Category Archives: Transhuman News

Rutgers made history once again on Wednesday night with a program record fourth consecutive win over a ranked foe. The Scarlet Knights also became the the first unranked team all-time to play four straight regular season games against AP-ranked opponents and beat all of them.

The gauntlet that was the February schedule has been handled to perfection by the Scarlet Knights. It was capped off with a 70-59 victory over No. 12 Illinois at Jersey Mikes Arena in Piscataway.

They have reached double-digit victories in the Big Ten for the third straight season and are now on solid ground to return to the NCAA Tournament for a second consecutive year.

Ron Harper Jr. led Rutgers with 16 points and 8 rebounds while Cliff Omoruyi went toe-to-toe with one of the best centers in the nation in Kofi Cockburn from the opening minutes. He logged 15 points and 13 rebounds. Harper Jr. would leave the game late with a left hand injury and its unclear the severity of it.

It was clear that Kofi Cockburn was going to get his for Illinois (18-7, 11-4) but the Illini struggled outside of their big man. Cockburn finished with 20 points on 8-for-14 from the field but the rest of the team was just 14-for-44.

Rutgers (16-9, 10-5) jumped out to a double-digit lead just six minutes into the game after yet another strong start. It got as high as 11 in the first half before heading into the locker room with a 33-24 lead. The Scarlet Knights used a 10-1 run early in the second half to break the game open and go up 19.

The Scarlet Knights were up by as much as 21 in the second half but the No. 12 team in the nation had one more run in them. The Illini used turnovers and some late three-pointers to keep their head above water but the lead did not get within nine.

If there was a knock on Rutgers on Wednesday night, it was that they turned the ball over 13 times. Aside from that, Steve Pikiells squad continued to defend at a high level and that was the difference. Against one of the best rebounding teams in the Big Ten, Rutgers was +18 on the boards (46-28).

Rutgers shot 47% from the field and went 9-for-14 from the free throw line, including three from Geo Baker down the stretch. Paul Mulcahy continues to shine adding 13 points and 7 more assists.

The schedule remains difficult for Rutgers as it prepares to take on No. 5 Purdue in West Lafayette before a trip to Michigan and a rematch with Wisconsin. After these last two weeks, looks more manageable in a way it never did before.

Not only was this the fourth consecutive victory against a ranked opponent for Rutgers. It was not only the biggest home game in the Pikiell era or needle moving win to the big dance. This was the cap on what has been the best month of basketball in program history for the Scarlet Knights.

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Rutgers stuns No. 12 Illinois with 70-59 win - On The Banks

Sen. Rand Paul said he wants to force a vote on his legislation to end mask mandates on airplanes because he's tired of being "treated like crap" as a passenger and he wants to eat his peanuts in peace.

"It's a joke, it's theater, and there's no reason to be wearing them on the planes," the senator from Kentucky said on Newsmax. "We are just punishing ourselves. And I for one, I'm tired of paying the airlines to be treated like crap when I get on the plane."

Paul, a physician and senior member of the Senate Health, Education and Labor Committee, said he wants to be treated "like a paying customer."

"And I want them to bring me at least a glass of water and peanuts and I don't want somebody jammering at me to put my mask on in between peanuts," he added during the Tuesday interview.

Airline passengers are required to wear masks in airports and on airlines as a precaution against COVID-19. In July, Paul introduced legislation to prohibit the imposition of mask mandates on public transportation to "put a stop to this nanny state mandate" and saying then that "we've already reached herd immunity."

Republicans are fighting efforts to create a "no fly" list for unruly passengers. In a Monday letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, eight Republican senators wrote that most infractions on airplanes are related to mask mandates and creating a no-fly list for them would "seemingly equate them to terrorists."

"We've been punched, kicked, spit on, and sexually assaulted," she said in a statement. "This puts everyone at risk and disrupts the safety of flight, which is never acceptable and every single one of the Senators who signed this letter knows full well what is at stake if we leave a gap in aviation safety and security."

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Sen. Rand Paul is tired of being treated like crap on planes and wants an end to mask mandates - Business Insider Africa

Paul Dunkelman stepped into the role of chief judge as an interim position after former Chief Judge Mark Thompson was placed on administrative leave in October. Now that Dunkelman has officially been named to the position for the 5th Judicial District hes ready to continue leading the district in providing equitable access to justice so community members have confidence in their legal system.

Dunkelman got his start in the legal field when he attended Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, where he earned a bachelors in economics and political science. He officially made the jump to Colorado when he earned his Juris Doctor from Sturm College of Law at the University of Denver in 1993.

Shortly thereafter, Dunkelman moved to Frisco where he opened a practice with two other attorneys, Ron and Judy Carlson. During this time, the trio practiced criminal law, domestic relations and civil law. The firm, named Carlson, Carlson & Dunkelman, LLC, was where Dunkelman said he first experienced the true reward of working in this field.

I (think) most of the cases we handle are good people going through the worst time in their lives, and when you help them through that, at the end of the that, (whether) they say thank you, dont say thank you, thats not the issue, but they sort of appreciate and understand that you helped them through the most difficult time in their life, he said.

Dunkelman said this feedback, whether positive of negative, is something that sticks with him long into the future. One such comment occurred after he had been appointed district court judge in 2013. Dunkelman said shortly after being appointed as a judge, he was overseeing a divorce case that was emotional and stressful to each party.

I thought Id explained the process well to them, I thought they understood the process After I made my ruling, the wife asked me when she got her chance to explain her side of the story, Dunkelman said. It didnt affect the ruling, the issues were limited, but it affected her confidence in my decision that she didnt think she was heard, and it was upsetting to me and really eye opening to me.

There are others Dunkelman said hes had the chance to learn from, including his former partners, Ron and Judy Carlson; former District Court Judge David Lass; and Summit County Court Judge Edward Casias.

Michael Pisciotta, court executive for the 5th Judicial District, has worked with Dunkelman for seven years. Pisciotta noted one example of Dunkelmans character from his time as a district court judge. During the pandemic, many courts put their dockets on hold, but there was one high-profile murder case Dunkelman oversaw where he took extra measures and precautions so the trial could move forward safely and efficiently. For this work, Dunkelman was selected the Colorado Judicial Institutes district court judge of the year in 2021.

In my seven years, we hadnt had a 5th District judge that had received that type of an award and it was very well deserved because he was courageous enough to move forward and smart enough and wise enough to implement as many precautions as we could to protect the public, Pisciotta said.

Though Dunkelman stepped into the role of chief judge at a difficult time for the court, he said the role of chief judge was already on his radar and something he was interested in pursuing. As chief judge, he is still responsible for a full docket, but now his role is to oversee the administration of the 5th Judicial District, which serves Clear Creek, Eagle, Lake and Summit counties. This means overseeing personnel and the budget, but it also means meeting with stakeholders and being accessible to the community.

With a few months under his belt already, Dunkelman said hes not interested in making any major changes immediately. Instead, hes interested in focusing on ways the court system can better provide access to needed services.

I want to continue to be innovative in how we provide access to justice to all parties, regardless of whether you can afford an attorney, not afford an attorney, whatever your role is and whatever your issue is that we provide a means to access the court system, Dunkelman said.

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Paul Dunkelman, chief judge of the 5th Judicial District, is ready to make an impact in new role - Summit Daily

CODY South Fork resident Boone Tidwell is fed up with voting machines.

We need to put elections back in the hands of the body, he said. Im not pointing my finger at anybody. People have serious anxiety and concerns over election security.

In an effort to restore the confidence of their vote to electors, Tidwell hopes to test the feasibility of running a hand-count election in Park County. To do this, he hopes to provide education and a testing ground, by holding mock elections at local high schools where students can simultaneously be taught an American civics lesson and also be used as test subjects to help orchestrate his study.

It puts kids in the polling booth and they do have to put their hands in, Tidwell said.

Using replica ballots from the 2020 election cycle, students would have the opportunity to experience the voting process, while adult volunteers from local communities would process and hand-count their ballots. Students would get to see the tabulation process take place and gain some familiarity with lesser-known, local races.

Its a great opportunity for the kids to see the process in action, said Scott McBride, principal of the Meeteetse Schools.

He said he supports the idea and is open to doing it in the schools.

Tidwell said he would then extrapolate the time and manpower it takes to tabulate the ballots into a county-sized scale. He said he would expect to draw around 200 students -- mostly American Government students at Cody High School.

Hans Odde, deputy Park County clerk, said for the last election held in 2020, the county had around 135 election judges to help oversee the 16,815 ballots that were cast. Since then, the Park County population has grown, with about 100 more registered voters in the Cody area since spring 2021, Odde said at a recent county commissioners meeting. Tidwell said he expects so many volunteers to help with his project he may have to turn people away.

In Wyoming, people can volunteer to assist with elections at age 16.

Tidwell and members of the Park County Republican Mens Club, which is collaborating on the project, have met with the principals of Cody, Powell, and Meeteetse high schools to propose their idea.

Anytime you can give high school students the practice of participating in an election, I think thats valuable, said Cody High School Principal Jeremiah Johnston.

Johnston said he needs to confer with Powell School District officials about their thoughts on the matter, including the issue of whether such an activity could be enacted successfully without other politically charged motives coming into play.

I certainly would not want that, he said. The reason for the students to be part of this is getting the kids to understand how an election works.

Powell High School Principal Tim Wormald said he supports doing the project, saying as long as theres no political connection its a good experience for the students. He plans on having 60 American Government students participate.

Tidwell and fellow Cody resident Dave McMillan, a committeeman in the Park County Republican Party, presented their proposal to the Park County Democratic Party on Saturday, where they werent met with much enthusiasm.

The Park County Democrats have confidence in the integrity of the current election system, said Jan Kliewer, a Powell resident who is the newly appointed chairman of the Party.

Tidwell plans to make a presentation to the Park County Republican Party at its meeting Thursday night.

Tidwell said he does not trust any voting machine, or any machine, connected to the internet.

When a similar sentiment was brought before the county Republican Party in February 2021, Park County Clerk Colleen Renner defended the security of the 2020 election. Around that time the Wyoming GOP passed a resolution rejecting the use of electronic voting systems, although the resolution didnt say what would be best to use.

To question the integrity of the election in Wyoming would be to question the integrity of thousands of Wyoming citizens who served as election judges, Renner said.

Wyoming Secretary of State Ed Buchanan has agreed, when he spoke to the Natrona County Republican Party in late January, denying the 2020 elections were rigged in Wyoming.

[Elections] are not routine anymore because of misinformation, disinformation and malinformation. Now its easy to cry foul with no real evidence, at least in Wyoming, Buchanan said at the meeting, according to the Casper Star Tribune.

The Wyoming Secretary of States Office has similar language to this on its website, and even has an Election Integrity and Security page dedicated to providing ways for constituents to combat misinformation regarding the election.

Odde said he has received no questions from Tidwell or any member from the Mens Club about how the county would implement a hand-count election, about the countys current election security, or about how it conducts its elections. He said Park Countys elections are not connected to the internet in any way aside from the posting of final results.

A local canvassing board made up by one Democrat, one Republican and Renner certify the results on a local level. These results are emailed to a state canvassing board, which certifies the results on a state level.

Buchanan denied that the Elections Systems and Software voting machines the state uses are connected to the internet, and that although the machines can technically be physically breached, there are a number of extensive security measures in place to prevent this from happening.

Voting machines do not have a flawless record.

ES&S, Dominion Voting Systems and Hart InterCivic, which dominate the American voting machine market, have all said they put modems in some of their tabulators and scanners so that unofficial election results can be determined faster. These modems connect to cellphone networks and are protected by a firewall.

In the 2018 Georgia governors race, ES&S-owned technology was in use when more than 150,000 voters inexplicably did not cast a vote for lieutenant governor, according to ProPublica.

Buchanan is working with the University of Wyoming to audit ballots from all 23 counties as it does after every election to verify the legitimacy of the 2020 election.

Were going to strengthen our elections, Odde said. Were all on board with that.

Park County also performs a test run before each election to ensure all of its machines are working effectively.

Tidwell said its naive to think there wasnt election fraud in Wyoming despite the fact that former President Donald Trump won by a larger margin in Wyoming than any other state. Trump has made many claims without any proven evidence that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Tidwell said he has attempted to draw attention to election fraud in Wyoming by reaching out to prominent election skeptics throughout the country.

Tidwell, a 17-year Park County resident who has never served as an election judge, said he does not identify as a Republican or Democrat, but did vote for Trump. Before that, he said he voted for Ron Paul in 2008 and 2012.

Tidwell said he sees his plan as a call for immediate action, rather than waiting to get involved in the November 2022 election.

We need to get our hands back in the political process, Tidwell.

One of the leading criticisms of voting machines is they can be hacked remotely, a highly unlikely but possible act.

Anythings possible, not probable, Buchanan said.

Tidwell said it would be his preference to move away from voting machines entirely, but is open to other solutions.

Its not that there arent other solutions on the table, Tidwell said. If something else comes around that restores my confidence Ill take it.

Efficiency is the primary reason voting technology has evolved over the years.

According to ProPublica, the first American patents for voting machines were approved in the late 1800s. Machines with push buttons for each candidate rose to the top, seen as the solution to rampant vote buying.

In 1957, the Wyoming State Legislature permitted the use of automated voting machines in the Cowboy State, according to the State Archives.

Punch card voting developed in the 1960s, allowing voters to punch holes in cards to select candidates with a ballot marking device. Around 2004, the State of Wyoming started transitioning to digital voting machines.

Odde said one of the biggest reasons from moving away from the non-digital machines is to have a verifiable paper trail that is not possible with the older, lever-controlled devices.

In 2020, the State signed a $5.4 million contract with ES&S to provide the entire state with voting machines, which was the only type of voting machine used in 2020. Park County received these machines for free from the State.

Wyoming state law does not forbid hand-count elections.

A small number of communities throughout the country perform hand-count elections and according to the Concord Monitor, almost half the polling places in New Hampshire hand-count their ballots.

In that state, the Monitor reports Republican lawmakers have introduced a bill that would outlaw ballot-counting devices and require that all ballots be counted by hand.

Tidwell said he believes Wyoming can lead the nation restoring faith in elections, and hopes to present his project before the Park County commissioners soon.

In 2020 Tidwell made efforts and presented before the Park County commissioners his desire to organize a local militia in response to the civil unrest occurring in cities throughout the U.S.

This is not a Boone Tidwell thing, its a voter-confidence thing, he said. Lets prove it.

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Park County man wants to test paper ballots - Wyoming Tribune

Thursday, February 17, 2022

GoLocalProv News Team

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Swan Point PHOTO: GoLocal

These are updated throughout the day.

Thursday's - Read them all here.

Normand Albert Rousseau Jr, (Buddy), Formerly of Central Falls, Dies at 67

Air National Guard Veteran, John Jack D. Carberry, Dies at 85

Robert A. Oliver, of Cranston, Dies at 66

Jean Claudette Carroll Callaway Dies at 63

Diana M. (Campanile) Begin, of West Warwick, Dies at 68

Navy Veteran, George Ron Ronald Millican, of West Kingston, Dies at 81

Commander Charles Paul Jaworski, U.S.N., D.D.S., of E. Providence, Dies at 82

Olga (Marshallis) DiChiara, of Providence, Dies at 93

Mrs. Joyce (Ferrara) Wilkins, Dies at 59

Clara Lillian (Ducharme) Virkler Dies at 89

Virginia Jeanie M. Medeiros, of Johnston, Dies at 78

Oscar A. Lemus, of Providence, Dies at 53

Hilda De La Zerda-Chavez, of North Providence, Dies at 77

Army Veteran, Alden Thomas Aldy Lanihan, of Cranston, Dies at 89

Joseph M. Schleifer, Formerly of Cranston, Dies at 51

Alan Uffer, Formerly of Cranston, Dies at 83

Francine R. Puleo, of West Greenwich, Dies at 67

Isaura Gorritz, of Central Falls, Dies at 86

GoLocal partners with 57 funeral homes in Rhode Island to provide this service at no cost to families.

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Thursday's Obituaries and Tributes - GoLocalProv

MADISON, Wis. (AP) Rutgers understands it must prove it can beat quality teams on the road to get back into consideration for the NCAA Tournament.

The Scarlet Knights took a giant step in that direction Saturday by winning at Wisconsin for the first time and posting their third straight victory over a ranked opponent. Ron Harper Jr. scored 21 points and Rutgers went on a late 11-0 run in a 73-65 victory over the 14th-ranked Badgers.

It was huge, Harper said. I told the guys its the same 40 minutes of basketball were playing if we were playing in New Jersey. The game is dependent on us. Its not dependent on the crowd. We love our home-court advantage, but were the dudes with the jerseys on. Weve got to make plays.

The Scarlet Knights (15-9, 9-5 Big Ten) knocked off then-No. 13 Michigan State 84-63 a week ago Saturday and No. 16 Ohio State 66-64 on Wednesday.

This marks the first time in program history theyve beaten a Top 25 team in three consecutive games. Of course, part of that is due to a quirk in the schedule enabling Rutgers to face a ranked team in three straight games. The last time Rutgers won three straight matchups with Top 25 foes was back in the 2001-02 season.

I think it shows growth, toughness, togetherness stuff weve been working on, said Paul Mulcahy, who scored 18 points and made a 3-pointer that put Rutgers ahead for good. Guys are playing for each other and playing hard 40 minutes. Im proud of everybody.

Wisconsin (19-5, 10-4) dropped a half-game behind No. 13 Illinois (17-6, 10-3) in the Big Ten standings. Illinois hosts Northwestern on Sunday.

Rutgers has a 4-1 record against Top 25 teams this season and owns four wins over ranked Big Ten teams for the first time ever. Rutgers also beat a top-ranked Purdue team on Dec. 9.

Even so, the Scarlet Knights began the day just 94th in the NET rankings, giving their postseason hopes little margin for error. Rutgers owns a 3-7 road record and dug itself a deep early hole with a three-game November skid that included losses to DePaul, Lafayette and UMass.

I tell these guys every time we go out on the court, were going to fight for our lives, Harper said.

Rutgers has tried to make up for that early slump by stepping up in Big Ten competition. Saturdays game could answer some questions about their road issues.

This marked the highest-ranked team Rutgers has beaten on the road since winning at No. 13 Pittsburgh on Jan. 26, 2008.

In a second half that featured 10 lead changes, Mulcahys go-ahead 3-pointer started the 11-0 spurt that helped Rutgers take control. Geo Baker found Mulcahy for the go-ahead basket after stealing the ball from a driving Johnny Davis on the other end of the floor.

We had some costly mistakes in the second half toward the end of the game, Davis said. I felt like thats what really lost us the game.

Davis scored 11 points nearly 10 below his season average while getting hounded by Rutgers Caleb McConnell, who matched a career high with six steals. Tyler Wahl led Wisconsin with a career-high 23 points and Steven Crowl added 12.

Baker scored 16 and Clifford Omoryui had 10 for Rutgers, which shot 51% from the floor and went 7 of 12 on 3-point attempts. Rutgers built a nine-point lead in the first half before Wisconsin responded.

The start of the game specifically defensively we gave them way too much confidence, Wisconsin coach Greg Gard said. Any mistake we made, they made us pay for. Thats what good teams do.

BIG PICTURE

Rutgers: The Scarlet Knights once again showed they can deliver in crunch time. They beat Ohio State by scoring the final 10 points of the game. Their 11-0 spurt proved decisive Saturday.

Wisconsin: The Badgers hurt their cause with some uncharacteristically sloppy play. Wisconsin entered the day making 74.9% of its free-throw attempts but was just 9 of 17 on Saturday. Wisconsin was committing just 8.3 turnovers per game - the lowest average of any Division I team - but had eight in the second half alone Saturday. The Badgers also were 4 of 19 from 3-point range, with Brad Davison going 1 of 9. Davison, the Badgers second-leading scorer, is 4 of 28 on 3-point attempts over his last four games.

POLL IMPLICATIONS

A road win at No. 17 Michigan State and a home loss to Rutgers could cancel themselves out, causing Wisconsin to pretty much stay put in the next Top 25.

UP NEXT

Rutgers: Hosts Illinois on Wednesday.

Wisconsin: At Indiana on Tuesday.

___

More AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25

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Rutgers tops No. 14 Wisconsin, 3rd win in row over T25 team - Associated Press

On Friday, February 4, BuzzFeeds Katie Notopoulos published a story that ignited an online war. The reason was simple: In it, the technology reporter revealed the names of the main founders of the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection to be two men named Greg Solano and Wylie Aronow. Almost immediately, the public identification of the previously pseudonymous Solano and Aronow led to self-righteous anger. Many vocal proponents of crypto, NFTs, and/or web3 believed Notopoulos had doxxed the 30-something-year-old menand put their physical safety at risk.

WTF is the point of this? What public interest is served? asked Antonio Garca Martnez, a former Facebook employee who was pushed out of Apple after employees publicly complained about his history of misogynistic statements.

I cant wait to eventually give @BuzzFeed the Gawker treatment, wrote Ryan Selkis, the CEO and co-founder of the web3-focused crypto intelligence company Messari, referring to the Peter Thiel-backed lawsuit that killed the digital news site.

Selkis and Martnez were far from alone in their condemnation. Jordan Fish, the crypto personality who goes by Cobie and runs the popular show UpOnly, called Notopoulos a whore for clicks. The founder of a crypto recruiting firm suggested the Bored Ape community could pool its money together through a decentralized autonomous organization and complete a Gordon Gekko-style hostile takeover of BuzzFeed. People sent Notopoulos threatening messages, saying that they were uncovering the addresses of her home and place of work and those of her parents and siblings. (Your parents [sic] suburbs are not that far away actually, one person told Notopoulos.)

The reaction felt like the next chapter in the web3 movement, which, for the purposes of simplicity, Motherboard will use as a catch-all to describe the heterogeneous community rallying around crypto, NFTs, the "metaverse," and hopes for a more decentralized web. Broadly, the movement has tried to position itselfand largely succeeded at positioning itselfas a collection of Good Guys pushing toward a fairer, more communal form of internet capitalism. But the reaction, in some quarters, to the BuzzFeed story was a dark turn.

To many many of web3s most vocal proponents, the fact that Notopoulos discovered the identities of Solano and Wylie through publicly-available records that linked the men to Yuga Labs did not seem to matter; nor did the fact that Yuga Labs CEO had confirmed the news prior to publication; nor did the fact that Bored Apes had taken the world by storm, helped along by countless celebrity promotions; nor did the fact that Yuga Labs was seeking a $5 billion valuation and in the process of closing a $200 million funding round led by one of the most influential venture firms in the world; nor did the real power Solano and Aronow are accruing, or the way that ramifies out into the real world, or the idea that they should be at least minimally accountable in the public eye.

I've been told on more than a few occasions that it's not okay for me to express my skepticism or opinions. - Software engineer Molly Whiteon the web3 and crypto community

While a few web3 proponents saw the identification (the purported doxxing) as justified, many others expressed strident belief that the only thing that mattered was that Solano and Aronow, perpetuating the fantasy at the heart of web3the idea of a decentralized world in which the ordinary and the powerful alike will only be as accountable as they choose to behad wished to remain anonymous, and that a journalist had not respected those wishes. Such anger around the issue of pseudonymity says a lot about what the next few years could look like.

Tomorrow's culture wars will take placeare already taking placein the world of web3.

The term web3 is often traced back to Gavin Wood, the co-founder of the Ethereum blockchain, who in 2014 wrote an online treatise in which he sketched out his vision for a post-Snowden web. In it, Wood stated that a core tenet of the webs next generation would be privacy, including encrypted communication through identity-based pseudonyms. "Information that we assume to be public, we publish. Information we assume to be agreed upon, we place on a consensus ledger. Information that we assume to be private, we keep secret and never reveal," he wrote.

Such a claim was of a piece with the ideas of the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto, who created Bitcoin and has never revealed their identity. But Edward Snowdens leaks about the true scope and power of the U.S. surveillance state made it even more clear to Wood that no government or organization can reasonably be trusted. In an interview with Wired late last year, Wood said his vision boiled down to less trust, more truth.

What we have to do is activate the web3 community to become a vital source of money, media and votes so that if a member of Congress takes a negative approach, then they pay a price at the polls. - Former presidential candidate Andrew Yang

I have a particular meaning of trust thats essentially faith. It's the belief that something will happen, that the world will work in a certain way, without any real evidence or rational arguments as to why it will do that, Wood said.

Today, Woods words could just as easily be used to explain the armies rallying around his web3 concept. In theory, web3 boils down to an internet do-over, as Brian Morrissey, the former president and editor-in-chief of Digiday Media, has succinctly put it. In it, users are the primary financial beneficiaries of their time, as opposed to the Web 2.0 schema, in which mega corporations like Facebook and Google benefit from a system in which they provide services in exchange for your personal data, to use one description on the Ethereum Foundations website.

Web3, they argue, would eliminate middlemenwhether lawyers or banks or gatekeeping sites run by executives and subject to human error,Charlie Warzel recently wrote in the Atlantic. Instead of relying on the whims of the platforms and their founders design and rules, both creators and consumers of content will own pieces of internet services.

The theoretical lack of central players is why people refer to web3 (and its nebulously associated idea, "the metaverse") as a decentralized vision in which blockchain technology allows people to build businesses and earn money online without needing middlemen like Jamie Dimon and Mark Zuckerberg (and their underlings) to help facilitate transactions and take a cut.

In reality, as tech reporter Mike Elgan has noted, The two biggest buzzwords in tech right nowthe metaverse and Web3describe platforms that dont exist, arent expected to exist even by boosters for a decade at least, and probably will never exist. Phil Libin, a longtime Silicon Valley entrepreneur who immigrated to the U.S. from the Soviet Union, has compared the passionate lobbying campaign for as-of-now theoretical web3 world to communist propaganda.

There is no single site that lets you do anything useful or at scale, Libin recently said. But you are supposed to believe in it like the Soviets were supposed to believe in a communist utopia.

There is no single site that lets you do anything useful or at scale. But you are supposed to believe in it like the Soviets were supposed to believe in a communist utopia. - A Silicon Valley entrepreneur who emigrated from the Soviet Union

To the extent they do exist, they mostly consist of centralized, monolithic institutions and ones that aspire to be. What is manifesting is not a world where middlemen are deprived of their share and data brokers are cut out of the action due to clever, privacy-protecting protocols, but rather a new online world in which seemingly anything can be financialized thanks to blockchain technology, which creates a digital infrastructure in which every product is simultaneously an investment opportunity, as Bloombergs Matt Levine has put it. Such a set-up, which places speculation at the core of digital life (itself becoming increasingly indistinguishable from real life due to various long-term trends accelerated drastically by the pandemic), has fostered an environment in which scammers are luring people into bogus investment opportunities in record numbers, as the Federal Trade Commission warned last year.

But the most visible effect of these developments is that theyve created a world in which the receipt for a crude image of a bored ape can be worth millions.

Difficult as it may be to believe, the Bored Ape phenomenon is less than a year old, although algorithmically-generated NFT collectibles have been around for years. Solano, Aronow, and the other two founding Apescrypto programmers who went by No Sass and Emperor Tomato Ketchup" and have since revealed their identitiesinvested roughly $40,000 upfront to produce the Bored Ape project, most of which went to illustrators. From that, they created a 10,000-image NFT collection that sold out in a single day and quickly became the most well-known symbol of the NFT movement thus far. Since then, celebrities including Stephen Curry, The Chainsmokers, Jimmy Fallon, Post Malone, Timbaland, Logan Paul, Eminem, Serena Williams, Paris Hilton, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Justin Bieber have shoved their way into the club.

Amid their sudden success, Solano and Aronow didnt shy away from the press, money, or notoriety, even if they kept their identities hidden. One of them described the founding Ape team as the Beastie Boys of NFTs and said Yuga Labs hoped to become a Web3 lifestyle company in a pseudonymous interview with Rolling Stone. Yuga Labs signed with the exceedingly well-connected manager of Madonna and U2 in order to pursue opportunities related to movies, music, television, and gaming, and announced plans to launch an Ethereum token. They hosted APE FEST 2021 in New York City, which included a VIP charity dinner at the high-class Carbone restaurant, a merch pop-up store, a Brooklyn warehouse party, and, of course, a Halloween party aboard a 1,000-person yacht. By November, the company's four founding members generated about $22 million from the secondary market alone, according to Rolling Stone. (The lead artist of the Bored Ape movement, Seneca, later described her own compensation as definitely not ideal, which some have used as evidence that NFTs do not always benefit artists as much as its defenders claim.)

The company also caught the eye of the people who run Andreessen Horowitz, the iconic venture firm that is, as of now, the closest thing the concept of web3 has to an institutional voice. The firm, which goes by a16z for short and recently started its own media arm, has not only launched a $2.2 billion crypto fund and invested in more than 50 crypto startupssaying crypto is poised to transform all aspects of our livesbut recently sent representatives on a five-day lobbying blitz in Washington D.C. in support of pro-web3 policies. (We support the appointment of a senior official to serve as a web3 czar, members of the company wrote in a related blog post.) It is no surprise, then, that a16z is reportedly in the process of leading a multi-billion dollar funding round in Yuga Labs that will give the company hundreds of millions of dollars to spend. All of thisthe money, the ties to celebrity, the dealings with the lords of Silicon Valleygives the company and its founders real power, and they're not alone.

The infighting and heterogeneity of the web3/crypto/NFT community can make it appear like anything but a united front. Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, a Bitcoin devotee, hates web3; Marc Andreessen, of the web3-loving a16z investment firm, subsequently seems not to want anything to do with Dorsey. Moxie Marlinspike, the founder of the encrypted messaging service Signal, helped create the cryptocurrency MobileCoin, but suggested technologies like ethereum have been built with many of the same implicit trappings as web1 in a blog calling out centralization in the space. Selkis, the crypto enthusiast who wants to give BuzzFeed the Gawker treatment, has described Ron Paul as the patron political saint of crypto, while others argue in good faith that they hope to create a more diverse and equitable world in line with leftist tendencies. And technologically, web3 is not one thingthat anybody can agree on, except for that it involves crypto.

A common misconception about web3 is that its one monolithic concept which founders must choose whether to fully embrace, one venture capitalist wrote this month.

But there are signs that the cultural web3 movement could be creating a new alignment. Andrew Yang, the pro-venture, pro-crypto, rapaciously publicity-hungry entrepreneur-turned-twice failed political candidate, argued in a recent interview that the creation of a united front will be critical for the web3 movements move to power.

I worry about it de-humanizing our online world. - A web3 proponent on her concerns about pseudonymity

What we have to do is activate the Web3 community to become a vital source of money, media and votes so that if a member of Congress takes a negative approach, then they pay a price at the polls, Yang told the crypto news site Blockworks. Bitcoin advocates, though they often seem themselves as distinct from the web3 movement and even crypto more broadly, are nevertheless developing the political roadmap to follow.

Predictably, web3s rise has led to a commensurate number of high-profile skeptics long preoccupied with criticizing Bitcoin specifically. Numerous software experts, policy wonks, and artists have made similar arguments, not only about crypto but also NFTs (how sweet, now artists can become little capitalist assholes as well, Brian Eno recently said) and the concept of play-to-earn games so central to idealized visions for web3. There is an argument to be made that perhaps these people are being cynical and unimaginative, as are the many journalists who are prone to poke holes in new ideas. As Warzel recently wrote in the Atlantic, a video of David Letterman guffawing at the idea of the internet during a 1995 interview with Bill Gates (what the hell is that, exactly?) provides proof that the optimists can, in retrospect, be right.

But what has distinguished web3 so far is a unique combination of extreme optimism and self-righteous defensiveness. As Bloombergs Joe Weisenthal has written, the movements most prominent figureheads often seem obsessed with Who is against them. Who is in disagreement with them. Who isn't sufficiently respecting their work. Who hasn't joined them or invested yet. And at no time has that tendency to circle the wagons been more on view than in the aftermath of the BuzzFeed story. There was absolutely no reason to dox these guys, wrote Mike Solana, a vice president at Peter Thiels Founders Fund, soon after Notopouloss story published. Solana considered the argument that the BuzzFeed story was in the public interest to be disgusting and implied that the apparent frivolity of Yuga Labs contenttheyre literally cartoon apesjustified the founders pseudonymity.

Its not difficult to imagine similar arguments could have been leveled in defense of the earliest version of Facebook if Mark Zuckerberg had founded the social media company in 2021 under a pseudonym. Yet the fact that Facebook transformed in a few short years from a way for college students to share party photos to an election-altering juggernaut should provide evidence of the counterpoint: Popular but seemingly trivial internet enterprises can quickly become something much different. Chris Dixon, a partner at a16z and one of web3s most ardent evangelists, has said as much in the past, writing over a decade ago that the next big thing always starts out being dismissed as a toy.

The question then is when, exactly, public due diligence of organizations should begin: Now, or after the consequences of their creation are clear and unavoidable for all of us?

The controversy over Notopoulos's reporting and the ways in which its been expressed have the contours of a battle in a cultural war. The rhetoric, the threats against a female reporter, and the general tone of grievance from a group of people who feel besieged even as society is reordering itself around their whims are all reminiscent of Gamergate, and the many reactionary tendencies in which it culminated. There are real and obvious differences; to compare isnt to equate. A key similarity, though, is that web3 can be defined the same way Deadspins Kyle Wagner defined Gamergate, in a 2014 essay, as, by design, nearly impossible to defineso much so that any discussion of this subject turns into a debate over semantics.

A little over a week later, the reaction to the BuzzFeed story feels like the opening salvo of a new chapter in the battle over internet anonymity, which has long had to do with relatively arcane topics like government attempts to kill end-to-end encryption but is now breaking out into more fundamental questions about where the right to conceal ones identity ends, and why.

The next big thing always starts out being dismissed as a toy. - Chris Dixon, a partner at the venture firm Andreessen Horowitz

The idea that it doesnt end, ever, isnt incidental to web3, but absolutely central, and will probably become more so as more pseudonymous founders nab hundreds of millions in funding and revenue. (As Notopoulos herself pointed out in her story, Its possible that pseudonymous companies could become our new reality.) Yuga Labs offers a blueprint of where the internet economy is headeda world of decentralized autonomous organizations and NFTs and cryptocurrencies in which people cannot be certain who benefits or what anyones true motivations are.

web3 boosters say such pseudonymity is valuable. One venture capitalist argued shortly after the BuzzFeed story that internet pseudonymity is a public good and that journalists need to adapt to the new world. Another at a crypto-focused firm told Notopoulos it could help resolve the longstanding discriminatory issues that founders of color face. Female-led companies nabbed only 2 percent of venture funding last year, and Latinx and Black entrepreneurs received similarly dismal amounts. Considering the barriers women and people or color face, allowing founders to raise under pseudonyms could level the playing field, at least theoretically.

There is, of course, merit to such arguments, and it doesnt take much time to think of a myriad of ways in which technology that facilitates anonymity meaningfully contributes to society. One of the issues with a pseudonymity-prizing tech regime, though, is that it is difficult to discern whether such a system improves or perpetuates societal issues. Another is that it can undeniably serve powerful people who simply dont want anyone to be able to tell what theyre doing.

Its also worth wondering what perceived threat caused people to lash out at Notopoulos. Wanting to avoid NSA surveillance is an understandable goal. But pushing for a pseudonymous corporate power comes with ethical questions worth considering today, before web3 is fully built out. Already, one of the hallmarks of the new economy has been so-called rugpulls, in which the creator of a cryptocurrency project pools together peoples money for some higher cause (or not) and then disappears with it all. Some anonymous teams have been able to do so on numerous occasions, and in a recent instance a web3 architect was able to hide their past financial crimes by remaining anonymous, until they were exposed to the shock of investors. The issue has become significant enough that crypto projects sometimes advertise publicly known doxxed devs to make investors feel confident that their money is in good hands.

Its made running an NFT marketplace just as difficult. This month, the blockchain startup where Jack Dorsey sold his first tweet as an art NFTs for $2.9 million halted the buying and selling of NFTs due to rampant and fundamental issues. The companys CEO told Reuters that he could not figure out a way to stop people from selling NFTs of property they didnt actually own or that could reasonably be called securities.

"It kept happening. We would ban offending accounts but it was like we're playing a game of whack-a-mole, the CEO said. Every time we would ban one, another one would come up, or three more would come up."

In November, Annika Lewis, a self-described "recovering VC, expressed her own reservations about web3s growing acceptance of pseudonymity, even though she now works for GitCoin, a web3-focused platform. First and last names have been replaced with inscrutable .eth & .nft domains, and the faces of the humans behind the accounts have been replaced with cartoon JPEGs, she wrote. It's way under-discussed relative to its prominence, and, in ways, I worry about it de-humanizing our online world.

To the extent that web3 enthusiasts elevate, to a universal principle, the idea that anyone should be able to do anything they want online without anyone knowing about it, they are arguing for a world in which no one has to be wholly accountable for their actions. The evidence that we have, though, suggests that even in its infancy, web3 is creating a class of people who will have a lot to answer for. The system coming into existence, in fact, tends to mirror the one that came before it, with the powerful few controlling the vast majority of the wealth on offer. Blockchain turned out to be the most rapid recentralization of a decentralized technology that I've seen in my lifetime, Tim OReilly, who coined the term Web 2.0, said this week. The top 10 percent of NFT holders own four-fifths of the markets value, and 0.01 percent of Bitcoiners hold 27 percent of all the circulating coins, creating a new online ecosystem that Scott Galloway said described as more of a re-centralization of power into the hands of fewer than anything else.

Every member of Forbess 2021 crypto billionaires list is a man. A third of them attended Stanford or Harvard. Out of the 12 listed, only one isnt white. The web3 narrative feels like a Ted-X talk given to a survivalist group, Galloway added. Some new people have certainly struck it rich, Bored Apes included, but then again, so did the misfits who came to be portrayed in Martin Scorseses Wolf of Wall Street.

Blockchain turned out to be the most rapid recentralization of a decentralized technology that I've seen in my lifetime. - Tim OReilly, who coined the term Web 2.0.

Molly White, a software engineer, last year started documenting the issues she sees with web3 in her sarcastically named blog web3 is going just great. Over email, White told me that the animosity Notopoulos faced didnt surprise her in the least. I actually think the backlash is quite representative of the crypto space, which I've found to be so resistant and hostile towards criticism in ways I'm not sure I've seen before. Some proponents of crypto get enormously angry with those who so much as question the technology, much less criticize it, and I've been told on more than a few occasions that it's not okay for me to express my skepticism or opinions, White said.

Like many of web3s loudest advocates, White can appreciate the value of internet anonymity and privacy. [T]here are lots of very good and noble reasons people might want to stay anonymous: people living under oppressive governments, whistleblowers, journalists and researchers exposing extremists, for example, White wrote. I'm not sure if I'd put want to run a multi-million dollar company without any accountability on that list. I am surprised that so many in the crypto space are so fiercely protective of the anonymity of the people behind these huge, multi-million dollar projects, especially when a lot of the reasons that people involved with them have chosen to be anonymous have turned out to be really shady.

Selkis has positioned himself as one such protector, a particular sort of anti-cancel culture free speech advocate who mostly defends those on his side. One day after Notopoulos story came out, he dug up tweets Notopoulos had posted in 2009 arguing they were proof of some unnamed persistent double standard, then pushed the idea of a activist-oriented policy group with a legal fund that could fund privacy suits against outlets that doxx private citizens.

The sides had been drawn. And by Tuesday, Selkis had been invited onto Tucker Carlsons Fox News show for a jovial conversation. Soon after the segment started, he claimed that crypto media can help with censorship. The question is who hes worried will be censored, and who hed like to shut up.

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Bored Apes, BuzzFeed and the Battle for the Future of the Internet - VICE