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Falling levels of trust in our public institutions have become the backing track for the demise of the progressive political project and the rise of populist strongmen who promise to take back control.

Government becomes a problem to be solved, a bubble, a swamp of compromised technocrats and bean-counters operating against the interests of hard-working common folk, the quiet Australians whose will for a simple life is constantly being frustrated.

One of the drivers of this collapse has been the impact of technological change on our body politic, the anger-driven echo chambers of social media, the fake news and disinformation, the increasingly sophisticated targeting designed to reinforce what we already think.

Numerous benchmark surveys, including Essentials own, document this decline, which tracks closely the destruction in traditional media models at the expense of these platforms.

But as two reports released in the past week show, when it comes to thinking through the impacts of technology on the future, government leadership is more important than ever.

The first, the governments response to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commissions digital platforms review, is to the point.

On one level the report, initiated as part of the deal to water down the media ownership laws that saw the Nine takeover of Fairfax, is an attempt by media giants to restore the natural order.

But somewhere along the way the ACCC inquiry became more than that. Someone inside the agency seriously put their minds around the existential challenges of Facebook and Google, setting out a detailed framework that would have ended the conceit the social networks did not carry responsibility as publishers.

While limited in scope to exploring the market dominance of the platforms as opposed to the broader social consequences of technological change, the inquiry positioned Australia as a world leader in grappling with the market power of big tech.

The governments response this week may fall short of realising the ACCCs ambition of enforceable standards, opting instead for the sort of voluntary codes that any industry lobbyist yearns, but the intent from the prime minister in launching the report is clear: The rules that exist in the real world need to exist in the digital world.

You can quibble with the ambition, and we have, but when a conservative government invests behind the ACCC to build its capacity to monitor the market operations of the platforms and get to the bottom of their algorithmic marketing model, something interesting is going on.

The second report is, if anything, even more ambitious in its vision of governments need to lead us through profound technological change. The Human Rights Commission discussion paper into AI technology calls for the establishment of rules around the way automated decisions and data-matching develop in Australia.

The report calls for all AI to be subject to scrutiny around its design and impact on users before it is unleashed on to the public, ensuring it complies with existing laws covering both direct and indirect discrimination.

Commissioner Ed Santow argues that human accountability cannot be automated and that facial recognition technology in particular needs to be tested and thought through before it is unleashed on the Australian public. And that this should be the role of a new government body, the AI Safety Commissioner.

In doing so, Santow is challenging some basic tenets of the information economy: that its OK to disrupt, move fast and break things; that the benefits of tech advancement outweigh its cost; and that the role of government is to adapt to change rather than step up and shape it.

Research that Essential has conducted around this report shows Australians are looking for government leadership on the issue, with the majority of the public concerned about the automating of decisions.

Santow argues that placing guardrails around how Australia develops AI will ultimately serve the national interest not just protecting citizens but also developing a uniquely Australian AI that is fair by design and can become a compelling global export.

But to get to that point, government needs to lead: not just being more assertive in taking on the recommendations of its expert bodies, but in the way it too uses its citizens information.

In an era of declining trust in government, it is hardly surprising that the My Health Record program has stalled, with millions of Australians not prepared to share their medical records, especially under a model where entrepreneurs would have been encouraged to access this data to innovate.

More profoundly, the failure of robodebt has reinforced every latent instinct that government is not to be trusted with sensitive information. That the first big government data-matching project was used to chase poor people deemed to have been overpaid says it all.

Imagine the difference in trust dividend if the first application had been to find people who had not claimed benefits they were entitled to and send them a cheque to make good; or to chase down unpaid super; or ensure workers were being paid the right amount of money.

The challenges of rapid technological change provide an opportunity for government to win back public trust, by setting rules that ensure technology serves the public interest and by being a best-practice custodian of our personal information.

As a social democrat thats what I want my government to be doing, regardless of its partisan colours. The alternative is a libertarian free-for-all that will only ensure the disruption, division, distraction and displacement of the times accelerates unabated.

Peter Lewis is executive director of Essential Media and the director of the Centre for Responsible Technology, a new initiative of the Australia Institute.

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The government must make sure technology serves public interest. The alternative is a libertarian free-for-all - The Guardian

Radio: A name that almost we all have heard in our childhood, recently and will listen to it in the future also. Some technologies never get older and Radio is for sure one of them. Being developed in the 20th century, Radio is one of the oldest modes of communication that brings up the feeling of freshness whenever we listen to it. While going through the different landscapes of innovations, this part of technology has changed a lot yet. Woking of radio is quite simple. It just works by transmitting and receiving signals where part of speech and music are being delivered in the coded format.

Ture taste lies in the variety and that this wonderful platform also offers to its listeners. Ranging from serving those old melody songs to todays top numbers from providing information about agricultural tips to introducing you with the latest technologies, there is a huge variety of options that you can easily find out here. Users can easily enjoy 24 hours of streaming here without paying any charges or data packages here. Just get a radio and stay connected with your favourite channel, thats the only rule you have to follow here.

Explore the various types of radios

Right from the launch of radio in the 20s to date, a variety of radio options from various brands are being introduced into the market. Do you know how many kinds of radios are there being available in the market? The options are huge. Ranging from Conventional FM to the latest NXDN there are so many options being present there and if we start on counting the number of brands offering radio services, the list even gets increases more. Searching out one of the best table radios for your home has become quite easier now. You not only ask your buddies or family members for the same but go through various online options and can check out the reviews of your preferred ones as well.

If you are willing to get the best table radio for your home, it would be quite beneficial for you to know about the different types of radio you have in the market. Here are the top listed for you.

Utilization of radios

AM and FM is one of the oldest forms of wireless broadcasting that works on the process of modulation and demodulation throughout. This kind of radio option is quite good to provide fair sound quality but it is vulnerable to electrical noise also.

Shortwave radio works just above the AM radio frequency bands. The frequencies of this kind of radio somewhere lie in between 1.7 to 30 MHz. If you are looking for collecting news, commercial broadcasting, informative channels and sports channels globally, it is surely a great option you can try on.

Satellite radio is based on one of the latest broadcasting techniques where radio signals are being transmitted and received using satellites. The radio option does not include any kind of digital encoding. Users are not allowed to directly get tuned into any channels here. They have to pay what they are willing to get a subscription to. One of the best things about satellite radio is that it offers you amazing sound quality and nationwide coverage to enjoy on.

Ham Radio is a kind of radio option that provides broadcasting into a restricted area and to the set frequencies only. It is a great platform for all those who are willing to improve their operator skills. Moreover, this kind of radio option serves as a great help in case of natural calamities or emergencies.

Walkie-Talkie is one of the most favoured portable and handheld radio options that sends and receives signals in about a distance of a mile. This kind of radio option is usually being used by two persons to communicate with each other. Walkie-Talkie serves as a great help where the phone call services or net services are quite poor.

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What types of radios are there? - The Libertarian Republic

Democrats have Andrew Yang. Republicans have Zoltan Istvan.

Both men are running for the presidency as political outsiders and pitching radical, future-focused ideas to voters. For Yang, its universal basic income and a slew of other technocratic policy proposals.

Istvan also supports a form of universal basic income, but his primary focus is even wilder he wants the country to prepare for the transhumanist future.

Istvan defines transhumanism as the movement to upgrade human bodies and lives with technology. He predicts a future in which our bodies will be significantly augmented, such as with robotic arms or computer displays in our eyes.

He expects human life spans will drastically increase and robots will take on more humanlike characteristics, including consciousness.

Outside of science fiction entertainment, these are not ideas most Americans think about as public policy issues.

When I was traveling in Iowa and told people about it, they thought I was on some other space ship, Istvan told me during a phone interview last week.

Istvan ran for president in 2016 under the Transhumanist Party, and ran in the California gubernatorial primary with the Libertarian Party last year. Hes not a traditional Republican, but hopes to find allies among GOP primary voters.

As an entrepreneur Ive always been fiscally conservative. Totally socially liberal. Libertarian to the core when it comes to social ideas, Istvan said.

There is a great deal of disagreement about whether and how soon the huge technological developments Istvan discusses might be achieved. It might be 10 or 20 years as he predicts, but also could be more than 100 years away, or never.

Nevertheless, some form of transhumanism and an increasing level of artificial-intelligence-aided automation already are upon us. Istvan warns that the United States will be ill-equipped to manage social and economic changes.

Im worried were going to wake up in four or eight years and China will be the dominant player in the world both culturally and with innovation and with money and the economy, Istvan said.

To prepare, Istvan suggests several steps that will make many Americans uncomfortable.

As a few examples, the transhumanist campaign proposes mandatory college attendance for most people, licensure testing for parents and merging the United States, Canada and the European Union into a joined partnership.

Istvan wants to partially fund the government through leasing federal lands, vast spaces of which sit mostly unused in the western United States with trillions of dollars of natural resources. He has no affinity for nature, which he sees as antagonistic and immoral.

And Istvan would radically expand the use of police surveillance technology, including facial recognition and tracking devices. He generally wants to rollback privacy norms that inhibit technology.

I think these are ideas whose time might never come, but Istvan predicts the rest of us will eventually come around.

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The transhumanist age will be upon us sometime. People will remember Zoltan has been out there talking about these ideas for a long time, he said.

(319) 339-3156; adam.sullivan@thegazette.com

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GOP candidate pitches robots and immortality to Iowa voters - The Gazette

The Green Party has played the role of spoiler in two presidential elections. To avoid a trifecta in 2020, Tom PerezThomas Edward PerezClintons top five vice presidential picks Government social programs: Triumph of hope over evidence Labors 'wasteful spending and mismanagement at Workers Comp MORE, chair of the Democratic National Committee, needs to make a Green new deal.

In 2000, Green Party candidate Ralph Nader, who campaigned aggressively in Florida, attacking Al GoreAlbert (Al) Arnold GoreThe 'Green' new deal that Tom Perez needs to make Al Gore says Democrats should run on the Green New Deal Charlotte Pence to hold wedding reception at vice president's residence MORE for a string of broken promises to the environmental movement, received 97,421 votes in the Sunshine State. George W. Bush carried the state by 537 votes. In New Hampshire, Bush garnered 273,559 votes, Gore 266, 348, and Nader 22,198. Had Gore carried either of these states, he would have become president of the United States.

In 2016, Jill Stein, the Green Party standard bearer, received 51,463 votes in Michigan, where Donald Trumps margin of victory was 10,704 votes; Stein got 49,678 votes in Pennsylvania, which Trump won by 46,765 votes; and she garnered 31,006 votes in Wisconsin, which Trump carried by 22,177 votes. These three states, of course, put Trump over the top in the Electoral College.

To be sure, as political scientists Kyle Kopko and Christopher Devine have pointed out, exit polls suggest that some Stein voters would have voted for Trump, written in a candidate, or decided to stay home if forced to choose between the two major party candidates. In a Five Thirty Eight Chat in December 2016, Nate Silver estimated that the breakdown may have been 35 percent Clinton, 10 percent Trump, and 55 percent no vote.

Nonetheless, in a close election and 2020 may well be a close election every vote in a battleground state matters. This time, Green Party leaders and potential voters should have no difficulty discerning whether President TrumpDonald John TrumpWhite House counsel didn't take lead on Trump letter to Pelosi: reports Trump endorses Riggleman in Virginia House race Lisa Page responds to 'vile' Trump attacks: 'Being quiet isn't making this go away' MORE or the Democratic candidate, whoever he or she may be, aligns more closely with their four policy pillars: an energy policy committed to addressing the potentially catastrophic consequences of climate change by replacing fossil fuels with renewable sources of power; federal government guarantees of a living wage and an expanded safety net; dramatic reductions in the military budget; public financing of elections, more representative voting systems, and an end to corporate-dominated politics.

That said, Perez will almost certainly be unable to persuade Jill Stein (who Hillary Clinton called a Russian asset) or Howie Hawkins (a founder of the Green Party, the leading candidate for its presidential nomination, and an advocate of an independent socialist movement) to endorse the 2020 Democratic nominee. But he might be able to lay the groundwork for the Green Party candidate (who will be selected in state-by-state primaries and caucuses held in the spring and is certain to be a Never Trumper) to do throughout the campaign season what William WeldWilliam (Bill) Weld Protesters rally against Trump in multiple cities on eve of impeachment vote Bill Weld: As many as six GOP senators privately support convicting Trump Trump challenger Bill Weld rules out 2020 independent bid MORE, the vice-presidential candidate of the Libertarian Party, did, belatedly, in 2016. In a speech in Boston a few days before the election, Weld expressed his hope that the Libertarians would win. But in a very close swing state, Weld added, there may be different dynamics at play. The former governor of Massachusetts urged supporters to pull the lever for Libertarian Gary JohnsonGary Earl JohnsonThe 'Green' new deal that Tom Perez needs to make The Trump strategy: Dare the Democrats to win Trump challenger: 'All bets are off' if I win New Hampshire primary MORE in solidly blue states, a vote of conscience which would also help the Party reach 5 percent of the vote nationwide and qualify for federal election funds. In battleground states, Weld advised them to cast their ballots for Hillary ClintonHillary Diane Rodham ClintonBooker will not appear on primary ballot in Vermont Nearly all Democrats expected to back articles of impeachment Sanders surges ahead of Iowa caucuses MORE.

Equally important, given the appeal of environmental issues and third parties to millennials, Perez should see to it that the Democratic platform and the nominee appropriate the mantra of Tony Affigne, a young American featured prominently on the Green Party web site: Im Green because from what I can see, the worlds only real chance to survive is through politics grounded in Ecology, Equality, Democracy, and Peace.

While theyre at it, Perez and his fellow Democrats should keep their fingers crossed that Justin AmashJustin AmashThe Hill's Morning Report - Busy week: Impeachment, Dem debate and USMCA First-term Democrats push Amash as impeachment manager: report The 'Green' new deal that Tom Perez needs to make MORE, the congressman from Michigan who left the Republican Party and supports the impeachment of President Trump, becomes the presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party, which received about 3 percent of the national vote in 2016 and could attract conservatives who are unhappy with Trump but allergic to the Democratic Party in 2020.

Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American Studies at Cornell University. He is the co-author (with Stuart Blumin) ofRude Republic: Americans and Their Politics in the Nineteenth Century.

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The 'Green' new deal that Tom Perez needs to make | TheHill - The Hill

Anthem: The Graphic Novel, by Jennifer Grossman and Dan Parson, Atlas Society, 79 pages, $12.95

The Atlas Society has quickly become one of the fastest growing pro-liberty organizations in the country through collaborations with libertarian student grousps such as Students for Liberty and, at times, the occasionally un-libertarian Turning Point USA.

Without fail, students approach the brightly decorated table featuring stickers, pens, and pamphlets from The Atlas Society with their stories of how Ayn Rand inspired someone they know. For some, reading Ayn Rand was the gateway drug to libertarianism. Some rejected certain aspects of Rands philosophy but embraced the general themes of individualism and achievement.

My grandparents, who read Rand in the late 1950s and 60s, were two of those people. They encountered Rand as graduate students at Columbia University in New York after facing routine discrimination in higher education in the South. Rands libertarianism didnt quite stick with them, but her words on individualism, which inspired her thoughts on racism as the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism certainly influenced them to break racial barriers in careers in science, law, and academia.

The world has changed immensely since 1957, the year Atlas Shrugged was published, but Rands work remains just as important. YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, and the creative capital from Hollywood remain fruits of capitalisms bountiful harvest, but expressing Rands ideas beyond lengthy novels, white papers, and lectures is still a creative challenge.

Anthem: The Graphic Novel (2018) by Jennifer Grossman, Atlas Society CEO, and illustrator Dan Parsons is a spectacular start.

Blending provocative, stunning illustrations with words from Rands original 1938 novella, Parsons and Grossman share the story of a dystopian society that celebrates the equality of groups rather than the success and achievements of the individual. This society, which is devoid of love and free enterprise, fails miserably.

In this powerful graphic novel Dan Parsons illustrations paint a clear and tragic image of what a collectivist society looks like for a generation reared with high-definition television and gaming systems.

Anthem: The Graphic Novel was also released at the best possible time.

In our politics today, terms like capitalist and individualist are making a comeback in discussions of political identity a hopeful turn away from partisan strife towards truly engaging underlying philosophical principles.

People in Generation Z, like myself, who were born after 1995, should have a special connection to these ideas. After all, we are contributing fresh skills and talents to the workforce, were contributing fresh tax dollars into the Treasury, and were on the line in the unfortunate event of a new military conflict. Heres the best news. Generation Z, according to research, will be individualistic, fiscally responsible, and among the most entrepreneurial of any previous generation.

Will Ayn Rand be the gateway drug for yet another generation to embrace libertarian ideals? Id argue so.

Leonard Robinson is the editor-in-chief of the UB Post.

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Anthem: The Graphic Novel Will Be Generation Z's Gateway Drug to Liberty - The UB Post