a correction and therefore extremely fragile.

But alas, we are dutifully assured by various financial high priests and powerful fiat wizards that capital markets are efficient and highly regulated. Worst case scenario, we can mosey on over to Mabel the thinking machine and pull her plug. Problem solved.

Lies. Damn lies in fact.

Unfortunately. No, let me try that again. UNFORTUNATELY the problem is even worse than outlined, if that’s even possible. IF the world’s governments weren’t spending money like drunken sailors and IF the world’s central banks weren’t printing money out of thin air like mad hatters and IF personal, corporate and governmental debt wasn’t well past the point of ever being paid back and IF public and private pensions weren’t severely underfunded despite an all time high bond and stock market and IF student loan debt default rates weren’t at 30% and rising and IF the US wasn’t going full police state and IF….well, you get the picture.

IF all these (and more) detrimental socioeconomic conditions weren’t present, then MAYBE SkyNet becoming sentient MIGHT be a recoverable event.

The ONLY reason you accept these pieces of paper in exchange for your labor (work) is because you have faith and belief they will be accepted by the business down the street in exchange for their goods and services.

What happens when one of you no longer believes that? What would it take for you to no longer believe that?

That which is unsustainable cannot and will not be sustained. Something has to give. The longer the unsustainable is forced to sustain, the greater the damage when it all comes crashing back down to terra firma.

If you are a student of history, eventually you come to realize events large and small tend to cycle in and out on a reasonably predictable time frame. Huge financial catastrophes appear to occur in 80 to 90 year cycles, though this timing isn’t hard and fast. And it is often regional rather than global, such as northern or southern hemisphere, eastern or western cultures etc.

What is evident to me is these huge socioeconomic disasters follow the life cycle of humans, meaning the insanity ramps up precisely when the generation affected by the last collapse has just about died off from the face of the Earth.

The last socioeconomic implosion, the Great Depression followed closely by World War Two, has now essentially completely disappeared from living human and institutional memory. All that remains are chapters in history books and the following generation (that’s me) who vaguely remembers grandma and pa talking about those terrible times.

In the minds of we mere mortals, distance and time tend to greatly diminish the concept of risk. When those parameters extend beyond our living memory, we can easily convince ourselves and others we have progressed mightily since those ancient times and the warnings from the grave are meaningless and not applicable.

This is precisely what the high priests, financial wizards and every conflicted soul who benefits from the financial insanity are telling us today. Ignore that man behind the curtain (or in the grave) for I am the mighty and powerful Wizard of Oz.

One final thought. The financial crash in 2000-2001 was a loss of confidence in individual companies and/or a sector of companies. That market crash is most remembered as the tech wreck, where technology companies got way over their skies and needed to be rescued or allowed to fail. The banks did the heavy work in bringing the confidence game back from the grave.

But in 2008-2009, the banks themselves got in way over their heads. And this time the Federal Reserve and the US Government, along with every other major global central bank and government, came to the rescue, bailing OUT the too-big-to-fail banks at the expense of the taxpayer. This abomination was later extended to savage the savers with interest rates pegged at near zero in order to guarantee the banks a solid profit.

After all, the bank executives, traders and upper level management must be fairly compensated for all the financial death and destruction they have wrought. It’s hard work destroying hearth and home for crying out loud. To expect anything different would be un-American.

When the next financial crisis hits, it will be the central banks and governments who will suffer a crisis of confidence. Because this time it will be a currency crisis once everyone realizes the money is backed by nothing more than thin air. And they’ve been printing a LOT of thin air over the last ten years.

So exactly who will come to the rescue of the various global governments? Yup, you and me, that’s who. And we won’t be given any choice in the matter. Suddenly the rapid expansion of the police state makes more sense when seen from this perspective.

We will witness our (large) bank deposits, along with stocks, bonds and other ‘securities’ vaporize as “We the Morons” are bailed IN, not out. Our money will be confiscated and swapped for bank equity, government bonds or some new type of fake fiat in order to protect us from the disaster they created. Sounds like the perfect mafia protection scam to me.

The rules, regulations and laws enabling all of this to happen have already been passed in all the first and second world countries, including the USA.

What’s that? You never read about this in the newspaper or saw anything about this on the boob tube ‘news’ shows?

I wonder why that is?

So when do the fireworks start? To be perfectly frank I haven’t the foggiest idea. There’s an old saying on Wall Street. The markets can remain irrational far longer than you can remain solvent. The farce could continue for the next six weeks, six months or six years. And it might even last longer.

But remember this. All confidence games are pretty solid right up until confidence is lost. When that happens, the rush of escaping air reaches hurricane force in an instant and all exit doors suddenly slam shut. We peons will be the last to know when the jig is up; therefore there will be no exit for us.

The markets will be shut, the banks closed and all trading ceased before the public is told there is a serious problem. Usually this occurs over the weekend and these institutions simply don’t reopen on Monday. Your money will be frozen in place and completely inaccessible. Sure, the relative small dollar amounts in checking and savings accounts might remain available. But the big chunks will be locked away under ‘capital control’ decrees.

Suddenly it will be a brave new world, one completely alien to us. Righteous indignation will quickly follow shock and awe. Then the panic begins. It’s happened before and it will happen again. Most people don’t know the USA has defaulted on its financial obligations several times in its past. So has every other old world country. It’s not a matter of if, but when.

All fiat currencies fail simply because there is nothing backing a fiat currency but pure faith and belief, since anything of substance was long ago looted. It eventually becomes a pure confidence game once the collusion between the elites, the financial interests and the government escalates to the point where there’s no turning back.

We are well past that point at this time.

The choice is simple. Either be a victim (whocouldanode) or break from the herd and prepare for the inevitable.

The articles linked below explain the AI issue much better than I can, though I have added a great deal of background and opinion in this piece for clarity. Or hilarity is you so wish. I urge you to read both of them.

Go ahead. What do you have to lose, except possibly your investments and pension?

06-18-2017

Cognitive Dissonance

Like Something Out of "The Twilight Zone," This Market Is About the Machines

Doug Kass: Not Even The Algo Creators Know What Is Going On

Our old way of life, of excess consumption, is ending. What cannot be sustained will not be sustained. We have two choices. Have change thrust upon us or change on our own terms in advance of the wave.

The Fake News of Fakebook: Welcome to the Machine

Sometimes we need to take a step back and gain some perspective.  As we explain in our book Splitting Pennies - the world isn"t always as it seems at first glance.  What"s happening now, is much a result of what was planned and started 50, 60, and 70 years ago by a previous generation.  Modern history and especially regarding USA really should be looked at since @ 1950, at the wind up of World War 2.  And, the most significant element in global society, is quite possibly the first form of Artificial Intelligence: The Machine.  The Machine, as referenced by Eisenhower on his farewell address as the "Military Industrial Complex" and later referenced by Pink Floyd as simply "The Machine" - is a form of AI that is very dangerous for the survival of mankind itself, let alone the waste of economic resources and others.  Economically, looking at the military, it would seem that there really is an Alien conspiracy controlling powerful countries because the Military only destroys, it doesn"t create.

This battle between The Machine and "The People" you can say took hold in America in the 50"s and peaked in the 60"s during the civil rights movement.  Sides were formed, society was polarized.  Common interests aligned themselves.  Big business sided with The Machine as they saw new opportunities for profit and consumer control.  It"s important to have this perspective; often we write about the CIA, about the big banks, they are all cogs in a larger entity "The Machine" which has an intelligence of its own.  It is not a complex intelligence, such as developed recently in computing - but nonetheless, as any intelligence is defined, it is a form of artificial intelligence.  It has a simple goal - expand, survive, grow, evolve.  Human collatoral damage, is irrelevant.  Destruction of society, destroying the planet, doesn"t matter to the survival of The Machine.  War profiteers are like hosts to a virus, that perpetuate its operations.

Of course, the best example of one of the many parts of The Machine is the CIA, but it is not the only one, nor the most significant part of the machine.  Hosts to this virus like the forces behind Black Lives Matter, and other social destructive forces, are possibly even more significant, due to the fact that they are "on the front lines" stopping any change or taming The Machine.  The best explanation academically and intellectually is provided by Noam Chomsky, you can checkout his latest book here and see trailer from recent documentary below:

The Machine is now in it"s 3rd or 4th generation depending on how you calculate but in any regard, the current agents working for The Machine clearly don"t even understand their own jobs, they are just mindless government workers raised on a violent culture programmed by Quentin Tarantino, like the Rick Perry that didn"t know what his job would be, that he accepted.  The government has become so bloated and inefficient, 90% of it could be deleted and we"d still function fine.  But remember, the Government is no longer "for the people" it"s "for The Machine".  It"s unfair to say that specific people, or specific groups, are the sole cause of America"s decline - it"s not Globalists, it"s not "offshoring" - it"s a lot more complex than that and frankly, USA is irrelevant too for The Machine.  It just so happens that the USA has had and does have the most funded, technologically advanced military in the world.  It"s just strategic positioning.  America isn"t the most powerful country in the world because of "freedoms" or "ideals" it was simply a geo-strategic advantage during World War 2, on a number of levels, that enabled Superpower status, and the creation of The Machine which now operates on a global level.

Fakebook is the new "tool" of social control.  During the 60"s, 70"s, and 80"s the CIA popularized street drugs in order to control and quell the population, as well as various diseases (AIDS) and more modern methods (Chemtrails) and other tools.  Fakebook is the current "drug" of the era - what will be next?  We can get a glimpse at Darpa.

This is what TRUMP is up against.  And while politically, he"s a nobody, a rogue from the "forest" who as Gingrich said "Didn"t go to the same schools, isn"t part of a secret society;" in the final analysis, TRUMP is still part of The Machine, although a failed one - relying on his persona as a reality star to build his "brand."  Maybe this is why the common man can relate to TRUMP so well, he"s also been spit out by The Machine in different ways, in business - except he did it while part of the "haves" and not the "have nots" - probably TRUMP doesn"t know what he"s up against in the coming days and weeks ahead.  We must remember especially regarding the mindless zombies that burn down bank of america branches and McDonalds drive throughs, what is at stake for bettering the lives of all Americans is not political, it is not about liberals and their idiocy - The Machine is something far greater, it is employed by both parties, Democrat and Republican - Rich and Poor.  These are the dividing lines the Elite do not want you to understand!  As long as blacks are fighting whites, women are fighting men, homosexuals are fighting heterosexuals - the divide and conquer plan of the Elite is easy to implement.

This generation"s war for the machine is being fought in the battlefield called "social media" - and the platform hosting the Fake News - Fakebook.

Welcome my son, welcome to the machine
Where have you been?
It"s alright we know where you"ve been
You"ve been in the pipeline, filling in time
Provided with toys and "scouting for boys"
You brought a guitar to punish your ma
And you didn"t like school, and you
Know you"re nobody"s fool
So welcome to the machine

Welcome my son, welcome to the machine
What did you dream?
It"s alright we told you what to dream
You dreamed of a big star
He played a mean guitar
He always ate in the Steak Bar
He loved to drive in his Jaguar
So welcome to the machine

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